d there would be a perceptible amelioration in some
of the hardest of present conditions.

I believe that some music should be included in a practical
education,--certainly if a girl has a taste for it. The ability to sing
hymns and ballads, and to play accompaniments well, adds so much to the
happiness of a woman herself, and usually to that of her family, that it
ought to be considered as something more than an accomplishment. I
should not wish to be understood as limiting a musical education to
these requirements. I should like to have every girl carry her education
as far as she can without neglecting duties she feels more important.
Even when she has no musical talent, but merely a love for music, though
she cannot give much pleasure to others, I think she may get an
elevation of mind from stumbling through Beethoven and Wagner which is
worth the time she spends. Still, I think singing is of more practical
use than instrumental music, and the power to play simple things well
which is so rare is in most cases more to the purpose than to stumble
through Beethoven and Wagner.

Drawing is practical as it trains the eye and hand, but unpractical if
it leads a girl to think her commonplace pictures are works of art. It
seems to me that a good way for girls to study art is for them to look
at good pictures with older people who have taste and judgment, because
this gives them new resources of enjoyment. Of course when a girl has
special talent she needs the training which will give her the power to
produce, but this chapter is devoted to the general education of girls.

Every girl should study at least one science. Science trains the mind in
a different way from other studies. And one science sheds light on all
the rest. Then, anything which puts cheap pleasures within our reach is
a safeguard and a blessing. The happiness of life is no light thing, and
those who have tested it know how much simple happiness comes from the
pursuit of botany or ornithology or mineralogy.

It would be a great thing if every woman could be so well educated that
she could teach her own children, at least the main branches, up to the
time when they are twelve years old. This is by no means saying that it
is not well for many children to be sent to school, but it is calling
attention to a great privilege which some mothers and some children may
enjoy. What ought a woman to be able to teach her children? To read, in
the broad sense, to write