Girlhood.--Nothing is so suggestive of innocence and purity as the simple beauty of girlhood when seen in its natural freshness, though too seldom, now-a-days, is it possible to find in our young girls the natural grace and healthy beauty which were common among the little maidens of a quarter of a century ago. The ruddy cheeks and bright eyes and red lips which are indicative of a high degree of healthy vigor are not so often seen to-day among the small girls in our public schools and passing to and fro upon the streets. The pale cheeks, languid eyes, and almost colorless lips which we more often see, indicate weakly constitutions and delicate health, and prophesy a short and suffering life to many. Various causes are at work to produce this unfortunate decline; and while we hope that in the larger share of cases, bad diet, improper clothing, confinement in poorly ventilated rooms with too little exercise, and similar causes, are the active agents, we are obliged to recognize the fact that there is in far too many cases another cause, the very mention of which makes us blush with shame that its existence should be possible. But of this we shall speak again presently. Real girls are like the just opening buds of beautiful flowers. The beauty and fragrance of the full-blossomed rose scarcely exceed the delicate loveliness of the swelling bud which shows between the sections of its bursting calyx the crimson petals tightly folded beneath. So the true girl possesses in her sphere as high a degree of attractive beauty as she can hope to attain in after-years, though of a different character. But genuine girls are scarce. Really natural little girls are almost as scarce as real boys. Too many girls begin at a very early age to attempt to imitate the pride and vanity manifested by older girls and young ladies. It is by many supposed that to be ladylike should be the height of the ambition of girls as soon as they are old enough to be taught respecting propriety of behavior, which is understood to mean that they must appear as unnatural as possible in attempting to act like grown-up ladies. Many mothers who wish their daughters to be models of perfection, but whose ideas of perfect deportment are exceedingly superficial in character, dress up their little daughters in fine clothing, beautiful to look at, but very far from what is required for health and comfort, and then continually admonish the little ones that they must keep very quiet and "act like little ladies." Such a course is a most pernicious one. It fosters pride and vanity, and inculcates an entirely wrong idea of what it is to be ladylike,--to be a true lady, to be true to nature as a girl. Such artificial training is damaging alike to mind and body; and it induces a condition of mind and of the physical system which is very conducive to the encouragement of dangerous tendencies.