they are less exposed to the indurating action of the world, they are necessarily softer and more ductile, more amenable to the wise caution and the prudent warning, more easily moved by an appeal to their affections. But, if this be the case, what a responsibility rests upon their parents and teachers! How important it is that these yielding and impressionable natures should be carefully shielded from everything that might warp or sully or degrade them. The judgment has to be formed, the intellect disciplined; the passions have to be controlled, and the feelings moderated. In a word, there is a mind to be cultivated, a heart to be brought under subjection, a soul to be purified and strengthened. When the soil is prepared for the reception of the germs of future growth, the utmost vigilance is needed lest seed of thorn or thistle should be wilfully and perniciously sown. It is deeply to be regretted that so little care, as a rule, is exercised over the education and training of our girls; and for want of this wise supervision and loving watchiulness we see society infested by thoughtless and insincere women, who lower the social standard and discredit and dishonour their own sex. Hence it is that we meet so often with the commonplace maiden, without ideas or aspirations, moral or mental energy, who loiters through life as if it had neither duties nor responsibilities; with the flirt who devotes herself to frivolous dissipation; the gossip, who spends her hours in collecting and retailing the inanities of tea-table talk ; and with other unpleasant types, the products of modern society, which have neither earnestness nor truth, no high purpose in life, and no sense of the dignity of womanhood. In the Southern Highlands of Scotland, (as I have elsewhere written,*) lies a well-known scene, famous in legend, song, and story, where, standing on a narrow isthmus, the traveller sees behind him a small mountain loch, and in front a larger basin of shining waters, which stretches away towards the valley of the Tweed, and pours into it its tribute through the channel of the poetic Yarrow. I have stood there on an early summer morning, when over the larger lake has brooded a luminous mist, rendering all its outlines shadowy and uncertain, while behind me the crystal mere has been as distinctly defined in every feature as if it had been moulded by some master-hand. And I have seen in the double picture an image of maidenhood, which seems to connect, like an isthmus, the two periods of girlhood and womanhood. To the young heart how vague and how vast appears that future on the threshold of which it momentarily pauses in mingled fear and hope!-how limited and how clearly marked that past which it is for ever leaving! Longfellow, in some wellknown verses,† has described the maiden as * "Woman's Work and Worth," p. 9c. † LONGFELLOW, Miscellaneous Poems: "Maidenhood." "Gazing, with a timid glance, Assuredly, there is no stage of woman's career which brings with it such a burden of disturbing emotions, anxieties, aspirations, alarms, and wishes; there is no stage of graver interest or more serious importance. What her life is to become, whether it is to be nobly used or idly wasted or painfully sacrificed,-whether it is to send up to heaven a sweet savour and incense of duty fulfilled, or whether it is to present a dreary record of responsibilities neglected,-depends upon the preparation and equipment which the maiden has received and acquired in girlhood. Unhappily, too often she is called upon to face the trials of womanhood without any such preparation. The opportunities of her girlhood have been turned to no account. That vast, dim Future on which her eyes look out so wistfully is all the vaster and dimmer from her absolute ignorance of its obligations, its possibilities, its dangers, and its pleasures. She is sent forward into the battle of life, an untrained recruit. In too many cases her parents, or others interested in her, have made no effort to ascertain the tendencies of her mind, the scope of her talents, the nature of her tastes, the strength or weakness of her character: even her mother is too frequently content to leave her to grope her way as best she can in the twilight, and to discover for herself, after many mistakes and much suffering, the path in life that is best fitted to the measure of her capabilities. It is unnecessary to enlarge upon the value of Biography. From the lives of those who have gone before us it enables us to deduce lessons for our own guidance; shows us how we may profit by what they have accomplished and endured, what we may learn from their failures as well as their successes. The educational uses of Biography are, I think, not sufficiently appreciated. We read to be amused, to be interested, but not to be taught. Yet the most commonplace life of the most commonplace man would have in it something of high utility a warning or an encouragement, a reproof or a consolation-if it were rightly studied; and of much greater importance must be the lives of those who have done great deeds or uttered great thoughts, who have achieved much or suffered much. As they lie unfolded before us, they may be made useful in strengthening our nobler purposes, purifying our motives, elevating our aims, sustaining us under our disappointments. It is a mere truism to speak of the life of Palissy as a commentary on the advantages of perseverance, or of the life of George Stephenson as an illustration of successful industry. There is much more to be learned from real lives than these every-day and most obvious truths. The beauty of sympathy and kindly feeling, the strength that rests in a consciousness of right-doing, the refining effect of exalted aspirations, the victories won by serenity of temper and self-control, the true genius which consists in the ready adaptation of means to an end,-all this we may gather from the records of good and great lives. Christianity itself is founded upon a biography; its basis and support is the life of Christ. Therefore, in preparing themselves for the duties and cares, the joys and sorrows of womanhood, our girls should find in Biography an ever-present help. Necessarily, the lives of good and great women will possess a more direct interest and value for them than those of great and good menthough the latter must not be ignored-because whether we do or do not admit the general equality of the two sexes, we cannot deny their intellectual separateness. Two things may be equal and yet not alike: for myself, I cannot decide between the rose and the violet; both are perfect of their kind, as God hath made them, but both are different. Men and women are not alike, in themselves any more than in their duties; and in the first place, therefore, our girls must study the biographies of good women, the women who have shown what may be done to ennoble and elevate womanhood. These must be their charts, in which they may discover the sunken reef and the whirling current, the wilderness and the desert, as well as the sunny breadths of azure sea and the happy isles. In the following pages we have drawn upon Biography for the purpose of showing what some great and good Women were as Girls; how far the promise of their girlhood blossomed into performance; to what extent their later lives were affected by the influences |