44. THK HOMi:. FARM AM) IH'SIXKSS CYCLOPAEDIA. 



friends' daughters treat me as if I were the scum of the universe. I am 

 :_rlud I have no daughters; for a modern daughter would kill me." 



aps this lady but elaborated the troublesome problem which has 

 tried the intellects of all observant women how to make the proper 



"urn i/irl ; not the " fast " girl ; still again, not the "slow," dowdy girl ; 

 not the exceptional girl, but the girl who shall be at once good and suc- 

 cessful that is the question ? 



The amenities of home, the culture of the fireside, the mingled duty and 

 pleasure which come with a life which has already its duties before its 

 pleasures this would seem to make the model girl. The care and inter- 

 in the younger sisters and brothers ; a comprehension and a sympathy 

 with her mother's trials ; a devotion to her hard-worked father ; a desire to 

 spare him one burden more, to learn the music he loves, to play to him 



in evening ; to be not only the admired belle of the ballroom, but also 

 the dearest treasure of home ; to help along the boys with their lessons, 

 to enter into those trials of which they will not speak ; to take the fracti- 

 ous baby from the patient or impatient nurse's arms, and toss it in her 

 own strong young hands and smile upon it with her own pearly teeth and 

 i--l lips ; to take what comes to her. of gaiety and society as an outside 

 thing, not as the whole of life ; to be not heartbroken if one invitation fail, 

 or if one dress is unbecoming ; to bear the slight of no partner for the 

 man with a smiling indifference ; to be cheerful and watchful ; to be 



:iionable enough, but neither fast nor furious ; to be cultivated, and not 

 a blue-stocking ; to be artistic, but not eccentric or slovenly ; to be a lovely 

 woman whom men love, and yet neither coquette nor flirt such would 

 seem to be the model girl. 



And it is home and its amenities which must make her. School can 

 not do it ; society can not and will not do it ; books will not do it, 

 although they will help. 



Ancl here we have much to say on the books which should surround a 

 girl. We must seek and watch and try to find the best books for our 

 ijirls, But we can no more prevent a bad French novel from falling into 

 their hands than we can prevent the ivy which may poison them from 

 springing up in the hedge. The best advice we can give, is to let a girl 

 1 as she pleases in a well-selected library; often reading with her, re- 

 commending certain books, and forming her taste as much as possible ; 

 then leaving her to herself, to pick out the books she likes. Nothing will 

 be so sure to give a girl a desire to read a book as to forbid it, and we are 

 now so fortunate in the crowd of really good novels and most unexcep- 

 tional magazines which lie on our tables that we are almost sure that her 



