tion of barren country life.
Though the conditions in the two cases are exactly opposite, the
trouble is often the same,--absence of noble interests. In the city
restless idleness organizes amusement; in the country deadly dulness
succeeds daily toil.

But there is a second reason why a girl should acquire for herself
strong and worthy interests. The regular occupations of women in their
homes are generally disconnected and of little educational value, at
least as those homes are at present conducted. Given the best will in
the world, the daily doing of household details becomes a wearisome
monotony if the mere performance of them is all. To make drudgery
divine a woman must have a brain to plan and eyes to see how to "sweep
a room as to God's laws." Imagination and knowledge should be the
hourly companions of her who would make a fine art of each detail in
kitchen and nursery. Too long has the pin been the appropriate symbol
of the average woman's life--the pin, which only temporarily holds
together things which may or may not have any organic connection with
one another. While undoubtedly most women must spend the larger part
of life in this modest pin-work, holding together the little things of
home and school and society and church, it is also true, that cohesive
work itself cannot be done well, even in humble circumstances, except
by the refined, the trained, the growing woman. The smallest village,
the plainest home, give ample space for the resources of the trained
college woman. And the reason why such homes and such villages are so
often barren of grace and variety is just because these fine qualities
have not ruled them. The higher graces of civilization halt among us;
dainty and finished ways of living give place to common ways, while
vulgar tastes, slatternly habits, clouds and despondency reign in the
house. Little children under five years of age die in needless
thousands because of the dull, unimaginative women on whom they depend.
Such women have been satisfied with just getting along, instead of
packing everything they do with brains, instead of studying the best
possible way of doing everything small or large; for there is always a
best way, whether of setting a table, of trimming a hat, or teaching a
child to read. And this taste for perfection can be cultivated;
indeed, it must be cultivated, if our standards of living are to be
raised. There is now scientific knowledge enough, there is m