There is a great deal to think about and to settle for yourself when you begin life, but there are three points of goodness binding on every one.  One is, giving time to God.  A girl must stick to her prayers and go to Church on Sunday whether other people do or not.  Sunday varies in different households, and I think each girl is bound by her parents’ standard in the matter as long as she lives at home; when she marries she should think the matter over and have her own standard.  But the root of Sunday-keeping lies in the fact that she must feed the Sunday side of her or it will die; and she should go to Church, once at least, to show her colours.  As to how much she feeds that Sunday side, or when,—­that varies with the household, only she should resolve on something and stick to it.  You need not be disobliging, since you can always make time by denying yourself.

Secondly, have a standard in talk.  You cannot tell your elders when you think them wrong, but you should not join in, when your contemporaries say what you think wrong.  Speak out then, or at least be silent and unresponsive.

Thirdly, do something for other people, some steady kindness which you do not give up just to suit your own convenience.

Now, what plan of life should you have?  You must have a plan and resolution, for if you drift you are almost certain to drift down and not up.

Yet you are quite rightly looking forward to a time of freedom.  But freedom means being able to command yourself, it does not mean being free to drift without a helm.

Also you will be under control to a certain extent.  Very likely you will sometimes resent control or reproof at home more than you would resent it from an outsider!  But you are a stage nearer that sad freedom of later life when it is nobody’s business to look after you, and you have now got to learn how to use wisely that fuller freedom of later life.

I hope you have been learning at school to use the comparative freedom of “being out.”  I hope that, with both men and girls, you will remember what I tell you here about not being silly and uncontrolled, or loud and boisterous.  The actual school rules pass away, but there is not one of them that is not founded on some principle that I hope you will carry with you and live by.

The books, the music, the pictures in which you are interested here are not mere lessons to be shut up joyfully when you leave!  They are the great interests and amusements of the friends whom you most value, and it would be very disappointing if you did not use your free time in making opportunities to carry them on better than at school, for you come here mainly to find out what interesting things there are in the world you are going into.