V.
WHAT TO STUDY.
How much girls think they will do when they get out of school! How
many books they think they will read!--histories of Greece and of Rome,
Grote and Curtius, of Plutarch and Gibbon; histories of France, Germany,
and England, Guizot, Ranke, Green and Freeman; biographies of Caesar,
Leo, Lorenzo, Frederick, Elizabeth, and Napoleon! How they will feed
on the literature of modern nations, from Chaucer through Tennyson;
from Luther through Goethe; from Rabelais through Victor Hugo; from
Bryant and Irving through Hawthorne and Longfellow! How much they will
translate from Homer and Virgil and Tacitus; from Schiller, Racine,
Fenelon, and Moliere! How much philosophy they will read from Darwin,
Spencer, Huxley! How they will trace the stars in the heavens, and
the marks of God's fingers on the rocks and sands! How they will
separate into their parts water and air, plants and animals! How they
will haunt the libraries, museums, laboratories, and lecture-rooms!--all
when they get out of school.
Oh, my dear girls, you will not do any of these things unless you have
much leisure, and an eager thirst for knowledge. Some new fascination--
society and pleasures--or special duties and pressing occupations will
drive the fervid desires of your school-days quite from your hearts,
or make it impossible for you to gratify them.
Pages:
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74