Well, we will gladly teach you Greek, if you learn thereby to read the history of Nausicaa of old, and what manner of maiden she was, and what was her education.  You will admire her, doubtless.  But do not let your admiration limit itself to drawing a meagre half-mediaevalized design of her—­as she never looked.  Copy in your own person; and even if you do not descend as low—­or rise as high—­as washing the household clothes, at least learn to play at ball; and sing, in the open air and sunshine, not in theatres and concert-rooms by gaslight; and take decent care of your own health; and dress not like a “Parisienne”—­nor, of course, like Nausicaa of old, for that is to ask too much:—­but somewhat more like an average Highland lassie; and try to look like her, and be like her, of whom Wordsworth sang—­

      “A mien and face
   In which full plainly I can trace
   Benignity and home-bred sense,
   Ripening in perfect innocence. 
   Here scattered, like a random seed,
   Remote from men, thou dost not need
   The embarrassed look of shy distress
   And maidenly shamefacedness. 
   Thou wear’st upon thy forehead clear
   The freedom of a mountaineer. 
   A face with gladness overspread,
   Soft smiles, by human kindness bred,
   And seemliness complete, that sways
   Thy courtesies, about thee plays. 
   With no restraint, save such as springs
   From quick and eager visitings
   Of thoughts that lie beyond the reach
   Of thy few words of English speech. 
   A bondage sweetly brooked, a strife
   That gives thy gestures grace and life.”

Ah, yet unspoilt Nausicaa of the North; descendant of the dark tender-hearted Celtic girl, and the fair deep-hearted Scandinavian Viking, thank God for thy heather and fresh air, and the kine thou tendest, and the wool thou spinnest; and come not to seek thy fortune, child, in wicked London town; nor import, as they tell me thou art doing fast, the ugly fashions of that London town, clumsy copies of Parisian cockneydom, into thy Highland home; nor give up the healthful and graceful, free and modest dress of thy mother and thy mother’s mother, to disfigure the little kirk on Sabbath days with crinoline and corset, high-heeled boots, and other women’s hair.

It is proposed, just now, to assimilate the education of girls more and more to that of boys.  If that means that girls are merely to learn more lessons, and to study what their brothers are taught, in addition to what their mothers were taught; then it is to be hoped, at least by physiologists and patriots, that the scheme will sink into that limbo whither, in a free and tolerably rational country, all imperfect and ill-considered schemes are sure to gravitate.  But if the proposal be a bona fide one:  then it must be borne in mind that in the public schools of England, and in all private schools, I presume, which take their tone from them, cricket and football