INTRODUCTION.

SUCH work as this, whether pursued as the main object of your life, or only as a secondary employment in the intervals of more immediate domestic duties, obviously requires some special preparation, in addition to that general training intended by education, and subsequent to it. Indeed, if the education actually given to girls at all answered to the true meaning of that word, or approximated in any measure to that which the education of an English gentlewoman should be; it would not be necessary here to do more than point out the practical knowledge required for the skilful and thorough performance of their different employments; by acquiring which the results of their education would be at once applicable to the art to which they wish to apply themselves. But as it is, most of them leave the school-room very ill prepared for any work at all; fortunate only in this, that they leave it so early there is time for them to supply the deficiency themselves before the business of life begins.

To supply this want of education was one great object of the lectures established in London at Queen's College, and elsewhere. But very few of

those who feel the want can avail themselves of these, and as parents use them, they partake too much of the prevalent cramming system; nor will any possible teaching by others supply the place of that self-education which is all in all to women, but which the present requirements of our schoolrooms render absolutely impossible there.* If, therefore, you cannot obtain the assistance of such teaching as really tends to education; steadily set to work to hunt out the requisite information, and study it by yourself; if you do not get on so fast, yet in the end you will not find you have lost much time. It is only for those who find themselves thus thrown on their own resources that the following pages have been written.

There are two kinds of preparation, then, to be considered; the mental habits to be cultivated, and the actual technical or practical knowledge which will be required for the main branches of the work before us, and which should, if possible, be attained before your whole spare time is engaged in the work itself. But if, whilst engaged in acquiring this, you can employ a part of your time

We have indeed known girls of fifteen or sixteen, whose school hours and masters occupied them from 7 A.M. to 8 or 9 P.M. six days every week; (for, in the hour's walk allowed on five days in fine weather, they were accompanied by their Italian grammars, and at meals they spoke in French on a given subject;) who got up at 5 to read algebra and Euclid by themselves; but such cases should be regarded as demanding medical treatment, in which the patients, so far from educating themselves, are helpless victims of over-excited nerves.

TWOFOLD PREPARATION.

271

in the actual work, as in schools, or nursing, with your servants, or in visiting a few aged persons, and will pursue this patiently, observantly, and humbly, as one who has all to learn, you will find the work itself a truer and safer teacher, though a slower one perhaps, than any other can be.

CHAPTER I.

THE EDUCATION NECESSARY.

INTRODUCTION. -THE EDUCATION NECESSARY. WHO ARE EDUCATED? -OF THINKING CLEARLY. CAUSES OF CONFUSION OF THOUGHT.-TOO GREAT HASTE.-WANT OF ATTENTION.-CLEAR THINKERS.-BISHOP BUTLER'S INTRODUCTION TO HIS SERMONS. -DR. ABERCROMBIE. ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. - HOOKER.HOW TO STUDY.-OBJECT OF STUDYING.-OF CLEAR VIEWS OF TRUTH.-MODES AND SUBSTANCE.

"And David girded his sword upon his armour, and he assayed to go. And David said, I cannot go with these; for I have not proved them. And he took his staff in his hand, and chose him five smooth stones out of the valley."

WE have been considering all along what work educated women of leisure may be able and are needed to carry on and now we must stop to consider, who is educated. T. Grote, in his essay on education, defines an educated man to be one who is able to make his thoughts clear to himself, and to express them correctly and intelligibly to others. And he adds, "A great deal of what is useful for intercourse or actual business will be learnt very rapidly when it is wanted, if the mind has acquired two habits: 1st, that of making its

OF THINKING CLEARLY.

273

own thoughts clear; and 2nd, that of attending to what passes before it." Here, then, we have three habits, which it is the object of true education to form; that of thinking clearly, expressing correctly*, and observing truly what passes before us : this includes all that we shall need to speak of, and the more we obtain of them the more complete will all our work be.

and easy

The first thing, then, at which you should aim in all you study is to know distinctly what it is you learn, what the writer means; or, failing that, what you understand of his meaning, which parts of his subject are clear, and which are confused in your mind. You will say, perhaps, this is telling you to attain the power of making your thoughts clear by learning to think clearly, and so in fact it is; you must do it for yourself. A good tutor may make the most involved subject plain and clear to you; but not all the tutors in the world can give you the power of thinking clearly on the simplest subject, unless your own attention and thought is exerted on it; just as you might carry a child in your arms round the world without its being one bit better able to walk by itself." "Any one may, if he pleases, know whether he understands and sees through what he is about; and it is unpardonable for a man to lay his thoughts before others, when he is conscious that he himself does not know where he is, or how the matter

It is scarcely too much to say that the present system of girls' teaching cultivates not clearness but confusion of thought.

T