should be, when they come to adult age, but also what they should be
now. They have or should have a character to acquire _now_; a
reputation to secure and maintain _now_; and a sphere of personal
usefulness and happiness to occupy _now_.

It is true, indeed, that childhood and youth are more specially seasons
of preparation, and less specially seasons of reward, than maturer and
later life; but it is also equally true, that every stage of life, not
excepting its very evening, is little more than a preparation for a
still higher state, where reward will predominate in a degree which
will make all previous preparation seem to dwindle almost to nothing.

Existence, in short, is a state of progress, having, at every step, so
far as we know, its trials and rewards--the rewards always, however,
predominating, and the trials diminishing, in proportion as personal
holiness renders the latter unnecessary.

It will happen, unavoidably, that many young women to whom this little
volume may come, will have been trained up, to the time of casting
their eyes on these pages, in the old fashioned belief to which I have
alluded--viz., that they can neither _do_ nor _be_ much in the world,
except to submit passively to certain processes which have received the
name of education, till their arrival at a certain size or age. The fault,
reader--if such should be the case--is not chargeable, solely, on your
parents. They followed a custom which they found; they did not make it.
But however this may be, it is clear that your great object should now
be, to see what you can do for yourself.

Now, then, here you are, twelve, fourteen, perhaps sixteen years of
age. Your parents have brought you up according to the existing