this-she can allow her daughter to work out some experiences at least under her own eye. If a great many young women were thus engaged in actually going through at home some at least of the duties which would fit them to take care of a house of their own, there would not be half so much trouble and annoyance in store for them when married life came.

What is the case now? Before marriage a woman has been half'educated' in several accomplishments, not one of which she has mastered. She has learned a little history, geography, and sums, but nothing thoroughly— nothing that has interested her, nothing she cares to remember; and when her husband receives her into his house he finds she cannot keep accounts, she has no idea of what servants ought to do or to be, she has no method. She spends a pound where ten shillings would do, she does in so many hours what ought to be done in so many minutes, she idles away her time-puts off her morning duties to the afternoon, and her afternoon duties to next day. And thus on the threshold arises confusion, and the germs of trouble between her and her husband. He says, 'It is not fair that my house should go to wrack and ruin in this way, because my wife does not understand her simplest duties; it is not fair that my money should be spent, and there be nothing to show for it ;' and hence the early spring days of wedded life are fretted with little gusts of passion, and little clouds of discontent, and it may be that unkind words are spoken, and habits formed which lie at the root of life-long differences, and may ultimately

be the means of dividing those whom God has joined together. Is not this a serious question? The details may appear to you insignificant, but life-long happiness or misery may depend upon them for all that. Are we so forbearing, so gentle, so kind, that we can afford to neglect the practical ways of getting on comfortably and well with each other? What is a young woman's experience of married life? A series of discoveries.

She does not know this and that and the other, because she has never been told. She knows next to nothing about men. She is surprised to find her husband's mind on nearer acquaintance so unlike her own. She thinks he ought never to be preoccupied. He comes home tired, she thinks he is cross. His mind is still full of business details; although he has not seen her all day he can hardly speak to her, he must go to his study and make a few notes. She thinks he is concealing something from her, and so when he comes out of his study with a clear brow and wants her society she is affronted it is now his turn to wonder.

Or, again, she cannot estimate the value of his time; she cannot see the necessity for his glancing through the Times' in the morning instead of talking to her, although the whole work of the day may turn on something seen in the morning paper. She has no idea of the relative importance of different things-a bit of ribbon and a speech by Mr. Gladstone are equally important in her eyes, or rather the first is more important than the second. Why any exertion should be made for anything outside the family, or for anything

which does not bear upon the narrow home circle, is unintelligible to her.

She is amazingly ignorant of the simplest laws of health. How much disease and misery, mental and physical, might not mothers spare their daughters by a little timely instruction! But everything connected. with health is a mystery, the reasons of nothing are ever explained, the consequences of nothing are ever foretold. So, many women cannot take care of their health at all, and never learn until ignorance and neglect bring misery, and misery drives to remedies that often come too late. And yet women complain that there is nothing to learn and nothing to do! It is a hard, hard thing for a woman to stumble into all sorts of mistakes and blunders, about herself, her husband and her work; yet mothers put this upon their daughters without a misgiving. At last, no doubt, the house begins to go on pretty well, and things settle themselves? but after what anxiety, waste, and ruin of feeling, ruin of sympathy, often ruin of health, and wreck of illusions? Therefore,

there is one obvious duty when a woman says there is nothing for her to do; let her prepare herself for the future, let mothers try and bring up their daughters to be fit for wives before they commit them to husbands.

117. But as society is now constituted all women cannot marry. It has become the fashion lately, to make a virtue of necessity, and descant upon the advantages of single blessedness. 'Women do not want to marry, they would not marry if they could; there are

other better things to be done than keep house for the worst half of human-kind.' Such opinions are never likely to be very general; but there is something in them. It is the natural and healthy chafing of civilised woman, at her narrow and restricted sphere in society. But the best and wisest women would probably express themselves more in this way:-'Marriage, in most cases, is to a woman what a regular profession is to a man. It is absurd to say, that women as a class will ever have an insuperable aversion to marriage; exceptional women may not care for it, many are obliged to do without it, and a few loud talkers and silly ignorant girls will affect to despise it; but it takes a good deal to upset a natural law; it may be violated, it cannot be altered; very idle is all the talk about the Franchise and other rights unsexing women; you might as well say that putting a rose into rich soil would make a turnip of it. The rose was made too well for that originally; you may impede or foster its growth, you cannot change its nature.'

But what if a woman does not marry? Why of course, then, as all the world knows, it is more difficult for her to find something to do. Why? Because she has never been properly educated. But a man who does not want to marry, he is well educated; he has a thousand interests, in his profession, in public life, in science, in literature, in art, in social questions; or if he has no profession, a well-educated man will or ought to be able without much difficulty to open up some way for himself. But a woman if she does not marry is often fit for nothing

in the world but a gossip. I know many noble single women who have led noble single lives, who have been down to old age like sun-light in the house; but they have been so, in spite of every difficulty; the men have not helped them, the women have not helped them, society has not helped them, they have helped themselves. I say that our women, our ladies, should be taught better, should be taught longer, should not be worn away with study, but drawn out, refreshed, exhilarated, developed, educated by having their minds presented with subjects congenial, interesting, and worthy of attention. A woman ought to know what is in her, what she can do and care for, what she is fit for, married or unmarried.

118. Now-a-days a girl's education ends just as she is beginning to unfold; just when she has reached the point where she might be interested in something, she is snatched away from the school-room, with unripe judgment, with unreal views of life, and her mind, which had just begun to bud, slowly withers, or narrows, or becomes a blank. Marriage comes upon her unprepared; or single life, family misfortune, perhaps penury, comes upon her, still more unprepared. And what is she to do? She can do nothing. She is not fit to teach-she has never been properly taught herself. Professions and honourable employments are closed to her, and she has no energy to open them for herself.

119. I say to women of leisure, you may be left