_Charles._ But it is the working at all that I object to, mother. I don’t know but I might like study better if I could see any use in it; but as long as I can read and write, I shan’t look like a fool; and what is the use of cracking my brains about anything more? _Mother._ I should be very sorry to have you crack your brains with study, Charles. Do you feel as if there were any danger of it? _Charles._ Why no, not exactly. But why need I study? _Mother._ You cannot conceive of any pleasure in acquiring knowledge, then? _Charles._ Oh, yes; I like to know all I can by reading interesting books; I like to read some histories, and biographies, and travels. That all comes very easy; that is amusement. _Mother._ Are you sure that while skimming books in this manner, for amusement, you are really laying up much knowledge that you can make useful? Do you ever stop to reflect upon it and arrange it?--or is it all jumbled together in your mind? Have you never made strange blunders in talking about the very books you had read? _Charles._ Why, yes, I must own that I have; and I have got laughed at, sometimes. _Mother._ That is only one of the evils to which you will be exposed by being superficial. My dear, you cannot get along even respectably in well-informed society without disciplining your mind to habits of attention and reflection; and one great advantage of youthful study is, that it does so discipline the mind. _Charles._ Well, you and father talk about “habits of the mind,” and “disciplining the mind,” and tell me to leave off this habit of thinking, and that habit of not thinking, just as you tell me to cure myself of twirling this button on my jacket! _Mother._ And don’t you understand what we mean? _Charles._ Oh yes, I see the sense of it. _Mother._ And do not you think that with perseverance you can accomplish what we wish? You do not mean to tell us that you cannot manage your own mind? _Charles._ But it is so hard! And to go back to this matter of study, mother; when I talked to sister Ellen about it, yesterday, she said that if I did not study I never could be a lawyer, or a minister, or a doctor, or a merchant, or anything of the sort. Now why need I be either? _Mother._ What would you like to be? _Charles._ Just a gentleman. _Mother._ An idle gentleman? _Charles._ No, not an idle one. I should like to pass my time in reading and accomplishments. _Mother._ What accomplishments do you mean? _Charles._ Music and drawing; is not that what people mean by accomplishments? _Mother._ But are you not aware that it requires study and close attention to master these little matters of music and drawing, particularly for those who have not an uncommon taste for them? _Charles._ Does it? Well, then I would let the music and drawing alone. I dare say I should find some way of passing my time.