must keep
the attention long upon nothing, and in instruction the first
commandment is to permit no dissipation of it."

"Variety, without dissipation, were the best motto for both teaching and
life, if this desirable equipoise were easy to be preserved," said the
Assistant; and he was going on further with the subject, when Charlotte
called out to him to look again at the children, whose merry troop were
at the moment moving across the court. He expressed his satisfaction at
seeing them wearing a uniform. "Men," he said, "should wear a uniform
from their childhood upwards. They have to accustom themselves to work
together; to lose themselves among their equals; to obey in masses, and
to work on a large scale. Every kind of uniform, moreover, generates a
military habit of thought, and a smart, straight-forward carriage. All
boys are born soldiers, whatever you do with them. You have only to
watch them at their mock fights and games, their storming parties and
scaling parties."

"On the other hand, you will not blame me," replied Ottilie, "if I do
not insist with my girls on such unity of costume. When I introduce them
to you, I hope to gratify you by a parti-colored mixture."

"I approve of that, entirely," replied the other. "Women should go about
in every sort of variety of dress; each following her own style and her
own likings, that each may learn to feel what sits well upon her and
becomes her. And for a more weighty reason as well--because it is
appointed for them to stand alone all their lives, and work alone."

"That seems to me to be a paradox," answered Charlotte. "Are we then to
be never anything for ourselves?"

"O, yes!" replied the Assistant. "In respect of other women assuredly.
But observe a young lady as a lover, as a bride, as a housewife, as a
mother. She always stands isolated. She is always alone, and will be
alone. Even the most empty-headed woman is in the same case. Each one of
them excludes all others. It is her nature to do so; because of each one
of them is required everything which the entire sex have to do. With a
man it is altogether different. He would make a second man if there were
none. But a woman might live to an eternity, without even so much as
thinking of producing a duplicate of herself."

"One has only to say the truth in a strange way," said Charlotte, "and
at last the strangest thing will seem to be true. We will accept what is
good for us out of your observations, and ye