Accomplishments, meaning thereby showy things that children do for the edification of guests, are of doubtful value.  It is pleasant, of course, to have your little girl play a piece or two on the piano to entertain your visitors, but it is not nearly so important as health and strength, and a cheerful temper.  Sometimes all three of these are sacrificed to the two or three hours’ practice a day.  Often, too, this extra work after school hours—­work full as monotonous and nervous and uninteresting as the school work itself—­is just what is needed to transform a healthy young girl into a nervous invalid.  This is especially true, if she undertakes, as she usually does, to study music when she is about thirteen years old—­the very time when, if wise physicians could regulate affairs to their liking, she would be taken out of school altogether and required to do nothing more than a little light housework every day.

[Sidenote:  Natural Talent]

Of course, if she is naturally musical some kind of help and sympathy must be given her in her attempt to master the piano or violin or to manage her own voice.  But while she should be allowed to learn as much as her unurged energies permit her to learn, she should not be required to practice more than a very small amount, say half an hour a day.  The bulk of her musical education should be acquired in the vacation time, when she can give two hours a day without overstraining.

The same general rules hold good of dancing, painting, the acquirements of foreign languages, a special course of reading, or any other work undertaken in addition to the regular school work.  This latter, as it is now constituted, is quite as severe a nervous and intellectual strain as most young people can undergo with safety.

[Sidenote:  “Enthusiasms”]

There is one characteristic in young people which needs to be noted in this connection:—­the desire to take up some form of work, to strive with it furiously for a brief while, to drop it unfinished; take up another with equal eagerness, drop that in turn and go on to a third.  This performance is peculiarly irritating to all systematic and ambitious parents.  Sometimes they rigidly insist that each task shall be finished before a new one is assumed.  But in reality, is this necessary?  It seems to be as natural for a young mind to set eagerly to work for a short time at each new bit of knowledge, as it is for a nursing child to require refreshments every two or three hours.  It is an adult trait to stick to a task, even though a very long one, until it is accomplished.  The youthful trait is to take kindly to a clutter of unfinished tasks.