A girl needs, first of all, encouragement. She should not be told what
things are to oppose her, if she has ambition to excel in a certain
direction, but what things are to help her to attain her purpose. She
wants praise, but not flattery. A girl knows when she is flattered
sooner than a boy. If conceit is engendered from praise, that will
do no harm. Time will destroy conceit, if a girl has much to do with
sensible people and sensible books.

A girl needs to be trusted. Nothing will be more efficacious than making
her feel of certain importance and usefulness to others. It is evident
she wants sympathy in her endeavors and disappointments. I do not mean
that she should be indulged, or that she should not be made to work
out her own salvation; but that she should realize that, if she tries,
some one will know and bless her, and if she stumbles, some one will
help her up again. Just as truly should she know that, if she is
careless of endeavor or negligent of her days, she will meet with
disparagement and punishment.

It is most necessary for a girl to have a motive placed before her,
that she may bring out whatever undeveloped faculties may be latent
within her. This motive may be a comparatively slight one,--no more
than the training of a window-garden, the collecting of newspaper slips,
or the making of bread; but, if she does her particular work better
than others, she will attain a certain degree of superiority, and her
time has, for her, been as profitably filled as that which another
person devotes to a larger work. By motive, let me repeat, I mean
something given a girl to do which shall be especially her work: not
always an ambitious one,--a desire to shine in society, letters, or the
arts,--but something just for herself, with its own rewards.