There is no surer way to destroy the health than to care for nothing beside it; and the most important condition for the young girl approaching maturity is to have her thoughts turned from herself to wide and large interests, and to have her mind and body healthily and regularly occupied. When any organ is feeble or diseased, the thing most to be avoided is fastening the mind upon its functions, so that nervous irritability or congestion is produced. And yet, as I have constantly intimated, the actual mother has to deal not alone with ideal womanhood, in full possession of a birthright of health, but very likely with a feeble and diseased being, who develops new forms of evil in every crisis of life. There she must be the watchful guardian, and recognize the limitations of her individual child, and with wise provision apportion the tasks and the pleasures to her peculiar needs. While all sickness is the result of broken law, it is rarely mainly the sufferer's own fault; and the mother will tenderly and lovingly shield her sickly child, and show her the rich compensations which are possible to her in mental and spiritual life, though she should never fall into the morbid error of believing physical weakness to be the most favorable condition of spiritual welfare. But if she is conscientious and true, really seeking her child's best good, instead of the indulgence of the hour, she will be more likely to err on the side of too much care than too little. Even in such cases, she should seek more a positive than a negative care; striving rather to brace and fortify her daughter against the ills of life, than to shield her from them. "Remember," said wise Dr. Jackson, "the danger is in staying in the house." For this reason, books especially written for the instruction of girls are often very pernicious. They emphasize certain topics in their relation to woman, and so excite disgust and produce abnormal excitement, where the simple teachings of science, reverently enforced, would produce only a sacred respect for law. The great responsibility of the transmission of hereditary qualities, may be early taught without any mental excitement. A little girl of twelve years old said to her teacher one day: "When you told me to brush my teeth, I thought, why should I--of what consequence will it be, fifty years hence, whether I do so or not; and then I thought that if I ever had a child, if I had bad teeth, she would be more likely to--wouldn't she?" "Yes," replied the teacher with deep seriousness; "and that is a most sacred reason for guarding your own health and strength."