But now, if among your party there shall be an average lawyer,
medical man, or man of science, you will find that he, and perhaps
he alone, will be able to retail accurately the story which has
been told him. And why? Simply because his mind has been trained
to deal with facts; to ascertain exactly what he does see or hear,
and to imprint its leading features strongly and clearly on his
memory.

Now, you certainly cannot make young ladies barristers or
attorneys; nor employ their brains in getting up cases, civil or
criminal; and as for chemistry, they and their parents may have a
reasonable antipathy to smells, blackened fingers, and occasional
explosions and poisonings. But you may make them something of
botanists, zoologists, geologists.

I could say much on this point: allow me at least to say this: I
verify believe that any young lady who would employ some of her
leisure time in collecting wild flowers, carefully examining them,
verifying them, and arranging them; or who would in her summer
trip to the sea-coast do the same by the common objects of the
shore, instead of wasting her holiday, as one sees hundreds doing,
in lounging on benches on the esplanade, reading worthless novels,
and criticising dresses--that such a young lady, I say, would not
only open her own mind to a world of wonder, beauty, and wisdom,
which, if it did not make her a more reverent and pious soul, she
cannot be the woman which I take for granted she is; but would
save herself from the habit--I had almost said the necessity--of
gossip; because she would have things to think of and not merely
persons; facts instead of fancies; while she would acquire