emotions of
anxiety, have, of course, a needful part to play in our lives.

But confine them as far as possible to the occasions when you are
making your general resolutions and deciding on your plans of campaign,
and keep them out of the details. When once a decision is reached and
execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility
and care about the outcome. _Unclamp_, in a word, your intellectual and
practical machinery, and let it run free; and the service it will do you
will be twice as good. Who are the scholars who get 'rattled' in the
recitation-room? Those who think of the possibilities of failure and
feel the great importance of the act. Who are those who do recite well?
Often those who are most indifferent. _Their_ ideas reel themselves out
of their memory of their own accord. Why do we hear the complaint so
often that social life in New England is either less rich and expressive
or more fatiguing than it is in some other parts of the world? To what
is the fact, if fact it be, due unless to the over-active conscience of
the people, afraid of either saying something too trivial and obvious,
or something insincere, or something unworthy of one's interlocutor, or
something in some way or other not adequate to the occasion? How can
conversation possibly steer itself through such a sea of
responsibilities and inhibitions as this? On the other hand,
conversation does flourish and society is refreshing, and neither dull
on the one hand nor exhausting from its effort on the other, wherever
people forget their scruples and take the brakes off their hearts, and
let their tongues wag as automatically and irresponsibly as they will.

They talk much in pedagogic circles to-day about the duty of the teacher
to prepare for every lesson in advance. To some extent this is useful.
But we Yankees are assuredly not those to whom such a general doctrine
should be preached. We are only too careful as it is. The advice I
should give to most teachers would be in the words of one who is herself
an admirable teacher. Prepare yourself in the _subject so well that it
shall be always on tap_: then in the classroom trust your spontaneity
and fling away all further care.

My advice to students, especially to girl-students, would be somewhat
similar. Just as a bicycle-chain may be too tight, so may one's
carefulness and conscientiousness be so tense as to hinder the running
of one's mind. Take, for example, periods