Such is the complaint. It would seem more pardonable if this tendency to extremes and impulsiveness were owned to as a defect. But to be erratic is almost assumed as a pose. It is taken up as if self-discipline were dull, and control reduced vitality and killed the interest of life. The phase may not last, stronger counsels may prevail again. In a few years it may be hoped that this school of "impressionism" in conduct will be out of vogue, but for the moment it would seem as if its weakness and mobility, and restlessness were rather admired. It has created a kind of automobilism--if the word may be allowed--of mind and manners, an inclination to be perpetually "on the move," too much pressed for time to do anything at all, permanently unsettled, in fact to be _unsettled_ is its habitual condition if not its recognized plan of life. It is not contended that psychology and ethics would of themselves cure this tendency, but they would undoubtedly aid in doing so, for the confusion of wanting to do better and yet not knowing what to do is a most pathetic form of helplessness. A little knowledge of psychology would at least give an idea of the resources which the human soul has at its command when it seeks to take itself in hand. It would allow of some response to a reasonable appeal from outside. And all the time the first principles of ethics would refuse to be killed in the mind, and would continue to bear witness against the waste of existence and the diversion of life from its true end. Rational principles of aesthetics belong very intimately to the education of women. Their ideas of beauty, their taste in art, influence very powerfully their own lives and those of others, and may transfigure many things which are otherwise liable to fall into the commonplace and the vulgar. If woman's taste is trained to choose the best, it upholds a standard which may save a generation from decadence. This concerns the beautiful and the fitting in all things where the power of art makes itself felt as "the expression of an ideal in a concrete work capable of producing an impression and attaching the beholder to that ideal which it presents for admiration." [1--Cardinal Mercier, "General Metaphysics," Part iv., Ch. iv.] It touches on all questions of taste, not only in the fine arts but in fiction, and furniture, and dress, and all the minor arts of life and adaptation of human skill to the external conditions of living. The importance of all these in their effect on the happiness and goodness of a whole people is a plea for not leaving out the principles of aesthetics, as well as the practice of some form of art from the education of girls.