Hold Up Your Heads, Girls!

, 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

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 a

upations will drive the fervid desires of your school-days quite from your hearts, or make it impossible for you to gratify them. At any rate, in attempting to pursue all these studies, you will fin

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 yo

ate a love for more knowledge, to bend our inclinations towards what is true and right, to prepar

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. You should branch off from the trunk of kn

in one channel, and prevents it from mingling with the ebb and flow of broader human interests. It may make us too regardless of any pursuit aside from our own, and bring us to the condition which many a foreigner finds himself in,-that of holding a complete knowledge about his own trade, but utter ignorance of every other. But I think not. If we are really intelligent, and comprehend the dif

fraid to say, "I do not know." We all expect too much learning from one another, especially elders from younger people. If John

hilosophy, general chemistry, general physiology, biology, geology, and mineralogy. If you desire to know more of one branch of natural science, as, for example, biology, why not

llege, and graduate with a diploma, rather than to pursue a study till such time as those who know most about that branch of learning shall deem a student ready for entrance upon higher work. I must think the German universities superior to ours in this respect. Life is short, and we can learn but little. I do not understand why it is necessary to spend several years in the pre

r them to study; and because so many boys and girls will shirk the hardest studies. I believe college presidents give these reasons sometimes in regard to their own students. But it is to me incomprehensible that men and women in college should not know what they are there for. If they are working for the name of being college graduates, it is no matter whether electives are presented to them or not. If

own. I shall be glad when it is possible, in the college or the home, for every girl, who wishes, to follow, special or grouped studies; and whe

grouped studies. If I understand the calendar of the University of Michigan, and the register of Cornell University, I find in the

hts allow. Suppose you are studying English literature. Be watchful, first, for the writer's ideas: be sure you get his thoughts, not such as some one else says are his, according to some one's else interpretation; then observe the manner in which those ideas are e

ts analysis of character; remark the knowledge which was brought to bear in representing that great historical character Savonarola, the Florentine republic, and the rule of the De Medicis; be moved

e, the charm, of Dowden's style: dwell upon it. Consider his fine powers as a

use it that, when you go out among the trees and grass and

deprivation, hardihood, union of citizens, sturdiness, ferocious perseverance, courage, abstinence, valor: remark the results attained by these qualities,- Rome, the mistress of the world, with an empire stretching to the ends of the earth. Then note the causes of her fall,-greediness, wealth, luxury, effeminacy, satiety, corrupt morals,-and bring the lesson home to your own nation, and to your own selves. Says Mr. Ruskin, "It is of little consequence how many positions of cities a woman knows, or how many dates of events, or how many names of celebrated persons-it is not the object of e

e earth, the mountains and the valleys, the rivers and the lakes,-all the creations upon the earth, as far as you have studied them,-

n all studies and in all callings; the power of durability, especially as it refers to the durableness of ri

that your own language is being made more copious, and fluency of speech or written discourse acquired. The discipline of translating accurately is next in

our reading, and I think it would be quite profitable to hunt up those authorities wh

y. 3. Take a comprehensive survey of the table of contents. 4. Give your whole attention to whatever you read. 5. Be sure to note the most valuable passages as you read. 6. Write out, in your own language, a summary of the facts you have noted. 7. Apply the results of your reading to your every-day duties." These rules ought, every one of them, to be emphasized in our association with books. In my own experience, I find Number 4 of great importance, as well as Numbers 5 and

. It is called "The Choice of Books," and it treats of such subjects as, "What Books to Read," "How

, is not in serious danger of spending his time amiss. But not even such a list as this is to be received as a necessity by every reader. One may find Cowper more profitable than Wordsworth; to another the reading of Bancroft may be more advantageous than that of Herodotus; while a third may gain more immediate and lasting good from historical novels like Eber's 'Uarda,' or Kingsley's 'Hypatia,' than from a long and patient attempt to master Grote's 'History of Greece,' or Gibbon's 'Decline a