794 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and this simply because they have never ascertained whether the 

 study of harmony might not be to them a study of absorbing interest. 

 Or, again, how very rare a thing it is to meet a lady who has even a 

 superficial acquaintance with any one of the sciences ; and how vast is 

 the paradise of intellectual enjoyment from which multitudes of intelli- 

 gent ladies are thus excluded ! And similarly with all the other lines 

 of intellectual pursuit for which a certain small amount of rudimentary 

 initiation is required in order to ascertain whether they are suited to 

 individual taste. So that, as I have said, one of the most important 

 aims of a girl's, and also of a boy's, education ought to be to ascertain 

 and specially to cultivate the branch of knowledge in which most in- 

 terest is taken. Let us not suppose that by following this advice there 

 is any danger of imparting to young ladies that singularly objection- 

 able and not very easily definable character which is most tersely and 

 intelligently conveyed by the word "blue." No one can have a more 

 intense dislike than I have of the cerulean tint ; but, wherever I have 

 seen it, I have always been persuaded that it is the previous character 

 which has tinted the learning not the learning which has tinted the 

 character. Only let a lady be a lady, and nothing but envious igno- 

 rance can ever venture to breathe the objectionable word, while cultured 

 refinement in the opposite sex will always discover in the culture of a 

 lady that only which adds to her refinement. 



I have now said all that I feel it desirable to say on the principles 

 and the practice of recreation ; and I will conclude by adding a few 

 words on what I may call the ethics of recreation. 



Health may be taken as implying capacity for work, as well as to 

 a large, though to a less absolute degree, the capacity for happiness ; 

 and, as duty means our obligation to promote the general happiness, 

 it follows that in no connection is the voice of duty more urgent than 

 it is in the advancement of all that is conducive to health. By main- 

 taining our own health at the highest point of its natural efficiency, 

 we are doing all that in us lies to secure for ourselves the prime con- 

 dition for work that is, the prime condition for benefiting the com- 

 munity to whatever extent our powers may be capable. And, similar- 

 ly, by promoting the health of others, we are, in proportion to our 

 success, securing to the community a certain amount of additional 

 capacity for work on the part of its constituent members, as well as 

 increasing the individual capacity for happiness on the part of all the 

 members whom our efforts may reach. Therefore, I take it that, if 

 we regard this subject from an ethical point of view, it is clear that 

 we have no duty to perform of a more grave and important kind than 

 this thoughtfully to study the conditions of health, earnestly to teach 

 these conditions to others, and strenuously to make their observance a 

 law to ourselves. Now, of these conditions one of the most important 

 is suitable recreation. For this is the condition which extends to all 

 classes of the community, and the observance of which is, as we have 



