n, writing from all parts of the
country, in private and in public, and without concert with each other,
all testify to the same impression received, it is impossible that the
carelessness of numbers should always feel the same bias.

It is quite certain that four hours of dancing is far more injurious to
a delicate girl than four hours of steady study: why, then, in
considering the education of girls, does the author steadily avoid all
cases where dancing, late hours, and bad food, have been known to
interfere with health?

What satisfaction can any girl find in the fact, that the period of
mature life is not covered by the statements in this volume? The period
of a working life is included in the years between fourteen and
nineteen, and as matters now are, society life is nearly ended at
twenty. If the beginning of brain-work were deferred till a girl were
jaded with dissipation, how much could be accomplished in season for
self-support? Schools vary in varying localities, and since women are
hereafter to be elected on every school committee, it is reasonable to
suppose that unwise pressure from that source will soon cease.

All figures of speech are misleading, but it is quite fair to meet the
statement that we must not train oaks and anemones in the same way, by
retorting that that is precisely what God does.

He gives to different plants different powers of appropriation, sets
them in precisely the same circumstances, and leaves them.

The sturdy oak, that centuries of storm have beaten into firmness, which
fits it to encounter the fiercest blows of the wave; the stately pine,
which is to tower as main-mast when the gale is at its height, stand
serried or single on the mountain's peak. At their feet nestles the
wind-flower, quite as confident of its destiny, although no sun is
moderated, no shower abated for its tender sake. It is protected by the
very way in which it is made, by its very loneliness, pregnant as that
is with the charm of sweetness and color. So might it be with woman!

Private schools in our large cities cannot be said to overwork their
pupils. Fifty years ago, when my mother was educated, far more was
required of girls at school than was ever possible in my day. Thirty
years ago, when my school education ended, far more was possible to me
than has ever been required of my daughter. It is the uniform testimony
of teachers, that girls now study less, that the hours of recitation are
fewer, and