verse concerning him to advantage, with pleasure to him, and with profit to yourself. And here I cannot help saying, that, if every one who expects to go into company on a particular evening would go to books and obtain one valuable thought, and use it, giving the name of the author if he saw fit, the individuals would, every one, be more respected, and the company be saved the mortification of saying all the small, light, and foolish things possible. In a world containing the thoughts and the beautiful creations of all the past, the man or the woman who cannot carry to the common gathering at least one valuable thought ought not to be tolerated. Not long since, I overheard a gentleman roundly asserting (he had read it in a penny newspaper that afternoon) to a lady, that Lord Bacon was not a great man,

only second or third rate. And the lady said, Indeed,' and looked pleased, and vacant, and had no more to say in the defence of that immortal mind, than if he had said that Westphalia hams and bacon are pretty much the same thing. An educated young lady who

NOT A SHORT JOB.

61

will cry, 'Indeed!' when puppies thus dig on the graves of giants, and say, 'There's nothing worth scratching for here,' ought to have no society more intellectual than a lap-dog with a blue ribbon about his neck.

"7. One more object to be mentioned is to create habits of patient toil.

"If a man has a field of grass to mow, or a wheel to build, or if a lady has an article to sew, or a nice cake to make, each one can see, at every step, there is progress made. Each feels that it is but a short job, and then it will be done. But in study, the results of a day's labour are seen to be so small, if seen at all, that there is nothing to cheer. You cannot shew what you have accomplished. You can see that the hill looks higher and steeper, and that you have climbed hard all the day, but you cannot see any progress. You can see that to-morrow will be like to-day; and that it is toil, toil, from day to day, and from week to week, without much, if any apparent advance. It is unmitigated labour. You do not have the luxury of the sweat of the brow, as in bodily

62

IRON-HEARTED BELL.

toil. How much patience is needed to get one lesson in Latin, or to make a single good recitation in algebra! Now you must multiply this toil as many times over as you have lessons. In the course of a week and a year, how much is the patience exercised! And this toil, this perseverance, this endurance of what is hard and what we naturally dislike, is the very discipline which we must meet all the way through life. Toil, patient toil, is our lot, and there is no place where the young can learn it so well as at school. At home, the young lady will now and then make an effort, she will take some extra steps or stitches, and perhaps for a few hours or days will really toil. But these seasons are exceptions. She visits, she has company, she sews when she pleases, reads when she feels like it, and thinks when she cannot help it. There is no system of patient toil. There is no rigid, unyielding bell, that has no bowels of compassion, and nothing human about it but a tongue, calling for punctuality, for study, and for attainment. But at school, lesson follows lesson. You may yawn or you may weep,

HABIT OF TOIL..

but there is no escape.

63

There comes the

hour, and your class will be there, and you must be on hand and ready, or you lose your standing. Every day impresses the habit of toil upon you, till eventually, strange as it may seem, it becomes easy, and finally pleasant. It is not merely that you can study, can apply, the mind, and can conquer your lessons, but you have the habit of doing so. Hence it is, that the girl who has been the longest at school, and has done most to acquire this habit, finds it much easier to study than those who lack this habit."

"O father, you don't mean to keep me at school till I have got such a habit of study that I shall love the toil, do you?"

"That will depend on circumstances. I am now shewing you what you study for, the object of studying at all. And I believe I have given you enough for once.”

"Yes, indeed; but after all you have not told me how to study. That's what I want to know."

66 That we must discuss at our next breakfast."

CHAPTER IV.

HOW TO STUDY.

Witch Stories. The question proposed. Study dry Work. Look it out again. Bishop Jewel's Memory. Conquer step by step. A High Standard. A Finished Young Lady. Capacity wanted. Chain the Attention. Author of this Mischief. Dr Gregory. Ship obeying the Helm. Algebra forgotten. Waters filtered. Cambridge and Oxford. Taste cultivated. Duty become Pleasure.

IN our nursery books, we read of sevenleagued boots, with which a man can take twenty miles at a step; and we have heard of halters by which witches turned their husbands into horses, and in a single night could drive them over continents; and strange tales are told at twilight, of rooks as large as a church, whose flight darkened the air, and in whose claws a man might be carried over oceans; and children have trembled at the