A careful study of history and biography should always precede fiction. It is a fundamental part of a liberal education to know something of the world’s history, and the history of the English nation, as well as the biographies of the men and women who were such important factors in making its various epochs. This should be followed by a study of the classics, and that education has not been liberal which has not included a study of the modern classics. German literature opens up a new and delightful world. A study of the classics forms the taste, elevates the mind, broadens the vision and the power of judgment, and it is a profound help in the formation of character. After such reading as this, who would be willing to spend her time on the cheap and trashy novels of the day. Good modern fiction should be taken up as a recreation by the woman whose life is laborious, its questions perplexing, and its complications tiresome; in other words, after the woman has left the high-school or college and has entered on her life’s vocation. For young girls, not only is too much time apt to be given to fiction which should be devoted to other and more important matters, but it is apt to do much harm by giving them a wrong impression of life. =The Power of the Will or Inhibition.=—The conduct of mankind is chiefly governed by the emotions, instincts, and impulses. Spencer traces all human action to the desire for pleasure in the large and philosophic sense of the term. If this be so, then the education and hygiene of the emotions and impulses must be of the very highest importance in the life of each individual and in the social world. The question arises, and it is all important, can those inhibitory centers be so developed in youth, and so cultivated in life, that they can act as antagonists to what is morbid? Can they be used as direct preventive and curative agencies against tendencies and impulses which are foolish and hurtful? And the answer of educators, as the result of large experience and observation, is emphatically, yes. But the training, to be efficient, has to be systematic, persistent, and along well-defined lines. The first step in this training must be the strict avoidance of all that has a tendency to lower the standards of morality, whether this is in the line of companions, literature, the stage, music, or art. To do otherwise is not brave, but as foolhardy as it would be for a weak army to advance against a powerful foe; it means annihilation or to be taken prisoners of war.