it? It is easy to say, "Do not talk about your
headaches, or your delicate constitution;" but how are you to help
thinking about these things? Decide on regular daily work for
yourselves. If you are still school-girls and your head feels heavy in
the morning, think whether you would be justified in staying at home if
you were a teacher. Teachers have headaches too, but they seldom stay at
home for one, and they are seldom the worse for going to school.

When you leave school undertake some regular work. Take charge of the
marketing, or oversee the housekeeping for a year. Ask the officers of
the Associated Charities to give you something definite to do, and do it
regularly. If you are not fitted for visiting the poor, suppose you make
experiments in natural science. See what Lubbock did with ants, bees,
and wasps. There are thousands of such experiments to be tried, but few
people have the leisure for them. You may not understand your results,
but you can make the accurate observations which are absolutely
necessary before a great man can find out the laws which govern them.

Some mental work you must do. Of course you wish that. If you are in a
city like Boston, I will tell you what you will be tempted to do. You
will be tempted to sandwich your parties and calls and concerts with two
or three courses of morning lectures given by highly trained
specialists. In this way you will get a delightful society knowledge of
history and literature and art and science, but you will not really
exercise your mind very much. Your knowledge will be available for talk,
but not for thought. Go to the lectures by all means,--though perhaps
one course at a time will do; but be sure that every day at a fixed hour
you study the subject of the lecture by yourself, and make it thoroughly
your own.

Am I wandering from the topic of health? I think not, because during
the last fifty years we have learned almost all the laws of health, and
yet we are not much better than before, for our nerves are still on
edge. Now girls, even rich girls, can control their nerves, if they
begin soon enough, with will and intelligence. And nothing will help
them more than to have their bodies and minds constantly employed in
rational ways so that there is no room for nervous fancies.

_Take the rest you need._

It is hard to know how much you need. Some people must have more than
others. It is easy to be lazy on the one hand, and to be dissipated on
the ot