talked
incessantly herself, though she looked pale and exhausted. Her fixed
idea was to make us learn by heart the lives of famous women, and
more especially "heroines," in order to incite us to imitate them; she
made us study an immense number of biographies; in order to
demonstrate to us all the possibilities of becoming illustrious and
also to convince us that it was not beyond our powers to be heroines,
since these were so numerous. The exhortation which accompanied these
narratives was always the same: "You, too, should try to become
famous; would not you, too, like to be famous?" "Oh, no!" I answered
one day, drily; "I shall never do so. I care too much for the children
of the future to add yet another biography to the list."

* * * * *

The unanimous reports of the educationists from all parts of the world
who attended the last pedagogic and psychological international
congresses lamented the "lack of character" in the young as
constituting a great danger to the race. But it is not that character
is lacking in the race; it is that school distorts the body and
weakens the spirit. All that is needed is an act of liberation; and
the latent forces of man will then develop.

The manner in which we are to make use of our strong will is a higher
question, which, however, can rest only upon one basis: that the will
exists--that is, has been developed, and has become strong. One of the
examples usually given to our children, to teach them to admire
strength of will, is that of Vittorio Alfieri, who began to educate
himself late in life, overcoming the drudgery of the rudiments by a
great effort. He, who had hitherto been a man of the world, set to
work to study the Latin grammar, and persevered until he became a man
of letters, and, in virtue of his ardent genius, one of our greatest
poets. The phrase by which he explained his transformation is just the
phrase every child in Italy has heard quoted by his teachers: "I
willed, perpetually I willed, with all my strength I willed."

Now, before he made the great "decision," Vittorio Alfieri was the
victim of a capricious society lady whom he loved. Alfieri felt that
he was ruining himself by remaining the slave of his passion; an
internal impulse urged him to raise himself; he felt the great man
latent within him, full of powers not yet developed, but potential and
expansive; he would fain have turned them to account, responded to
their inner call, and d