PREFACE. IT T cannot be believed that the young ladies of the present day are less attractive and interesting than their predecessors of a bygone generation, but they are certainly more highly educated, their range of knowledge is more extensive, their accomplishments more varied, without making them in the slightest degree less practical or fitted for the domestic and social duties. which devolve on them. The fact is, the education of a young lady now rests. on a wider basis than was formerly the case; and many subjects are included which were not formerly considered to be necessary, or even desirable. Now all the prizes to be won by cultured intellect are competed for by women, who enter the lists as well equipped as the male competitors. Merely superficial accomplishments are estimated at their proper value, and real knowledge is required instead of the smattering which used to be thought sufficient for a girl. Are so-called "accomplishments" to be despised? Are all young ladies to be "girl-graduates," so absorbed in classics, science, æsthetics, and metaphysics, that they have neither taste nor leisure for the hundred little elegancies that make home delightful, the indefinable but most charming grace of manner which makes the "daughter of the house" its chief ornament? Assuredly not. Minerva, the Muses, and the Graces, may go hand in hand. The clever, well-taught girl, whose accomplishments and taste add so much to the attractions of the drawing-room, may exercise equal influence in domestic arrangements; be invaluable if sickness prostrates any member of the family; a true, earnest, energetic woman when earnestness and energy are required; taking her part in society with grace, taste, and tact; an authority and example in dress and deportment; expert in the arts which make life agreeable, while possessing a fair share of the accurate knowledge and acquaintance with at least the leading principles of practical science so essential in modern life to the woman of society. The highly accomplished but extremely helpless young lady, who figures in one of Hood's sketches, and who, when "dear papa" was taken ill, could have "covered him with little rice-paper roses," but could do nothing to alleviate his pain or minister to his wants, is not the model young lady of our day. |