Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/65

Rh often find two persons, who have been equally well educated at school, one of whom is greatly in advance of the other, in point of intelligence. This does not always arise from the superior ability of one, but because one of them had read, thought, and observed, more than the other. What we gain at school is only the means of becoming wise and useful. If we let it lie inactive in our minds, it will do us no good. How quickly does a young lady lose her power over the piano, if she neglect the instrument! How soon is a language forgotten, if we do not attempt to speak or write it! And this is true of nearly every thing that is acquired at school. It lies merely in the outer court of the memory, and does not enter and make any permanent impression upon the mind, until it is practised and made useful in every-day life.

We often hear it said of a woman, in society, that she is a well-educated woman; and the inference usually drawn is, that she has received a liberal education at school. But the remark