How much more numerous the motives which can be given an American girl
than one who lives on foreign soil! Look at the German girl, for
example. Her country arbitrarily divides its people into high and low.
The peasant maiden has so long stayed one side of the barrier, she
thinks she always must; so, with her scanty loaf of black bread near
her on the ground, she leans against a tree, knits her stocking, and
tends the flock. When night comes she goes home to her rude stone
cottage, lifts a prayer to the Virgin, if she is an Austrian, and one
for the king. Her mind never strays beyond the village gate. The more
fortunate girls in towns and cities receive the allotted years of study
in the schools, and when these end at fifteen, about the time of
confirmation, the girls are put into families away from home to get a
year's experience in domestic matters. Then they marry, and obediently
follow the commands of their husbands.

It may be thought that a society girl needs no incentives to a right
use of time and privileges, but she most certainly does. Her
responsibility is great: she will either sway a circle or a household.
Her influence will as surely affect her associates as did the influence
of those celebrated French women whose _salons_ were the places where
battles were fought and decisive moments gained. Society is in great
need of women: it always will be. Now this period of young womanhood is
precisely the time for cultivating those principles which will later be
most helpful to society.

Surely, for those who are to bear more heavily the weight of life,
who are to work as they wish not; in fact, in a way against which all
but principle struggles,--certainly, for these, there is every need
of motive. This class increases daily, and the discouragement and