The daughter at school

THE

Cf f*

DAUGHTER AT SCHOOL.

BY

Rev. JOHN TODD, D. D.

NORTHAMPTON :
BRIDGMAN AND CHILDS

1865.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by

Hopkins, Bridgman, and Company,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts

PREFACE.

In sending this little volume out into the
world, the Author has no explanation to
make, no apology to offer, no wish to ex-
press, except that he fervently hopes it may
be useful to those for whom it was written.
It will drop in the path of some to whom
life is new, whose experience is next to
nothing, and who will be willing to receive
a few hints, even if they are not so full,
so pertinent, or so valuable as a professed
teacher could give. Till such a teacher does
speak, may I not hope that my whispers will
be useful?

How I came to write on a subject so for*

IV . PREFACE.

eign to my own laborious profession, and
to attempt to do that for which I have so
many disqualifications, need not now be ex-
plained.

May I hope that the daughter, who, away
from her home, just entering upon the un-
tried scenes of school, shall open this lit-
tle volume, will find something to guide, to
encourage, to stimulate and ennoble her, so
that she shall return to her home in after
days, like the king's daughter, " all glorious
within " ; and that the anxious mother, on
putting it into the carefully-packed trunk,
will feel that her child has not gone wholly
unattended by any friend.

Pittsfield, September 1, 1853.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

EDUCATION THE FIEST THING. INTRODUCTORY.

PAGE

A New Attempt. Indefatigable Student. Embryo of Im
mortality. Learning to see. How the Little Child learns.
Labor makes beautiful. A Great Work. Will subdued.
The World of Fancy. Where is the Attention ? The Wild
Colt. Napoleon's Memory. Somewhere and Somebody
Investigate and reason. Garden of Life. For Eternity.
Better than Wealth. The Polished Jewel. ... 1

CHAPTER II.

THE SCHOOL-GIRL AWAY FROM HOME.

Home Education. The Opening Flower. Parents unfit
Teachers. Private Instruction. All need a Standard. In-
fluence of Nunneries. Teaching a Profession. It is a
Trial. On a larger Scale. A Pleasant Plan. Clothes and
Shoes. Longing to turn back. Weather changed. Count-
ing the Weeks. A Critical Point. Character developing.
a*

VI t CONTENTS.

Best of every Thing. Back-bone Work. An Angel's Wing
drooping 18

CHAPTER III.

THE SCHOOL-GIRL AT STUDY.

£ he Great Trial. Trunks full. Nothing forgotten. A Va-
cant Stare. Two Thirds lost. Memory wanting. Xeno-
phon's Retreat. All need Judgment. Learn to discrimi-
nate. Best Taste in Town. Select the Best. Knowledge
running away. Loose Change. Where to look. Society
of a Lapdog. Not a Short Job. Iron-hearted Bell. Habit
of Toil 36

CHAPTER IV.

HOW TO STUDY.

Witch Stories. The Question proposed. Study dry Work.
Look it out again. Bishop Jewel's Memory. Conquer,
step by step. A High Standard. A Finished Young Lady.
Capacity wanted. Chain the Attention. Author of this
Mischief. Dr. Gregory. Ship obeying the Helm. Algebra
forgotten. Waters filtered. Cambridge and Oxford. Taste
cultivated. Duty become Pleasure 52

CHAPTER V.

SOCIAL DUTD3S OF THE SCHOOL-GIRL.

Power of Oratory. Constant Impression. Almost a Nun.
Poor Relations forgotten. Small Coin of Life. Professor

CONTENTS. VU

Francke's Advice. Crows' Nests. A Beautiful Compari-
son. The always Miserable. Mirth and Cheerfulness.
What you will desire to recall. Severest Punishment.
Out of our own Shadow. School-girls not Matrons. One
Burden lightened. Desperate Intimacies. Carry Sunshine
with you. Not afraid of Responsibility. . . . 70

CHAPTER VI.

TRIALS AND TEMPTATIONS.

New Trials. Better Scholars than you. Friends will be dis-
appointed. Wonderful Blacksmith. No Excuse for you.
Rock Slates and Sea-egg Pencils. Not too late. So much
done. Parents' Mistake. A Good-for-nothing Machine.
Too great a Difference. The Best Response. Letters like
Chimneys. Starving Pupil. Genteel Prisons. Why not
spend Money ? School not for the Rich alone. Daniel
Webster's Congratulation. East Winds must come. Cow-
ard won the Day. 86

CHAPTEE VII.

READING.

The Tedious Day. How to read. Now is the Time to begin.
Nothing to build with. One Dish at a Time. Great Men
raised up in Times of Commotion. One hundred and
twenty-four Volumes. A Book read in Six Months. Books
of Pewter and of Bank-notes. Starving on Jellies. Chang-

. ing Horses at Paris. Convent in Portugal. Chain of Mem-
ory. Three Hours a Week. Let Nothing interfere. Po-

Vlll CONTENTS.

etry its own Reward. None, safest. Giant cracking
Nuts. Phosphorus and Honey 104

CHAPTER VIII.

USE OF THE PEN.

How to preserve Thought. Fresh as ever. Not a Little
Undertaking. Composition dreaded. Watered by Tears.
Theory mistaken. No Time for Newspapers. Factories
near the Waterfall. Whitefield's Pathos. Passion-flower.
Women must do the Letter-writing. Chain kept bright.
How Letters are treated in Turkey. Graceful Handwrit-
ing. First Specimen. Learn to bear the Yoke of Disci-
pline. Graces of Time run into Glories of Eternity. Econ-
omist of Time. Thousand Years before Noah. Arrow
ruined. Life hurried. 121

CHAPTER IX.

FORMATION OF HABITS.

Indian Fashions. Dr. Chalmers's Handwriting. John Fos-
ter's Regret. Habit of Seeing. Audubon's Bet. Lady
Mary Wortley Montagu a Physician. Not ashamed to ask
a Question. Secret of Despatch. Chinese Student. Al-
ways waiting. Reproof warded off. Just slipping on her
Things. Lord Brougham's Rules. Mr. Condar's Speech.
A Sure Recipe. Strive to please. Never-failing Beau-
ty. Haydn's Gladness. Feast df Joy. Fair Weather
will come. Passion disgusting in Woman. Rejoicing in
God 140

CONTENTS. IX

CHAPTER X.

HEALTH AT SCHOOL.

Conveniences of our Day. All under Law. Abuses among
Good Men. Dr. Payson's Letter. Good Advice. The
Two Extremes. John Howard's Testimony. His Experi-
ence in full. Too much Care. The Conscientious Self-
destroyer. Recovery, — a Curious Case. Hints not Eules.
Sleep, how much needed. Sir William Jones. A Curious
Will. Importance of Habits. Mother's Cupboard. The
Young Lady's Self-control. Exercise indispensable. Dr.
Franklin's Experience. Mind corresponds with the Body.
Cheerfulness essential to Health 162

CHAPTER XI.

THE BIBLE.

No Excuse for us. Bible worn on the Neck. Eusebius's
Testimony. Bible committed to Memory. Primitive Cus-
tom. Cool Water from the Spring. " Let us begin again."
The Embarrassed Merchant. The Bible Hawker. Fifty
Centimes. Garden of the Lord. Commit it accurately.
Eight Thousand Verses a Year. Do not omit a Day. Bi-
ble in the Trunk. Ice broken. Not a Bad Idea. Sixteen
Bible Clerks. Chinaman's Experience. Bible in Yuca-
tan. Concordance a Help. Let your Faith be strong.
A Lamp to the Feet. Suited to every Thing. . . .181

X CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XII.

THE TRUE -POSITION OF WOMAN.

The JLolian Harp. Golden Links in the Chain of Life.
Rough Diamond polished. Her True Position. They make
us. New Stars. Man cannot do it. Her Perfect Love.
Gray's Filial Love. Home-loving Queen. Where Aris-
tocracy begins. Light of the Household. To save rather
than earn. Real Friendship. A Great Mistake. The
Noble Woman. Another Woman's Heart. The Pleasant
Surprise. Soft Star of Love. Honor to Old Age. Pecu-
liar Protection. Rights of Women. Five Sisters. A Lit-
tle " Laming." Mrs. Kennicott. Woman appreciated. . 202

CHAPTER XIII.

THE DAUGHTER AT HOME.

Pleasant Anticipations. " The Last." Joy awaiting you.
Responsibility before you. Minute by Minute. Poor
Housekeeping. Knowledge useless. No Regular Time for
Study. A Part of your Discipline. " Twitting upon
Facts." Help your Mother. Household Duties. Apolo-
gize for Nothing. Sit still but an Hour. Afternoon Oc-
cupations. Franklin's Courtesy. Form a Library. Busy
and Quiet. Mazes of Fractions. Never-failing Cheerful-
ness. Service to your Father. Home Field first. Woman's
Way opened. Joy in the Evening. Chariot-Wheels drag-
ging. Melody of Heaven. A Rod or a Crown. Uses of
Sorrow. Ready to work. Life's Harvest. . . . A28

THE

DAUGHTER AT SCHOOL

CHAPTER i.

EDUCATION THE FIEST THING. INTEODUCTOEY.

A New Attempt. Indefatigable Student. Embryo of Immor-
tality. Learning to see. How the Little Child learns. La-
bor makes beautiful. A Great Work. Will subdued. The
World of Fancy. Where is the Attention ? The Wild Colt.
Napoleon's Memory. Somewhere and Somebody. Investi-
gate and reason. Garden of Life. For Eternity. Better
than Wealth. The Polished Jewel.

I am about to try to do what, as far as I
know, no one has ever yet attempted ; — I am
now to undertake the preparation of a book
for the sole benefit of the school-girl. I am
intending, as far as possible, to have two char-
acters. I mean, I wish to throw myself into
her situation, to feel her trials and wants, and
at the same time, so to remain myself that I
may drop hints and bestow advice that may
be useful to her.

A few years since, and you were all little
1

4 INDEFATIGABLE STUDENT.

children. Your education began when you
first opened the eye and noticed the light,
when you first bent the ear and distinguished
sounds, when you first put forth the hand and
brought it in contact with something else.
The first two years of life, though the impres-
sions and the feelings and emotions excited
are all now forgotten, were, perhaps, the most
important of any two years that you have
lived. You were then an indefatigable stu-
dent, — learning size and distances, forms and
colors, sound and tones, the different taste
of food and drinks, the geography of your
home, the tones of the human voice and the
variations of the human countenance. Then
you first learned the difference between the
smile and the frown, the bitter and the sweet,
the cold and the hot, the distant and the near,
the hard and the soft, the great and the small,
the sweet tone and the harsh, the feeling of
pleasure and of pain. Then the emotions of
joy or of grief were easily aroused and quickly
passed away ; — then hope and fear followed
each other in quick succession. Then you
began to compare, to judge, to discriminate,
and to remember. Then you first learned

EMBRYO OF IMMORTALITY. 3

"that a pictoe would recall an object before
seen, and even that it might be recalled by the
mysterious power of the memory. Then the
powers of the mind, feeble indeed, began to
unfold themselves, and the germ of an immor-
tal nature began to be developed. No hand,
no voice, no care, and no love, but that of one
being, were fitted to begin the education of
such a being. Need I say whose ? No voice
thrilled upon the little heart, no hand felt so
soft to the silken head, no look beamed so
bright, no love watched with such vigilance
and such sleepless care, as that of the Mother !
To her care and watch and love was com-
mitted the first training of that mind whose
thoughts were to be deathless, and the first
forming of that character which was to grow
for ever. The nursing of a planet, a moon,
or a sun, which will shine a few ages of
time and then go out, would be of less conse-
quence than the training of such a mind. If
the mother cannot do battle with the elements
without, and if she cannot mingle with the
strifes and struggles of business and take her
place and crowd her way with the eager mul-

4 LEARNING TO SEE.

titncle who cany on the concerns of the world,
she has a higher and a holier duty to perform.
She has committed to her the embryo of im-
mortality, and the little feet which she first
teaches to walk are receiving a direction from
her Avhich will never change.

Now what is the object which we have in
educating a daughter ? It is very plain that
we wish to teach her to use her eyes. We
point her to the window. We turn her face
to the candle. We show her bright colors.
Then we teach her to use the ear. We call
her in different tones of voice. We make
musical sounds. We cheer her with notes of
cheerfulness, and we quiet her with the soft
tones of music. Next we educate her to use
her hands. We put things into them. We
close the hand and teach her to hold fast.
We teach her to move the hand, to shake the
rrf+le, and to expect that the next shake will
make the same noise. Then we teach her to
use the feet, to poise her weight on them, and
then on one foot while she carefully takes up
and moves the other : to balance herself and
to move where she will. Then we instruct

HOW THE LITTLE CHILD LEARNS. O

her in the art of making sounds, uttering
words, and forming sentences. Then we
teach her to make known her wants, to ex-
press her emotions, to utter her notes of joy
or of sorrow, to understand human language
and to receive and communicate human
thoughts.

All this process of education takes place
before the child is two years old. And a very
great work it is to do it; but God has in-
sured its being done in three ways : first, it
gives the child such pleasure to learn and to
do these things that she strives continually to
improve herself ; secondly, we love to see the
little one in its artless attempt to imitate,
so that it is a pleasure to instruct and aid it ;
and thirdly, that inexpressible love of which ]
have already spoken, which makes the mother
forget herself and her fatigues, in the pleasure
of instructing and drawing out the soul of her
child.

Now the process of education has be-
gun. And God has so ordered, in his wis-
dom, that all that is valuable shall cost in
proportion to its value. If we want a beauti-

D LABOR MAKES BEAUTIFUL.

ful tree for shade, or to produce us fruit, we
must plant the seed, defend the germ, train
the shrub, watch over the little thing till it
grows into strength and beauty. We may
have beautiful stones to sparkle and flash be-
fore the eye, but they must first be dug from
the earth, then polished with immense care,
and finally set with skill. Even then they
are hideous, unless they adorn the person of
the virtuous. "We may take a pound of steel
which is worth a few cents, and bestow labor
and skill upon it, till it is made into springs
for ladies' watches, and that one pound of
steel is then worth forty thousand dollars ! We
may throw out the stones of a quarry, and
they are almost worthless ; but labor and skill
lay them up into the walls of a palace, and
ages hence they are admired and in use ; and
in the hands of the wonder-working artist, the
rough block of marble becomes the beautiful
statue. We take the hardest and the most
gnarled trees that grow, and they become, un-
der labor and skill, the beautiful ship that
passes like a bird from continent to continent.
The most beautiful rose that now adorns the

A GREAT WORK.

window or the garden was once the single
wild-rose, possessing hardly any thing like
beauty or fragrance. Cultivation has done
all the rest ; and many of our most nutritious
vegetables were, in their wild state, both un-
savory and poisonous.

It is not surprising, then, that, in the ar-
rangements of God's providence, it is a great,
as well as an important work, to educate one
human being, — to train its body and its spirit
so that it will eventually be and do all for
which it is created. It is a great work, for
ten thousand right impressions are to be made
and fastened on the soul ; ten thousand wrong
impressions are to be counteracted and ef-
faced. As years roll onward and the child
grows, the work of education becomes more
and more difficult. There must be the work
of many years ere the child is in any measure
fitted to take care of itself, and to be intrusted
with its own interests. Slowly and carefully
must the foundations of character be laid, and
while many would think that the great anxi-
ety of the parent would now be, How shall I
feed and clothe and shelter my little daugh-

8 WILL SUBDUED.

ter ? there is a much heavier question weigh-
ing upon him, and that is, What manner of
child shall this be ?

It is very plain that one of the first things
is to teach the child self-discipline, and to
yield up his will and his wisdom to that of
another. This is called obedience. It should
be prompt, unreserved, and cheerful. The
happiness of the child depends on this. And
the child that has not been taught to obey at
once, with alacrity, and with cheerfulness, lit-
tle knows what it is to be happy. That con-
test between the will of the child and the will
of the parent, which is often so mortifying to
the parent, is utterly incompatible with hap-
piness. The same remark is true of your
instructor who is in the place of the parent.
Whenever your will comes in contact with his,
and you yield only outward obedience and
outward submission, you are very unhappy.
The will, like a wild animal, must submit or
conquer very quicldy. A state of contest is
a state of wretchedness.

One of the first things, then, in education,
is to learn cheerfully to submit your will to

THE WORLD OF FANCY. 9

that of another. And God has appointed your
parents to this high trust. They may dele-
gate their authority to others for a time, as
they do in relation to the teacher of their
child. But a great trust is theirs. An edu-
cated mind, then, has learned to submit to
law, to order, and to such regulations at home,
in the school, or in the state, as are for the
best good of the community.

But now we come to the mind, — how is
that to be trained ? The little child lives in
an ideal world. The boy has horses and cat-
tle, menageries and armies, ships and rail-cars,
all made of his little pile of blocks. And the
little girl has her dolls, her visitors, her parties,
and her housekeeping all in her little play-
house. They make visits and long journeys,
receive and entertain an abundance of com-
pany, and all without going out of the room.
Fancy is uncurbed and unchecked. But now
we begin to take that curious thing called the
• mind, to train it. The first thing is to teach
it to give attention. At first this is a very
difficult task. The little creature looks at the
letters or on the page of the book, draws the

10 WHERE IS THE ATTENTION?

breath, sighs, and by the answer to the ques-
tion shows that the mind and the thoughts
are not there. So it is even when she be-
comes a school-girl. She finds that it is hard
to keep the mind on the book or the lesson.
It will wander, — it will go home, it will visit
the play-house, or it will dream of something
else. Again and again she begins to read
over the lesson. " Oh ! " says she, " what
hard lessons ! Did any body ever have such
hard lessons ? " The difficulty is not in the
lesson, but in her not commanding her atten-
tion. Let a story, quite as long as the lesson,
be told her, and she will give it the closest at-
tention. And she can repeat it at once. But
her lesson, she says, she has read over fifty
times, and cannot get it. The reason is, that
she has not learned to command her attention,
and to make the mind obey her. This is
what the teacher wants to accomplish; and
there is no way to do this but by continual
effort, lesson after lesson, trial after trial. •
The mind is like a wild colt at first ; and this
study is like the halter put on the colt. He
pulls and chafes and worries at first ; but

THE WILD COLT. 11

every time he is haltered, he chafes less and
less, till finally you may lead him where you
will, and do with him as you please. You
must never wait to be in a mood for study,
any more than you would wait for a horse to
be in a mood to go. To be educated, implies
that you can take the mind and put it down
to hard thinking, and hold the mind there as
long as you please. This is what we mean
by being able to command your attention.

The next step is to cultivate the memory, —
so that you can remember faces, voices, con-
versations, events, facts that have taken place,
and be able to recall them at any moment
you wish. Some have what we call a strong
memory. They seem to take hold of any
thing and hold it as if the memory had steel
hooks. Others can hardly retain any thing.
The sieve lets every thing run through it.
Perhaps no faculty can be more improved by
training than the memory. A Roman once
had his memory so cultivated, that he could
attend an auction all day, and at night tell
every article that was sold, the order in which
it was sold, the person who purchased it,

12 napoleon's memory.

and the price which he paid. Few have a
memory like that. But if Alexander could
call every one of his soldiers by name, if
Napoleon could remember where every part
of his vast armies was, and the prices of
every thing through his empire, so that he
knew at a glance when he was* charged too
much, we cannot doubt but the memory can be
vastly improved by cultivation. My own im-
presskm is, that much more attention ought
to be paid to the improvement of the memory
than is paid, both at home and in our schools.
This is not the place to tell hoiv to do this.
I will here only remark, that to cultivate the
memory it is absolutely necessary to be per-
fectly accurate. You are not to remember
that such a place is about so far off, or such
an event took place about such a time, or
that such a thing was once done somewhere
and by somebody ; but you are to be perfectly
accurate, as to the event, the time, the place,
the actor. All other training is very bad for
the memory. And this faculty comes under
the work of education.

Then, after you have learned how to attend^

INVESTIGATE AND REASON. 13

and to remember, that is, recall accurately
what you know, you are next to be taught how
to reason, how to think. The reason makes
comparisons between one thing and another.
You go to select a book, or a new dress, and
you have to ask and answer many questions.
Is this the precise book that I am seeking?
Is it the right edition ? Is the price such that
my purse can pay for it ? Is this the right
time to buy it ? Ought I to do without it ?
Is the quality, the color, the style, of this dress
such as is suitable to my age and position?
Is it within my means ? Do I need it now,
and will my parents approve of it ? This is
reasoning. And the judgment is what de-
cides the answers. But these are small oper-
ations of the mind, and we wish to educate
the mind and the understanding so that you
can grapple with more difficult questions ; and
so we place before the mind, not the colors of
a dress, but the numbers in the Arithmetic,
the problems in Algebra, and the demonstra-
tions in Euclid. You are not educated till
you have learned to reason in regard to any
and all subjects, and have an understanding

14 GARDEN OF LIFE.

that will quickly and properly decide every
question. You must be able to investigate,
and this requires memory and judgment, and
you must be constantly coming to decisions
of the judgment. Otherwise you could never
distinguish between such characters as Wash-
ington and Benedict Arnold. But we wish
your mind to be, not only a thing that can
think and investigate, but that can also en-
joy. For this purpose we must cultivate
your taste, so that instantly you see, or
rather feel, what is in good taste and what
is bad. So that in the wide garden of
life you may be able to distinguish between
flowers and weeds, and to cultivate only
such flowers as are fragrant and beautiful.
She who can discover what is beautiful in
history, in eloquence, in poetry, in music or
in painting, has received a rare gift from edu-
cation. For this purpose, among others, you
are instructed in composition, in rhetoric, in
the reading of poetry, and the criticism of
writers who are immortal.

In a school or college the amount of knowl-
edge which is stored away in the mind is not

FOR ETERNITY. 15

much, nor of any great value. It is not the
design to see how much knowledge you can
lay up, but to see how perfectly we can make
your mind an instrument able to instruct and
guide itself. We barely begin the work of
education while you are at school. Educa-
tion is to continue, we believe, for ever.

Then there are other things to be attended
to, such as your manners, habits, conversa-
tion, which we shall speak upon hereafter.
But in speaking of what we wish to accom-
plish by your education, we must not forget
to say, or to impress it upon you, that we
educate the soul for eternity; that we feel
that we are far out of the way, and have too
narrow views, when we think of you as crea-
tures of earth. We wish*your manners to be
polished, your conversation pure and instruc-
tive, your countenance lighted up with intel-
ligence, and your mind bright and awake ; but
we desire more. We want the heart trained
to commune with God, and the soul to rise
up into his light, and to plume her wings for
the flight of eternal ages. A right education
embraces that humility which a conscious sin-

16 BETTER THAN WEALTH.

ner ought to feel, that self-denial which the
Christian spirit ever carries with it, that cheer-
fulness which Christian hope creates and cher-
ishes, and that adoration and love of God
which the opening prospects of eternity in-
spire. The great questions with the parent
and the teacher who feels rightly will be, not,
Will this daughter be beautiful, be admired,
be prosperous in this world, be long-lived in
time ? but, Will she be so educated as to make
the most of all her powers and faculties both
here and hereafter? Will she understand
that the mind is as much loftier than the body,
that knowledge is as much better than wealth,
as the heavens are superior to earth ?

The only beings on earth worthy of being
educated are our sons and our daughters.
A horse may be educated in a few weeks.
So can a dog or an ox. But it requires years
of incessant care and anxiety and labor, to
unfold and improve the faculties of one child.
But when the work is done, when that child
is truly and properly educated, you have a
jewel polished which will outlive and out-
shine the sun. We are training up an angel

THF POLISHED JEWEL. 17

for eternity. And if the parent or the child
thinks that a few months' schooling, or a
superficial manner of instruction, or the put-
ting on the outside polish of a few ornamental
studies, is to educate that mind, they are to be
pitied for their ignorance. The foundations
of an education that is worthy of the name
must be laid very slowly, very carefully, and
very thoroughly. You may make fashion-
seekers and fashion-finders without this, but
you cannot make an educated, cultivated
woman, fitted to adorn her home, to elevate
society, stamp her character on others, leave
the world better than she found it, and one
whom Jesus Christ will own as his mother or
his sister. To educate or to be educated,
even for one daughter, is a work that requires
all that is good and wise and great to assist
in accomplishing what is so mighty in re-
sults.

CHAPTER II.

THE SCHOOL-GIRL AWAY FROM HOME.

Home Education. The Opening Flower. Parents unfit Teach-
ers. Private Instruction. All need a Standard. Influence
of Nunneries. Teaching a Profession. It is a Trial. On a
larger Scale. A Pleasant Plan. Clothes and Shoes. Long-
ing to turn hack. "Weather changed. Counting the Weeks.
A Critical Point. Character developing. Best of every
Thing. Back-bone Work. An Angel's Wing drooping.

The child is committed by its Maker to its
parents for training. In ordinary cases, this
is a sacred and a delightful trust. For the
first few years of its life, no parent thinks of
putting his child out from under the influences
and the care of home. And, were there not
most weighty reasons, surely the child would
never be sent away from home till he went
out to a home of his own, and the daughter
whose mind and heart just begin to expand

HOME EDUCATION. 19

would not be put into the hands of strangers
to form her character, were there not some
very special inducements. The argument for
a home education is a very strong one. At
home, we are told, there must be order and
government, but it is all done through the af-
fections. The sternness of law is not felt.
The affections are so warm, that it is not felt
to be obedience to obey. But in the large
school it is all one unbending system of rules
and regulations, cold and stern, without any
play of the affections. At home, each child
can be instructed according to its tempera-
ment and capacity, without coming under the
regimen adopted for a great number. Plans
of study, of recreation, and the like, are there
adapted to the habits and the temperament
of each, without overlooking any peculiarity,
physical or mental. At home, there is no ri-
valry which urges on to efforts beyond the
strength, or which creates envy and jealousy
in the heart, or which ends in disappointment.
There the mental powers can be developed
slowly and carefully, and the bud can have
time to open under the genial sun and gentle

20 PARENTS UNFIT TEACHERS.

dews. There is no forcing like the hot-bed.
And there, too, at home, under the eye of love,
the purity of the child can be insured, and she
is shut away from contamination, and from
evil associates. There, in the shades of the
sweet home, may she spend her early days,
and, screened from the cold world and its
vices, she can be educated, and thus be pre-
pared, at the right time, to take her place in
the world, an ornament to her sex and to her
station. This is the substance of the argu-
ment for a strictly home education. And I
think it has strength ; and yet very few at-
tempt to do the thing ; and for this there must
be some urgent reasons. What are they?
Or rather, why is the young girl sent away
among strangers, when so much is at stake,
and perhaps so much is imperilled? I re-
ply—

Because but few parents are competent to
educate their children themselves. Amid the
cares and toils necessary to provide for a fam-
ily, the parents soon forget the particulars of
their own education. And, moreover, every
thing is on the advance. No parent expects

PRIVATE INSTRUCTION. 21

to send the child out into the world with
only the education with which the mother
began. The child lives in a day when she
wears richer dresses, has better books, better
food, more travelling, more intercourse with
society, than her mother had. Who is to in-
struct her at home ? The mother is incompe-
tent, and the father probably is likewise ; or if
not, he is too much occupied in business to
do it. She must have private teachers, then,
at home. But here are two difficulties. The
first is, that few are able to pay the needful
compensation for the best private teachers. It
would cost many hundreds of dollars to obtain
good teachers for a single family : but there is
a greater difficulty, and that is, they could not
be had. It is only by having large schools
that teachers are trained up and qualified ;
and it is only because they here have a field
so wide, that the first-rate minds can be in-
duced to become teachers. Reduce all to
home education, and you would have but few
good and competent teachers. Large schools
are, at any rate, necessary to raise them for
their work. Parents and teachers would both

22 ALL NEED A STANDARD.

soon have narrow views as to the principles
of«education, and, I should fear, would be too
indulgent and too indolent in applying them.
The home education, it is said, would make
them amiable children ; and so it would, but
the difficulty is, they would be children as
long as they lived. Some, under this sys-
tem, and probably the greater part, would
be satisfied with a low standard, and have
very little energy of mind ; while the few who
did study, having no standard, and n6 way of
measuring themselves with others, would have
an overweening idea of themselves. Every
one wants a standard, and all need to be
measured by others. And it is noticed, that
those who have a strictly private education
are apt to over-estimate themselves, if, in any
measure, successful as students. In a large
seminary, the young lady soon knows what
mental application means, and what is a right
standard of scholarship. She soon knows her
own proportions. The blind partiality of
friends does no good now. She now has a
standard of study, of application, and of at-
tainment, which is entirely new. She now sees

INFLUENCE OF NUNNERIES. 23

new methods of imparting instruction. She
sees what so-called improvements are worth
preserving, and how the mind of the teacher
and of the scholar works under a strong pres-
sure. Then, as to coming in contact with
temptation, sooner or later, every one must do
that. It may be putgofT a few years by home
seclusion ; but if so, when it does come, it
comes with great power. It is said that the
young ladies who are secluded and educated in
the nunneries of Europe, are the least prepared
to resist temptations when they come out.
The mind and the heart must come in contact
with what is evil, sooner or later. If the heart
be fortified with early religious principle, you
may as well meet it in the days of school, as
ever. We need stimulus and pressure, to call
out mental labor, — the hardest labor in the
world, — and we cannot get this at home.
And it is found to be a law almost universal,
that for perfection there must be, in all the
departments of life, a division of labor. The
head of a family does not attempt to shoe
his own horse, make his own coat, or grind
his own wheat. He well knows that the

24 TEACHING A PROFESSION.

blacksmith and the tailor and the miller can
do these things quicker and cheaper than he
can. He knows, too, that by doing one thing,
carrying on one kind of business himself, he
can support his family better than if he at-
tempted to do every thing. Now teaching
becomes a profession o;i this principle ; be-
cause it is found that those who make it
their business can accomplish more, and do it
vastly better, than others ; and by collecting a
large number of young minds together, you
can induce the best educated and the best
qualified minds to become teachers. Each
parent pays his share of the expense, and he
thus puts his child into the hands and under
the care of those who can do for that child
what he cannot. The teacher can do but
that one thing. The merchant and the law-
yer and the farmer say to him, You can in-
struct my child far better than I can, and
better than I can, afford to hire teachers un-
der my own roof. Do you take her, and I
will pay my share of supporting the estab-
lishment and of carrying on the school.
Hence our schools grow out of our necessi-

IT IS A TRIAL.

25

ties, and they are large, because a few parents
are not able to procure all the advantages on
a small scale.

This, then, is the reason why the mother
and the father send their beloved daughter
away to school, — because they can afford to
give her so good advantages in no other way.
It is often very painful to send away the
child, and to commit her to people, whom,
perhaps, they have never seen. It is trying
to send her out exposed to temptations and
dangers ; but what can they do ? In no other
way can the child have her mind disciplined,
have a correct standard of scholarship, and
learn the make of other minds. In no other
way can she be thrown upon her own respon-
sibility, learn self-denial, self-control, and self-
discipline.

The teaching which is within the reach of
every pupil in a good school, would often cost
thousands of dollars at home. And besides,
in a large seminary, there is not only a di-
vision of labor, but another division scarcely
less important. One mind is best adapted to
teach mathematics ; another, the languages ;

26 ON A LARGER SCALE.

and another still, music or drawing ; and a9
each is supposed to take the post for which he
is best qualified and adapted, so the advan-
tages to the pupils are greatly enhanced by
this arrangement. Thus it is plain, that what-
ever disadvantages a seminary has, or how-
ever much we might prefer a home education,
the? arguments in favor of going away to
school greatly preponderate. Add to this,
that at the seminary you meet with minds
from all parts of the country, form acquaint-
ances that last through life, and see human
nature developed in ways seen nowhere else.

I have made these remarks that you may
understand why you go away to school, and
why those who love you most, thus place
interests so dear out of their own hands. I
have hoped too, that, if I could make you see
the object for which you are sent away to
school, you would the more readily see what
duties your new position devolves upon you.
But let us now see how many — I do not say
all, for I hope the picture will not suit all —
but how many a school-girl looks upon this
subject. When the first mention of her going

A PLEASANT PLAN. 27

away to school is made, she feels excited,
and fluttered, and thinks how beautiful it will
be — to have a new trunk and her clothes so
nicely packed, and the new dresses all so com-
plete; and how beautiful it will be to see
the school and the new faces, and see how
they are dressed, and how they behave; and
how beautiful it will be to take the journey,
and to write long letters home, and tell of all
the new things which she sees and hears ; and
how beautiful it will be to have nothing to do
but to study, and think, and be educated, and
excel in music and Latin, drawing and dress-
ing, and then to come home all educated and
finished off, ready for whatever may come
next, — and who can tell what that may be !
During the preparations, the discussions about
clothes and shoes, umbrellas and overshoes,
inquiries about who is going and how every
thing appears there, she is in fine spirits.
All goes well. By and by, however, after the
new trunk is nearly packed, and a thousand
hints and admonitions have been dropped by
the anxious mother, after the very day of
leaving is appointed, she begins to have other

28 LONGING TO TURN BACK.

feelings come over her. She never went away
from home before, except on short visits among
her relatives. And now the fact that she is to
leave her home, her mother, her brothers and
sisters, and go away among strangers, comes
to be a reality. She begins to feel that it is
not all brightness. There are shadows falling
upon her spirits. What if they should be
sick at home? "What if death should take
away any one from that loved circle before she
returns ? What if she herself should be sick,
away among strangers ? But the time arrives,
and though she has slept but little, and can
eat no breakfast, the hour of parting has
come, and with a hurried, tearful good-by she
leaves her home. All the way her thoughts
return back, saddened and chilled, and she
wishes she had never consented to go to
school. She wishes it were possible to turn
back again, and give it all up. This is going
to school away from home.

And now she arrives at the school. But
how different every thing looks from what she
expected ! Nothing is so pleasant as she had
anticipated. The teachers look so different!

WEATHER CHANGED. 29

And the scholars, — was there ever such a
homely set gathered together ! How cold and
strange they all look, — all strangers, and all
very strange strangers ! And now every thing
looks blue. Nothing seems like home. The
very w^eather is changed, and the sun does
not shine here. The food and cooking are so
unlike home ! The sound of the bell seems
harsh, and the very birds sing as if they were
reciting. The school-room is a dull, dry place,
and the very clock ticks as . if it was tired.
She sheds many tears alone, and writes home
in tones that wTould not disgrace a martyr.
O, if she could only now describe her feelings
and her sufferings, how would she " become
a thing of dark imaginings, on whom the
freshness of the heart has ceased to fall like
dew, whose passions are consuming them-
selves to dust, and to whom the relief of tears
seems to be grudged " ! She already begins
to count the weeks when the term will be
through and she can leave this horrid place !
When this week is out, and twenty-one
more, she will be through ! It now becomes
the great question how she can contrive to

30 GENTLE HINTS.

exist till that time. Ah ! if she could annihi-
late time and space, how quickly would she
be at home again ! Now, if I could catch the
attention of this almost martyred young lady, I
should like to whisper a few things in her ear.
I would say to her, My young friend, your
grandmother went through all this, and lived
to a good old age; and your mother lived
through all this, and I hope she will live as
long ; and you will live through it all, and if
nothing else kills you, you will be a young
lady at the age that Methuselah died. I do
not blame you for all your sufferings ; but
now, dry up your tears and let us see what
you have to do.

" Thou hast been reared too tenderly,
Beloved too well and long,
Watched by too many a gentle eye ;
Now look on life, — be strong ! "

There need be no denial that the first en-
counter with the new world in which you find
yourself placed is attended with trials. But
now, after you understand what is the object
of being educated, and the reasons why you

A CRITICAL POINT. 31

must go from home for the sake of this educa-
tion, do not spend your time and waste your
dear sensibilities in mourning that a school is'
not home, that new companions are not old
friends, that change is not sameness, or that
you cannot encounter the trials of life and yet
have no trials. Do not stop now to count your
fingers, nor to see how sombre you can make
every thing seem. Now is the time to show
character, if you have any ; to show courage,
if you have any ; to show that you have mind
and thought, if indeed you have them. Now
you have arrived at a critical point in your
character. You can now shake off old habits
and form new ones. You can now set out
with new courage and new hopes. The shock
through which you have just passed, like elec-
tricity, may give all your powers of mind a
new energy. The object now is, not to count
the weeks to vacation, nor to see how little
you can do in a single day or week, but
to see how much you can really accomplish
between this and vacation, — how few recita-
tions you can miss, how many perfect recita-
tions you can make, how much you can exer-

32 CHARACTER DEVELOPING.

cise and task the mind, and how much you
can do to form, strengthen, and draw out
your character. Do not lisp now, but speak.
Do not mince now, but walk. Do not muddle
over your books, but study. Do not feel that
you are to be swallowed up and to be a part
of a great school, but that you have an indi-
vidual mind to cultivate, and an individual
character to form. The character you now
develop will be that which you will carry
with you through life. The confidence which
you are to have in yourself, all the way through
life, will depend on what you are and what
you do now. The estimation in which you
are to be held by your schoolmates, all the
way through life, will depend on what they
now see you accomplish. If now you array
yourself against any of the regulations of the
school, because you do not think them to be
wise ; if you set yourself to see how very little
you can bring about ; if you try to feel that
the teachers have one interest and you an-
other ; if you try to see how many faults you
can find in the arrangements of the school;
and if, on this your first seeing a school, you

BEST OF EVERY THING. 33

feel competent and called upon to pronounce
this and that wrong, and are determined to
see how long a face you can wear, and how
you can most torment yourself and others,
you will indeed lose your time, and wonder
how you fell in with so poor a school ! But
if you feel determined to make the best of
every thing, to take every thing by the smooth
handle, to see the bright side of every tear,
and to catch as many warm sunbeams as you
can, your school-days will be happy, and be
associated with nothing but what is cheer-
ful and pleasurable. It is the time for you
now to be right earnest, for the days and the
weeks will now come round very rapidly.
Remember that every lesson you slight, every
imperfect recitation you make, is not an in-
jury upon the teacher which will last, though
it may annoy him ; but the injury inflicted
upon yourself will be permanent. In every
contest with indolence in which you are de-
feated, in every struggle with difficulties in
which you are worsted, in every effort made in
which you do not succeed, you lose ground.
You are accustoming yourself to be con-
3

34 an angel's wing drooping.

quered. Let it be your ambition now, first to
secure your own esteem, by diligence and ap-
plication, and the actual overcoming of dif-
ficulties, and then the esteem of your teachers,
by the evidence that you are determined to
do all that you can, and of your companions,
by their seeing you making evident progress.
Away with pining after home! now is not
the time for that; it is the time of action.
Away with sentimentalism ! you need a back-
bone now. Away with discontentment ! you
now have the best opportunity which money,
care, anxiety, and experience can afford you,
for improvement. It will be your misfortune
if you have too little mind to be educated,
your folly if you fail through negligence, and
your guilt if you fail through wilful perverse
ness.

" Wake ! ere the earth-born charm unnerve thee quite,
And be thy thoughts to work divine addressed ;
Do something, do it soon, with all thy might ;
An angel's wing would droop if long at rest,
And God himself inactive were no longer blest.
Some high or humble enterprise of good
Contemplate till it shall possess thy mind,

STRENGTH TO COMPLETE. 35

Become thy study, pastime, rest, and food,

And kindle in thy heart a flame refined ;

Pray Heaven for firmness thy whole soul to bind

To this thy purpose, to begin, pursue,

With thoughts all fixed and feelings purely kind,

Strength to complete, and with delight review,

And grace to give the praise where all is ever due."

CHAPTER III.

THE SCHOOL-GIKL AT STUDY.

The Great Trial. Trunks full. Nothing forgotten. A Va-
cant Stare. Two Thirds lost. Memory wanting. Xeno-
phon's Eetreat. All need Judgment. Learn to discrimi-
nate. Best Taste in Town. Select the Best. Knowledge
running away. Loose Change. Where to look. Society
of a Lapdog. Not a Short Job. L*on-hearted Bell. Habit
of Toil.

Every one who goes to school knows that,
for some reason or other, the object is to
study. But many seem to know nothing as
to why they must study, or how to do it. I
am sorry to say, too, that many parents seem
as ignorant as their daughters. They know
that other people send their daughter to school,
and that before she arrives at that most impor-
tant age of eighteen, or when she is " brought
out," it is necessary to be able to say that she

TRUNKS FULL. 37

was educated at this or that celebrated insti-
tution. They fail in their plans and in their
conversation to impress upon her the real ob-
ject of her going from home to be educated.
They talk much about what she needs as to
dress, in order to appear well, and they talk
over the privations she will endure, and the
trials she must meet, but the great trial, that
of study, they hardly mention.

Suppose now we were in some nook, our-
selves unseen, where we could hear the con-
versation at the breakfast-table, between a
judicious, sensible father and his daughter,
who is about leaving home for school.

"Well, daughter," says he, in a cheerful
tone, " I suppose you have every thing ready
to start, — trunks, bandboxes, umbrellas, and
overshoes."

" Yes, father, I believe so. My trunks are
all full, and I thought I never could crowd in
my new de laine, the two new silk dresses, the
cream-colored merino, the purple alpaca, and
my twelve aprons. But by great efforts moth-
er and I pressed them in, though I am afraid
they will be terribly rumpled. Then I have
the three bandboxes besides."

V

38 NOTHING FORGOTTEN.

" Indeed ! I should think you were fitting
out for the tour of Europe. But these are not
what comes within my province. But there
is one thing I am very desirous to have you
carry, and which, if you are not very careful,
will be left behind."

" Why, I am sure I have forgotten nothing.
We have put up every thing we could think
of, even to the boxes of hair-pins."

" No doubt ; no doubt. But have you any-
where packed away a correct idea of the
object for which you go, and how you are to
accomplish that object ? You go in order to
study ; but do you know why you study and
how to study ? "

" No, father, and I wish you would tell me."

" Well, then, forget the crowded trunks and
the hair-pins for the present, and I will try to
tell you. Now you must be patient and at-
tentive, for I shall be what you call ' awfully
dull.'

" The objects of study, then, are these : —

"1. To give you power to -command the at-
tention. Till we have made many and long-
continued efforts, this is no easy matter. You

A VACANT STARE. 39

sometimes undertake to read a book, and
while your eye runs over the pages or the
lines of the page, the mind and the thoughts
are off upon something else ; and when you
reach the bottom of the page, you know noth-
ing of what you have been reading. When
you are in conversation with another person,
it often happens that you lose whole sen-
tences, and have to assent to what he has said,
though you know not what it is. Have you
never found it so, my daughter ? "

The young lady looked up with a vacant
stare, and nodded her head in assent, though
the fact was that she had scarcely heard a
word of what her father had said ; for the mo-
ment the words " command the attention "w
were uttered, her thoughts had been wander-
ing off to a small party which she had at-
tended, and where she was sure she had the
power to command the attention of a certain
young gentleman, who wore young whiskers
and a yellow vest. Thus she was uncon-
sciously illustrating the need of which her
father was speaking.

"2. A second object of study is to give you

40 TWO THIRDS LOST.

the power to hold the mind down to a subject
or to a point, as long as is necessary. In do-
ing a long sum in arithmetic, in demonstrat-
ing a difficult problem in Euclid, or in evolv-
ing a complicated question in algebra, you
must hold the mind down to the point, and
hold it there till you understand it and can
explain it to others. When you write a let-
ter, or a composition, you want the power to
hold the mind or the thought till you know
what to say and how to say it. How many
people lose almost the whole of a lecture, or a
sermon, or a public speech, because they can-
not hold their minds fast till it is through!
Perhaps two thirds of every sermon, and of
every lecture and every valuable public effort
of mind, are lost for the want of this power. It
is the want of it that makes it so difficult for
the school-girl to master her lesson. And it
is to be acquired only by severe and contin-
ued application of the mind.

" 3. The third object of study is to strength-
en the memory.

" You know that some men are rich in con-
versation, welcomed everywhere, and their

MEMORY WANTING. 41

society eagerly sought, because they have
at their command history, books, beautiful
thoughts and great thoughts, all held fast by
the memory, and all ready to be used at any
time ; while other men, who have read quite
as much, are dry and barren of thought, and
almost dull ; they cannot recall any thing, they
are sure of no fact, they are afraid to be ques-
tioned about any date. Such a mind is a
sliding plane, down which every thing hurries,
and with no power to draw it up."

" But, father, I have a good memory now.
I can tell over every story I read, and can al-
most repeat the whole of that delightful new
novel in the last Saturday's Post."

" Very likely. But suppose I should ask
you to trace the route which Xenophon in his
famous retreat followed, or to give me the
date of the Magna Charta of England, or pe-
riod of Cromwell's government, or the date of
the Reformation in Europe, what says your
memory then ? "

" Ah, you surely do not expect me to re-
member every thing."

" No, I should be sorry to have you remem-

42

ALL NEED JUDGMENT.

ber every thing*; but ' surely,' as you say, you
ought to remember many ; and you ought to
remember facts, and not fiction ; the history
of human deeds, human efforts, and human
sufferings, and not imaginary deeds and the
sufferings of imaginary heroes and heroines.
At school, you are made to store up dry facts,
history, definitions, and a thousand things,
for the very purpose of strengthening the
memory.

" 4. The fourth object of study is to strength-
en the judgment.

" In all the departments of life, we need a
balanced judgment. For the want of it,
households are made wretched, homes are
made unpleasant, property is squandered,
character is never obtained, and life is almost
lost. No lady can make a custard or a
cooky, a jelly or a garment, spread a table or a
cradle, without it, nor can a man well provide
for his family, accomplish much in business,
or gain in property or influence. It is an every-
day commodity, and no day can be a happy
one without its abundant exercise. The laun-
dress needs it to make your clothes white and

WHAT IS VALUABLE. 43

neat. The milliner and the tailor need it to
fit our garments. The cook needs it to pre-
pare our food. The teacher needs it in order
to instruct, the sailor to guide his ship, the
merchant to invest his money in goods, the
physician to prepare his medicines. The law-
yer needs it to make out his case, and the min-
ister to prepare his sermons. If we wished to
cultivate your judgment in cooking, in house-
keeping, in sewing or needle-work, at this
time, we should retain you at home and give
you the opportunity to learn the theory and
the practice. If it were our object to cultivate
your judgment as to any thing external, we
should not send you to school. But we want
to cultivate your judgment as to thought and
mind, as to what is valuable and what is
worthless in that vast repository which the
human mind has left to us. We want to cul-
tivate your judgment so that you can know
what is argument and what is sophistry;
what is proved and what is asserted ; what is
true and what is only plausible ; what is evi-
dence and what is not to be admitted. We
want you to judge correctly as to what peo-

44 BEST TASTE IN TOWN.

pie can do and what they cannot ; what they
will be likely to do, and what they will not.
It is to give you the power to discriminate
between wisdom and folly, light and twilight,
real jewels and those that are false, things
valuable to the mind and the memory, and
things useless.

" 5. The fifth object of study is to cultivate
the taste.

" People naturally differ much as to the
possession of this power or faculty. One in-
dividual has a certain taste which makes
her lady-like in her dress and address, while
another is so deficient that she can in no
possible circumstances deserve the title of
lady."

" But, father, I have this quality already.
Every body says I 've the best taste in town.
They all come to me to advise about their
dresses, and all say my taste is so good ! "

" Very probably. I should myself be will-
ing to trust your taste to select a few yards of
ribbon, or a dress for a child, and very likely
a pocket-handkerchief for your father. But
suppose you were called upon to select a

SELECT THE BEST. 45

library. for a village or for a Sabbath school,
or a wardrobe to be sent to a friend in Asia,
would you feel that your taste is sufficiently
cultivated? Or suppose a company should
invite you to select and read a portion from
Milton or Cowper or Shakspeare, are you pre-
pared? Suppose fifty or sixty manuscripts
written in a seminary, for a prize, were put
into your hands to select the two best, are
you qualified to do it ? Or suppose, left des-
titute, you were compelled to instruct others
for your support, could you select the books
to be studied, and especially, if your pupils
were advanced, the books to be read by them?
You see that to have a good taste in judging
of a good dinner, or a charming tea, or a rich
dress, is a very different thing from a taste
cultivated so as to be able to judge what
is a beautiful thought, and what is disagree-
able ; what is a strong and elegant figure of
speech, and what is weak and inappropriate ;
what is chaste and beautiful language, and
what is bombastic and out of place. These
are the things which are learned, little by lit-
tle, at a good school, by the guidance of the

46 KNOWLEDGE RUNNING AWAY.

teachers, and by coming in contact with
others. It is not to be created by rules and
text-books, but by constant examples of what
is in good taste and what is not.

" 6. The sixth object of study is to store the
mind with knowledge, or to teach it where to
find what it wants.

" In the course of the time necessary to dis-
cipline the mind so as to call it educated,
you will have a vast amount of knowledge
poured into the mind. Some of it will stay,
but the greater part will run directly through
and be lost. Still, the waters leave a tinge in
the channel, and the banks through which
they passed are richer than before. But at
the completion of the course of study, you
have new and enlarged and corrected views.
You stand on a higher point of ground, and
can see farther in every direction. You have
also saved a great many things that are valu-
able. They are in the mind, not like drift-wood
upon the shore, strewed anywhere ; but they
are stored away in the mind, in their appropri-
ate places, labelled, numbered, and ready for
use whenever wanted. This, to be sure, is

LOOSE CHANGE. 47

not the greatest object of an education. Et is
only incidental; but it has great value. But
Where your own stored resources slop and
fail, you need not slop. The knowledge which
you have in fche mind is fche loose change, to
be used as called for on smaU occasions; but
fche bank upon which yon are to draw is inex-
haustible. You know where to go for ma-
terials of thought, of composition, or of in-
formation. You know what histories of the
past are best; you know how to make a good

index of a volume yield you a grej.it amount
Of information in a short time. „ You know
how to make your author do the most pos-
sible for you in a short time. You know
how to shake the tree in order to obtain the
ripest fruit. You know from which bottle
to obtain the most exquisite odors from
the condensed extracts within. If you want
to know a fact in the lite of l>uoiiapartc,
you know how and where to find it with-
out reading the volume through. If you

are expecting lo meet a descendant of a. great
man, you know where to find a. brief ac-
count of that man, so that you can eon-

48 WHERE TO LOOK.

verse concerning him to advantage, with
pleasure to him, and with profit to yourself.
And here I cannot help saying, that, if every
one who expects to go into company on a
particular evening would go to books and
obtain one valuable thought, and use it, giv-
ing the name of the author if he saw fit,
the individuals would, every one, be more re-
spected, and the company be saved the mor-
tification of saying all the small, light, and
foolish things possible. In a world contain-
ing the thoughts and the beautiful creations
of all the past, the man or the woman who
cannot carry to the common gathering at least
one valuable thought ought not to be toler-
ated. Not long since, I overheard a gentle-
man roundly asserting (he had read it in a
penny newspaper that afternoon) to a lady,
that Lord Bacon was not a great man, —
only second or third rate. And the lady said,
' Indeed,' and looked pleased, and vacant,
and had no more to say in the defence of that
immortal mind, than if he had said that West-
phalia hams and bacon are pretty much the
same thing. An educated young lady who

NOT A SHORT JOB.

49

will cry, ' Indeed ! ' when puppies thus dig on
the graves of giants, and say, ' There 's nothing
worth scratching for here,' ought to have no
society more intellectual than a lap-dog with
a blue ribbon about his neck.

" 7. One more object to be mentioned is to
create habits of patient toil.

" If a man has a field of grass to mow, or a
wheel to build, or if a lady has an article to
sew, or a nice cake to make,' each one can
see, at every step, there is progress made.
Each feels that it is but a short job, and then
it will be done. But in study, the results of
a day's labor are seen to be so small, if seen
at all, that there is nothing to cheer. You
cannot show what you have accomplished.
You can see that the hill looks higher and
steeper, and that you have climbed hard all
the day, but you cannot see any progress.
You can see that to-morrow will be like
to-day; and that it is toil, toil, from day
to day, and from week to week, without
much, if any, apparent advance. It is un-
mitigated labor. You do not have the lux-
ury of the sweat of the brow, as in bodily
4

50 • IRON-HEARTED BELL.

toil. How much patience is needed to get
one lesson in Latin, or to make a single good
recitation in algebra ! Now you must multi-
ply this toil as many times over as you have
lessons. In the course of a week, and a year,
how much is the patience exercised ! And
this toil, this perseverance, this endurance of
what is hard and what we naturally dislike,
is the very discipline which we must meet all
the way through life. Toil, patient toil, is
our lot, and there is no place where the young
can learn it so well as at school. At home,
the young lady will now and then make an
effort, — she will take some extra steps or
stitches, and perhaps for a few hours or days
will really toil. But these seasons are excep-
tions. She visits, she has company, she sews
when she pleases, reads when she feels like it,
and thinks when she cannot help it. There
is no system of patient toil. There is no rigid,
unyielding bell, that has no bowels of com-
passion, and nothing human about it but a
tongue, calling for punctuality, for study, and
for attainment. But at school, lesson follows
lesson. You may yawn or you may weep,

HABIT OF TOIL. 51

but there is no escape. There comes the
hour, and your class will be there, and you
must be on hand and ready, or you lose your
standing. Every day impresses the habit of
toil upon you, till eventually, strange as it
may seem, it becomes easy, and finally pleas-
ant. It is not merely that you can study, can
apply the mind, and can conquer your les-
sons, but you have the habit of doing so.
Hence it is, that the girl who has been the
longest at school, and has done most to ac-
quire this habit, finds it much easier to study
than those who lack this habit."

" O father, you don't mean to keep me at
school till I have got such a habit of study
that I shall love the toil, do you ? "

" That will depend on circumstances. I
am now showing you what you study for, —
the object of studying at all. And I believe I
have given you enough for once."

" Yes, indeed, but after all, you have not
told me how to study. That 's what I want
to know."

" That we must discuss at our next break-
fast."

CHAPTER IV.

HOW TO STUDY.

Witch Stories. The Question proposed. Study dry "Work.
Look it out again. Bishop Jewel's Memory. Conquer,
step by step. A High Standard. A Finished Young Lady.
Capacity wanted. Chain the Attention. Author of this
Mischief. Dr. Gregory. Ship obeying the Helm. Alge-
bra forgotten. Waters filtered. Cambridge and Oxford.
Taste cultivated. Duty become Pleasure.

In our nursery books, we read of seven-
leagued boots, with which a man can take
twenty miles at a step ; and we have heard of
halters by which witches turned their hus-
bands into horses, and in a single night could
drive them over continents ; and strange tales
are told at twilight, of rooks as large as a
church, whose flight darkened the air, and in
whose claws a man might be carried over
oceans; and children have trembled at the

THE QUESTION PROPOSED. 53

thought of cannon into which a weary travel-
ler might creep for lodgings, and at daylight
find that he had been shot into a foreign
country, where were strange faces and an un-
known language : but we have never yet read
of a machine which could make the ignorant
mind cultivated and refined, without toil and
hard labor. There are no seven-leagued boots
that enable us to go through all the limits of
science, and gather all the rich fruits there
found, in a single day. There is no halter
that can subdue the wandering attention, and
discipline the imagination, in a few hours.
There is no one who can have a cultivated
and well-disciplined mind without personal
labor and great effort. You may acquire ease
of manners, and a superficial character, very
easily ; but you cannot think, or have a mind
capable of judging and deciding rightly, with-
out hard study. But how shall I study ? How
learn ? How do the thing required ? I shall
spend this chapter in the attempt to tell you.

1. Make up your mind that study is hard
work.

Many things make it hard. Any thing to

54 STUDY DRY WORK.

which we are unaccustomed is difficult. It is
tiresome to sit down and remain in the same
position, to confine the attention, to control
the wandering thoughts, to take hold of a
thing that is new and which you do not
understand, to grapple with difficulties con-
stantly arising. It is not like walking, when
you can see just how fast you move, and see
that every step sets you onward ; it is not like
your sewing, when you can see that every
stitch makes one less ; it is not like any
labor of the body. It is dry work, and some-
times it is cry-iuork. You would not need
teachers to urge and assist you, parents to en-
courage you, classes to incite you, school-
mates to watch you and compete with you,
and the bell to admonish you every half-hour,
if it were not hard work. Expect then that
every lesson will require hard application ;
that there are no pillows of down for the
mind in study, but at every step it must be
girded up, goaded to effort, and pushed on to
toil.

2. Go over your lesson again and again.

If you have a translation to recite, a prop-

LOOK IT OUT AGAIN. 55

osition to demonstrate, an explanation to
give, go over it as many times as possible.
Sometimes you have a new word to translate
from the Latin, German, or French. You
look it out in the Dictionary, and yet, in a
few minutes, it has passed from your memory.
"What shall you do ? Simply look it out
again and again, and as often as is necessary.
A distinguished professor of languages in
one of our colleges has been heard to say,
that he has looked out a single word in his
lexicon over fifty times ! When we teach a
child his letters, he can hardly confine his at-
tention for a moment, and we depend on rep-
etition to fix the word permanently in his
mind. I cannot speak too highly of review-
ing the same lesson over and over again.
Were I to instruct, I might err in reviewing
too much, if that is possible. At any rate, I
should repeat the same lesson very often.
But in learning your lesson you will be in no
danger of going over it too many times.
Once will not make you master of it, nor will
twice. When you hear a young lady say
that she can get her lesson by reading it over

56 bishop jewel's memory.

once or twice, you may {eel sure she has not
got it, or if she has, it will not stay long with
her. *What comes quickly goes quickly. And
do not feel discouraged, if, af first, and for
years, the mind moves slowly. If you will
faithfully go over the lesson, again and again,
you will find that your memory will grow ac-
curate and reliable. " Bishop Jewel had natu-
rally a very strong memory, which he so im-
proved by art, that he could exactly repeat
whatever he wrote after once reading. Bish-
op Hooper once, to try him, wrote about forty
Welsh and Irish words. Mr. Jewel, going
a little while aside, and recollecting them in
his memory, and reading them twice or thrice
over, said them by heart, backward and for-
ward, exactly in the same order they were set
down. And he taught his tutor, Mr. Park-
hurst, the same art."

3. Resolve to understand every lesson as
far as you go.

Some have the idea that, if they do not
quite see through this lesson, they shall the
next, and that will do quite as well. Be sure
that every unconquered difficulty will, by and

CONQUER, STEP BY STEP. 57

by, become an enemy behind you, and will
be exceedingly annoying. In mastering one
hard lesson to-day, you conquer half a "dozen
for the future. You teach the mind to be
careful and patient, and you acquire the prin-
ciples which are to be applied hereafter. The
lesson may be a dry one, or a difficult one.
No matter. Determine that you will conquer
it, and understand all that can be known
about it. A distinguished scholar says he
owes his success to the faithful observance of
his rule, always to believe that whatever
could be done by any person, could, if he
would take sufficient pains, be done by him.
It is probably no harder for you to sit down
and thoroughly understand a lesson, than it
was once for the mind that made your text-
book, or than for the teacher who disciplined
his mind by study so as to be qualified to in-
struct you. None find "any other way to be-
come scholars but to understand each and
every lesson as they go along. To say that I
have my task so that I can recite pretty well,
or so that my teacher will not find fault, is not
enough. If you find, after using all your

58

A FINISHED YOUNG LADY.

own efforts, that there is any thing you can-
not understand, then ask for aid from those
who can render it, but do not leave it till the
obstacle is removed. Every such negligence
will be a great trouble to you hereafter.

4. Do not undertake too many studies.

If there is any one thing which prevents
our daughters from receiving a thorough edu-
cation, it is the feeling, among parents and
daughters, that one must be educated, fin-
ished, accomplished and polished and com-
plete, and all must be done by the time she is
about eighteen years old. In order to do this,
the school must be a kind of mental hot-bed.
She must understand all the English branches,
of course, and the parents will be very much
gratified if they can say she studied Latin
and German and Italian and French, of
course. Yea, she spoke it with a native
teacher. And then she must be familiar with
algebra; geometry must be at her tongue's
end; she must be at home in history and
criticism ; she must take music-lessons, and
sing divinely ; she must draw in crayon, and
paint in water and oil colors : she must

CAPACITY WANTED. 59

learn to read and write blank verse, — to say
nothing about dancing and love ; — all this
before she is eighteen. This to be sure is
something ; but in our boyhood we heard of
an old lady in Connecticut, who washed and
baked and brewed, made soap and a cheese,
and read the Bible through, all in one day!
We wonder if some of these young ladies who
are such intellectual prodigies may not be re-
lated to her. By the time our boys are fitted
and qualified to go to college, and begin then-
education, our daughters must have theirs all
completed ; and they must not only stop at
the/given time and place, but they must have
gone over all that is thought necessary to a
minute, thorough, full, .accomplished, fashion-
able, essential and non-essential education.
The lady who inquired of the teacher what
more her daughter wanted, and was told,
" Nothing, Madam, but a capacity," and who
replied, " Well, get her one, for her father is
rich and able to pay for it," was right, if we
only knew where the article is to be had. In
college, we never attempt to carry on more
than three studies at once : but our young

60 CHAIN THE ATTENTION.

ladies will take more than twice that number,
and make — nothing of them ! Were we to
advise, we would never have the mind tasked
with more than three at once. By taking too
many, you distract the mind, and by turning
from one subject to another too often, weary
and exhaust it. " John Williams, an English
prelate, used to allot one month to a certain
province of learning, esteeming variety almost
as refreshing as cessation from labor, at the
end of which he would take up some other
matter, and so on till he came round to his
former courses. This method he observed
especially in his theological studies, and he
found his account in it." In amusements we
want change often. But in study, if we get
the mind turned in a particular direction for a
time, we want to keep it there till it has ob-
tained strength.

5. When engaged in study, give all your
attention to it.

This is a very hard thing to do. You sit
down determined to learn that lesson well.
Before you are aware of it, your thoughts are
somewhere else. A figure in the dress of a

AUTHOR OF THIS MISCHIEF. 61

schoolmate, the color of a bright ribbon on
her neck, a stray lock of hair, the rustling of
a paper, the striking of a clock, the scratch-
ing of a pen, any noise, any movement,
may divert your attention and turn off your
thoughts. You bring them back to the lesson
and begin again. Before long they are off
again, — you are at home, you are conversing
with your friends, you are in company, you
are among belles and beaux, small talk and
all talk. Now again you try to bring the
mind back to the hard, dry lesson. And how
reluctantly does it come ! The lesson grows
harder every moment, and you sigh, " What
a tedious lesson ! Did any poor creature ever
have to study so hard before ? were there ever
such strict teachers ? " And so you feel ready
to quarrel with your lesson, and with your
teachers, with the school, and with any body
and every body but the very author of all this
mischief, yourself! When you sit down to
that lesson, determine that you will give the
mind so wholly to it, that you will hear
nothing, see nothing, care for nothing, till you
have conquered the task. Let the paper

62 DR. GREGORY.

rustle, the clock strike, curly locks go astray,
but do not let them disturb you. But,
above all, do not permit your thoughts to
wander to things at a distance, — building
castles in the air, or thinking how delightful
it would be to be here or to be there, how
pleasant to do this or do that. One thing
at a time. Down, down with your mind and
courage to that lesson. Give all your soul to
it for the present. Chain the attention, the
thoughts, all to it, and you will soon feel that,
by the wrestling, you have acquired strength.
Dr. Gregory says : " With a few exceptions
(so few, indeed, that they need scarcely to be
taken into a practical estimate), any person
may learn any thing' upon which he sets his
heart. To insure success, he has simply so
to discipline his mind as to check its vagran-
cies, to cure it of its constant proneness to
be doing two or more things at a time, and to
compel it to direct its combined energies,
simultaneously, to a single object, and thus to
do one thing at once. This I consider as one
of the most difficult, but one of the most use-
ful, lessons a young person can learn." One

ONLY FOR HALF AN HOUR. 63

reason why the memory of the blind is so
tenacious is probably that, not being diverted
by objects surrounding them, they can con-
centrate their attention firmly and fixedly.
Nor need this become wearisome, for you will
rest often. The school exercises will be so
arranged that every hour, or perhaps every
half-hour, you will be released. Professional
men have every week to sit down with the
pen in hand, and bend the mind, and task all
their powers, and write three hours at a time,
without rising from the chair, or laying down
the pen. I would willingly engage thus to sit
and labor three hours daily, for seven days in
the week, if that would accomplish all I feel
bound to do ; and surely a young lady can
give her mind and her attention to her lesson
for half an hour, when she knows that at the
end of that time she will be released.

6. Study any thing that is assigned to you
cheerfully.

How often do you hear scholars say, and
they think it oftener than they express their
dissatisfaction, " This study will be of no
possible use to me ; in after life I shall never

64

SHIP OBEYING THE HELM.

use it, and why must I study it now ? "
Whenever this discontent arises, you forget
the objects of study as illustrated in the
last chapter. Very likely you may never
be called to use the particular study ; but you
do not study for the sake of the knowledge
you lay up in your memory for future use,
but more especially for the purpose of dis-
ciplining the mind, — teaching it how to
think, to discriminate, to acquire, to call up
and to use its own powers. You are teach-
ing the ship to obey the helm hereafter. You
are gaining power over your own attention
and thoughts. You are learning to control
your powers and faculties at your will. If
the study of mathematics, languages, or ma-
gic, will do that, then study these. The ner-
vous child might be set to hold a gold watch
with care, not because he will be called upon,
in after life, to hold gold watches for any
length of time, but because it aids him to
control himself, and it teaches him to be care-
ful. We make the colt draw the bush around
the field, not because it will be his future em-
ployment to draw bushes, but because we

ALGEBRA FORGOTTEN. 65

wish to teach him to draw, and not to be
frightened at what is to come after him. You
may, or you may not, wish to instruct other
minds hereafter ; but whether you do or not.
every lesson which you now thoroughly un-
derstand will be of use all the way through
life. We care not whether you ever see an
algebra again after you have mastered it.
The benefits of studying it do not depend on
the question whether you ever again see those
problems which now cost you so many hours
of patient labor. The solutions may not re-
main, but the benefit of having conquered
these difficulties will not pass away.

The waters that have been thoroughly
filtered remain pure, though the filter is no
longer used. So that, whatever study is
thought best for you to pursue, take hold of
it cheerfully, and let no foolish notion that it
will not be useful in life prevent your doing
that study full justice.

7. Select those studies which are best to
strengthen the mind.

Young ladies who are brought up in good
society will have abundant opportunities to
5

66 CAMBRIDGE AND OXFORD.

improve their taste and to cultivate and re-
fine their manners. But if they neglect to
strengthen the faculties of the mind at school,
they can never do it. To do this, they can
use mental arithmetic. Scarcely any exercise
can be more valuable than the practice which
enables you to carry accurately long processes
of addition or multiplication "in the head."
And we must confess that we take great de-
light in hearing a young lady recite well in
algebra, and in Euclid, and if they could and
would go on to the higher mathematics, we
should be still more pleased. For there is no
study, which, on the whole, is so good to
strengthen the mind as mathematics. In
studying Latin or Greek, you acquire a dis-
criminating power over language, and learn
what is the force, position, and strength of
words. In mental philosophy you learn how
the mind works ; but to teach it to work, and
how to work hard, give us mathematics.
Though it may be that Cambridge and Ox-
ford, so long rivals, and so eagerly contending
for preeminence, one devoting the strength in
mathematics and the other ranking the dead

TASTE CULTIVATED. 67

languages as of the first importance, have at
last decided rightly^ when each tries to unite
both branches of study.

As to what are called accomplishments, —
they doubtless have their use and their place.
But whether they compensate for the im-
mense amount of time spent on them is an-
other question. For example, I have often
thought that, if half the time spent in learning
to draw and to paint were spent, under a
competent teacher, in learning how to judge
of paintings and drawings, how to discrimi-
nate and enjoy what is really beautiful, it
would be far more advantageous to most
young ladies. To be a poor artist is not very
desirable ; but to be a good judge of the works
of art, is a very high and pleasurable accom-
plishment ; and I am sometimes led to wish
that the same expense, which is frequently
laid out in teaching the young ladies of a
seminary to draw and paint, could be laid out
in procuring beautiful pictures, with a real art-
ist to come in for a few days each term and
lecture upon them, and teach how to judge
and how to enjoy good paintings, drawings,

68 . DUTY BECOME PLEASURE.

and engravings. I am not sure that the ex-
periment would not command the approba-
tion of the wisest and best. How many learn
to appreciate beautiful poetry who never try
to write a line of verse !

You will see from what I have said, that
study is a thing which no one can do for you.
Authors may prepare good text-books, carpen-
ters may make pleasant desks and beautiful
rooms for study, and teachers may be ready
to aid and encourage you, and, after all, no-
body can study for you. It is the toil of the
brain, and it must be done by yourself alone.
It will always be hard, but easier the more
and longer that you study. God has so made
us, that the duty which is at first unpleasant
will become easier and lighter, till at last it is
a positive pleasure. The first rounds of the
ladder are the most difficult to mount. The
first part of the estate is the most difficult to
obtain. The first few days of a journey are
the most wearisome. By every effort you
make, by every difficulty you overcome, by
every successful bending of the mind and at-
tention to your lesson, you are acquiring

THE MIND OBEDIENT TO THE WILL. 69

power and laying up strength for future
years. You cannot become a scholar, nor
can you discipline your mind, in a day ; but
every day you can take a step forward, and if
faithful to yourself, you can learn, while at
school, how to make your mind an obedient
and a willing servant to the will, how to
quarry out beautiful and polished stones from
the deep earth, and how to create, for the soul,
a palace of truth, of light, and of joy.

CHAPTER V.

SOCIAL DUTIES OF THE SCHOOL-GIRL.

Power of Oratory. Constant Impression. Almost a Nun.
Poor Eelations forgotten. Small Coin of Life. Professor
Prancke's Advice. Crows' Nests. A Beautiful Compari-
son. The always Miserable. Mirth and Cheerfulness.
What you will desire to recall. Severest Punishment.
Out of our own Shadow. School-girls not Matrons. One
Burden lightened. Desperate Intimacies. Carry Sun-
shine with you. Not afraid of Responsibility.

The tongue was given us as a means of
pleasure, of mental and moral improvement.
The human voice is the most powerful instru-
ment to move the soul, so far as we know,
that ever came from the hand of God. And
the mightiest power which this instrument
can exert is in speech. The utterance of mu-
sic can thrill to a very high degree ; but there
are only a very few who are greatly moved

POWER OF ORATORY. 71

by it. It requires a peculiar organization of
the human body to feel the full power of mu-
sic. But every body is carried away by the
orator. He can move and sway the heart,
and thus the feelings, the mind, the actions,
and the whole man, as no songster can ever
do. There is no voice that will startle or
move you like the voice of human agony. In
our daily social intercourse, we use the voice
as the great instrument by which to com-
municate our thoughts and feelings. This
includes the words uttered, the tones and ca-
dences of the voice, and the countenance of
the speaker. It is the shortest and surest
method by which one mind can reach and
communicate with another. And conversa-
tion, which usually includes all our social
intercourse with one another, is always and
at all times for good or for evil. You make
a constant impression of some kind or other
on all with whom you come in contact.

One of the difficulties of the school-girl,
in regard to this subject, is, that she feels no
responsibility in regard to her social inter-
course with her companions. To be sure,

72 ALMOST A NUN.

she would not insult an instructor, and she
would not be rude and unlady-like before
visitors, and she would not be untidy in her
personal appearance in the school-room, but
in private, when with none but her mates,
may she not throw off responsibility and say
and do what she pleases ? I reply, Yes, if she
pleases to say and to do only what is proper
and becoming. Some young ladies, on going
to school and meeting new-comers, are fond
of entertaining their new friends with doleful
accounts of their personal sufferings, — what
unheard of sacrifices they are making to at-
tend school ; what very fine houses and furni-
ture, horses and dresses, they are leaving be-
hind; what genteel society they have moved
in ; and how awful it is thus to be shut away
and secluded in the crowded room of the
school! She seems to repine most of all, if
she could only express herself, that she finds
a new standard of measurement in her new
position, that houses and furniture, horses,
dresses, and even admirers, are nothing here ;
but is she a scholar? Has she mind and
diligence, industry and a desire to improve?

POOR RELATIONS FORGOTTEN. 73

Some want to talk only about themselves,
and what pertains to themselves. And per-
haps selfishness, the most unpardonable self-
ishness in the world, is manifested in our
daily social intercourse. We want to spend
the time in talking about ourselves or our
great and rich friends, but say very little
about our poor relations, though every body
has poor relations, however high they may
carry their heads. It is a great talent to be
able to be agreeable in conversation. The great
secret of it is to be willing to forget yourself,
and try to please others. " To hear patiently
and to answer precisely," says Rochefoucault,
" are the great perfections of conversation.
One reason why we meet so few persons who
are reasonable and agreeable in conversation
is, that there is scarcely any one who does
not think more of what he has to say than
of answering what is said to him." When
you hear another talk, do not try to think
what you are to say when he stops. Fix
your mind and keep your mind on what he
is saying, and your reply will come of itself,
if you have any reply. The great secret of

74 SMALL COIN OF LIFE.

making others happy in our intercourse with
them is to forget ourselves entirely, and let
all our interests, for the time, be swallowed up
in theirs. " Our happiness depends less upon
the art of pleasing than upon a uniform dis-
position to please. The difference is that
which exists between ceremony and sin-
cerity." It is not merely for the sake of pass-
ing your time, or of being entertained, that
you have intercourse one with another. But
you wish to make it an influence in sweet-
ening the disposition, cultivating your kind
feelings, and drawing out your benevolence.
It is the small coin of life, no one piece of
which is of very great value, but with it we
make vastly more purchases than with our
bank-notes and heavy gold. It is in the
power of most school-girls to learn more
about conversation at school, as well as about
books, than anywhere else. Here you are
equals : and every one has the power of di-
recting the conversation in the right way for
improvement. " Cultivate," says Professor
Francke, " a talent for directing the conver-
sation in a proper channel. Never change

crows' nests. 75

the conversation from a profitable subject.
Much is to be learned, both in discipline of
the mind and in the collection of facts, by-
much conversation on the same topic. Never
interrupt a person who is speaking, and be
silent if you yourself are interrupted." %

Some young misses think that the charac-
ter of a hoyden, a kind of thoughtless romp,
is a beautiful disguise under which they can
conceal themselves, and make folly and rude-
ness pass for wisdom and propriety. But they
forget that we cannot respect the calf, though
we may be amused at his gambols. We
cannot love where we cannot respect. We
have had the misfortune to know a very few
ladies who wore pantaloons on occasions,
and who could climb trees for crows' nests
before breakfast, and leap fences and shoot
with a double-barrelled gun; but we never
found it in us to respect them. You always
draw yourself up when you see such a young
lady, not knowing what may come next. You
can imagine how horses would run side by
side, but when you see the heifer taking her
stand to run, you do not know what the crea-

76 A BEAUTIFUL COMPARISON.

ture may do. Let no one feel that she can
challenge admiration by putting off her sex
and laying aside the delicacy of the true
lady, even though she might come out in
the skin and the voice of the lion.

Trifles make up life ; and " true politeness
is fyenevolence in trifles." You cannot ex-
pect every day to do some great thing to
confer happiness around you; but every day
you can do little acts of courtesy. You can
forbear to utter an unkind remark, a cutting
sarcasm, an unpleasant truth, and a mortify-
ing remark ; and you can by tone and voice
and words every day make one or more
happy. If you cannot remove mountains
from the paths of your companions, you can
show kindness and gentleness. " A gentle
spirit is like ripe fruit, which bends so low
that it is at the mercy of every one who
chooses to pluck it, while the harder fruit
keeps out of reach. No one living in society
can be independent." It is small, frequent
wounds which are so hard to bear. The horse
may now and then step on your foot and
cause you great pain ; but we suffer far more

THE ALWAYS MISERABLE. 77

from the impudent horse-fly, whose foot only
tickles as he walks over your nose.

One great thing to be attended to is an
unflinching, unalterable cheerfulness. Some
people have no sunny side to their houses.
They eat, drink, sleep, and summer only on
the north, cold, damp, mouldy side of the
house. They seem to feel that, if they are not
martyrs to religion, they must be to circum-
stances. They do not know how it is, but
they have more trials, more misfortunes, than
any body else. All the colors of the rainbow
are gathered into blue, and the clear sunshine
would be pleasant, were it not that it is always
followed by bad weather. The moon would
look bright, but she, too, is surrounded by a
ring, which foretells a long storm. The spring
would be pleasant, but it gets here so late.
The summer would do better, but it is always
so hot. The autumn is sad, because the
leaves decay and fall; and who does not
know that winter is all horrors ! If there be a
great, a certain curse, from which you should
strive and pray to be delivered, it is a mur-
muring disposition.

78 MIRTH AND CHEERFULNESS.

Some, however, mistake mirth for cheerful-
ness. They feel that it is enough, if now and
then they throw off gloom, and break through
their heart-rending trials, and become sweet
and mirthful. This, perhaps, is a little better
than nothing. But it is not what you want.
Let the beautiful pen of Addison instruct
you. " I have always," says he, " preferred
cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider
as an act, the former as a habit of the mind.
Mirth is short and transient ; cheerfulness
fixed and permanent. Those are often raised
to the greatest transports of mirth who are
subject to the greatest depressions of melan-
choly : on the contrary, cheerfulness, though
it does not give the mind such an exquisite
gladness, prevents us from falling into any
depths of sorrow. Mirth is like a flash of
lightning, that breaks through the gloom of
clouds, and glitters for a moment ; cheerfulness
keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and
fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity."

One good method of reformation in wrong
habits, and in little things, when you are
away at school, is to review your life and see

WHAT YOU WILL DESIRE TO RECALL. 79

how you have treated your parents. If I mis-
take not, you will see some sad pictures,
when memory comes to hold up her canvas,
and show you the past. Those little acts of
disobedience, unkindness, which you hardly
thought of at the time, should now come up
before you and instruct you, not merely how
you will behave towards them in future, but

*

how you will now treat your companions.
What we do and feel to-day will come up in
the review hereafter. Charles Lamb, in writ-
ing to his friend, thus speaks of these memo-
ries in his own case. " O my friend, I think
sometimes, could I recall the days that are
past, which among them should I choose.
Not those ' merrier days,' not the ' pleasant days
of hope,' not those ' wanderings with a fair-
haired maid,' which I have so often and so
feelingly regretted, but the days, Coleridge, of
a mother's fondness for her school-boy. What
would I give to call her back to earth for one
day, on my knees to ask her pardon for all
those little asperities of temper, which, from
time to time, have given her gentle spirit
pain ! And the day, my friend, I trust will

80 SEVEREST PUNISHMENT.

come ; there will be time enough for kind
offices of love, if heaven's eternal years shall
be ours. Hereafter, her meek spirit shall not
reproach me. O my friend, cultivate the
filial feelings ! and let no man think himself
released from the kind charities of relation-
ship. These shall give him peace at the last ;
these are the best foundation for every species
of benevolence." The young lady should
ever bear in mind, that the short answer, the
impatient look, the unkind tone of voice, and
the irritating reply, are not injuries inflicted
on her companions merely. They recoil and
do her a greater injury than they do others;
and it is thus that a "little injury done to
another is a great injury done to ourselves.
The severest punishment of an injury is the
consciousness of having done it ; and no man
suffers more than he who is turned over to
the pain of repentance." The heart, in its
outgoings and ingatherings, is the seat of our
enjoyment. You want to draw from the
hearts around you, as from wells of pure,
clear, fresh, and unfailing pleasure. So do
others wish to draw from you ; and the max-

OUT OF OUR OWN SHADOW. 81

im is as old as Seneca, that, " if you wish to
gain affection, you must bestow it." And
she who does not make it a matter of prin-
ciple and of calculation to do at least one act
of love every day, is not out of her own dark
shadow. Make it a matter of conscience, at
all events, and at any cost, not to speak evil
of any one. It would be better still not to
hear evil spoken. It always takes two to
make, a slander, one to speak and one to
hear ; and it is sometimes difficult to decide
which is the more guilty. Do not keep ac-
count of the good things you have said or
done for others, and watch for their return.
" Say all the good you can of all," says a
quaint writer, " but if you would have evil
spoken of any, turn that office over to the
Devil." You will hereafter remember and
think of one another, just as you now ap-
pear to one another. No time or circum-
stances can alter the impressions which you
now make ; and if you wish hereafter to be
remembered by your associates with respect
and kindness and love, you must show a
kind, friendly, and unselfish heart.
6

82 SCHOOL-GIRLS NOT MATRONS.

You will not suppose I am trying to make
the life of the school-girl a formal, stiff, always-
guarded condition. Far from it. I expect you
will be school-girls, and not prim matrons. I
expect you will do childish acts and say child-
ish things ; but what I want is, that these lit-
tle things which you do and say shall be
done and said with a view to make others
happy : it is, that you make it a point in all
that you do, whether it be to aid in a lesson,
comfort in a sick-room, or only to pick up a
pin, to do it all for the purpose of mak-
ing others happy. We are the most appro-
priately dressed when others give our dress
no thought ; we are the most happy when we
do not think of our own happiness, and most
likely to be beloved, when we have no
thought for ourselves. Treat your associ-
ates, not as young ladies who have met you
here to compare notes, to see who has the
most property, the finest homes, the gayest
wardrobe, the brightest eye, or the fairest face,
but as friends who have been thrown together
on the sunniest spot in life, to see how you
can aid and bless one another in providing

DESPERATE INTIMACIES. ^3

food and discipline of heart and of the intel-
lect for all future life. She who can banish
one shade of anxiety or of sadness from the
face of a companion, has done a good deed,
and she who has lightened one burden, or
poured a single flash of light into the sorrow-
ing heart, will not lose her reward.

It is a mistake to suppose it is best to see
how few friends you can make, and how inti-
mate you can become with them. It is the
way with school-girls, often, to clan together,
to select two or three unspeakably dear and
intimate associates, — sworn friends whom
they will correspond with at least twice a
week, all the rest of their lives ; and they feel
that this is the best way. But I would recom-
mend you to try, not how intimate your friends
may be, but how many you can make your
friends. Endeavor to live in bright sunshine,
not always mourning and trying to feel how
unfortunate you have been in your room, in
your room-mate, in your teacher, in your stud-
ies, in your associates, but how many things
you have to make you happy. In your corre-
spondence home, do not try to see how doleful

84 CARRY SUNSHINE WITH YOU.

a story you can make out, — what sufferings
you have to undergo, what sacrifices you are
making, and how you are counting the weeks
and the days, the hours and the minutes,
when the prison-doors will be opened, and the
poor sufferer may again set her face towards
that paradise, — home, — which was any thing
but a paradise while she was in it : do not try
to see how much romantic suffering you can
endure in six months, and strive to make your-
self believe that you really are almost sacri-
ficed on the altar of learning ; but try to make
the beams of the morning, the sweet breath
of early . flowers, the warm light of the sun,
and the beautiful world that surrounds you,
all cheer you on in your duties ; and let your
face carry sunshine into every room that you
enter, into every recitation that you make,
and into every thing you do. Remember
that there are few places in this world where
happiness may not be found. But like
the gold-dust, it must be first sifted out
of the sand, or the rock must be broken,
pounded, and perhaps smelted, ere you obtain
it. And when found, it is not in great lumps,

NOT AFRAID OF RESPONSIBILITY. 85

but in grains. So our happiness is made
up of grains, which we must pick up par-
ticle by particle. In the same way we must
impart it. In no situation will you ever have
it in your power to add so fast to your
capital as while at school. And your social
intercourse and habits affect your own happi-
ness, and the well-being of those around you
now, and will help to shape your and their
happiness, for all the future of your life. Feel
that you have not come here to shun responsi-
bility, but to assume it ; not come merely to
receive good, but also to bestow it ; not only
to receive smiles, but to scatter them; not
alone to be improved, but to aid in improving
others. It is not the place to have or to be
dolls; but the place and the time to make
moral and intellectual greatness the standard,
and thus humble the pride; to subdue the
temper, and bow the will, and govern the
heart, and thus make you tolerable to your-
self, and lovely in the eyes of others.

CHAPTER VI.

TKIALS AND TEMPTATIONS.

New Trials. Better Scholars than you. Friends will be dis-
appointed. "Wonderful Blacksmith. No Excuse for you.
Rock Slates and Sea-egg Pencils. Not too late. So much
done. Parents' Mistake. A Good-for-nothing Machine.
Too great a Difference. The Best Response. Letters like
Chimneys. Starving Pupil. Genteel Prisons. Why not
spend Money? School not for the Rich alone. Daniel
Webster's Congratulation. East Winds must come. Cow-
ard won the Day.

Every situation has its inconveniences,
which we call trials ; and, of course, every
new situation must have new trials. Some-
times these seem heavy because they are
new, though in reality they may not be as
severe as those we have left behind. At
home, perhaps, you had every indulgence ;
you were petted and caressed, and every

NEW TRIALS. 87

thing as far as possible was made to bend to
your pleasure. But when you reach your
place in the school, there is no partiality, no
petting your whims, no caressing your wishes.
You have to take your place among a multi-
tude of your equals, and your place seems a
cold one. Their interests are to be looked
after as well as yours, and they must receive,
each, as much attention as you do. This is a
new trial. It is one that you did not think
of, and it meets you many times every day.
It is very hard to come to the conclusion that
we are of no more consequence than others,
and are to receive no more attention.

You have the trial, too, of finding by pain-
ful experience that there are others who go
before you. They have manners more agree-
able, dispositions more mild and winning,
memories more retentive, minds that are
quicker to seize and understand a subject,
thoughts that are brighter, and an imagina-
tion that flashes more than yours ; you meet
with those who have had better early advan-
tages, who were better instructed in child-
hood, and who, consequently, can better com-

88 FRIENDS WILL BE DISAPPOINTED.

mand the mind than you can. You thought,
before leaving home, that study, away from
home, would be easy; that you could stand
among the first in the school ; but you find, as
a matter of fact, that many are far above you.
This is a severe trial. You feel, perhaps,
mortified, to find that you had over-estimated
yourself, and that your friends had made the
same mistake. You feel, perhaps, that you
can never be what your friends expect ; and
that the great thing which you have learned
by coming to school is, that you know but
a very little. Now out of these circumstances
arise certain temptations into which you are
in danger of falling.

1. The temptation to indolence.

This temptation is so universal, so power-
ful, that it seems to be a part of our very
nature. It meets us at all times and places ;
before we rise in the morning, it comes and
whispers to us ; when we plan to do any
thing, indolence bids us put it off till to-mor-
row, or to do it by halves, or to do something-
else first, or to try some easier way. When
you find that a lesson comes hard, she tells

WONDERFUL BLACKSMITH. 89

you that your advantages have heretofore
been so poor, that you are not^o be expected
to get it as well as others. You forget that
there are no circumstances so unfavorable,
but that we can learn, and learn a great deal.
" In one of our Southern States is a colored
man, who has recently been purchased of his
master to be sent as a missionary to Africa.
He is a Presbyterian, and has the confidence
of all who know him. This slave is a black-
smith. He first learned the letters of the
alphabet by inducing his master's children to
make the letters, one at a time, on the door
of his shop. He next learned to put them to-
gether, and to make words, and was soon
able to read. He then commenced the study
of arithmetic, then of English grammar and
geography. He is now able to read the Greek
Testament with ease, and has obtained some
knowledge of Latin, and even commenced
Hebrew, which he was compelled to give up
for want of suitable books. He is now read-
ing theology, in which he makes good prog-
ress. He is as remarkable for piety and
humility as for diligence. He studies every

90

NO EXCUSE FOR YOU.

night till eleven or twelve o'clock, and intel-
ligent lawyers, in conversing with him, feel
that he is their equal. He is between thirty
and thirty-five years of age."

Now what excuse have you for indolence,
when you see that, under the worst circum-
stances, diligence will raise the mind. There
are no strata so thick under which the mind
can be buried, that diligence cannot burst
them and cause the mind to work up through.
If any ever have an apology for indolence,
it is those who are crushed by poverty, dark-
ened by ignorance, and depressed by their cir-
cumstances. But the individual who has
every possible advantage, as you have, should
blush to be overcome by idleness. If the
neglected and the lowly can bend or break,
and rise up over all difficulties, surely you
can do so too. Mr. Pritchard, a missionary
from one of the South Sea Islands, in speak-
ing to a London audience, stated that the na-
tive boys belonging to one of the South Sea
Islands, having no slates, and no writing-
books, supply the lack by going to the moun-
tains and breaking off a piece of the rock, one

ROCK SLATES AND SEA-EGG PENCILS. 91

side of which they smooth by rubbing it upon
a coral reef. They then dive into the sea,
and, breaking off one of the spires of the sea-
egg, use it as a pencil. The speaker held in
his hand one of these substitutes for slates
while giving the account.

And when we remember that Samuel Lee,
Professor of Hebrew in the University of
Cambridge, England, was seventeen years of
age before he conceived the idea of learning a
foreign language ; that out of his small earn-
ings as carpenter he purchased at a book-
stall a volume, which, when read, he ex-
changed for another, and so by degrees he
advanced in knowledge; that without any
living assistant, and burdened with cares, he
still pressed on in his course ; that he had to
pass directly from hard labor to study ; that
during the six years previous to his twenty-
eighth year, he omitted none of the hours
usually appropriated to manual labor ; and
that at the age of thirty-one he was master
of seventeen different languages, which he
was actually teaching, — we shall be slow to
allow that indolence ought to be allowed in a

92 NOT TOO LATE.

t

school of young ladies. But unless you are
very determined, this enemy will follow you
with velvet step into the school-room, and
into the recitation-room, and into your private
room. Bolts and bars will not keep him out ;
he can scale walls, leap over boundaries and
proprieties, and even creep through key-holes.
Do not allow him to come and mourn with
you, that you had so poor advantages in early
life, that it 's in vain to try now. It is never
too late to do rightly and properly, and with
our might. Do not let him whisper in your
ear, that you can stay in the school but a
short time, and therefore you cannot accom-
plish much. Up and to your work. " The
hawks of Norway, where a winter's day is
hardly an hour of clear light, are the swiftest
on the wing of any fowl under the firmament,
— nature teaching them to bestir themselves,
to lengthen the shortness of the time by the
speed of their flight." So you must make the
more speed and the more effort if your time of
going to school is short. Up and to the work.

2. The temptation to be superficial.

Many young ladies have the ambition to

parents' mistake. 93

feel and to say, that they have studied so
many books ; and their ambitious fathers and
mothers are anxious to be able to say that
their daughters accomplished so much and so
much during the short time they were at
school. The parents are more to blame than
the daughters, and the teachers who allow
them to multiply and carry on half a dozen
studies at once are more to blame than either.
The whole process becomes like the cram-
ming process of preparing turkeys for market.
Very many have no idea that going over a
study and through a book is not the same
thing as understanding it. "Why cannot par-
ents see that it is better to understand and
master one study, than to get a smattering of
a dozen ? If the object of study were to see
how much ground you could pass over, of
how many things you could learn a little, —
to see how much you could crowd into the
memory and charge it to receive and hold it
all, — then this superficial way would be the
right way ; but if the object be to see how
you can discipline all the faculties of the
mind in due proportion, it is the last thing

94

A GOOD-FOR-NOTHING MACHINE.

that should be done. I would urge you to do
whatever you do as well as possible ; to have
no more studies On hand than you can mas*
ter, and at all events not to be superficial.

Shenstone says, " Mi*. Reynolds has brought
my lady Luxborough a machine that goes
into a coat-pocket, yet answers the end of a
jack for boots, a pair of snuffers, a cribbage-
board, a reading-desk, a ruler, an eighteen-
inch rule, three pairs of nut-crackers, a lemon-
squeezer, two candlesticks, a piquet-board,
and the Lord knows what besides ! Can you
form any idea of it? But, indeed, while it
pretends to these exploits, it performs nothing'
well?

3. You will feel tempted to be envious and
jealous of others.

We have implanted in us a strong desire
to be and to do what others are not and can-
not. When we sit down alone, we can, in
reverie, make ourselves to be heroes and hero-
ines, powerful to accomplish, and great, lofty,
and noble in character. But these dreams
are over when we meet a class at recitation,
v the whole school for study. We see that

TOO GREAT A DIFFERENCE. 95

this one and that one excels us. She is a
better scholar. Her lessons are better learned
and better recited ; and we feel, — not that
injustice is really done us, — but we are jeal-
ous lest her standing should be placed too
high and ours too low. We think there
ought not to be so wide a difference between
us. And thus, ere we are aware, we feel
jealous of our friend, or we envy her the
attainments to which we can lay no claim.
It is then very easy to accuse the teacher of
being partial, and to feel that unfortunately
we are not duly appreciated. The proba-
bility is that very few human beings live
who have not, at times, more or less of this
feeling. The temptation is strong. It is
hard to come home and allow that we have
not studied faithfully, or that we have not
the mind and the intellect which others have.
Then this feeling breaks out in evil speak-
ing, in disparaging remarks upon those who
excel us. And perhaps we hear of some-
thing said about us by some fellow-student
not quite so flattering as we could wish, and
then we must see if we cannot say some-

96 THE BEST RESPONSE.

thing a little keener, smarter, and more severe
in return. It is hard to recollect at all times
" that silence is the softest response of all con-
tradictions that arise from impertinence and
envy." We need humility to bear being in
contact and in contrast with those who ought
to be our equals, but whom we know to be
our superiors. However much you may be
tempted, and few temptations are stronger,
to speak evil of your companions, be very
careful that you do not. You inflict wounds
that are hard to cure; and you may feel
assured, that with what measure ye mete, it
shall be meted out to you again.

4. You will be tempted to exaggeration.

Some people never see any thing which
has not a thousand wonders thrown around
it; the lesson to be recited is the hardest
ever seen ; the study itself is truly horrible,
and every thing is superlatively good or
superlatively bad. Especially is this the
case- when you write to your friends. What
sorrows and groans do the mail-bags some-
times carry! The letters written home are
not unfrequently like our chimneys, the con-

.

STARVING PUPIL. 97

ductors of smoke and soot enough to put
out any common pair of eyes. It is so much
more romantic, and makes us appear so much
more like martyrs, to be able to tell of our suf-
ferings and trials, and be able to set them
out to good advantage ! A small mishap is a
real God-send to some people, and they are
sure to make the most of their afflictions.
Sometimes these sorrows ' meet them in the
shape of " horrid " teachers, or " shocking
rooms," or "awful" food, or "dismal" weath-
er, or most unamiable companions. In a
boys' school lately, where I knew the boys
had food enough, and of the best quality,
though plain, the teacher showed me a
letter which one of the boys had just written
home to his father, and in which was this
sentence : " I am glad you sent me the box
of eatables, for I have not had a meal fit
to eat since I have been here." " Shall you
let him send that letter just as it is ? " I
inquired. " Certainly," said the principal,
laughing, "certainly; if the father, who has
been here and seen my school, don't know
better, he is so great a fool that I care
7

98

GENTEEL PRISON.

not what he thinks." You can injure a
school, you can give incurable wounds to
teachers and fellow-pupils, by giving way
to the foolish notion, that a letter must be
spiced with strong language, playful satire,
burning indignation, or beautiful exaggera-
tion. Remember that what is put on paper
must remain ; and the impressions which you
send abroad are handed round and passed on
from one to another almost indefinitely.

School is a place of discipline, and there-
fore is, and must be, in some respects, a hard
place. But you would think, judging from
the conduct of many scholars, that it was the
most terrible place in the world. I have
heard young ladies, who, however, were far
from being good scholars or good improvers
of tHeir opportunities, speak of the school
which they had left as a very horrid place.
You would think by their account of it that
it was a kind of genteel prison, where the
keepers are without mercy, and the prisoners
without help. The teachers are a set of peo-
ple who band together and make it their
whole business to see how much they can

WHY NOT SPEND MONEY? 99

oppress, what burdens they can lay on, what
new plans of torture they can invent, while
the scholars are the most meek and forbear-
ing and lovely beings in the world, never
doing an action that is mean or Wrong or
unlady-like.

5. The temptation to extravagance in spend-
ing money.

A young lady goes abroad to school, and we
will suppose her father is reputed to be rich.
He allows her to have pocket-money in abun-
dance ; and now why should she not spend it
freely and liberally ? What if she does spend
a hundred or even two hundred dollars need-
lessly, of what consequence is it ? I reply, that
it is not always the case that those are rich
who are reputed to be. As a general thing,
almost every man's property is overrated, and
nine probabilities to one, your father is not
as rich as you think him to be. He wants to
gratify his child, and he feels that he must
not appear to be close with his family; but
depend upon it, there are very few people who
who are not occasionally a little pinched for
money. Then, again, every dollar you spend

100 SCHOOL NOT FOR THE RICH ALONE.

must more or less take your thoughts off
from your studies. You must think before-
hand what you intend to purchase ; you must
go and get it, and you must use it after ob-
tained; all of which must occupy thought
and attention. But this is not all. The ma-
jority of those who are with you in school
are not able to spend money thus : at any rate,
a school, to be a good and useful instrument
of benefiting the human race, ought to be so
constituted that those who are not rich can
be educated at it. Now no one ought to do
what will make others feel uneasy because
they cannot do the same, or what would
make the standard of expense in a school so
high as to make it burdensome to the rest.
School is the place for study and for mental
discipline, and not the place for display, for
costly dressing or ornaments. Fashion ought
to be shut out here, so that if, with her pat-
terns and measures, and collars and boxes,
she knocks at your door, she may hear a stern
voice bidding her begone. No young man is
respected any more at college for his dress;
and a free use of pocket-money there is al-

daniel Webster's congratulation. 101

most certain ruin ; and I presume that display
and expenditures, to any great amount, are
incompatible with scholarship in a ladies'
school. Worth grows in rough places. Pov-
erty is no hindrance to intellectual or moral
worth. " I congratulate you," said Daniel
Webster to a lame student at Yale College,
" I congratulate you on being lame ! " And
that lame student came out the first scholar
in his class. Somebody beautifully remarks,
that Spain, which has the best land in the
world, has the poorest farmers ; and Scotland,
which has the poorest land in the world,
sends out the best gardeners. If you happen
to be among the favored whose inheritance
is your character and not property, do not be
ashamed of your poverty nor be disheartened
by it. It will most likely make your char-
acter. We need to feel the iron hand of ne-
cessity pressing hard upon us before we really
accomplish much. Some of the most val-
ued things ever written were wrung out by
poverty.

Set it down as settled, that there can be
no situation without temptations and trials

102 EAST WINDS MUST COME.

which we must meet. We cannot shun them,
we cannot go round them, we must meet
and look them in the face. There must be
north winds and east winds, cloudy days and
cold storms in our way, as well as clear sun-
shine and soft breezes. They are all in the
providence of God ; and when you go to
school, expect to meet them ; and when they
come, do not waste your strength in wonder-
ing over them, nor yet in mourning over them.
Meet them gently as you please, but firm as
a rock. Courage will rise as you approach
the trial, if you will advance steadily. Two
young officers were sent, under Wellington's
own eye, to make a charge upon a body of
French cavalry in Spain. As they rode to-
gether, one grew pale, trembled, and his feet
shook in the stirrups. His companion, a
fine, bold fellow, observed it, and reproached
him.

" You are afraid," said he.

" That is very true," said the other, " I am
afraid, and if you were half as much afraid
as I am, you would turn your horse's head
and ride back to the caipp."

COWARD WON THE DAY. 103

As they had not advanced far, the other,
indignant, returned to Wellington to tell the
story, and to ask for a worthier companion.
" Clap spurs to your horse," was Wellington's
reply, "or the business will be done by your
cowardly companion before you get there."
He was right. The business was done ; the
coward swept down upon the enemy like a
whirlwind, and scattered them like chaff!

CHAPTER VII.

BEADING.

The Tedious Day. How to read. Now is the Time to begin.
Nothing to build with. One Dish at a Time. Great Men
raised up in Times of Commotion. One hundred and twenty-
four Volumes. A Book read in Six Months. Books of
Pewter and of Bank-notes. Starving on Jellies. Changing
Horses at Paris. Convent in Portugal. Chain of Memory.
Three Hours a Week. Let nothing interfere. Poetry its
own Eeward. None, safest. Giant cracking Nuts. Phos-
phorus and Honey.

Dr. Franklin thinks that he must be a very
wretched man who is shut up of a rainy day
and knows not how to read. It seems to me
that he must be more wretched who is thus
shut up and does know how to read, but who
has nothing to read. The world contains a
vast amount of the mind and the thought
that have lived before us ; not all, to be sure,

HOW TO READ. 105

nor is it all digested, sifted, reduced, and well
arranged ; but so much so, that the books now
in the world are a vast repository, to which
we may go and take what we wish. The
mine is very rich and the ore extracted very
precious ; but you want to know how to dig
it, how to separate and refine it. There
probably is not a subject upon which the hu-
man mind has ever thought, which has not
left the record of these thoughts on the print-
ed page. As all think more or less, and as
multitudes have not judgment or taste suf-
ficient to know whether their thoughts are
worth printing or not, there must be of course
a huge mass printed, and thrown into the
common stock, to be used or thrown aside as
mankind may choose. As we have a great
multitude of duties to perform, arid a very
limited period in which to do them, we want
to know how to make the most of our time
and opportunities. We want to know how
we can read to the best advantage, obtain
the most of instruction, thought, or amuse-
ment in a given time. This is what I wish
you to be able to do.

106 NOW IS THE TIME TO BEGIN.

There are but two kinds of books in the
world, — such as are designed to instruct, and
such as are intended to amuse ; and when a
book blends amusement with instruction, it
is not for the sake of the amusement, but for
the sake of instruction, — just as you mix
sugar with your medicine, not for the sake of
the sugar, but to make the medicine go down.
It is our privilege, within certain bounds, to
make books subserve both of these ends.
There is no way in which one can be so
easily and quickly instructed or amused as
by the reading of books. Still we need to
know how to read to advantage, what to
read, and in what proportions we may read
for improvement and what for entertain-
ment.

Let me say, too, here, that if you ever ac-
quire habits of reading, and if you ever have
in the mind stores laid up which you have
drawn from books, it must be done in the
morning of life. I never knew a man ac-
quire a love for reading who did not com-
mence it early ; and I never knew a full man,
who had great resources from which he could

NOTHING TO BUILD WITH. 107

draw with facility, who did not lay up faith-
fully in early life. There is no subject 01
which you may not obtain information from
books, — there is none on which you are lim
ited as to amount. He, therefore, who does
not know how to read to advantage is a great
loser; and he who may know how, but will
not read, is not merely a dunce, but very
wicked. Bishop Home remarks, " You should
be careful to provide yourself with all neces-
sary knowledge, lest, by and by, when you
should be building, you should have your ma-
terials to look for and bring together ; besides
that, the habit of studying and thinking, if it
be not got in the first part of life, rarely comes
afterwards."

My first caution is, Do not try to read too
many books. Some seem to have the notion
that if they only read, — read something, and
a great deal, — they are on the high way to
improvement. You might just as well say,
that if you only eat a great deal, keep at it,
no matter what you eat, flesh or fish, pies or
pork, tomatoes or tom-tits, potatoes or pud-
dings, sausages or sorrel, green apples or green

108 ONE DISH AT A TIME.

turtle, eels or elfins, — only eat and you will
be robust, fair, and in perfect health. Does
not the merest child know that we are nour-
ished most and best by the plain dish, and
one dish at a time ; that it is not the amount
that we eat, but the amount that is digested
and incorporated into the system, that gives
us health and vigor ? The mind that reads a
good book slowly is much more likely to be
enlightened and fed than if it read ten books
in the same time. " A good book," says John
Milton, " is the precious life-blood of a mas-
ter-spirit embalmed and treasured up ,on pur-
pose to a life beyond life." The most re-
markable men that have lived are usually
those who have lived at some marked epoch
in the world, and who, in Providence, were
then called out to make and to leave their
mark upon the world. Hence it is that his-
tory and biography are so instructive ; for
history is only the record of great movements
and changes and events ; and biography is
the story of the agents who acted in these
epochs of the world. You must have revo-
lutions to bring out Washingtons or Buona-

GREAT MEN RAISED UP. 109

partes ; and these strong minds wake up the
nations, and call out character and cause

events which never cease to affect the world.

•

Or, as Milton beautifully says, " When God
shakes a kingdom with strong and healthful
commotions to a general reforming, it is not
untrue that many sectaries and false teachers
are then busiest in seducing ; but yet more
true it is, that God then raises up to his own
work men of rare abilities and more than
common industry, not only to look back and
revise what hath been taught heretofore, but
to gain further and to go on some new en-
lightened steps in the discovery of truth."
It is therefore to be understood, that you can
scarcely read a good history or biography
without finding a mine rich with instruction.
Now do not try to read too many of these.
It is better to understand and remember the
history of one period, or the life of one re-
markable man, than to go over the history
of many ages, or ramble through the whole
biographical history. Hence

My second caution is, not to read fast.

I once had the misfortune, in my boyhood,

110 HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FOUR VOLUMES.

■

to fall upon a set of books called " The
World," in one hundred and twenty-four
volumes, and, feeling that my time was lim-
ited, I read them all in six months ! I might
as well have poured gold-dust through a
coarse sieve, thinking that by pouring it by
the bushel my sieve must certainly retain
much. Had I read but two volumes during
that time, I am sure I could to-day have told
you something of their contents, but now
all I can remember is, that they were English
books in a pretty shape, with many pictures,
and very interesting. And now, if I have
not given you a great amount of information
about my one hundred and twenty-four vol-
umes, you may feel assured I have given you
all I possess. A book should be read no
faster than you can understand it, digest it,
and remember it. The most accurate and best-
informed reader that I have ever met with
was never less than six months in reading an
octavo volume. He usually read walking his
room. His method, as well as I remember,
was as follows : to read the title-page, and
see how much and what he knew about the

A BOOK READ IN SIX MONTHS. Ill

author. He then read the preface, to see
what the author had to say by way of claim
to attention. He then read the whole table
of contents over very carefully, to see what
the author professed to accomplish. He
then closed the book, to see if he could give
a connected account of the contents of that
volume. He next made the contents of the
first chapter his own, by reading the chapter
through, and then closing the book to see if
he could, from memory, give the contents of
that chapter. So he went through the whole
volume, reading every chapter twice, and re-
viewing, analyzing, and understanding every
thing. At the end of six months, the vol-
ume was his own, and two such volumes in
the year made him rich in the learning of
men. Let me say here, that no book is worth
reading which is not worth reading twice.
For in reading for improvement we have two
objects in view : we want information, knowl-
edge of facts ; we also want to strengthen
the power of comprehension and vigorous
thought. A small spot well cultivated makes
a rich and beautiful garden; and the same

112 SILVER BOOKS AND GOLDEN BOOKS.

time and labor spent upon it produces more
of value and of beauty than if spread over
hundreds of acres of hungry land. Do not
waste time and energy in trying to read, and
master, and retain a poor book. John New-
ton says : " I have many books that I cannot
sit down to read ; they are indeed good and
sound, but, like half-pence, there goes a great
quantity to little amount. There are silver
books and a few golden books, but I have
one book worth more than all, called the
Bible ; and that is a book of bank-notes."

But some feel that they cannot read a book
that is not amusing, — "interesting," as they
call it. They read solely for amusement, —
and they have their reward. They obtain the
amusement, and nothing else. What is called
a dry book, however important may be its
subject, or however rich its thought, they can-
not endure. Just as well might the stomach
be sustained by jellies, custards, whips, or
confectionery. Understand that it is easy to
school the mind so that a dry book shall be-
come interesting. Henry Kirke White, writ-
ing to his brother, says, " The plan * which

CHANGING HORSES AT PARIS. 113

1 pursued in order to subdue my disinclina-
tion to dry books was this : to begin attentive-
ly to peruse it, and to continue thus one hour
every day : the book insensibly, by this
means, becomes pleasing to you ; and even
when reading Blackstone's Commentaries,
which are very dry, I lay down the book with
regret." There is nothing which is unpleasant
long, if we put right into it with a hearty, cheer-
ful good-will : no book is dry that adds to our
knowledge, or that strengthens our mind.
But how often do people go through a book
as one of our countrymen is said to have
changed horses at Paris, and then asked what
the name of that town was !

3. My third hint is, that you use the pen
whenever you read.

I am aware that I am now touching a dif-
ficult point. The pen is in danger of being
used too much or too little. Some have large
commonplace books into which they copy
almost all they read, and thus trust nothing
to memory. The consequence is, that the
memory is injured and nearly destroyed by
the process. It is better to make the memory
8

114 CONVENT IN PORTUGAL.

grapple your acquirements and hold them,
than to commit its charge to paper, and feel no
further responsibility. Some things, however,
must be preserved in the commonplace book,
such as chronological events, dates, names,
and the like. Sometimes, too, you take up a
book for a few moments, which is not your
own. You may never see it again. You find
a sentence, or a fact, or an anecdote, or a beau-
tiful figure, which you wish to retain. In all
such cases, you should copy it. For example,
I take up Byron's Letters to his Mother. I do"
not own the book, nor shall I ever own it. But
I find the following two sentences, and I copy
them, feeling sure that some time or other I
shall want them. Visiting a convent in Portu-
gal, he says, " The monks, who possess large
revenues, are courteous enough, and under-
stand Latin, so that we had a long conversa-
tion. They have a large library, and asked me,
if the English had any books in their country ! "
Your commonplace books should be of two
kinds ; — one a kind of Index Rerum, in which
you may note down the book and the page
which treat on a particular subject. This

CHAIN OF MEMORY. 115

should be arranged alphabetically by subjects.
The other should be a book of extracts from
such books as you cannot own, or which are
rare and curious. These should be noted
down under the proper heads in the index.
It is impossible to read to the highest advan-
tage without using the pen much. Sir Wil-
liam Jones well says, " Writing is the chain
of memory." Dr. Franklin, writing to a
young lady, says, " I would advise you to
read with a pen in your hand, and enter in a
little book short hints of what you find that is
curious, or that may be useful : for this will
be the best method of imprinting such par-
ticulars in your memory, where they will be
ready, either for practice on some future oc-
casion, if they are matters of utility, or at
least to adorn and improve your conversation,
if they are rather points of curiosity."

4. My fourth hint is, that you have a stated
time for reading every day.

I am not now determining how much time
you can spare for reading from other duties.
I will suppose that, by close economy as to
sleeping, dressing, and the like, you can com-

116 THREE HOURS A WEEK.

mand but three hours during the week. I say
it is far better to divide those hours, and read
half an hour daily, than to read three hours at
once. You will read more carefully ; you will
give the mind more exclusively to your book.
You will long to have the season return for
reading, and you will have something to
think upon during the day. One reason, as
it seems to me, why so many lose all the
benefit of reading, is, that they not only read
miscellaneously any thing they happen to fall
upon, but they read any time when it hap
pens to be convenient. If you have never
made the trial, you will be astonished to find
how the mind rejoices to have the stated hour
arrive when she can return to the book. The
Earl of Chatham, when trying to form the
character of his nephew, writes thus : " If
you do not set apart your hours of reading,
and never suffer yourself or any one else to
break in upon them, your days will slip
through your hands, unprofitably and frivo-
lously, unpraised by all you wish to please,
and really unenjoyable to yourself." To
this testimony, I will add, that I have never

LET NOTHING INTERFERE. 117

known any one who grew in knowledge and
mental- strength by reading, who had not the
stated time when he went to his book, and
with which nothing was suffered to interfere.
You do not read much unless you read at
stated times, and what you do read is not
read to the best advantage. Always have a
book on hand, — a real, substantial book by
you, which you are reading, — such a book as
you would not feel ashamed to have a great
man or a great scholar see lying upon your
table.

As to the question, what you shall read, I
have not time to go into it fully. Poetry,
good, beautiful poetry, every lady ought to
read. Poetry is the daughter of the skies.
Inspiration, in her loftiest strains, comes to us
in poetry. You cannot write it nor make it ;
but the mind through which it passes seems
to be beautified, like the channels through
which the clear, cold waters of the mountains
run. It is a teacher whose voice was tuned
in the skies, sweet as that of the silver trum-
pet, and whose robes reflect the purity and the
odors of heaven. Not that you are to read

118 POETRY ITS OWN REWARD.

poetry all the time, any more than you are to
be surrounded by the colors of the rainbow
all the time. Says the gifted Coleridge,
" Poetry has been to me its own exceeding
great reward. It has soothed my afflictions,
it has multiplied and refined my enjoyments,
it has endeared solitude, and it has given me
the habit of wishing to discover the good and
the beautiful in all that meets and surrounds
me." You will find that poetry is not only
thought, and thought condensed and refined,
but it is fruit which grew in a warmer cli-
mate and under fairer skies than those to
which we have been accustomed.

And what shall I say of novels and roman-
ces ? Where shall they come in, and how large
a place shall they occupy ? I reply, as the phy-
sician did to his patient who importuned him
to know if a little brandy would hurt him much,
" No ; a little won't hurt you much, but none
at all won't hurt you any." There has been
so much said, and so well said, in regard to
this kind of reading, that I need only utter
my testimony, clear, decided, strong, and
earnest, that you touch not, taste not, handle

GIANT CRACKING NUTS. 119

not. Many a young lady has stood out in
the soft moonlight, under cool dews, bright
heavens and fairy visions around her, and felt
confident that it was all in safety, while from
the cool and beautiful evening she was silently
inhaling an unseen, unfelt something, which
ended in consumption and her early death.
There are parts of the human body too deli-
cate for the sweet air of evening; and there
are chords in the human soul, and fibres of the
human heart, that are destroyed by the subtle
poison drawn from novels and romances.
Even the best of them leave the soul dissatis-
fied with her lot, cold towards her duties, dis-
tasteful towards realities, and sorrowing that
she could not be somebody else, or in some-
body's condition besides her own. Wilber-
force, speaking of the Waverley Novels, says
in his Diary, " I am always sorry that they
should have so little moral or religious object.
They remind me of a giant spending his
strength in cracking nuts. I would rather go
to render up my account at the last day carry-
ing up with me The Shepherd of Salisbury
Plain, than bearing the load of all these vol-

120 PHOSPHORUS AND HONEY.

umes, lull as they are of genius." If those
books are the most profitable which make the
reader think the most, if the world is abun-
dant in books that are good, if the taste and
the heart are all vitiated by works of fiction,
if the young can never lose the influence of the
knowledge obtained, and of the habit of read-
ing then formed, then an enemy could hardly
do you a worse injury than to pile up your
table with novels, or encourage you to read
them. We have known multitudes made
foolish, nervous, sickly in sentimentalism, mor-
bidly silly, by such reading ; but have yet to
find the first instance of any one's being bene-
fited by it. You cannot be nourished by eat-
ing phosphorus, or even honey ; the one will
burn you up bodily, and the other will give
you the apoplexy.

CHAPTER VIII.

USE OF THE PEN.

" Three things beax mighty sway with men, —
The Sword, the Sceptre, and the Pen ;
And he who can the least of these command,
In the first ranks of fame is sure to stand."

How to preserve Thought. Eresh as ever. Not a Little
Undertaking. Composition dreaded. Watered by Tears.
Theory mistaken. No Time for Newspapers. Factories
near the Waterfall. Whitefield's Pathos. Passion-flower.
Women must do the Letter-writing. Chain kept bright.
How Letters are treated in Turkey. Graceful Handwriting.
Eh-st Specimen. Learn to bear the Yoke of Discipline.
Graces of Time run into Glories of Eternity. Economist
of Time. Thousand Years before Noah. Arrow ruined.
Life hurried.

By commanding the pen, we do not mean
merely the mechanical art of holding and
guiding the quill, so as to have the lines
graceful, open, and easy, but we mean the

122 HOW TO PRESERVE THOUGHT.

higher quality of composition. The objects
of writing are : —

1. To record your thoughts, observations,
and discoveries for the use of others, so that
you can make thought permanent, and be
able to transmit it from one place to another,
and also preserve it for future generations.
So anxious have men been, in all ages, to do
this, that they have used stone, slate, brass,
bones, wax, parchment, paper, every thing, any
thing, on which to write. The greater part
of what is done and said and thought by the
generations of men goes unrecorded : and of
that which is written, but little is read, or
perhaps worth reading. But the power is
to fix thought on paper, and then to send it
off to some friend, is a talent of inestimable
value.

2. A second object of the pen is to record
your thoughts, your observations, or your read-
ing- for future use.

You have read to-day an article of great
value, — the thoughts were new, fresh, beauti-
ful and important ; you cannot retain them in
the memory ; but with the pen you can make

FRESH AS EVER.

123

them your own for all the future. You listen
to a conversation to-day which interested you
much ; you will forget it shortly ; but if your
pen notes it down on paper, you have it years
hence, as fresh and as beautiful as the day
you heard it. Thought does not lose its fra-
grance by keeping, and the time may come
when a single thought may be of unspeakable
value to you.

3. A third object in using the pen is to dis-
cipline your own mind.

Were I to set out to make a perfect scholar
of myself or of some other one, I would make
the pen the great instrument. " Reading,"
says my Lord Bacon, " maketh a full man
conversation a ready man, and writing an ac-
curate man." A child may mistake in the
spelling of a word, many times, when ad-
dressed to the ear ; but let him learn to spell
with the pen, and he will seldom mistake the
same word more than once. You take the
pen, ana you cannot make the letters, the
words, or put down your thoughts, at random.

But if any one thinks that the art of writ-
ing clearly, simply, and elegantly is to be

124 COMPOSITION DREADED.

acquired without much pains-taking, he has
forgotten how he obtained his art, or else he
never had it, and never will have it. It is of
the highest importance, that every one who
professes to have an educated mind should
be able to express his thoughts on paper.
And the power must be acquired in early life,
or it never will be obtained. Some make it
a hard and most disagreeable duty, while oth-
ers find it a pleasure. It can hardly be com-
menced too early. It can hardly be followed
too closely or too carefully. It is the daugh-
ter of practice. You may read good authors,
may see good society, may be able to express
yourself appropriately, and even elegantly,
and yet not be able to write well. How
many young ladies at school sit down and
sigh, and dread the day of composition!
How they dread to read what they have
written ! Why do they ? Because they are
aware that they have nothing written worth
hearing. And how do they go to work to write
a composition? First, they are a great while
— days, if not weeks — in selecting a subject
on which to write ; rejecting one and another,

WATERED BY TEARS. 125

taking a new one and laying it aside for
something else, till the very day arrives when
they are to write, and then they must, in a
sort of despair, select something. Or if the
teacher has compassion on them, and selects
a subject for them, — what awful subjects!
what hard subjects ! what unheard-of sub-
jects! what old, worn-out subjects! or, what
new, out-of-the-way subjects he selects ! And
a curious picture it would make, a young
lady sitting down alone to write her composi-
tion,— the broad, blank sheet spread before
her, the pen nicely dipped in ink, the title
written down ; and now she pauses, bites the
tip of her pen, dips it in the ink again, and
waits for something to come. One single
sentence, especially if it were a long one,
would be a great relief. Now she lays down
the pen, rests her chin upon her hand, and
tries to think hard, and force the mind into
something ! A few tears often water the flow-
ers of her composition, and sometimes they
are so abundantly watered that they too ought
to be abundant. Now where is the difficulty ?
What makes it so hard for her to write, and

126 THEORY MISTAKEN.

the composition often so tame and poor when
written? The reason is, she had nothing
to write. When she called upon the mind for
thought, there were no thoughts at command.
But she has done the best she could, as she
thinks. True, if there were no better way,
she has. But she mistakes the very theory
of good writing. Instead of this course, let
the subject be selected, fixed upon for at least
a week — ten days would be better — before
you begin to write. During this time, turn it
over in your mind continually y see what be-
longs to it, and what does not. See how
much you can think about the subject. See
how you would go to work to explain it to a
child six years old. See how many questions
you could ask about it, and how many of
these you could answer yourself. Are there
any simple ways of illustrating it, by com-
parison, or by figures, and the like ? It is not
for want of time, but because we waste it,
that we do not accomplish more, and more
to our minds. The grand secret of Walter
Scott's ability to accomplish so much, was
the carrying out his own grand maxim,

NO TIME FOR NEWSPAPERS. 127

" never to be doing- nothing." Every moment
was turned to account, and thus " he had
leisure for every thing, except, indeed, the
newspapers, which consume so many precious
hours now-a-days, with most men, and which,
during my acquaintance with him," says
Lockhart, " he certainly read less than any
other person I ever knew, that had any habit
of reading at all." It is this maxim of " never
to be doing nothing " that will fill up the
mind, so that, when you come to draw from
it by composition, it will have something to
give out. There is something in the cask
from which you are wishing to draw. Some
think over what they are to write while walk-
ing ; some do it on the pillow, in the night-
watches ; some have a slip of paper near*'
them, and put down a thought as it occurs ;
but however you may collect your thoughts,
you cannot write well unless you premedi-
tate on your subject. You may sit down and
bite your pen, and wait for thoughts to come,
but they will not come, and for the plain rea-
son, there are none to come. But no mind
can turn over and think over a subject for

128 FACTORIES NEAR THE WATERFALL.

several days, without finding something to
say, and the fuller the mind is, the easier to
write.

In selecting a subject on which to try your
pen, take one that is common and simple.
Some have an idea that it is easier and every
way better to select out-of-the-way subjects,
and import all their thoughts from a long dis-
tance ; but this is too expensive. If we rear
a house, we take the stone and the timber
which are nearest and easiest to come at.
"We build our factories near the waterfall,
and carry the water as short a distance as we
can. Do not try to see what new, uncommon
words or thoughts you can obtain. Sim-
plicity is one of the first requisites in any
thing that is perfect, or approaching perfec-
tion. " The strongest, purest, and least-ob-
served of all lights is day-light, and his talk
was commonplace, just as the sunshine is,
which gilds the most indifferent objects, and
adds brilliancy to the brightest." The first
thing, of course, is to get thought which you
can put on paper. The next is to express
that thought in clear, simple language, and,

whitefield's pathos. 129

if you can, elegantly. Common things be-
come beautiful when expressed with elegance.
Dean Swift once wrote a composition upon
a broomstick, and found no lack of materials
or interest, and we all know how charmingly
Cowper has sung the sofa. A clergyman of
our country states that he once told an affect-
ing occurrence to Mr. Whitefield, relating it,
however, with but the ordinary feeling and
beauty of a passing conversation ; when after-
wards, on hearing Mr. Whitefield preach, up
came his own story, narrated by the preacher
in the pulpit with such native pathos and
power, that the clergyman himself, who had
furnished Whitefield with the dry bones of
illustration, found himself weeping like a
child. I have known a man, noted for the
beauty of his productions, write a single page
over from thirty to seventy times, even after
the thoughts were fully in his mind. There
is no way of writing elegantly but by this
painstaking. Examples and illustrations of
your subject and thoughts are always wel-
come. " General propositions," says one,
" are obscure, misty, and uncertain, compared
9

130 PASSION-FLOWER.

with plain, full, home examples ; precepts only
apply to our reason, which in most men is
but weak; examples are pictures, and strike
the senses, nay, raise the passions and call in
those (the strongest and most general of all
motives) to the aid of reformation." A sin-
gle figure is sometimes a jewel, whose bril-
liancy will be remembered while all the rest
is forgotten. "When Pope says that " compli-
ment is, at the best, but the smoke of friend-
ship," who can forget the figure ? And who
can pass by the beautiful eulogium of Jeremy
Taylor, expressed in a single metaphor: " Thus
she lived, poor, patient, and resigned. Her
heart was a passion-flower, bearing within it
the crown of thorns and the cross of Christ."
It is not necessary to suppose that you will
all become authors, — this is not the standard,
— but all will write for the ear and the eye of
others, and it is desirable to do this with as
much clearness, simplicity, and beauty as
possible.

There is one species of writing which seems
to belong appropriately to the lady. I mean
letter- writing. In ease and beauty I think

WOMEN MUST DO THE LETTER-WRITING. 131

some ladies have produced letters of sur-
passing brilliancy. The letters of Madame
de Sevigne will be immortal, and every gen-
eration will read them with admiration. The
same is true of the letters of Hannah More,
while the labored letters of Walpole and
Burns, though striking and often beautiful,
show that the elegance of the female mind is
wanting! It is too much like a gentleman
trying to put on the dress and the address of
a lady. The correspondence which aims to
instruct, to cheer the fireside, to encourage the
wanderer, and to sustain age, is now mostly
in the hands of females. Men are, or think
they are, too much hurried to write letters, —
except the short, dry letter of business, which,
like a dry, hard cough, is laid aside as soon
as possible. Daughters are those upon whom
parents depend for long, full, and hopeful
letters ; and in every situation of life, she
who can write a good letter confers many
blessings upon others. " Friendship is the
great chain of human society, and intercourse
of letters is one of the chiefest links of that
chain." And she who lays herself out to

132 CHAIN KEPT BRIGHT.

keep the links of that chain bright, does a
noble deed. It is more than an accomplish-
ment for a lady to write a beautiful letter,
though an accomplishment of the highest
kind; it is a positive duty. In order to be
able to do this easily and readily, you must
write frequently, — not stiff, formal letters, —
but as much like social, cheerful conversation
as you can. There is a sunlight in which
.we may look at every thing, and in which
every thing looks beautiful. A letter, then,
to be a good one, must be cheerful, and come
to your friend like a warm sunbeam. It
should be the echo of a cheerful heart, in-
stead of one of those gloomy visitants who
sometimes come to us, a trouble while with
us, and leaving cold shadows after they are
gone. Little troubles which vex you need
not be put into your letter to trouble others.
Sorrows which will pass away to-morrow
need not become fixtures by being embalmed
in your correspondence. Some feel that their
letters are to be full of gossip, — retailing all
the petty scandal they can hear or think out
of themselves. These letters ought to be

GRACEFUL HANDWRITING. 133

treated as they treat letters in Turkey, cut
through and through with a knife, lest they
should be full of the plague. You should
remember that, though your letter is ad-
dressed to the eye of a particular friend, yet it
is to live long ; for that friend will preserve it,
and whose eye shall fall upon it after he and<
you are among the dead ?

" Dead letters, thus with living notions fraught,
Prove to the soul the telescope of thought;
To mortal life a deathless witness give,
And bid all deeds and titles last and live.
In scanty life eternity we taste,
View the first ages, and inform the last.
Arts, history, laws, we purchase with a look,
And keep, like fate, all nature in a book."

I hope the impression will not be left upon
your mind that I deem a fair hand of no con-
sequence. It is to the composition of a lady
what dress is to her person, — what a fair
body is to the soul, — what the chasing is to
the jewel. A lady is more known and better
judged of by her handwriting than a man is :
we are allowed to wear our hair as we please,
on the head or on the face, but a lady may
not do so ; and we may write an abominable

134 FIRST SPECIMEN.

hand, and yet pass among respectable people.
With some, it is even a mark of genius ; but
who ever thought a lady a genius because she
wrote in hieroglyphics, or in English in a way
that nobody could read ?

" Ye sprightly fauywhose gentle minds incline
To mend our manners and our hearts refine,
With admiration in your works are read
The various textures of the twining thread
Then let the fingers, whose unrivalled skill
Exalts the needle, grace the noble quill.
An artless scrawl the blushing scribbler shames ;
All should be fair that beauteous woman frames ,
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance."

I have desired to give you a specimen or
two of beautiful letter-writing. They must be
short. The first is from a bishop to a young
clergyman : —

" I am much pleased to hear you have been
for some time stationary at Oxford; a place
where a man may prepare himself to go forth
as a burning and shining light into a world
where charity is waxed cold, and where truth
is wellnigh obscured. Whenever it pleases
God to appoint you to the government of a

THE YOKE OF DISCIPLINE. 135

parish, you will find work enough to employ
you; and therefore before that time comes
you should be careful to provide yourself
with all necessary knowledge, lest by and by,
when you should be building, you should
have your materials to look for and bring
together; besides, the habit of studying and
thinking, if not got in the first part of life,
rarely comes afterwards. A man is misera-
bly drawn into the eddy of worldly dissipa-
tion, and knows not how to get out of it
again , till, in the end, for want of spiritual
exercises, the faculties of the soul are be-
numbed, and he sinks into indolence, till the
night cometh when no man can work. Hap-
py, therefore, is the man, who betimes ac-
quires a relish for holy solitude, and accus-
toms himself to bear the yoke of Christ's
discipline in his youth; who can sit alone
and keep silence, and seek wisdom diligently
where she may be found, in the Scriptures of
faith and in the writings of the saints. From
these flowers of Paradise he extracts the
honey of knowledge and divine love, and
therewith fills every cell of his understanding

136 COWPER TO JOHN NEWTON.

and affections. The winter of affliction, dis-
ease, and old age will not surprise such a one
in an unprepared state. He will not be con-
founded in the perilous time, and in the days
of dearth he will have enough to strengthen,
comfort, and support him and his brethren.
Precious beyond rubies are the hours of
youth and health ! Let none of them pass
unprofitably away, for surely they make to
themselves wings, and are as a bird cutting
swiftly the air, and the trace of her can no
more be found. If well spent, they fly to
heaven with news that rejoices angels, and
meet us again as witnesses for us at the tri-
bunal of our Lord. When the graces of time
run into the glories of eternity, how trifling
will the labor then seem that has procured us,
through grace, the everlasting rest, for which
the Apostles toiled night and day, and the
martyrs loved not their lives unto death."

Cowper to John Newton.

" My dear Friend, — I have neither long
visits to pay nor to receive, nor ladies to
spend hours in telling me that which might be

ECONOMIST OF TIME. 137

told in five minutes, yet often find myself
obliged to be an economist of time, and to
make the most of a short opportunity. Let
our station be retired as it may, there is no
want of playthings and avocations, nor much
need to seek them, in this world of ours.
Business, or what presents itself to us under
that imposing character, will find us out, even
in the stillest retreat, and plead its impor-
tance, however trivial in reality, as a just de-
mand upon our attention. It is wonderful
how, by means of such real or seeming neces-
sities, my time is stolen away. I have just
time to observe that time is short, and by the
time I have made the observation, time is
gone. I have wondered in former days at the
patience of the antediluvian world ; that they
could endure a life almost millenary, with so
little variety as seems to have fallen to their
share. It is probable that they had much fewer
employments than we. Their affairs lay in a
aarrower compass; their libraries were indif-
ferently furnished, philosophical researches
were carried on with much less industry and
acuteness of penetration, and fiddles, perhaps,

138 THOUSAND YEARS BEFORE NOAH.

were not even invented. How, then, could
seven or eight hundred years of life be sup-
portable? I have asked this question for-
merly, and been at a loss to resolve it, but I
think I can answer it now. I will suppose
myself born a thousand years before Noah
was born or thought of. I rise with the sun ;
I worship ; I prepare my breakfast ; I swal-
low a bucket of goat's milk and a dozen good,
sizable cakes. I fasten a new string to my
bow, and my youngest boy, a lad of about
thirty years of age, having played with my
arrows till he has stripped off all the feathers,
I find myself obliged to repair them. The
morning is thus spent in preparing for the
chase, and it is become necessary that I
should dine. I dig up my roots, I wash
them ; I boil them ; I find them not done
enough, I boil them again ; my wife is angry ;
we dispute, we settle the point ; but in the
mean time the fire goes out, and must be
kindled again. All this is very amusing. I
hunt, I bring home the prey ; with the skin of
it I mend an old coat or I make a new one.
By this time the day is far spent; I feel my-

1

LIFE HURRIED. 139

self fatigued, and retire to rest. Thus, what
with tilling the ground, and eating the fruit
of it, hunting, walking and running, and
mending old clothes, and sleeping and rising
again, I can suppose an inhabitant of the
primeval world so much occupied as to sigh
over the shortness of life, and to find at the
end of many centuries that they had all
slipped through his fingers, and were passed
away like a shadow. What wonder, then, that
I, who live in a day of so much greater re-
finement, when there is so much more to be
wanted, and wished, and to be enjoyed, should
feel myself now and then pinched in point of
opportunity, and at some loss for leisure to
fill up four sides of a sheet like this ? Thus,
however, it is, and if the ancient gentlemen
to whom I have referred, and their complaints
of the disproportion of time to the occasions
they had for it, will not serve me as an excuse,
I must even plead guilty, and confess that I
am often in haste when I have no good rea-
son for being so."

CHAPTER IX.

FOKMATION OF HABITS.

Indian Fashions. Dr. Chalmers's Handwriting.' John Fos-
ter's Regret. Habit of Seeing. Audubon's Bet. Lady
Mary Wortley Montagu a Physician. Not ashamed to ask
a Question. Secret of Despatch. Chinese Student. Al-
ways waiting. Reproof warded off. Just slipping on her
Things. Lord Brougham's Rules. Mr. Condar's Speech.
A Sure Recipe. Strive to please. Never-failing Beauty.
Haydn's Gladness. Feast of Joy. Fair "Weather will come.
Passion disgusting in Woman. Rejoicing in God.

The different tribes of Indians in this coun-
try have various notions as to what consti-
tutes human beauty. But whatever their
ideas may be, they are all careful to begin to
train the child according to this standard
early. If the pappoose belong to the ^Flat-
heads, he has a board securely oound to his
head, that his skull may be flattened by the

dr. Chalmers's handwriting. 141

continual pressure. If he is a child of one of
the Nez Perces, his nose is early cut and
trimmed into the fashionable shape. All,
while infants, are fastened to a board, that
they may be erect. I have seen an Indian
over a hundred years of age, who was still
straight as an arrow in consequence of be-
ing thus trained. Thus we can impress
habits upon the body, the mind, and the
whole character. These habits are of great
value if good, but if wrong, they are sore mis-
fortunes. Dr. Chalmers wrote a very illegible
hand. "When writing to his mother, he says,
" Let me know if you can read my present
letter ; for if you can, it will give me satisfac-
tion to know that I can make myself legible.
I have made a particular effort, and I hope I
have succeeded in it." Three years after, his
old habit is strong as ever ; for in a letter from
his mother to one of her other children, she
writes, " I had a letter last night from Thom-
as. It is a vast labor the reading his letters.
I sometimes take a week to make them out." .
It is hardly necessary to bring forward such
an example to prove that habits are formed

142 john Foster's regret.

in early life, and grow upon us, and cling to
us firmer and firmer, the longer we live.
Whether we desire them or not, we shall
have them. Dr. Paley says truly, " We act
from habit nine times, where we do once
from deliberation." Let the habits of the aged
be what they may, we do not expect or at-
tempt any change. But it is very important
for the young to know what habits to form,
and how this may be done. Any action re-
peated at stated periods becomes a habit.
Thus the habit of the intemperate begins by
his having stated hours or places where he
drinks. And if any one desires to know
whether his future life will be happy or
wretched, let him now decide what habits to
abandon, what ones to strengthen. " How
much I regret," says John Foster, " to see so
generally abandoned to the weeds of vanity
that fertile and vigorous space of life, in
which might be planted the oaks and the fruit-
trees of enlightened principle and virtuous
• habit, which, growing up, would yiel4 to old
age an enjoyment, a glory, and a shade."
Life-long habits you are now forming, and

HABIT OF SEEING. 143

I am wishing to point out to you some of
those which are essential to your happiness
and usefulness, through your whole life.

1. Cultivate a habit of close observation.

Some people see things in general, and
some do not see them at all. A few have the
power to use the eye for the purpose for which
it was given. It is not seeing a landscape as
a whole, but noticing the minute parts of it,
that makes it beautiful. It is not seeing the
grove as a whole, that makes the vision so
pleasant, but it is the study of the different
trees, their various shapes, heights, the shades
of their leaves, and their attitudes. Keep the
eyes open, and the ears awake. " Every new
class of knowledge and every new subject of
interest becomes, to an observer, a new sense
to notice innumerable facts and ideas, and
consequently receive endless pleasurable and
instructive hints, to which he had been else as
insensible as a man asleep." There must be
originally, in the mind of a good observer, the
faculty j, but it is greatly improved and en-
larged by cultivation. " The capabilities of
any sphere of observation," says a strong

144 audubon's bet.

thinker, " are in proportion to the force and
number of the observer's faculties, studies, in-
terests. In one given extent of space, or in one
walk, one person will be struck by five objects,
another by ten, another by a hundred, and some
by none at all." Notice the minutest object,
pick up even the smallest morsel of knowledge,
retain the smallest fact, save the rustiest nail
ever lying in the dust. Have patience, you
will find the value of all at last. When Audu-
bon was on a visit to the Natural Bridge in
Virginia for the first time, he travelled a short
distance with a farmer, who offered to bet that
Audubon could not tell when he came to the
Bridge. But Audubon stopped directly on
the bridge, saying, " We are on it now."
The astonished farmer inquired how he knew
he was on the right spot. He explained by
saying that he saw a little pee-wit, and know-
ing that these little birds build their nests
under bridges, he knew that the bridge could
not be far off. There is scarcely a spot in
creation, or a thing created, or an art among
men, however humble, from which something
may not be learned, or in which some beauty

LADY MONTAGU A PHYSICIAN. 145

may not be discovered. " Lady Mary Wort-
ley Montagu, on observing among the vil-
Jagers of Turkey the practice of inoculating
for the small-pox, became convinced of its
utility and efficacy, and applied it to her own
son, at that time about three years old. By
great exertions, Lady Mary afterwards estab-
lished the practice of inoculation in England,
thus conferring a lasting benefit on her native
country and on mankind." I have never yet
met the man in any station from whom I
could not learn something. The great Mr.
Locke was asked how he had contrived to ac-
cumulate a mine of knowledge so rich, and
yet so extensive and so deep ? He replied
that he attributed what little he knew to not
having been ashamed to ask for information ;
and to the rule he had laid down, of convers-
ing with all descriptions of men, on those
topics chiefly that formed their own peculiar
professions or pursuits.

Let me drop a hint on your habits of ob-
serving character ; do not study to find what
is uncouth or ludicrous or ridiculous in those
whom you meet. Every one has more or less
10

146 SECRET OF DESPATCH.

about him which partakes of weakness, and
it may be of folly, which always seems ridic-
ulous in others. But do not allow yourself
the bad habit of noticing these little shades,
dwelling on them, and perhaps detecting
them for the amusement of others. In every
one you can see something good. Seize upon
that. Be like the bee which can find honey
in almost every weed, even to the deadly
nightshade, and not like the spider, which
sucks poison from the fairest flowers that
creation affords. Every step in life will pre-
sent you a thousand new things, minute, to be
sure, but these all become a study, and if you
cultivate the habit of close observation, you
will be enriched, not by finding a great treasure
at once, but by the accumulation of sands of
pure gold.

2. The habit of untiring industry is invalu-
able.

Those accomplish the most in life who can
turn every moment of time to advantage.
Some can work a short time and apparently
despatch a great deal, but at the end of life
have done but little. The power of despatch

CHINESE STUDENT. 147

is a misfortune, if it be not accompanied by-
untiring industry. The hare could run fast
for a while, but he must soon lie down to
sleep, and while he rested, the tortoise passed
him and run the race. To make each mo-
ment do a little for us is the great secret of
doing much.

There is a story of a Chinese student who
felt discouraged because when he shook the
tree of knowledge only a single apple would
" drop at a time, and sometimes he had to
shake a long time before any fell ; but he was
encouraged one day to new efforts, which re-
sulted in his reaching eminence, by seeing an
old woman rubbing a crowbar on a stone to
make her a needle ! President Dwight says,
" Among all those who within my knowledge
have appeared to become sincerely penitent
and reformed, I recollect only a single lazy
man ; and this man became industrious from
the moment of his apparent, and, I doubt not,
real conversion." No one can rely upon tal-
ents, friends, opportunities, or attainments for
success. The question ever recurring is, not
what are your talents and ability, but, what

148 ALWAYS WAITING.

can you, what do you, accomplish. The blows
you strike may not be heavy, but let them be
long continued. You must begin early in
the morning and keep doing as long as the
day lasts. Any thing but spasmodic efforts,
now working a whole night, and then wast-
ing whole days. He who becomes rich in
money, learning, or attainments does so, not
by rapid increase, but by' that industry which
continually adds small gains. Any man, with
the habits of industry fixed upon him, will
accomplish tenfold more than the most gifted
without these habits.

3. Punctuality. There are very few who
have strength of character sufficient at all
times to do now what we hope may be done
to-morrow. Thus we put off acting at the
right time, not because it will be easier done
hereafter, but because we do not wish now to
make the effort. We make appointments
and do not keep them punctually, and think
little of it ; but we have no conception of the
annoyance we cause our friends. We abuse
their patience, consume their time, and lead
them to distrust our promises in future.

REPROOF WARDED OFF. 149

Melancthon says, when he had an appoint-
ment, he expected not only the hour, but the
minute, to be fixed, that the time might not
run out in idleness or suspense. " The punc-
tuality of Dr. Chalmers's father was so well
known, that his aunt, appearing one morn-
ing too late at breakfast, and well knowing
what awaited her if she exposed herself de-
fenceless to the storm, thus managed to divert
it. ' O Mr. Chalmers ! ' she exclaimed, as
she entered the room, ' I had such a strange
dream last night ! I dreamt you were dead/
' Indeed ! ' said Mr. Chalmers, quite arrested
by an announcement which bore so direct-
ly upon his own future history. ' And I
dreamt,' she continued, ' that the funeral day
was named, and the funeral hour was fixed,
and the funeral cards were written; and the
day came, and the folks came, and the hour
came, but what do you think happened? Why
the clock had scarce done chapping [striking]
twelve, which had been the hour named in the
cards, when a loud knocking was heard within
the coffin, and a voice, gey peremptory, and ill-
pleased like, came out of it, saying, ' Twelve 's

150 JUST SLIPPING ON HER THINGS.

chappit, and ye 're no liftin'.' Mr. Chalmers
was himself too great a humorist not to relish
a joke so quickly and cleverly contrived, and
in the hearty laugh which followed, the inge-
nious culprit felt that she had accomplished
more than an escape." Let only those follow
her example who can equal her wit.

We do not pretend to know the secrets of
the lady's toilette, but we do know that some-
how or other, when waiting for a lady to ac-
company us at an appointed hour, we have
often to wait a long time while she "just
slips on her things, and will be ready in a
moment." Whether it is our impatience for
the return of her bright face, or whether it is
because we know not the mysteries of just
slipping on her things, — whatever it is, we do
know that the wear and tear of patience is
terrible, and we often wish she had said frank-
ly, " Sir, I have to hunt up my clothes, dress
my hair, dust my bonnet, lace my boots, se-
lect a collar, cologne my handkerchief, and I
cannot possibly be ready under a full half-
hour." So when the bell rings for breakfast,
dinner, tea, or recitation, some one is always

LORD BROUGHAM'S RULES. 151

a little too late, — always a little tardy, — a lit-
tle late in rising, dressing, at meals, at church,
— everywhere some one is behindhand. The
rest wait, and run, and call, and try to aid
her, and when at last she appears, you wish
that, in addition to all that she has put on, she
had adorned herself with one more garment of
beauty, — the habit of being punctual.

4. Next to this comes the habit of doing'
every thing well.

Some men make what they call rules of
action ; but they always embrace industry,
punctuality, and thoroughness. Jefferson had
ten of these rules ; Lord Brougham has three.
His Lordship's are the following : — 1. To
be a whole man to one thing at a time. 2.
Never lose any opportunity of doing any thing
that can be done. 3. Never entreat others to
do what you ought to do yourself. Many
people are always in a hurry, and resemble
the squirrel in the revolving cage, who labors
hard, and thinks he is travelling at a prodi-
gious rate, while in fact he is standing on the
same spot. Hurry is the mark of a weak
mind, and those who have the habit mistake

152 mr. condar's sprech.

it for despatch. But they differ, as the sword
which rattles and clashes only in the scab-
bard is different from the Damascus blade
that quietly does execution. Whatever you
undertake to do, if it be nothing more than
paring your nails, do it thoroughly, neatly, as
well as you can. He who always does his
best, even in small things, will hardly fail of
attaining great excellence. At a soiree of the
Sheffield Mechanics' Institute, Josiah Condar
made the following remarks, Montgomery, the
poet, being present. " I can look back to the
time when, as a young man, I was guilty
of the perhaps pardonable crime of writing
verses, and I looked upon my valued friend,
Mr. Montgomery, as my patron and master
in poetry. I may be allowed to mention,
that at that time I received from him a piece
of advice, which I have found of great use in
poetry and injother matters, and I will repeat
it, if you will forgive me, for the benefit of
all. He said to me, when reading some of
my juvenile poetry, and making his invalua-
ble marks on the margin, ' Always do your
best, and every time you will do better.' It

ALWAYS THE BEST. 153

has been of great use to me, for if I have
produced any thing acceptable in poetry, it is
owing to this advice." The young lady who
will not allow her needle to take a single stitch
which is not the best it can take, her pen to
write a letter or a composition which is not the
best she can write, — who will not allow her-
self to read a page aloud, nor to recite a les-
son, nor to touch the piano, without doing her
best, — will by and by accomplish, not only
a great deal, but will astonish all around her
by the degree of perfection she has attained.
" A place for every thing, and every thing in
its place," is essential to character. Many a
young man has lost a valuable opportunity,
and not a few young ladies have lost situa-
tions, kindnesses, and friends, because, though
they sometimes excelled, it was not their
habit always to do well. You must do your
best in little things, on humble occasions, and
in all circumstances, if you are to approach
anywhere near the standard of perfection.

5. Cultivate the habit of making others hap-
py daily.

Some confer very little happiness on others,

154 GREAT OPPORTUNITIES FEW.

because they really lack a generous, kind
disposition ; but more fail because they know
not what constitutes the happiness of life.
They wait for great occasions, for opportu-
nities to do good on a large scale, whereas
few have these great opportunities, and most
lack the power of using them when they do
meet them. We can probably never be the
means of saving a country or an army, or ol
snatching a friend from the waters in which
he is drowning, or from the dwelling in which
he is burning. Dr. Johnson says truly, " He
who waits to do a great deal of good at once,
will never do any." We sigh for opportuni-
ties to do some great and noble action, and
perhaps dream in our reveries how we would
do this or that, which would be so romantic
and so noble, and thus life slides away while
we are losing ten thousand opportunities of
making others happy. I find in the course
of my reading a recipe for making every day
happy ; and if it were to be followed and
copied, as you copy and follow the recipes
in the cook-books, it would do a great deal
for your enjoyment. It reads thus : — " When

A SURE RECIPE. 155

you rise in the morning, form a resolution to
make the day a happy one to a fellow-crea-
ture. It is easily done : a left-off garment to
the man who needs it, a kind word to the
sorrowful, an encouraging expression to the
striving, trifles in themselves as light as air,
will do it at least for the twenty-four hours ;
and if you are young, depend upon it, it will
tell when you are old. And if you are old,
rest assured it will send you gently and hap-
pily down the stream of human time to eter-
nity. By the most simple arithmetical sum,
look at the result. You send one person,
only one, happily through the day ; that is
three hundred and sixty-five in the course of
the year, and supposing you live forty years
after you commence this course of medicine,
you have made one hundred and forty-six
thousand beings happy, at all events for a
time ; and this is supposing no relation or
friend partakes of the feeling and extends the
good. Now is not this simple? Is it not
too easily accomplished for you to say, I
would if I could ? Thus we may give a rose
where we cannot gather a magnificent bou-

156 STRIVE TO PLEASE.

quel We may bestow the kind word, and the
cheerful look, and the pleasant smile, where
we cannot take off great burdens of sorrow,
or add great things to the possession of our
friends. " To think kindly of each other is
well, to speak kindly of each other is better,
but to act kindly one towards another is best
of all."

6. Make it a part of your duty to please.

Those who think they can always please, will
often disgust by their vanity; those who never
try, never will ; while those who attempt it as
a part of life's duty, will often succeed. This
disposition is a perennial flower which is beau-
tiful and fragrant in summer and winter. It
never fades. Let the young lady who desires
*to be beloved — and who does not? — remem-
ber that " permanent beauty is not that which
consists in symmetry of form, dignity of mien,
gracefulness of motion, loveliness of color, reg-
ularity of features, goodliness of complexion,
or cheerfulness of countenance ; because age
and disease, to which all are liable, and from
which none are exempt, will, sooner or later,
destroy all these. That alone is permanent

haydn's gladness. 157

beauty which arises from the purity of the
mind and the sanctity of the heart, the agree-
ableness of the manners and the chasteness
of the conversation. If the outward form be
handsome, it appears to greater advantage ;
and if it be not so, it is as easily discerned,
and as justly appreciated. That, therefore,
which in the sight of God is of price, ought
to be so in the judgment of men."

7. The habit of being and feeling cheerful
is of unspeakable value.

We are not by nature equally amiable and
cheerful ; but nature is given to us to improve
upon. By culture, the wild rose of the hills
becomes the charm of the green-house. The
pure white lily is nurtured by the muddy bot-
tom of the lake. It is easy to be pleased
when every thing is as we desire it, but what
we want to acquire and retain is the cheerful
disposition. " It is more valuable than gold,
it captivates more than beauty, and to the
close of life retains all . its freshness and its
power." When Haydn was inquired of how
it happened that his church music was always
so cheerful, he made this beautiful reply:

158 FEAST OF JOY.

" I cannot make it otherwise. I write it ac
cording to the thoughts I feel ; when I think
upon God, my heart is so full of joy that the
notes dance and leap, as it were, from my
pen ; and since God has given me a cheerful
heart, it will be pardoned me that I serve him
with a cheerful spirit." There are few spots
on earth that are not sometimes warm with
sunshine, few winds that do not purify the
air, no storms that are not followed by a calm,
and no situations in which there are not mer-
cies mingled with our afflictions. Feltham
says, " I know we read of Christ's weeping,
not of his laughter, yet we see he graceth a
feast with'his first miracle, and that a feast
of joy." The man who has grown up through
the kindness of others, as we all have, and
who will not, in his turn, try to aid and bless
others, is like a tree, to use the figure of Pope,
which will not bear fruit itself, nor suffer
young plants to flourish beneath its shade.
If there are waves, remember that they will
soon sleep ; if there are winters, that summers
are sure to follow ; if there are clouds, that we
can look through them often, and that the sun

FAIR WEATHER WILL COME. 159

is always shining beyond them. In the midst
of troublous times, James Howel sent this
beautiful consolation to his friends. " You
know better than I, that all events, good or
bad, come from the all-disposing high Deity
of heaven ; if good, he produceth them, if bad,
he permits them. He is the pilot that sits
at the stern and steers the great vessel of the
world ; and we must not presume to direct
him in his course, for he understands the use
of the compass better than we. He com-
mands also the winds and the weather, and
after a storm he never fails to send us a
calm, and to recompense ill times with better,
if we can live to see them." It is a great
misfortune, especially to a young lady, to
have a temper sour, morose, or melancholy.
It is particularly necessary that women " ac-
quire command of temper, because much of
the effects of their powers of reasoning and
of their wit depends upon the gentleness and
good-humor with which they conduct them-
selves. A woman who should attempt to
thunder with her tongue, would not find her
eloquence increase her domestic happiness.

160 PASSION DISGUSTING IN WOMAN.

We do not wish that women should im-
plicitly yield their better judgment to their
friends ; but let them support the cause of
reason with all the grace of female gentle-
ness. A man in a furious passion is terrible
to his enemies, a woman in a passion is dis-
gusting to her friends ; she loses all the re-
spect due to her sex, and she has not masculine
strength and courage to enforce any other kind
of respect. The happiness and influence of
women, in every relation, so much depends
on their temper, that it ought to be most care-
fully cultivated. We should not suffer girls
to imagine that they balance ill-humor by
some good quality or accomplishment; be-
cause, in fact, there are none which can sup-
ply the want of temper in the female sex."
And there are some who, though cheerful in
their daily life, yet are unhappy in their re-
ligion. To such I would recommend the
advice of the Earl of Strafford to his son,
just before his death : " And in all your du-
ties and devotions towards God, rather per-
form them joyfully than pensively, for God
loves a cheerful giver." Let your heart re-

REJOICING IN GOD. 161

joice in all the pleasant things with which he
hath surrounded you. Enjoy all the friends
with whom he hath blessed you, but when
you come into his presence praise him for all
these delights, and while you mourn your un-
worthiness, dishonor him not Ly your faith-
lessness and your complainings of his provi-
dence.

ii

CHAPTER X.

HEALTH AT SCHOOL.

Conveniences of our Day. All under Law. Abuses among
Good Men. Dr. Payson's Letter. Good Advice. The
Two Extremes. John Howard's Testimony. His Experi-
ence in full. Too much Care. The Conscientious Self-
destroyer. Recovery, — a Curious Case. Hints not Rules.
Sleep, how much needed. Sir William Jones. A Curious
Will. Importance of Habits. Mother's Cupboard. The
Young Lady's Self-control. Exercise indispensable. Dr.
Franklin's Experience. Mind corresponds with the Body.
Cheerfulness essential to Health.

So much is written and said on the subject
of health at this day, — so many lectures are
given, so many prescriptions are made, and
so much complaint is made for the want of it,
— that we should be inexcusable not to say
something about it. We have so many con-
veniences, stoves, furnaces, furs, and shawls,

ALL UNDER LAW.

163

so many luxuries in food, so many thin, pa-
per-soled shoes at this day, that good health
has become almost like a ghost, — a thing
much talked about, but seldom seen. Almost
every affliction of the body, as well as of the
mind, arises from the fact that we refuse to
obey law. God has given the ten command-
ments for the welfare of human society, and
no one can be universally violated without
destroying society, and no one can be partial-
ly violated without injuring society just in
proportion as it is violated. So he has given
laws for the body, — not spoken, indeed, on
Sinai, but written on the body, — laws which
cannot be violated without injuring the health.
These laws often clash with our wishes and
habits, but they are inexorable. We must
obey them or suffer. I would that all, while
they are young, would improve every advan-
tage which they have for learning these laws of
physiology, — understand them thoroughly, —
and then they would be none too careful in
their observance. While we are young, feel
buoyant and elastic, we hardly know when
we violate the laws of our system, or if we

164 ABUSES AMONG GOOD MEN.

do know, we feel that it is of little conse-
quence. Do not be deceived. Depend upon
it, for every violation of these laws, you have
some day to render an account; and to pay
a penalty, probably, by suffering. Is it not
strange that many, who feel that they are in-
excusable for wasting their property, or their
minds, are yet wholly indifferent to the health,
or rather, that they should think they may
violate all the laws of their being, and yet be
healthy? Even the best of men, clergymen,
think it wrong to spend time for the special
and sole purpose of exercise ; forgetting that
God designed that men should earn their
bread by the sweat of the brow, and therefore
he has made it a law, that we must work,
exercise, or be invalids, or go to an early
grave. Says the . late Dr. Payson, writing to
a young clergyman : " I am very sorry to learn
that your health is not better, but rather
worse. Should it not have improved before
you receive this, I beg you will attend to it
without delay : attend to it as your first and
chief duty, for such be assured it is. ' A
merciful man is merciful to his beast,' and

dr. payson's letter. 165

you must be merciful to your beast; or, as
Mr. M. would say, to your animal. Remem-
ber that it is your Master's property, and he
will no more thank you for driving it to death,
than an earthly master would thank a servant
for riding a valuable horse to death, under
pretence of zeal for his interest. The truth
is, I am afraid Satan has jumped on to the
saddle, and when he is there in the guise of
an angel of light, he whips and spurs at a
most unmerciful rate, as every joint in my poor
broken-winded animal can testify from woful
experience. He has temptations for the con-
science, as Mr. Newton well observes ; and
when other temptations fail, he makes great
use of them. Many a poor creature has he
ridden to death by using his conscience as a
spur, and you must not be ignorant, nor act
as il you were ignorant, of his devices. Re-
member Mr. Brainerd's remark, that diversions
rightly managed increased rather than dimin-
ished his spirituality. I now feel that I am
never serving our Master more acceptably,
than when, for his sake, I am using means to
preserve my health and lengthen my life ; and

166 THE TWO EXTREMES.

you must feel in a similar manner if you
mean to do him service in the world. He
knows what you would do for him if you
could. Do not think less favorably of him
than you would of a judicious father. Do
not think that such a father would require
labor when he enjoins rest or relaxation.
Ride then, or go a fishing, or employ yourself
in any way which will exercise the body
gently, without wearying the mind. Above
all, make trial of the shower-bath."

There are, I am well aware, two extremes.
The one, when you take no care of your
health; when you go out with shoes that
seem as if made to defy consumptions, colds,
or coughs, — so thin that they seem good for
nothing but to keep the wet in, and the foot
cold ; when you set the elements at defiance
by the smallest quantity of clothing ; when
you eat any thing and every thing without
regard to quantity or quality ; when you are
irregular in all your hours and habits of sleep
and rest ; and when you never feel that you
are responsible for the welfare of your body.
The other extreme is when you give your

john Howard's testimony. 167

thoughts too much to health, and feel that
fresh air is deadly poison ; that cold water
brings consumption, or chills ; that exercise
cannot be taken in any proportion to the
wants of the system. These extremes are to
be avoided. In a climate so fickle as ours, so
cold and so hot, where the greatest changes
may take place in a few hours, it will not do
to be too confident. But this very alterna-
tion — now bracing you up with the severe
cold of winter, and now pouring upon you the
brightest of all suns in summer — requires
care, attention, and much careful exercise. I
am satisfied, that if, when young, you will pay
proper attention to this subject, you may
hope, not only for a long life, but a life of
vigor, of energy, and of high enjoyment. I
cannot forbear quoting in this place £he ex-
perience of John Howard, as related in his
own simple, but beautiful language. " A
more puny whipster than myself in the days
of my youth was never seen. I could not
walk out an evening without wrapping up.
If I got wet in the feet, a cold succeeded. I
could not put on my shirt without its being

168 john Howard's testimony.

aired. I was politely enfeebled enough to
have delicate nerves, and was occasionally
troubled with a very genteel hectic. To be
serious, I am convinced that whatever emas-
culates the body debilitates the mind, and
renders both unfit for those exertions which
are of such use to us, as social beings. I
therefore entered upon a reform of my consti-
tution, and have succeeded in such a degree,
that I have neither had a cough, cold, vapors,
nor any more alarming disorder, since I sur-
mounted the seasoning. Prior to this, I used
to be a miserable dependent on wind and
weather; a little too much of either would
postpone, and frequently prevent, not only my
amusements, but my duties. And every one
knows, that a pleasure or a duty deferred is
often destroyed. If, pressed by my affections,
or by the necessity of affairs, I did venture
forth, in despite of the elements, the conse-
quences were equally absurd and incommodi-
ous, not seldom afflictive. I muffled up, even
to my nostrils. A crack in the glass of my
chaise was sufficient to distress me ; a sudden
slope of the wheels to the right or left set me

TOO MUCH CARE. 169

a trembling ; a jolt seemed like a dislocation ;
and the sight of a bank or precipice, near
which my horse or carriage was to pass,
would disorder me so much, that I would
order .the driver to stop, that I might get out,
and walk by the difficult places. Mulled
wine, spirituous cordials, and great fires were
to comfort me, and keep out the cold, as it is
called, at every' stage; and if I felt the least
damp in my feet, or other parts of my body,
dry stockings, linen, &c. were to be instantly
put on, the perils of the day were to be baffled
by something taken hot, going to bed; and
before I pursued my journey the next day, a
dram was to be swallowed down to fortify
the stomach. In a word, I lived, moved, and
had my being so much by rule, that the
slightest deviation was a disease.

" Every man must, in these cases, be his
own physician. He must prescribe for and
practise on himself. I did this by a very sim-
ple, but, as you will think, a very severe regi-
men ; namely, by denying myself almost every
thing in which I had long indulged. But as
it is always much harder to get rid of a bad

170 THE CONSCIENTIOUS SELF-DESTROYER.

habit than to contract it, I entered on my re-
form gradually, that is to say, I began to
diminish my usual indulgences by degrees.
I found that a heavy meal, or a hearty one as
it is termed, and a cheerful glass, that is to
say, one more than does you good, made me
incapable, or at best disinclined to any useful
exertion for some hours after dinner ; and if
the diluting powers of tea assisted the work
of a disturbed digestion so far as to restore
my faculties, a luxurious supper came so
close upon it, that I was fit for nothing but
dissipation, till I went to a luxurious bed;
where I finished the enervating practices, by
sleeping eight, ten, and sometimes a dozen
hours on a stretch. You will not wonder that
I arose the next morning with the solids re-
laxed, the nerves unstrung, the juices thick-
ened, and the constitution weakened. To
remedy all this, I ate a little less at every
meal, and reduced my drink in proportion.

" It is really wonderful to consider how, im-
perceptibly, a single morsel of animal food
and a teaspoonful of liquor deducted from the
usual quantity daily, will restore the mental

RECOVERY, A CURIOUS ONE. 171

functions without any injury to the corporal,
nay, with increased vigor to both. I brought
myself, in the first instance, from dining upon
many dishes, to dining on a few ; and then to
being satisfied with one.

" My next business was to eat sparingly of
the adopted dish. My ease, vivacity, and
spirits augmented. My clothing, &c. under-
went a similar reform ; the effect of all which
is and has been for many years, that I am
neither affected by seeing my carriage dragged
up a high mountain or driven down a valley.
If an accident happen, I am prepared for it, I
mean, so far as it respects unnecessary ter-
rors, and I am proof against all changes in the
atmosphere, wet clothes, wet feet, night air,
damp houses, transitions from heat to cold,
and the long train of hypochondriac affec-
tions. Believe me, we are too apt to invert
the remedies which we ought to prescribe to
ourselves. For instance, we are for ever giv
ing hot things when we should give cold."

There are no specific rules to be given as to
health. We can give only hints.

1. Remember, that, while young, you as

172

SLEEP,

HOW MUCH NEEDED.

much decide the question what your health
shall be in after life, as you do what your
mind shall be. The habits now formed, the
train now laid, either for health or feeble-
ness, will show itself hereafter. Form no
habits of eating, drinking, sleeping, or dress-
ing which are not for life, — none which you
would not be willing to own as your habits
as long as you live. It costs much less to
form a right habit now, than it will to correct
a bad habit and form a new one in after
years. Therefore eat as you mean to eat,
sleep, exercise, and do just as you hope to do
all the way through life.

2. Early rising is essential to health.

Some lay down the principle, that no one
needs more than six hours of sleep. I do not
believe that. They might as well say that
we need only so many ounces of food. We
differ in constitution. The food or the sleep
which would be ample for one man is very
inadequate for another. One needs no more
than six, or even five hours, while another needs
seven or eight, for his rest. As all do not
wear out the system equally fast, or as all

SIR WILLIAM JONES. 173

do not recover equally fast, we can have no
specific rule. Each must judge for himself;
but all agree, that early rising is essential to
health. You will find men of eighty years
of age, some who have been very temperate
in food and drink ; others that have eaten
and drank when and what they pleased ; some
who have lived in doors and some without ;
but they all agree in this, that early rising was
a habit with them all. Sir William Jones says
to a friend, " I am well, rising constantly be-
tween three and four, and usually walking
two or three miles before sunrise." In order
to rise early, therefore, it is essential that you
retire early ; and as soon as the duties of the
day are over, you cannot be too quickly on
your pillow. The first sleep of the night is
much more refreshing than that of the latter
part of the night. To many, one of the hard-
est duties connected with the discipline of
school is that of early rising. But who ever
accomplished much, or satisfied his own con-
science, without being in this habit ? In the
will of the late James Sergeant, of the Bor-
ough of Leicester, is the following clause

174 A CURIOUS WILL.

relative to early rising : — " As my nephews
are fond of indulging in bed in a morning,
and as I wish them to improve the time while
they are young, I direct that they shall prove,
to the satisfaction of my executors, that they
have got out of bed in the morning, and either
employed themselves in business or taken ex-
ercise in the open air from five o'clock till
eight every morning, from the 5th of April to
the 10th of October, being three hours each
day; and from seven o'clock till nine in the
morning, from the 10th of October to the
5th of April, being two hours every morning,
for two years. This to be done for some two
years during the first seven years to the satis-
faction of my executors, who may excuse
them in case of illness, but the task must be
made up when they are well ; and if they do
not do this, they shall not receive any share
of my property."

To rise early till it becomes a habit and a
pleasure, requires a strong will and prompt
action. You can easily acquire the habit of
awaking at any given hour, provided you act
promptly, and rise the moment the time has

mother's cupboard. 175

come. There must be no dreading it, no dal-
lying, no postponing. " If you once turn
over on your side after the hour at which you
ought to rise, it is all over with you." There
is no time when the mind is so fresh, so elas-
tic, so vigorous and young, as early in the
morning. And there is nothing which goes
to promote the health of the body like it.
The Spaniards are famous for their proverbs.
One of them reads on this wise. " He that
sleeps too long in the morning, let him bor-
row the pillow of a debtor."

3. Be simple in food and drinks.

All who have been away from home to
school are aware, that, of all places in the
world, this is the most hungry. And the cases
are not few, when the scholar, and the parent
too, imputes this appetite to being stinted in
food designedly on the part of the school.
I need not go into the philosophy of the
thing. A young lady at her father's table
feels, of course, free to eat all she can, and
more than is for her good. In addition to
this, her mother's cupboard was always open
to her, and many a bit does she eat between

176 THE YOUNG LADY's SELF-CONTROL.

meals. She does not wait to feel hungry at
home, she only waits long enough to think
of food, when she eats. When, therefore,
she goes from home, she is cut off from the
between-meal system, and at the table she
feels less at liberty to indulge. The conse-
quence is, that she feels hungry, and that
feeling is so new and so strange, that she is
alarmed, and begins to look round and see
who is so cruel as to allow her to feel the
sensation of hunger. To be sure she is al-
most a martyr now. But does not her health
improve ? Yes ; but she feels hungry ! Does
not the bloom gather on her cheek, and she
look like the picture of health ? Yes ; but
she feels hungry ! She acts and wants to act
from appetite, and not from principle. To
prove this is so, let the young lady have a
large box arrive from home, and let her have
it in her room ; let it be filled with chicken-
pie, roast turkey, mince-pies, loaf-cake, pound-
cake, and, above all, the black, most sticky
fruit-cake, — and how long will it be before
the said young lady has a dreadful head-
ache, and is very sick, and must lay aside her

EXERCISE INDISPENSABLE. 177

books, and have the doctor, and swaljow jalap
and ipecac, castor-oil and senna, and all the
good things in which he deals ? Not one in
fifty, I am safe in saying, could receive and
use such a box from home without being sick.
And yet they feel that they can hardly eat
too much or too rich food, and that a plain,
simple diet is not for their good, but the good
of those who provide for them.

4. To enjoy healthy you must take some
regular exercise.

We may quarrel with the law, may forget
it, nay, plead that we cannot be under it;
but yet God has so fixed it that we cannot
long remain well without exercise. The best
exercise is in the clear, pure, out-of-door at-
mosphere. You ought not to be near a fire
when you exercise. It is the air, the pure
air that surrounds us, and in which we are
bathed, that does us so much good as we go
out. What is called going out and taking
the air, is really taking a medicine. Says
Dr. Franklin : " In considering the different
kinds of exercise, I have thought that the

quantum of each is to be judged of, not by
12

178 dr. franklin's experience.

time or by distance, but by the degree of
warmth it produces in the body ; thus, when
I observe that if I am cold when I get into a
carriage in the morning, I may ride all day
without being warmed by it ; that if on horse-
back my feet are cold, I may ride some hours
before they become warm ; but if I am ever
so cold on foot, I cannot walk an hour briskly
without glowing from head to foot by the
quickened circulation : I have been ready to
say (using round numbers without regard to
exactness, but merely to make a great differ-
ence), that there is more exercise in one mile's
riding on horseback, than in five in a carriage,
and more in one mile's walking on foot, than
in five on horseback ; to which I may add, that
there is more in one mile up and down stairs
than in five on a level floor, and this last may
be had when one is pinched for time, and as
containing a greater quantity of exercise in a
' handful of minutes.' "

Some most unfortunate young ladies have
imbibed the notion, that exercise will spoil
that excessive delicacy and that softness
which, as they think, is so lady-like, and so

MIND CORRESPONDS WITH THE BODY. 179

becoming to them. Let them know that we
can well spare the lily when the rose comes
to take its place. I know not how it is, but
among men we expect to find few brains, few
thoughts, and very little character, in a case
that is not robust, strong, and vigorous.
" Strong men are usually good-humored and
active men, and often display the same elas-
ticity of mind as of body. These superiori-
ties, indeed, are often misused. But even for
these things God shall call us to judgment."

5. To enjoy good health, you must cultivate
cheerfulness.

A sour, gloomy mind fills the body with
negative electricity, so that it repels whoever
and whatever comes near it. I am aware
that some are born under an evil star, and
seldom see the sun when it shines. We can-
not all be and fee] equally cheerful. But we
can cultivate cheerfulness. We can look on
the sunny side of our dwelling, and not al-
ways on the shady side. We can believe
that the present evils are transitory, and will
soon go past. We may believe that those
who surround us are not enemies, but friends ;

180 CHEERFULNESS ESSENTIAL TO HEALTH.

that those who are our teachers or compan-
ions are all friends; that our circumstances
are not bad, but good ; and that if we have
trials now, they are for a day only, and are
for our good. We may believe that a kind
Providence watches over us for good, and
that all that pertains to our well-being, in
this world and the next, is in the hands of
Infinite Wisdom and Goodness.

CHAPTER XI.

THE BIBLE.

No Excuse for us. Bible worn on the Neck. Eusebius's Tes-
timony. Bible committed to Memory. Primitive Custom.
Cool Water from the Spring. " Let us begin again." The
Embarrassed Merchant. The Bible Hawker. Fifty Cen-
times. Garden of the Lord. Commit it accurately. Eight
Thousand Verses a Year. Do not omit a Day. Bible in
the Trunk. Ice broken. Not a Bad Idea. Sixteen Bible
Clerks. Chinaman's Experience. Bible in Yucatan. Con-
cordance a Help. Let your Faith be strong. A Lamp to
the Feet. Suited to every Thing.

My young friends may not realize how pre-
cious the word of God has been to all gen-
erations who have had the opportunity to read
it. We probably feel that now, when every
child has a Bible, perhaps beautifully printed
and bound, we have no excuse for neglecting
to read the Scriptures. Is she aware how

182 BIBLE WORN ON THE NECK.

much more it depends on the state of the
heart than upon the conveniences we enjoy ?
Is she aware, that in the generations past,
before the beautiful page of the Bible was
printed, this book was read with a faithful-
ness never since excelled ? I cannot forbear
transcribing the testimony to their earnest
love for this best of all books, and I think you
will say it is none too long.

" At a time when the copies of the sacred
volume were all in manuscript, and very
scarce, being so dear as to be beyond the
reach of many to purchase, and when multi-
tudes of those who had been converted to
Christianity were unacquainted with the first
elements of reading, the great majority of
them were conversant with the phraseology
and the matter of the word of life, to a de-
gree that might well put modern Christians
to shame. Those of the men who could
read never went abroad without carrying a
Bible in their pockets, while the women wore
it hanging about their necks, and by frequent-
ly refreshing their memories by private pe-
rusal, and drawing little groups of anxious

EUSEBIUS'S TESTIMONY. 183

listeners around them, they acquired so famil-
iar an acquaintance with the " lively oracles,"
that there were few who could not repeat
those passages that contained any thing re-
markable respecting the doctrines of their
faith, or the precepts of their duty. Nay,
there were many who had made the rare and
enviable attainment of being able to say the
entire Scriptures by heart. One person is
mentioned among the martyrs of Palestine,
so well instructed in the sacred writings,
that, when occasion offered, he could, from
memory, repeat passages in any part of the
Scripture, as exactly as if he had unfolded
the book and read them ; a second, being un-
acquainted with letters, used to invite friends
and Christian strangers to his house to read
to him, by which means he acquired an ex-
tensive knowledge of the sacred oracles ; and
another may be mentioned of whom the de-
scription is so extraordinary, that we shall
give it in the words of the historian, Eusebi-
us, who knew him : ' Whenever he willed,
he brought forth, as from a repository of sci-
ence, and rehearsed, either the law of Moses,

184

BIBLE COMMITTED TO MEMORY.

or the prophets, or the historical, evangelical,
and apostolical parts of Scripture. Indeed, I
was struck with admiration when I first be-
held him standing amidst a considerable mul-
titude, and reciting certain portions of holy
writ. As long as I could only hear his voice,
I supposed that he was reading ; but when I
came close up to him, I discovered that, em-
ploying only the eyes of his mind, he uttered
the divine oracles like some prophet.' Every
day it was the practice for each individual to
commit a portion of Scripture to memory,
and for the members of a family to repeat it
to each other in the evening. So much was
this custom regarded as part of the ordinary
business of the day, that they had a set time
appointed for conning the daily lesson, — an
horn* which, though every individual fixed it
as suited his private convenience, was held so
precious and sacred, that no secular duties,
however urgent, were allowed to infringe up-
on it ; and while some, who had their time at
their own disposal, laid their memories under
larger contributions, and never relaxed their
efforts till they had completed the daily task

PRIMITIVE CUSTOM.

185

they had imposed upon themselves, others
were obliged to content themselves with such
shorter passages as they could learn during
the intervals of labor, and amidst the distrac-
tions of other cares. By all classes, however,
it was considered so great an advantage, so
desirable an attainment, to have the memory
richly stored with the records of salvation,
that, while in the lapse of time many ancient
practices became obsolete, and others more
suited to the taste of succeeding ages were
adopted into the Church, this excellent custom
still maintained its place among the venerable
observances inherited from primitive times ;
and the pious Christians of the first centuries
would have regarded it as a sin of omission,
for which they had occasion expressly to sup-
plicate pardon in their evening devotions,
if they were conscious of having allowed a
day to pass without having added some new
pearls from the Scriptures to the sacred treas-
ures their memory had previously amassed."

Every one knows that the food which he
has had from childhood is that which suits
his health and taste; he may occasionally

.186 COOL WATER FROM THE SPRING.

vary his diet, but he soon feels that he is the
loser. So he who daily reads the Scriptures
will soon find, not only that they are neces-
sary to him, but delightful to the spirit.
There is no other reading which will not
pall upon the taste, when you come to read
it again and again. But the Bible, like the
air of morning and like the cool water from
the spring, is always fresh and pleasant. It
is important to read the Scriptures daily,
and I cannot too earnestly urge you to let
nothing come in to prevent it. Read your
Bible alone ; not here and there a chapter, but
in a continuous course. Three chapters read
daily, as they average, will carry you through
the Bible every year ; and four daily will add
the Psalms and the New Testament a second
time. By accident, I lately discovered that a
friend of mine, and he not a very old man,
had read his Bible in course thirty-eight times
through in the last eleven years. What bet-
ter way could he have taken for increase in
mental strength, in knowledge of God, and
for growth of character ? Fifteen minutes of
reading daily will carry you through the Bi-

" LET US BEGIN AGAIN." 187

ble once every year of your life. Whether
the reader of the Bible be learned or illiterate,
the result is the same, — he loves the book
the more, the longer he reads it. During the
time that Dr. Kennicott was employed in col-
lating the Hebrew Scriptures (a work which
occupied the last thirty years of his life), it
was Mrs. Kennicott's constant office, in their
daily airings, to read to him the different por-
tions to which his immediate attention was
called. When preparing for their ride, the
day after this great work was completed,
upon her asking him what book she should
now take, " O," exclaimed he, " let us begin
the Bible ! "

It is not merely that the Bible lights up the
path of the soul beyond this life, but it now
sheds a light that is like a lamp to our feet.
It soothes the troubled spirit, hushes every
passion of the soul, and lifts the clouds of
fear and of sorrow from the heart. It is like
bathing the soul in the waters of life. A dy-
ing merchant leaves the following beautiful
testimony of his own experience : — " Last
year I became considerably embarrassed in

188 THE EMBARRASSED MERCHANT.

business. On Saturday evening I would
come home, not knowing how I should meet
the obligations of the following week, and
with my mind so distracted, that it seemed as
if the Sabbath would be worse than lost. I
was then teaching a Bible-class. With sad-
ness I would sit down to prepare the lesson
for the next day; but as I advanced, truth
took possession of my mind, faith took the
place of distrust, and hope of fear. I was led
almost insensibly to leave my affairs with my
covenant God. And invariably I found these
Sabbaths precious and delightful. And, more-
over, in returning to business on Monday, a
way was always provided to meet my re-
sponsibilities."

We who have always had a fulness of
bread, have little conception how sweet it
tastes to those who have it not ; and I some-
times fear that we who have had the precious
word of life in our hands all our days, are
unable to appreciate the greatness of the
blessing. Let us look .into one of the little
cottages of the poor in France, and see how a
part of the Bible can turn it into a palace, by

THE BIBLE HAWKER. 189

making the soul a temple of the great God.
A hawker presented himself at the door of a
hut, situated on the skirts of a wood. A poor
old woman opened the door to him. No
sooner had he offered her a Testament, than
she seized his hand with an air of gratitude,
and said, —

" I thank you, I already possess this book,
and have a debt to pay you."

" I have never seen you before," replied the
hawker.

" I will tell you how it happened," said the
woman. " Six years ago, a hawker passed
this way ; he offered me this book, but I had
not sufficient money to pay for it ; fifty cen-
times (fivepence) was a great sum for me,
and still I had a great longing to possess the
book. Your friend, who observed this, said to
me, ' Take it. I leave it with you ; if you
have no money to pay for it, you will pay it
to the first hawker who passes after me.' I
accepted his offer. At first I thought' the
book sufficiently expensive ; but when I be-
gan to read it, I considered it cheap : I then
began to put a few half-pence aside, but as I

190 GARDEN OF THE LORD.

advanced, I found in it so many beautiful
things, that I added now and then a few more
half-pence. I have known many unhappy
hours, I have been sometimes without bread,
but not for all the world would I have touched
this money."

As she said this, the poor woman produced
the fruit of six years' economy. It amounted
to five francs, which she consigned with joy
to the hawker, telling him that she did not
consider that she could ever pay for the book
its real value ; that to her it was worth more
than a thousand francs, but that she gave all
that she had.

When I urge the daily reading of the Bi-
ble, I do not mean reading it as you read
other books, — passing along, and letting
what will impress the memory and the heart.
It is a book spiritually discerned, and you
need to pause often and contemplate the
fields you are passing over. A few hasty
glarfces are not sufficient ; you should stop
before every tree, and examine every flower,
and admire every ! shrub, for you are in the
garden of the Lord, and every tree and plant

COMMIT IT ACCURATELY. 191

and flower was planted by the hand of your
Heavenly Father. " I would recommend you,"
says one, " to pause at any verse of Scripture
you choose, and shake, as it were, every bough
of it, that, if possible, some fruit, at least, may
drop down to you. Should this mode appear
somewhat difficult to you at first, and no
thought suggest itself immediately to your
mind capable of affording matter for a short
ejaculation, yet persevere, and try another
and another bough. If your soul really hun-
gers, the Spirit of the Lord will not send you
away empty ; you shall at length find in one,
and that perhaps a short, verse of Scripture,
such an abundance of delicious fruit, that
you will gladly seat yourself under the shade,
and abide there as under a tree laden with
fruit."

I cannot but urge you to commit as much
of the Bible to memory as you possibly can.
Be sure to commit it accurately, in the very
words of the Bible. You will find in after
life, in the da^ of sickness, when on journeys,
when in the thronged city, when the eyes fail,
when old age overtakes you, or when you

192 EIGHT THOUSAND VERSES A YEAR.

hear the Bible questioned, or its truths de-
nied, or allusions or quotations made in the
pulpit, — you will find that every verse which
you committed to memory will be invaluable.
At first it will seem a task, but begin by
committing one or two verses each day, and
the memory will shortly become so strong as
to retain whatever you call upon it to retain.
Many complain of a bad memory when they
have been too indolent to task it, and have
abused and slandered it, instead of trusting
to its strength. Do not blame your hooks till
you have hung something upon them. In a
Sunday school in Southwark, one boy repeat-
ed to his teacher a total of above six thousand
verses of Scripture in one year. Another boy
in the same school committed to memory
and repeated to his teacher a total of over
eight thousand verses, in one year, which
formed an aggregate of one hundred and fifty
verses every week. These were remarkable
cases, perhaps ; but I have been surprised, in
my own experience, to see how readily the
memory retains the Bible, when the habit is
cultivated. It seems as if its simple language

DO NOT OMIT A DAY. 193

and beautiful imagery were peculiarly adapt-
ed to the memory, provided you are careful
to commit it accurately. I cannot too ear-
nestly insist that you give your whole, undi-
vided attention to the word of God while
your eyes are fixed upon it. Do not let the
thoughts wander, do not allow any thing else
to intrude upon you. When Patrick Henry
was near the close of his life, he laid his hand
on the Bible, and addressed a friend who was
with him, " Here is a book worth more than
all others printed, yet it is my misfortune
never to have read it with proper attention
until lately."

Let me urge upon you as a matter of the ut-
most importance, that you daily, in all circum-
stances and conditions, read a portion of your
Bible, — in the hotel, the steamboat, on the
visit to friends, or wherever you are. Perhaps
the latter place is where you will be most in
danger of neglecting it. ' You are on a visit
at your acquaintance's or friend's house ; the
hour of retiring arrives ; you have been accus-
tomed at that hour to open the word of God.
You are now engaged in conversation ; in the
13

194 BIBLE IN THE TRUNK.

review of the day and in plans for the mor-
row : before you are aware, you will find
you are tempted to lay your head on the pil-
low, and neglect the reading. I would most
fervently urge you not to do it. Most likely,
the very friend on whose account you put
aside your best Friend is doing the very
same thing on your account.

" When I was a young man," says a clergy-
man, " I was a clerk in Boston. Two of my
room-mates at my boarding-house were also
clerks, about my own age, which was eighteen.
The first Sunday morning, during the three or
four long hours that elapsed from getting up to
bell-ringing for church, I felt a secret desire to
get a Bible, which my mother had given me,
out of my trunk, and read it ; for I had been
so brought up by my parents as to regard it
as a duty at home to read a chapter or two
every Sunday. I was now very anxious to
get my Bible and read, but I was afraid to do
so before my room-mates, who were reading
some miscellaneous books. At length, my
conscience got the mastery, and I rose up,
and went to my trunk. I had half raised

ICE BROKEN. 195

it, when the thought occurred to me that it
might look like over-sanctity, and Pharisaical,
so I shut my trunk, and returned to the win-
dow. For twenty minutes I was miserably
ill at ease. I felt I was doing wrong. I
started a second time for my trunk, and I
had my hand upon the little Bible, when
the fear of being laughed at conquered the
better emotion, and I again dropped the
top of the trunk. As I turned away from it,
one of my room-mates, who observed my ir-
resolute movements, said laughingly, ' What 's
the matter ? You seem as restless as a weath-
ercock ! '

" I replied by laughing in my turn ; and
then, conceiving the truth to be the best,
frankly told them both what was the matter.

" To my surprise and delight, they both
spoke up and averred that they both had
Bibles in their trunks, and both had been se-
cretly wishing to read in them, but were afraid
to take them out lest I should laugh at them.

" ' Then,' said I, ' let us agree to read them
every Sunday, and we shall have the laugh
all on one side.'

196

NOT A BAD IDEA.

" To this there was a hearty response, and
the next moment the three Bibles were out;
and I assure you we felt happier all that day
for reading in them that morning.

" The following Sunday, about ten o'clock,
while we were each reading our chapters, two
of our fellow-boarders from another room came
in. "When they saw how we were engaged
they stared, and then exclaimed, * Bless us !
what is all this ? A conventicle ? '

" In reply, I, smiling, related to them exactly
how the matter stood ; my struggle to get my
Bible from my trunk, and how we three, hav-
ing found we had all been afraid of each other
without cause, had now agreed to read every
Sunday. * Not a bad idea,' answered one
of them. i You have more courage than I
have. I have a Bible, too, but have not looked
into it since I have been in Boston ! But I '11
read it after this since you 've broken the ice.'
The other then asked one of us to read
aloud, and both sat quietly and listened till
the bell rang for church. That evening, we
three in the same room agreed to have a
chapter read every night by one or the other

SIXTEEN BIBLE CLERKS. 197

of us at nine o'clock, and we religiously ad-
hered to our purpose. A few evenings after
this resolution, four or five of the boarders
(for there were sixteen clerks boarding in
the house) happened to be in our room talk-
ing, when the nine-o'clock bell rang. One
of my room-mates, looking at me, opened
the Bible. The others looked inquiringly.
I then explained our custom. ' We '11 all
stay and listen,' they said, almost unani-
mously.

" The result was, that, without an exception,
every one of the sixteen clerks spent his Sab-
bath morning in reading in the Bible ; and
the moral effect upon our household was of
the highest character. I relate this incident,"
concluded the clergyman, "to show what in-
fluence one person, even a youth, may exert
for evil or good. No man should ever be
afraid to do his duty. A hundred hearts may
throb to act right, that only await a leader.
I forget to add, that we were all called Bible
clerks ! All these youths are now useful and
Christian men, and more than one is laboring
in the ministry."

198 chinaman's experience.

The fact that the Bible can be understood
and enjoyed only by a heart under the influ-
ence of the Spirit who gave it, is a great fact,
to be remembered. You cannot relish read-
ing it if the mind is given up to lightness,
frivolity, and worldly pleasures. A Chinaman
who had learned to read the Bible, being in-
quired of how he liked the book, returned it,
saying, " I like the book better than the book
like me." As fast, therefore, as you can bring
your mind and heart into conformity with
the spirit of this blessed book, the higher
will be your enjoyments and the greater your
profit in its study. We sometimes read of
the effects of a single copy of the word of
God, and see what wonderful power it has
in particular cases, thus showing us what
power it would always have were there not
some particular thing to prevent it. Take,
for example, the following, and try to answer
the question why every Bible does not have
as great an influence, and especially why not
as great upon your soul. A Roman Catho-
lic priest lived in Yucatan, about the end of
the last century, and near to the British settle-

BIBLE IN YUCATAN. 199

ment, who was in the habit of preaching from
a Spanish Bible, which somehow had fallen
into his possession. He was forbidden to do
so, but persevered, and was cast into prison,
where he was left to die. His old house-
keeper got his Bible, and read from it to the
villagers and young people who assembled
around her on the feast days of the Church.
She not only instructed them, but was often
sent for by the dying. The Bible was left-
to a young woman who was the pupil of this
housekeeper, and who, with others, when ad-
vanced in life, came seeking books from Mr.
Henderson in Balize. Discovering an in-
structed mind and unusual regard for the
Scriptures, inquiry was made, and the pre-
ceding facts came into explanation. Here
was a Bible passing through three genera-
tions and blessing each ; and yet for fifty
years the good it had done was unknown be-
yond its immediate hearers !

Should every copy of the word of God
perform such a mission, how rapidly would
the face of the world be altered! Should
your copy have a like power over your soul,

200 CONCORDANCE A HELP.

how soon would it assimilate your will and
heart and soul to the character of God !

It would be very convenient for you to
have a small Concordance with your Bible, —
since no Scripture is of private interpretation,
and must be explained one Scripture by an-
other. Sometimes a Bible Dictionary is a
great help. But of all aids to the under-
standing of the Scriptures, the references and
the Concordance are the best.

Allow me to urge one thing more with all
the fervency of my soul. I mean, take the
Bible as God's word, — inspired, unerring,
the standard of appeal, and the end of all in-
quiry. What you there find revealed, receive
as God's truth. It may be you cannot ex-
plain it, or understand it fully, but you can
believe it. If there be any one point at
which I would have you set a special guard,
it is the point of receiving the Bible as all
inspired. Only on this ground can you rest
in your faith, so that no quibbling, no bold-
ness, no strong hand, can shake it; only on
this can you rest your hopes, so that no mind
shall shake them, no darkness obscure them.

A LAMP TO THE FEET. 201

If your Bible be not God's inspired word, it
is the mightiest imposition ever laid upon the
world. But if it be, receive it, read it, believe
it, and take all the comfort in its teachings,
hopes, promises, and invitations which your
young heart, already conscious of sin, so
much needs. If you are young, full of life,
health, and hope, it will teach you the true
and the real value of these things, and show
you how you may enjoy them most and use
them so as to make the most of them ; if you
come to the place where your hopes are
clouded, and your prospects are cut off, it
opens to you a hiding-place where the storm
cannot come, and where you will feel that
you have near you a heart to sympathize
with every sorrow. It is a lamp to the feet
till the day dawn and the day-star arise in
your heart. Let no day pass without your
learning something more than you knew out
of this book of wisdom; without drawing
fresh water out of this ever-gushing fountain ;
without your obtaining light that is new,
faith that is stronger, hopes that are fresher,
and zeal that is purer.

202

SUITED TO EVERY THING.

Read the Scriptures for history, — the old-
est and truest ever written ; for morality, —
the purest ever presented for practice ; for
information, — with which, once obtained, no
one can ever be an ignorant man ; for con-
firmation, — that Faith may stand on the
Rock of Ages; for sanctification, — that you
may become fitted for heaven ; for consola-
tion, — when sorrow and disappointment over-
take you ; and, lastly, for companionship, —
because she who loves her Bible need never
be lonely, never cheerless, never discouraged.
The pure light of heaven surrounds her, and
everlasting strength is embracing her.

CHAPTER XII.

THE TRUE POSITION OF WOMAN.

The JEolian Harp. Golden Links in the Chain of Life.
Kough Diamond polished. Her True Position. They make
us. New Stars. Man cannot do it. Her Perfect Love.
Gray's Filial Love. Home-loving Queen. Where Aristoc-
racy begins. Light of the Household. To save rather
than earn. Keal Friendship. A Great Mistake. The
Noble Woman. Another Woman's Heart. The Pleasant
Surprise. Soft Star of Love. Honor to Old Age. Pecu-
liar Protection. Eights of Women. Five Sisters. A Lit-
tle " Laming." Mrs. Kennicott. Woman appreciated.

Whatever be the end for which we train
up character, it has been made plain, I trust,
that it needs much faithful training. We
sometimes hear of a character that breaks out
upon the world without much discipline, that
is great and symmetrical : so the iEolian harp
may now and then throw out notes of sur-

204 GOLDEN LINKS IN THE CHAIN OF LIFE.

passing tone, and that vibrate strongly upon
the heart; but is that instrument, after all,
to be compared to the well-tuned piano, on
which both science and skill have exhausted
their efforts ?

It is sometimes said that our daughters are
better educated than our sons, — especially,
if the sons do not obtain a classical educa-
tion; that almost universally, a girl of the
same standing, and in the same family, is
better educated than her brothers, and that
when she marries, she is often thought to be
stooping, and to be uniting herself to a man
whose education is inferior to her own. Now,
two things are to be considered ; first, that a
part of her apparent education is mere tinsel,
and will wear off shortly, while he has no tinsel.
We all can think of ladies, who, in their school
days, could draw, paint, play, or sing, and
these gave them prominence then ; but amid
the cares and anxieties and constant demands
of life, they have had no time or taste to keep
bright these golden links of the chain of life.
Show us the married lady who does not prefer
her beautiful children to any drawing of the

ROUGH DIAMOND POLISHED. 205

human head, and the flowers of her nursery to
any bouquet that can be painted in water-
colors. And how seldom does a married lady
of forty or of fifty excel on the piano ? On
the contrary, that young man who seemed so
awkward, and so unrefined, begins his educa-
tion now. He is at the head of a family, has
to plan to support it, has to see all sorts of
people, and his whole life is a continued edu-
cation ; so that by the time that he is forty or
fifty years old, you find him manly, intelligent,
shrewd, and in the possession of real char-
acter. You wonder how it is that he is so
much more than he promised, on setting out
in life, to become. His education, of neces-
sity, continues, while the woman's in a great
measure stops. At starting in life, we often
wonder at her superiority. At forty-five, we
wonder at his, — often, certainly. The reason
is plain. He must improve by contact with
the world. The rough diamond is rolled
against others till it must receive a polish,
while she is so absorbed in the cares of her
family, that her education, as such, seems to
stop.

206 HER TRUE POSITION.

If these views are correct, then the inference
is unavoidable, that the daughter at starting
in life ought to be better educated than her
brother or husband. She ought to have more
capital laid up, for she will be called upon to
use it more constantly, without having so
good an opportunity to increase it as he has.
I cannot sympathize with the cry that is often
raised, that our daughters are better educated
than our sons. I doubt whether it be true,
unless you call polish education, and then it
is true. But the wear and tear of life is un-
equal upon the two sexes, and we need have
no great fear that she will get too much the
start of her more slowly developed brother.

And this leads me to the true position of
woman. On this point it would be very easy
to say some very smart things, to ridicule
some very ancient notions, to admire some
very modern theories, to laugh at pretension,
and to scold outrageously at what is called
old prejudices.

I do not assert that woman, even in Chris-
tian society, of which only I am speaking, has
found her true position. I do not say that

THEY MAKE US. 207

her voice has not hitherto been too much con-
fined within doors, — that she may not do far
more than she ever has done by teaching
and authorship. I believe she will ; and I
yield to no one in my estimate of her power
in the world, or in the belief that, under the
light of the Bible, her influence in the world is
not less than that of the other sex. But from
her very constitution and nature, from her
peculiar sensibilities and tenderness, it seems
to me that the great mission of woman is to
take the world — the whole world — in its very
infancy, when most pliable and most suscep-
tible, and lay the foundations of human char-
acter. Human character, in all its interests
and relations and destinies, is committed to
woman, and she can make it, shape it, mould
it, and stamp it just as she pleases. There is
no other period of life when character is
formed so decidedly and so permanently as
during childhood. I maintain that we are just
what the ladies have made us to be. If they
want us to be wiser, more discreet, more ami-
able, more lofty, or more humble, why do they
not make us so ? There is no earthly being

208 NEW STARS.

whom the boy or the man reverences so much
as his mother, and why does not she make
him right ? And I care not to look the man
in the face who is not afraid of his wife when
he is doing wrong !

The professions of men are many ; we are
lawyers, physicians, clergymen, mechanics,
manufacturers, politicians : the profession of
woman is that of being the educator of the
human race, the former of human character.
By the very arrangements of his providence,
God has made it so, and to refuse to believe
it, or to throw off this responsibility, is as
unwise as it is wicked.

If, now, any one should say that this is
a small profession, or a low duty, I reply, that
it is more lofty and more responsible than if it
were assigned you to lay the foundations of
so many suns to shine in the heavens for a
few ages ; it is taking what is immortal at its
very setting out, and deciding what path it
shall tread, what character it shall bear, and
what destiny it shall obtain. You are decid-
ing, during the first few years of its training,
whether the new star shall travel and shine

- MAN CANNOT DO IT. 209

through the bright heavens, mingling its light
with that of glorious constellations, or whether
it shall be quenched shortly, and be lost in
darkness and forgetfulness.

God seems to say, " I cannot commit in-
terests so precious, so vast, to man, who must
be out on the rough ocean of life, struggling
to support his children, where he must do
battle with the elements, with the troubled
sea, with avarice and dishonesty, and his time
and thoughts must be so occupied that he
cannot be in the place at all times, to form
and mould and start the human family in
their eternal race of being." Man is too hur-
ried, too much absorbed, too rough, too im-
patient, too unsusceptible, and too tyrannical
for this office ; and so Infinite Goodness and
Wisdom pillows the head of infancy on
woman's breast, where it can hear the beating
of a heart so full of patient tenderness, and of
gentleness, purity, and love, that infancy and
childhood instinctively go to her as the best
friend, the wisest teacher, and the most faith-
ful guardian. " It is the part of woman, like
her own beautiful planet, to cheer the dawn
14

210 HER PERFECT LOVE.

and darkness, — to be both the morning and
the evening star of life. The light of her eye
is the first to rise and the last to set upon
manhood's day of trial and suffering." I do
not believe that in this wide world the angel
in the sun can see a sight so beautiful as that
of a family of children nestling round their
mother, as she kindly bends her ears to their
little sorrows and joys, fears and hopes. The
storm without may rock their dwelling, the
great forest may groan and crash, the mighty
ocean may madden and foam, — they care
not, fear not, for their mother is with them !
If sickness comes upon them, they take any
thing from her hand confidently, knowing that
she will do all in perfect love. The father
may be kind and indulgent, — they can fear
and reverence him ; but to their mother they
tell their temptations, their weaknesses.

" My father blessed me fervently,
Yet did not much complain ;
But sorely will my mother sigh
Till I come back again."

The tears which fall over the grave of a fa-
ther are sincere and agonizing, but they do

GRiY's filial love. 211

not scald like the burning drops shed over the
ashes of a mother. Gray, the poet, who was
a model of filial love, " seldom mentioned his
mother without a sigh. After his death her
gowns and wearing-apparel were found in a
trunk in his apartments just as she had left
them ; it seemed as if he could never take the
resolution to open it, in order to distribute
them to his female relations, to whom, by his
will, he bequeathed them. To one of his cor-
respondents, he says : —

" ' Your letter informed me that your mother
was recovered, otherwise I had then wrote to
you only to beg you would take care of her,
and to inform you that I had discovered a
thing very little known, which is, that in one's
whole life one can never have more than a
single mother. You may think it obvious,
and what you call a trite observation. You
are a green gosling ! I was at the same age
(very near) as wise as you, and yet I never
• discovered this (with full evidence and con-
viction I mean) till it was too late. It is
thirteen years ago, and seems but as yester-
day, and every day I live it sinks deeper into
my heart.' "

212 HOME-LOVING QUEEN.

Unhesitatingly I put it to the world at the
present moment, when the British nation
looms up so great, so rich, so strong, and
so mighty, if she, the glorious queen so ad-
mired and honored beyond any queen that
ever sat on the throne, — if she, the home-
loving Victoria, is not admired most of all,
and beyond all, as a true and faithful mother?
There is no jewel in her crown that shines
so bright as that domestic love. She is on a
high throne, and around her stand a galaxy
of warriors and statesmen, and the drum-
beat of her armies hails the sun the world
round; but, above it all, she rises up the ad-
miration of her generation, because she oc-
cupies a position for woman higher than that
of a queen, — that of an untiring, loving
mother! To watch over the education and
the training of the immortal minds that God
has committed to her in the dearest relation-
ship, is the highest responsibility and honor
of woman. You see, therefore, why I desire
the education of woman in the highest, largest
sense.

I would have her so educated that she can

:

WHERE ARISTOCRACY BEGINS. 213

comprehend the Divine Wisdom in the ar-
rangements of this world and in the distribu-
tion of our lots ; so educated that she can
see afar and judge what effects will follow
such and such causes, — that she can rightly
judge as to what and when and how she
shall teach, and discipline and guide the hu-
man family, as they are committed to her. No
narrow views are wanted here, no darkened
understanding. The world has been, and is,
and will be, just what woman makes it. So-
ciety is what she makes it. We men have
nothing to do with aristocracy or the distinc-
tions in society. We talk and walk and
shake hands with men of all classes and con-
ditions. It is the drawing-room that decides
all the distinctions of society ; there the circle
is drawn, and there, if anywhere, aristocracy
begins. Every woman determines for herself
with whom she will or will not associate,
and what shall or shall not be respectable.
Woman decides what we shall eat and
drink, what our furniture and associates shall
be, what our homes and society shall be,
what our children shall become in this world

214 LIGHT OF THE HOUSEHOLD.

and the next. If she has deep sorrows, she
has fresh joys. If she must go down almost
to the grave during the pilgrimage, she brings
up priceless jewels in which her heart may
rejoice to all eternity ! Do not then feel that
woman does not need an education of the
highest kind and degree possible, — that any
care or expense in her training is lost. Can-
not all bear witness to the truth of this beau-
tiful testimony ? — "I believe no one, who has
not tried, can estimate the amount of influ-
ence which one loving, unselfish spirit can
exercise in a household. If a cold and gloomy
temper can shed its baneful influence round,
making all who come within its shadow cold
and gloomy, so much more, blessed be God,
shall the spirit of Christian love diffuse and
spread itself over the hearts around, till it has
moulded them, in some degree, to its own
image, and taught them to seek for them-
selves that renewing spirit whose fruit is seen
to be love and joy and peace." Woman
is to hold the wires that are to make the
world advance or move backwards. She is
to stand at the head-waters and send out the

TO SAVE RATHER THAN EARN. 215

streams that are to make glad the cities of
our God.

Should fashion or folly, or a desire to make
experiments, ever thrust woman out of the
beautiful sphere in which God hath placed
her, the other sex will not suffer so much as
she herself will. It does not seem to me to
be the design of God, as the general lot of
woman, that she should wrestle with the out-
of-door occupations, grapple with business, or
that her province is so much to earn as to
save. No father or husband can be prospered
or respected or happy, unless her department
of home is well cared for. It is a far greater
blessing to have her save five hundred dollars
in rightly managing the domestic concerns,
than to earn twice that sum by neglecting
them. And as to the comfort, and the joys
of the human heart, nothing but her mild,
constant, and sweet influence in the family
circle can ever bestow them.

" Woman is the heart, of the family,
If man 's the head,"

and the head is of no value without the heart
to influence it. Every man feels that, when

216 REAL FRIENDSHIP.

he selects a wife, he wants a pure, warm, and
noble heart. No other gifts will compensate
for the want of this. " A coquette is a rose
from which every lover picks a leaf ; the
thorns are reserved for her future husband."

Some females seem to feel that in their
sphere they cannot be and shall not be suffi-
ciently honored. But to whom do we go with
the deepest sorrows of the heart, and where
do we find the truest, purest, and most unself-
ish friendship ? When upon the dreary path of
the life of the distressed, there breaks in the
sparkle of stars, from whom do they come ?
" I remember, some years ago," says Mr. Jay,
" to have buried a corpse. In the extremity
of the audience that surrounded me, I dis-
covered a female wrinkled with age, and
bending with weakness. One hand held a
motherless grandchild, the other wiped her
tears with the corner of her woollen apron.
I pressed towards her when the service was
closed, and said, ' Have you lost a friend ? '
She heaved a melancholy sigh. ' The Lord
bless her memory ! ' I soon found that the
deceased had allowed her for several years

A GREAT MISTAKE. 217

sixpence per week. O, is it possible the ap-
propriation of a sum so inconsiderable may
cause a widow's heart to sing for joy, and
save the child of the needy ! "

It is a great mistake to suppose that it is
the great speech in the Senate, or the influ-
ence of high offices, or the glare of a great
public character, that makes this world happy.
All that wealth ever cast into the treasury of
the Lord will never have so much influence
upon the moral welfare of our race, as will
the two mites cast in by the poor widow.
You admire a great character and the daring
achievement ; but it is such deeds as the fol-
lowing that sink down into the human heart
and make us better. It is like a light burst-
ing out when we are surrounded with dark-
ness, and know not where to turn.

Some time in the year 1839, there arrived in
the city of Schenectady an interesting young
girl, about eighteen years of age. She was
an utter stranger, but soon obtained employ-
ment for a few weeks as an assistant nurse.
After this temporary employment ceased, she
fortunately presented herself to a merchant-

218 THE NOBLE WOMAN.

tailor of character, who kindly gave her em-
ployment and instruction, and after a short
time she was received into his family. Soon
she became expert with her needle, which not
only gave her support, but enabled her to
dress genteelly, having such a fund of good
sense as to avoid all extra finery, yet always
appearing neat and in good taste.

In 1842, she accidentally secured a home
with a married lady with two children, a son
and a daughter aged eight and ten years,
whose husband and father had deserted and
left them to such provision as none but a wife's
and mother's resources could procure. Whilst
in this deserted family, the heart-broken wife
sickened and died. The mother, when dying,
gave a heart-rending farewell to her two chil-
dren. And this noble stranger-girl, weeping
by the death-bed, assured the dying mother
that she would be a mother to her children.
This assurance calmed the last death-agony of
a fond mother who died. The young stranger-
girl took the two children, hired a room, dili-
gently plied her needle, paid the rent, contin-
ued her neat and modest appearance, fed and

ANOTHER WOMAN'S HEART. 219

dressed the boy and girl handsomely and ap-
propriately, sent them to a well-selected school
taught by a lady, who, much to her praise,
declined remuneration. Another woman's
heart !

Now, reader, you ask, Who is this young
female ? The writer will not tell you, but, to
gratify the feeling excited by this narrative,
I will tell you a little of her history. Her
parents, in good circumstances, reside in the
Upper Province of Canada. She was wooed
by a worthy young man, whose affections
were fully reciprocated, as ardently and as
purely as woman loves. But the father, an
Englishman, opposed the connection with all
the determination of an Englishman. She
was sent into " the States," to a farmer uncle,
to avoid further intercourse between the lov-
ers. At this uncle's, contrary to her habits,
she was duly appointed milkmaid. At this
the young girl revolted, and left, determined
to depend upon her own resources. She ar-
rived at Schenectady, where she has lived till
now, — living above charity, solely upon her
own energetic labor, with the additional

220 THE PLEASANT SURPRISE.

charge of two interesting orphans. This
spring she wrote to her mother, apprising her
of her intention of visiting her home, — the
home of her childhood and childhood's mirth,
and the home, too, of her maiden trials and
sorrows. To her astonishment, surprise, and
gratification, the first response to that letter
was the presence of her father, who upon the
receipt of it left for Schenectady, that he
might the more safely conduct his long absent
daughter to her early home and her fond
mother. But mark ! with a predetermined
purpose and high-souled magnanimity, she
says, " Father, I will go ; but these " (pre-
senting the orphans) " are my children ; they
go where I go." The father, not to be out-
done, replied, " Yes^ C, come home, my
daughter, and take with you your adopted
children ; there is a welcome and a double
welcome, and room for you and yours."

They left for Canada, flooded with tears, —
tears for parting from the stranger's friends ;
tears for a happy uniting of parent and child ;
tears for a parent's free, frank permission to
come to a better home, offered to a wander-

HONOR TO OLD AGE. 221

ing daughter, with two adopted children ! O,
what a lesson !

God has made woman's heart ; and the
thing which that heart longs for, beyond all
things, is not greatness, nor splendor, but to
be beloved. And God has given to her those
fine sensibilities, that quick perception of
what is lovely, and ten thousand opportuni-
ties to cause the lips around her to bless her.
Opportunities which the other sex would
overlook are every day opened to her, by
which to make a good deed shine like the soft
star of love. " Two years ago," says a lady,
in the Ohio State Journal, " I made a jour-
ney to New England, accompanied by my
husband; also my father-in-law, an old man
of fourscore years. I have often seen that
good old man offer his seat to some hale wo-
man of half or less than half his age, and seen
her accept it as if it were a right, without
even a passing notice of his gray hairs, or the
right of years, that entitled him to her kind-
ness and attention. Once, and only once, a
lady of queenly grace and beauty sprang
from her seat as we entered, and, with a voice

222 PECULIAR PROTECTION.

that was musical in every tone, said, ' Father,
take this arm-chair ! ' How my heart sprung
to her goodness ! Such has been our idea of
a lady, — which is synonymous with a true
woman."

It is also to be borne in mind, that woman
can do what men cannot, can go where they
cannot, surrounded by that protection which
is always thrown around the sex, and which
shields them from opposition. When Han-
nah More was riding twenty miles to estab-
lish schools for poor children, among a popu-
lation so degraded that in one village they
found but one Bible, and that was used to
prop up a flower-pot, and in a school of one
hundred and eight there were not any boys or
girls, of any size, whom she asked, who could
tell her who made them. John Newton writes
thus : " If a prudent minister should attempt
such an extensive inroad into the kingdom
of darkness, he might expect such opposi-
tion as few could withstand. But your sex
and your character afford you a peculiar pro-
tection. They who would try to trample one
of us into the dust, would be ashamed openly

RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 223

to oppose you. I say openly; I believe you
do not expect they will thank you, much less

assist you Fear not, my dear ladies,

all the praying souls upon earth, all the saints
in glory, all the angels of the Lord, and the
Lord of angels himself, are with you."

When we hear so much said about the rights
of women, as if the stern sex were combined
against them to keep them depressed and
shut away from all that is ennobling, it seems
strange that such a mind as I have referred to
above did not make the discovery, and with
her powerful pen break down those mighty
barriers which men have thrown around the
feebler sex. I cannot allow myself to pass by
a short quotation from her own words: — " I
have been much pestered to read ' The Rights
of Women,' but am invincibly resolved not
to do it. Of all jargon, I hate metaphysical
jargon; besides, there is something fantastic
and absurd in the very title. How many
ways there are of being ridiculous ! I am
sure I have as much liberty as I can make a
good use of, now I am an old maid ; and
when I was a young one, 1 had, I dare say,

224 FIVE SISTERS.

more than was good for me. If I .were still
young, perhaps I should not make this con-
fession ; but so many women are fond of gov-
ernment, I suppose, because they are not fit
for it.".

And while I am so near Hannah More, I
cannot but advert to the beautiful fact, that
women have more rights, and their sphere is
larger, than is commonly supposed. How
those five sisters lived together in unity and
love, using their individual and combined tal-
ents to support themselves and to do good,
eac]^ and all in their spheres, like five sister
stars, sending out their individual and com-
bined light, till one after the other they sank
beneath the horizon, each and all still leav-
ing a soft, but strong, light behind them!
Hear Patty's account of her childlike inter-
view with the great Dr. Johnson : — " With
all the same ease, familiarity, and confidence
we should have done had only our dear Dr.
Stonehouse been present, we entered upon
the history of our birth, parentage, and educa-
tion ; showing how we were born with more
desires than guineas, and how, as years in-

A LITTLE ;c LARNING." 225

creased our appetites, the cupboard at home
became too small to gratify them ; and how,
with a bottle of water, a bed, and a blanket,
we set out to seek our fortunes ; and how we
found a great house, with nothing in it, and
how it was like to remain so, till, looking into
our knowledge-boxes, we happened to find a
little laming, a good thing when land is gone,
or rather has never come ; so at last, by giving
a little of this laming to those who had less,
we got a good store of gold in return ; but how,
alas ! we wanted the wit to keep it. ' I love
you both! ' cried the inamorato, ' I love you all
five ! I never was in Bristol : I will come on
purpose. What ! five women live happily to-
gether ! I will come and see you. I have
spent a happy evening. I am glad I came.
God for ever bless you! You live lives to
shame duchesses ! ' He took his leave with so
much warmth and tenderness, we were quite
affected at his manner."

You will recollect the name of Mrs. Kenni-

cott, already mentioned. She will ever be an

example to those who are ready " to make all

duty sweet." She devoted her life to assist-

15

226 MRS. KENNICOTT.

ing her husband in collating the Hebrew
Scriptures. It was said of her, that she " prob-
ably lengthened her husband's life by her at-
tentions, and certainly gladdened it by her
prudence, her understanding, and her gentle-
ness. And it is her peculiar praise, that she
took the pains to acquire Hebrew for the sole
purpose of qualifying herself for correcting the
printing of her husband's great work. From
this knowledge she could derive neither pleas-
ure nor fame. Her only desire in this labor
was to be useful to her husband. And is not
her " record on high " as really as the labors
of Dr. Kennicott, so well appreciated by the
learned ? " The meek and quiet spirit," who
with a feeble hand lightens the burden of a
weary father, a toil-worn mother, or encour-
ages a sister, shall not fail of her reward.

If, now, there are those who hold woman
in low estimation, they are exceptions to the
great body of the intelligent and the best men
of our age. There have been times in the
history of the world, when woman was more
toasted, in the manner of chivalry, when
knights and warriors were eager to break each

WOMAN APPRECIATED. 227

other's heads and cut one another's throats to
show their admiration, yet I doubt whether
there was ever a time when she was held in
truer estimation, or more appropriately re-
garded, than at the present time. You may
be assured that all the rights which she can
ever need or exercise for her own good will be
hers, if they are not already hers. There will
be no need of fear lest you are denied all that
is needed to make your sex the ornament of
our homes, the ministers of mercy for our
race, and the benefactors and educators,
cheerfully acknowledged as such by all whose
regard you would esteem of any value. The
great Redeemer placed the sex in their true
position when he treated woman as his best
friend, and held up her example for the imita-
tion of all future time.

CHAPTER XIII.

«

THE DAUGHTER AT HOME.

Pleasant Anticipations. " The Last." Joy awaiting you.
Responsibility before you. Minute by Minute. Poor
Housekeeping. Knowledge useless. No Regular Time for
Study. A Part of your Discipline. " Twitting upon Facts."
Help your Mother. Household Duties. Apologize for
Nothing. Sit still but an Hour. Afternoon Occupations.
Franklin's Courtesy. Form a Library. Busy and quiet.
Mazes of Fractions. Never-failing Cheerfulness. Service
to your Father. Home Field first. Woman's Way opened.
Joy in the Evening. Chariot- Wheels dragging. Melody
of Heaven. A Rod or a Crown. Uses of Sorrow. Ready
to work. Life's Harvest.

However happy our daughters may be at
school, we desire them to feel that the hap-
piest place is at home; and if ever we are
disposed to envy a young lady, it is when,
having faithfully improved her school days,
she anticipates her return to her family. She

"the last." 229

feels that she will then be, not free from du-
ties, but at liberty to do them in her own
time and way. One of the trials of school
life must unavoidably be its monotony, and
from this she will soon be relieved. Soon
she will be beyond the call of the imperious
bell. To be sure, there is the sadness we al-
ways feel when we come to the last of any
stage of life. Wherever you turn, you see
written the solemn words, "the last." The
last recitation will bring some regrets, the
last meal in the accustomed seat will be very
still, the last time you kneel at the school
altar you will rise in tears, and no sorrow you
meet in life will be more real than the last
parting with teachers, schoolmates, and even
the study hall. You rejoice in the thought
that you will come back for a visit, and you
do not wonder that the student clings so
strongly to Alma Mater. Yet were it not for
these tear-drops, so bright a rainbow could
not hang over you. If you have not wasted
the hours that Memory now makes so pleas-
ant, if you go home with all the discipline of
mind your parents have desired, if you be-

230 JOY AWAITING YOU.

lieve that the reasonable expectations of your
friends are not to be disappointed, you may
leave with a light heart ; for your past is cheer-
ful, and your future will never be more hope-
ful. I cannot describe, but can you not look
into your home, and see the joy that is await-
ing your arrival ? Has not your father deferred
many little schemes of pleasure for the fam-
ily that you may enjoy them ? Has not your
mother, almost as impatient as you, counted
the days before she may expect you to be her
daily comfort? Her child is now to be a
trusted friend and helper. Your brother has
planned for you a famous fishing-excursion,
and your sisters have arranged your cham-
ber, and all that thoughtful love can devise
to make that room pleasant will be done.
Even, in your honor, the little one of the flock
is saving his playthings to show to you. The
flowers now blossoming in the garden will
beautify the parlor, and ere they wither you
will be there. No wonder you are glad. No
wonder you long for the time to come.

You probably go, determined to prove your
gratitude to your parents for all the expense

RESPONSIBILITY BEFORE YOU. 231

and anxiety they have bestowed upon yon,
yet, unless you are very watchful, you will
unintentionally waste the next few years, —
years whose influence will be felt by you to
all eternity. Of all the responsibilities which
lie before you in life, you have' scarcely
thought, and soon, whether ready or not, you
must meet them.

If now — for I have opportunity for but a
very few hints — I can help you to realize
the importance of improving your time wise-
ly, and enjoying the opportunities which will
slip by you so quickly, — if I can suggest
any duties you may be likely to forget or
neglect, — I shall rejoice more than you.
Jeremy Taylor's beautiful illustration of the
value of time may not be out of the way
here, for never can it be more valuable to you
than now : — "It is very remarkable that God,
who giveth plenteously to all creatures, that
scattereth the firmament with stars, as a man
sows corn in his fields, in a multitude bigger
than the capacities of human order ; he hath
made so much variety of creatures, and gives
us great choice of meats and drinks, although

232 MINUTE BY MINUTE.

any one of both kinds would have served our
needs ; and so in all instances of nature, — yet
in the distribution of our time, God seems
to be straight-handed, and gives it to us, not
as nature gives us rivers enough to drown us,
but drop by drop, minute after minute ; so
that we can never have two minutes together,
but he takes away one when he gives us an-
other. This should teach us to value our time,
since God so values itv and by his so small dis-
tribution of it tells us it is the most precious
thing we have." The reason why your time
is now especially a great treasure is, that now
is the time for you to learn many things es-
sential to your welfare in life. This is the
time for your professional studies.

In the last chapter I endeavored to define
woman's true position, and can you conscien-
tiously say that you are fitted for it? Are
there not many home duties of which you
hardly know the existence, and which you
must of necessity neglect while away from
home ? Housewifery, that ancient but most
honorable occupation, which Mother Eve first
taught her daughters, is, I presume, almost an

POOR HOUSEKEEPING.

233

unknown science to you. You may not be
to blame if you cannot now make biscuit
like your mother ; but if at the end of six
months you still boast of your ignorance,
you may be sure you will fall in the estima-
tion of sensible people. Your indigestible
bread, muddy coffee, and burnt chickens, may
make many a joke now, but it is wit of
which you will soon weary. By your careful
industry and consequent success, make your
failures matters of tradition in the family.

In consequence of your long absence, you
have never been able to acquire domestic
habits, — habits which are to increase your
happiness through life. This you now desire
to do. It will seem a new and difficult branch
of your education, and many trials will arise,
none the less real, because small. These un-
looked for annoyances may fret you, as the
hunter is more troubled by the mosquitoes
and gnats than by all his other hardships.
Perhaps if you think of some of these now,
you will be more resolute and cheerful in
meeting them.

(1.) You will soon feel that all the knowl-

234 KNOWLEDGE USELESS.

edge acquired during these years of hard study-
is useless. Chemistry does not teach you the
secret of good bread-making ; geometry will
not fit a dress ; nor can you, by the aid of
mental philosophy, attain the art of making
people do as you think best. All this may
be true, yet if you have gained the full ad-
vantage of these studies, you have acquired
self-control and the power of fastening the
mind to any subject.

(2.) You will feel that all your hard-earned
treasure is slipping away from you. The
algebra, now so familiar, will soon seem to
glide from your memory, and the binomial
theorem will be even harder to retain than to
acquire. You can, however, by a little care,
at- any time recall this knowledge, and though
you thought it forgotten, it will be wonder-
fully familiar, as the old painters had the
power of bringing back to ancient pictures
the freshness of beauty.

(3.) You will be disappointed in your plans
for regular study and self-improvement. You
have become accustomed and attached to the
systematic division of time, and if you desire

NO REGULAR TIME FOR STUDY. 235

to continue your education, you will doubtless
endeavor to have a regular system for intel-
lectual labor. But you will soon be discour-
aged by frequent interruptions. Your mother
will have the first claim upon you, and indeed
every member in the family will expect to call
upon you for little favors constantly. You
will find that you cannot command the same
hour, or indeed any hour, for close study. And
if your household duties are removed by the
power of wealth, still your friends and family
will claim most of your time. Very few can,
and still fewer will, adhere to any system
of study at home.

If you wish to improve in any particular
branch, music or any of the languages, you
had better, if possible, take lessons regularly
from a teacher ; for the necessity of being
prepared to meet your instructor will always
be a satisfactory reason for devoting a part
of your time to study. Many of our most
accomplished ladies have improved in this
way exceedingly after leaving school. If you
study alone, you must consider it as a part
of your discipline to snatch a little time here

236 " TWITTING UPON FACTS."

and there, and perhaps in this, more than in
any other way, you may learn the secret of
making every moment do the most for you.
But remember that your education may be
going on, though the dust may be daily gath-
ering on your favorite authors. Be careful
that nothing interferes with your regular read-
ing. Secure an hour every day ; and this you
can have before breakfast, if you will only
be resolute in fighting your most easily over-
coming enemy, — Indolence.

(4.) You will find daily, unexpected vexa-
tions. Perhaps nowhere is the temper tried
so severely as in one's own family. At
school and in travelling, the presence of others
is always a considerable restraint, and very
few strangers will deal in the honest and often
unpleasant truths which " candid " friends
deal out so unsparingly. Away from home,
your faults are not so well known, your weak-
nesses are not commented upon in your pres-
ence ; your motives are not weighed and
found wanting, when you have not yet yourself
analyzed them. The common habit of " twit-
ting upon facts," as far as I know, never re-

HELP YOUR MOTHER. 237

suits in good, and often creates lasting family
unhappiness. You had gained a standing at
school, and commanded a degree of respect;
it will be a little hard to be treated as a child
by children.

But 1 cannot think you will spend much
time in considering your possible trials com-
pared with your certain duties. These can-
not be definitely enumerated, for they will
varv with the circumstances of each individ-
ual. A few will fall to almost all. Does not
your own heart suggest to you the first, near-
est duty in the family circle, — your obliga-
tion to be a comfort to your mother, — to try
to repay her, in some measure, for her un-
ceasing watchfulness and love ? Has she not
changed somewhat since your first remem-
brance of her ? Has not her face deeper
wrinkles, more gray hairs ; is her form as
erect as ever? If Time has done this, he
shows that her burdens should grow easier;
she has borne them long. If anxiety has
worn upon her, though the cause may be
removed, the scar of the arrow will still re-
main. Do all you can to help her. The

238 HOUSEHOLD DUTIES.

time may soon come when you shall have
done all you ever may for her ; then, when
love and duty are alike powerless, you will
not regret one labor of love, one deed or
Word of sympathy, one act of devotion to
her. Take this upon the word of one who,
in looking back upon his life, finds one of
his brightest memories the love and care he
was permitted to bestow upon his mother,
though, alas! she was unconscious of this
love. I am sure you will try to relieve your
mother's cares as far as possible. If you be-
long to the class who are not ashamed to
recognize the Divine law which commands us
to labor with our own hands, — if you feel that,
while our Master says, " My Father worketh
hitherto and I work," it is presumptuous not
to labor with your own hands, as well as
your minds and souls, — you will not wonder
that I allude briefly to your minor household
duties. Every morning consider the duties
of the day, and let one be to assist your
mother in all that she does towards breakfast.
How much you shall do, your circumstances
will determine ; but whatever your mother is

APOLOGIZE FOR NOTHING. 239

accustomed to do as her share, will not be too
much for you. At any rate, to see that every
thing is in order, that nothing is forgotten, is
a charge that you cannot hire ; and if, after
the morning meal, you wash the china and
silver, you will gain much credit if you do it
creditably.

Let me caution you not to be ashamed of
any manual labor you may think best to per-
form. To wash glasses is as ladylike as to
listen at an evening concert to their musical
ringing. It is as honorable to prepare a din-
ner as to preside at one ; and the power of
making pies is surely as desirable as that of
eating them. Every morning you will find
much to be done in your own chamber. Here
you cannot be too particular. Your rule
should be, that it shall be in such order, that
at any time your intimate friends may enter
it, and you will need to apologize for nothing.
And let it be your pride that you do it all
yourself.

All the aid you can give throughout the
morning, (and now I am speaking of the New
England fashion of dining in the middle of

240 SIT STILL ONLY AN HOUR.

the day,) you will not withhold. You * will
be quick to anticipate any regular " chores,"
as our grandmothers used to call them, which
will be each a sensible relief to your mother.
You will be ready to help in the sewing ; and
you will not shrink from the planning, the
" cutting-out," the altering, which every house-
wife says is the most tedious part of needle-
work. Watch carefully to detect any latent
taste or talent you may have for dress-making
and millinery. You will find it more availa-
ble than the most delicate flower-painting or
wax-work.

Do not spend all your strength on any one
labor. Change frequently, and especially, in
sewing, be sure never to sit more than an
hour. Jump up then for a few moments, ar-
range flowers for the vases, practise a song,
dust a parlor, — any thing to change your
position, to relax your muscles and straighten
your spine. This is very important. For
when you are tired with one duty, you will
find that you are quite fresh for another. Here
let me advise you, in health you should never
indulge in a day-time nap. If you find by

AFTERNOON OCCUPATIONS. 241

persisting in early rising you are not rested,
that your strength is gone before the day
goes, retire earlier and earlier, till you find
you have sufficient sleep. At any rate, do
not rob the night to do your daylight duties.
The duty after ten o'clock in the evening is
to sleep, and very seldom ought any thing to
infringe upon this. You will find that, if you
faithfully perform the morning employments,
your afternoons will be free. In the country,
and everywhere except in our largest cities,
this is the time for visiting and shopping.
Your first duty after dinner will be to dress,
either to see your friends or to go out; and
then you will be ready to " follow your ain
gate." Should any emergency arise in the
family cares, and should you be obliged to
receive company after dinner in your morning
dress, which, if you are a true lady, will be
whole and neat, however cheap and plain,
you will not detain your friends till you can
hastily and carelessly " don your best array " ;
neither will you weary them with explana-
tions. They come to see you, not your silk
dress and silk apron. On this point I think
16

242 franklin's courtesy.

King Charles's rule is excellent, " Never to
make an apology or excuse till one is ac-
cused."

" Making calls " I regard one of the duties
a young lady owes to society. Let them be
frequent, short, and friendly. Especially be
ready to call promptly upon strangers. You
have realized how pleasant it is when away
from home to receive courtesies ; be not for-
getful to be as kind. In a letter to Rev. George
Whitefield, Franklin says : " For my own
part, when I am employed in serving others,
I do not look upon myself as conferring fa-
vors, but as paying debts. In my travels,
and since my settlement, I have received
much kindness from men to whom I shall
never have any opportunity of making the
least direct return, and numberless mercies
from God, who is infinitely above being bene-
fited by our services. Those kindnesses from
men I can therefore only return on their fel-
low-men, and I can only show my gratitude
for these mercies from God by a readiness
to help his other children and my brethren."

In doing this kindness you will never fail

FORM A LIBRARY. 243

of your reward. If my observation is correct,
by devoting two afternoons in the week to
this branch of courtesy, you need never neg-
lect your friends. Your evenings will be
your time of greatest quiet and enjoyment.
It is a pleasant time to receive your friends,
to cheer the family by music, to amuse and
improve by reading aloud. To read distinctly
to your friends and easily to yourself, requires
great practice ; but it is an accomplishment
for which your friends will be grateful. You
will soon find that you peculiarly enjoy a
book that is your own. You will read it
more carefully and remember it better. This
will lead you to form a library which shall
be yours, and by devoting a fixed, though it
may be a small sum, for this purpose every
week, you will be surprised at your literary
possessions.

Every morning you should plan for the day.
You will think of something almost every
day which you will desire to do aside from
the common course. Whether it be in the
way of duty or pleasure, endeavor to accom-
plish it without interfering with your ordi-

244 BUSY AND QUIET.

nary duties. Decide in what order you will
take your employments, and then carry out
your plans as far as possible. " But however
great your method may be, do not make an
idol of it, and compel every body to bow to
it." That is, do not persist in doing things
in your own time and way, though the time
and way be good, if you incommode or
trouble others. Arrange your plans so that,
however faithfully you may improve your
talents, you may be like the noble lady upon
whose monument was the epitaph, " Always
busy and always quiet." Do not be so hur-
ried, that your body and mind are always
wearied, your temper irritable, and your spirit
vexed. If you do not enjoy yourself now,
you probably never will.

Do not think I am planning too much for
you, because I remind you that, if you are
one of the oldest of a large family, your
duties and your pleasures with the younger
children will be many. You can assume the
entire charge of the wardrobe of one child.
This plan I have known tried to very great
advantage. If you will engage to keep one

MAZES OF FRACTIONS. 245

sister's or brother's clothing in as good order
as your own, you will take one responsibility
from your mother. And teach your protege
to come to you, when an essential button is
wanting in a hurry, when gloves are to be re-
paired at a moment's notice, when the shoe-
string is broken. If it is not necessary or best
that you have the charge of instructing your
brothers and sisters, you will be ready to help
them all you can in the way of explanation
and encouragement. Have patience with your
sister who is in the mazes of decimal fractions ;
it is not long since you were in the same dif-
ficulties. Help your brother out of the mys-
teries of the famous forty-seventh of Euclid :
have you forgotten , how lately you were
floundering in the same depths? Though
you do not remember it, you shed many tears
over the third page of Colburn, the very one
over which your little sister is so disconsolate,
trying to subtract seven from fifteen. If, in
your first attempts to mount the height of
science, you ever found encouragement from
others, return it now ; if you did not, remem-
ber how you desired it. You will be watched

246 NEVER-FAILING CHEERFULNESS.

carefully. Will you not also so watch that
your example shall be a blessing to the fam-
ily ? Your temper will be tried, let it not be
wanting ; your industry will be taxed, do not
be discouraged ; your cheerfulness will be de-
manded, pray that it may not fail. In all the
contingencies which must arise in a large
family, be ready to meet them. When acci-
dents happen, have patience with the careless
one. Do not punish or reprove according to
consequences, but motives. How should we
fare should God visit us for the results of our
errors ? When duties press, and new ones
rise while old ones were crowding hard, be
cool. When strangers come in the midst of
some jar in the domestic machinery, do not
let them feel that their coming is inopportune.
Be hospitable, not merely when you have a
fatted calf and the house is in order, but when
the dinner of herbs is all you can offer. Be
cheerful when every thing is discouraging, be
patient when every body else is fretful, be
hopeful when the night is the darkest. Re-
member that " the chief secret of comfort lies
in not suffering trifles to vex one, and in pru-

SERVICE TO YOUR FATHER. 247

dently cultivating an undergrowth of small
pleasures, since very few, alas! are let on
long leases."

Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, whose name will
long be honored, says : " I endeavor to drink
deep of philosophy, and be wise when I can-
not be merry, easy when I cannot be glad,
content with what cannot be mended, and
patient when there is no redress." You will
soon find the sphere of your duties enlarging
around you. You may be of great service to
your father. Show him that your years spent
upon mathematics have not been wasted ; that
they enable you to add columns of figures
accurately ; that you can balance his books.
Can you not save him many hours of tedious
labor by copying legibly and neatly? You
will never repay him in money for the expense
he has lavished upon you, nor does he desire
it ; but at least let him see how well you have
improved these advantages, how anxious you
are to prove your grateful love to him. Yes,
the circle of your duties will enlarge. You
will soon see duties out of your own family.
The sick are to be comforted by visits of sym-

248 HOME FIELD FIRST.

pathy, children are to be 'led into the Sabbath-
school, the sewing-circle needs your aid. Do
as much as you can, but do not let these
duties lead you to forget those which belong
particularly to home. To collect contribu-
tions for the cause of missions, is a work
which will be accepted of the great Master,
but not if, in doing this, you leave a sick sister
who pines for your comforting presence, nor
if you add to the labors of an almost broken-
down mother. The " nearest duty " must first
be done. If you are conscientious in this
matter, you can easily decide how many du-
ties you can undertake. But promise to do
nothing that you cannot perform promptly
and regularly. However anxious you may

be to do good as a tract distributor, you will

r
fail if your zeal flags as you see the difficul-
ties of your work, and you go irregularly
through the monthly routine you began with
so much enthusiasm.

Work with all your heart and soul, but do
not be anxious for the future. Do each day's
duty, and leave to-morrow's chances with God.
Providence can and will assign to you the

woman's way opened. 249

best lot. There is truth as well as wit in the
quaint saying, " Man cares for himself, woman
is helped to her destiny." And to many this
seems hard, but it takes a vast responsibility
from you, it makes your path easier. You
will never know the struggles of the young
man who desires to have an education, though
it makes his daily bread scanty, — when he
chooses between a business which will soon
make him independent, perhaps wealthy and
influential, and a profession which is almost
starvation at first, and which must ever seek
a higher reward than any earth can give, —
when he looks out into life and every niche
seems filled, every post occupied, and he must
push and struggle in the crowd or be crushed
and trampled under foot. But Providence
kindly opens woman's way before her. When
one sphere is fully occupied by her, he gives*
her a larger one, and if she will but follow
the leadings of his hand, she shall be led by
green ^pastures and still waters. Do not fret,
or even dream, concerning the future ! If He
would give you the power, would you dare to
decide your earthly destiny ? None but weak

250 JOY IN THE EVENING.

young ladies will speculate much concerning
their settlement in life, or regard it as a mat-
ter at all under their own control. To those
who live only for admiration, who spend their
time in " making nets instead of cages," whose
object in life is to be married and live "in
style," I have nothing to say. They must
have parted company with me and my book
long ago!

The longer you live, the truer you will find
the observation of Thomas a Kempis, " The
more thou knowest and the better thou un-
derstandest, the more grievously shalt thou
be judged, unless thy life be more holy." Re-
member also his caution, " Be not therefore
lifted up, but rather let the knowledge given
thee make thee afraid." His comfort is,
" Thou shalt always have joy in the evening,
if thou hast spent the day well."

Soon my chapter must close, and so far T
have spoken of your responsibility in your
family. How can I measure your duty to
yourself and your God ? If you owe a life-
long gratitude to your parents, what should
you not render to your heavenly Friend ?

CHARIOT-WHEELS DRAGGING.

251

Tf the remark of John Foster, that " Power
to its last particle is duty, " is fearful, it is be-
cause it is true. Every thought, feeling, ac-
tion, should be to His glory. Alas ! how are
we failing ! Without His forgiveness we shall
fail still more in duty, and at last fail of our
heavenly inheritance ! What joy will it be
that your soul is refined, enlarged, and enno-
bled by all that earthly skill and love can do,
if in eternity you find not your Saviour your
friend. Worse than lost will be all your labor
without his love and acceptance. And day
by day you will need new strength. If you
depend not on a strength infinitely beyond your
own, you will soon despair. If you daily,
hourly, seek not God's blessing, you will soon
realize the truth of Philip Henry's experience
at the close of a day of hard study : " I for-
got, when I began, explicitly and expressly to
crave help from God, and the chariot-wheels
drove accordingly." You can obtain the pow-
er for endurance of every day's burden. Need
I remind you that " Prayer is a key which un-
locks the blessings of the day, and locks up
the dangers of the night " ? I trust you have

252 MELODY OF HEAVEN.

and appreciate the blessing of a family altar.
In the beautiful words of the celebrated Dr.
Hunter : " Secret prayer, like the melody of a
sweet-toned voice stealing upon the ear, gen-
tly wafts the soul to heaven ; social worship
as a full chorus of harmonized sounds pierces
the sky, and raises a great multitude of kin-
dred spirits to the bright regions of everlast-
ing love, and places them together before the
throne of God."

Though your lot is pleasant, and your fu-
ture yet brighter, I should not feel that I was
your friend did I not tell you that trials will
come, and point you to the only way to meet
them. I do not mean that trials can be re-
moved, but they can be softened by resigna-
tion to your Father's will. " Religion will do
great things; it will always make the bitter
waters of Marah wholesome and palatable.
But we must not think it will usually turn
water to wine, because it once did so." I
would not have you believe that, because you
love God first, you will not suffer when he
sends afflictions. Indeed, I agree with a dis-
tinguished writer who says : " I never could

A ROD OR A CROWN.

253

observe that nature suffered less because
grace triumphed the more. And hence arises,
as I take it, the glory of the Christian suf-
ferer : he feels affliction more intensely than a
bad man, or grace would not have its perfect
work ; as it would not be difficult to subdue
that which it is not difficult to endure." Faith
can make the darkest providences bright,
and, as an old writer says, "is exceedingly
charitable and thinketh no evil of God ; nay,
whether God come to his children with a rod
or a crown, if he come himself with it, it
is well." Many afflictions would be unen-
durable without the Comforter. In the dark
nisht of sorrow we still feel sure that " He
who sends the storm steers the vessel."
When the heart is crushed, it is hard to see
the good for which the trial is designed ; but,
as Locke beautifully remarks, "Beyond all
this we may find another reason why God
hath scattered up and down several degrees
of pleasure and pain, in all things that environ
and affect us, and blended them together in
almost all that our thoughts and senses have
to do with, that we, finding imperfection, dis-

254 USES OF SORROW.

satisfaction, and want of complete happiness
in all the enjoyments which the creatures can
afford us, might be led to seek it in the enjoy-
ment of Him with whom there is fulness of
joy, and at whose right hand are pleasures
for evermore." This experience of the great
reasoner is confirmed by an extract from one
of our most beautiful poets, — perhaps so
beautiful because chastened by the sorrow he
describes : — " He who best knows our nature
(for He made us what we are) by such afflic-
tions recalls us from our wandering thoughts
and idle merriment ; from the insolence of
youth and prosperity, to serious reflection, to
our duty, and to himself: nor need we hasten
to get rid of these impressions : time, by the
appointment of the same power, will cure the
smart, and in some hearts blot out all the
traces of sorrow ; but such as preserve them
the longest (for it is partly left in our own
power) do perhaps best acquiesce in the will
of the Chastiser."

If my weak hand could keep back sorrow
from every young heart, I should do it ; but
my kindness would be injudicious, my judg-

READY TO WORK. 255

ment erring. I rejoice that your happiness is
in the keeping of One whose wisdom cannot
mistake, whose power will never falter, whose
love can never fail. Do not dread the future.
The troubles we anticipate rarely come. Many
a parent who dreads leaving a delicate child
in a lonely world of sin lives to do the last
acts of love for that child. Though you may
" prepare for storms, pray for fair weather."
The fair weather will be fairer for the storms.
And now in the sunny time, when, having
learned your own powers, having found the
instruments to work, and the greatness of the
labor, you look out into the harvest-field of
the world, — when, in the fulness of your yet
fresh strength, yet relying on Him who sends
forth the laborers, you long to go forth and
gather in a few sheaves for the Lord of the
harvest, — sing the pleasant song a gentle
heart hath sung before you : —

" When morning wakes the earth from sleep,
With soft and kindling ray,
We rise, Life's harvest-field to reap,
'T is ripening day by day.

256 life's harvest.

" To reap, sometimes with joyful heart,
Anon with tearful eye 5
We see the Spoiler hath a part,
We reap with smile and sigh.

" Full oft the tares obstruct our way,
Full oft we feel the thorn ;
Our hearts grow faint, — we weep, we pray,
Then Hope is newly born.

" Hope that at last we all shall come,
Though rough the way and long
Back to our Father's house, our home,
And bring our sheaves with song."

THE END.

31*77-2

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

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