o more to do with
that statement than it had to do with the one when I hinted that man
reached the ripe state of perfection at the mystic age of thirty-five.
These are but approximate figures, and are only for use in general
practice. They have no bearing on specific cases, when it is always
best to call in a specialist.

I know many girls who are still seeing and hearing unintelligently,
and have not begun to assimilate knowledge, even at twenty-five. I
know others of twenty, who have assimilated so well that they will
never be under twenty-five. But it is a literal fact, and this
statement I am willing to live up to, that the majority of girls must
have lived through their first youth before a thinking person can take
any comfort with them.

I am sure Samuel Johnson had this in mind when he said: "'Tis a
terrible thing that we cannot wish young ladies well without wishing
them to become old women." Or possibly the exclamation was wrung from
him after an attempt to talk to one of them. Many brave men, who would
stop a runaway horse, or who would dare to look for burglars under the
bed, quail utterly before the prospect of talking to a young girl who
frankly says, "I don't think."

How can those girls, who give evidence of no more thought than is
evinced by their namby-pamby chatter, call their existence living?
They mistake pertness for wit; audacity for cleverness; disrespect to
old age for independence; and general bad manners for individuality.
Has nobody ever trained these girls to think? What kind of schools do
they attend? Who has spoiled them by flattery, until they are little
peacocks to whom a mirror is an irresistible temptation?

Why do unthinking parents supply them with money, and never ask how
they spend it? How does it come that if you want to find great numbers
of them together you go to Huyler's instead of to Brentano's? What
kind of women will these girls make, to whom a wrinkle in their waist
is of more moment than their soul's salvation?

I often wonder what kind of mothers these girls have. Surely there can
be no family conversation where they live. Surely they never hear the
great questions of the day discussed at the dinner-table. From the
number of hours they spend upon the street, I often am tempted to say,
what the poor, tired woman, who stood for miles in the street-car,
said to her fellow-passengers, "Have none of yez _homes_?"

Poor, empty-pated little creatures! Poor lovely little c