e country, of the thorough intellectual education of our girls.[17]

But enough has been said on the subject of reading, and of the
distinctions which should be made. I may add, however, that the line
before alluded to is to be drawn in novels. As, for instance, the girl
is ready for Dickens before she ought to read Thackeray, as Dickens
dwells more in the region of the simple emotions, while Thackeray has
moved on into the sphere of emotion which is conscious of itself, or of
the reflecting and critical understanding.

Supposing now that the girl has passed beyond the psychical stage of the
Imagination into the stage of Logical Thought, it is immensely important
that in this stage also she should not miss a systematic education. If
this should be the case, she is defrauded of the key which alone can
render intelligible the scattered work of the previous epoch. The work
of education in the first, or intuitional epoch is general; in the
second, or imaginative, special; and in the third, or logical, returns
again to the general; and thus only can it constitute a whole. In the
first, the child picks up facts and general principles from them; in the
second, the little girl pursues, each for itself, different branches of
study; in the third, she should be led to see the connection and
interdependence of these branches, to weave together the loose ends. If
she is not so led, if her education stops with the work of the second
stage--the only work which it is possible to do in the second stage, on
account of the laws of the development of the intellectual power--her
education remains forever unfinished, a garment not firm enough to
endure the stress of time, not fine enough to bear a moment's keen
scrutiny, and only strong enough to fetter and trip feet that endeavor
to make any real after-progress by its aid.

And yet this is what we are in the majority of cases doing for, or
rather against, our intelligent and energetic American girls. Does it
ever occur to us to ask what becomes of this energy, deprived thus of
its natural outlet? We have only to turn to the records of our insane
asylums or to the note-books of the physician and we are partially
answered. This is more true than is generally supposed. If these girls
had had real work for which they were responsible, and felt themselves
able rationally to utilize the power of which they were blindly
conscious, they would not be found to-day in the wards of asylums, or
condem