Just as clothes are an expression of the people who wear them, so are
rooms an expression of the people who live in them. No well-bred girl
cares for tawdry, cheap, over-ornamented clothes. She is made
uncomfortable even at the very thought of having to wear such things.
She should suffer just as much discomfort on the score of a cheaply
furnished (and by "cheap" here I do not mean inexpensive--whitewash and
deal intelligently used may create a beautiful room), overcrowded and
over-ornamented study.

What is the meaning of the room which is your school centre for the time
being? It is an intimate place where a girl may have her friends and
good times; it is a retreat and it is a workshop. It is the girl's home
centre away from home, the place from which she will lead her life, in
its expression attractive or unattractive, like her or unlike her. To
intend that this room in beauty, in cleanliness, in order, shall be the
best expression possible of the girl's best self is the ideal to set for
the school study.

Get good materials and good colours. They need not be expensive.
Remember that colours have to go together just as furniture has to do
so. To have styles of furniture that clash or colours that do not
harmonize will negative any care which the student may have taken in the
selection of individual pieces or materials. To have too much with which
to fill the room is a good deal worse than not to have enough. Much
better it is to have a few things which are just what they should be
than to have too many and those undesirable. To get a desk, if a girl
can afford to do so, that she will be glad to keep her life long is a
good beginning, and a comfortable chair that will be made doubly
precious by all the school associations woven about it. And let her be
careful about pictures for her walls and not crowd them with cheap and