does, division of labor, necessarily
renders all persons more or less one-sided. In the teaching profession,
the voluntary holding of the mind for many hours of each day in the
position required for the work of educating uneducated minds, the
constant effort to state facts clearly, distinctly, and freed from
unnecessary details, almost universally induce a straightforwardness of
speech, which savors, to others who are not immature, of brusqueness and
positiveness, if it may not deserve the harsher names of asperity and
arrogance. It is not these in essence, though it appear to be so, and
thus teachers often give offense and excite opposition when these
results are farthest from their intention. In the case of these essays,
this professional tendency may also have been aggravated by the
circumstances under which they have been written, the only hours
available for the purpose having been the last three evening hours of
days whose freshness was claimed by actual teaching, and the morning
hours of a short vacation.

I do not offer these explanations as an apology, simply as an
explanation. No apology has the power to make good a failure in
courtesy. If passages failing in this be discovered, it will be cause
for gratitude and not for offense if they are pointed out.

The spirit which has prompted the severe labor has been that which seeks
for the Truth, and endeavors to express it, in hopes that more perfect
statements may be elicited.

With these words, I submit the result to the intelligent women of
America, asking only that the screen of the honest purpose may be
interposed between the reader and any glaring faults of manner or
expression.

ANNA C. BRACKETT.

117 East 36th street, New York City,
January, 1874.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

I. Education of American Girls _Anna C. Brackett._ 11

II. A Mother's Thought _Edna D. Cheney._ 117

III. The Other Side _Caroline H. Dall._ 147

IV. Effects of Mental Growth _Lucinda H. Stone._ 173

V. Girls and Women in England and America. _Mary E. Beedy._ 211

VI. Mental Action and Physical Health. _Mary Putnam Jacobi, M.D._ 255

VII. Michigan University _Sarah Dix Hamlin._ 307

VIII. Mount Holyoke Seminary _Mary O. Nutting._