Besides this general advice, there is one accomplishment in particular, which I would earnestly recommend to you, as I am in the habit of doing to all of your sex. Cultivate assiduously the ability to read well. I stop to particularize this, because it is a thing so very much neglected, and because it is so very elegant, charming, and lady-like an accomplishment. Where one person is really interested by music, twenty are pleased with good reading. Where one person is capable of becoming a skilful musician, twenty may become good readers. Where there is one occasion suitable for the exercise of musical talent, there are twenty for that of reading. The culture of the voice necessary for reading well, gives a delightful charm to the same voice in conversation. Good reading is the natural exponent and vehicle of all good things. It is the most effective of all commentaries upon the works of genius. It seems to bring dead authors to life again, and makes us sit down familiarly with the great and good of all ages. Did you ever notice what life and power the Holy Scriptures have, when well read? Have you ever heard of the wonderful effects produced by Elizabeth Fry among the hardened criminals of Newgate, by simply reading to them the parable of the Prodigal Son? Princes and peers of the realm, it is said, counted it a privilege to stand in those dismal corridors, among felons and murderers, merely to share with them the privilege of witnessing the marvellous pathos which genius, taste, and culture could infuse into that simple story. What a fascination there is in really good reading! What a power it gives one! In the hospital, in the chamber of the invalid, in the nursery, in the domestic and the social circle, among chosen friends and companions, how it enables you to minister to the amusement, the comfort, the pleasure of dear ones, as no other art or accomplishment can. No instrument of man's devising can reach the heart, as does that most wonderful instrument, the human voice. It is God's special gift and endowment to his chosen creatures. Fold it not away in a napkin. If you would double the value of all your other acquisitions; if you would add immeasurably to your own enjoyment, and to your power of promoting the enjoyment of others, cultivate with incessant care this Divine gift. No music below the skies is equal to that of pure, silvery speech from the lips of a man or woman of high culture. * * * * * 4. _To a Pupil on Entering a Normal School._ You have entered upon a new and untried path. As one having been often over this way, and well acquainted with the features of the country before you, its lights and shadows, its roses and its thorns, its safe walks and its hidden pitfalls, I desire to talk with you a while before you enter upon the untried scene.