At any rate, in
attempting to pursue all these studies, you will find that neither the
ordinary length of life, nor the average brain, will be sufficient for
the work. Your lists of books, like your lists of intentions, will serve
only to fill the waste-paper baskets.
But now let us see what you can do, girls, if you will. Almost every
one of you spends a few hours a week in reading, and some of you pour
away "oceans of time" over fashionable fiction. Why not give just two
or three little hours to study,--study so pleasant and so arranged
that you may call it reading, or recreating, or getting acquainted
with "the best of all good company"? After a while you will find these
hours precious and necessary. They will give you rest, and a greater
number of useful and pleasant subjects to think about; they will afford
you broader and readier information; and they will deepen within you
an interest in the highest and most helpful things this life affords.
What we get in the average school is largely rudimentary knowledge,
the object of which is to create a love for more knowledge, to bend
our inclinations towards what is true and right, to prepare our minds
for larger duties,--in a word, to fit us for a noble womanhood and
a useful citizenship.
Now, suppose you feel more kindly towards natural science than you
do towards mathematics; or suppose you have more fondness for language
than for philosophy: well, just at this period, since you are really
out of school, you ought to spend a few spare hours on the object of
your favor.
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