Page:The Higher Education of Women.djvu/108

 securing these rare gifts; but it may be assumed that extensive reading of the best books tends to cultivate imagination and refinement, and that a life of active exertion tends to bring out the qualities which go to make up the governing and administrative faculty; and if so, a liberal education and the pursuit of a profession are perhaps, on the whole, the best training that the conditions of modern society can supply for the special functions of the mistress of a household.

It will, however, be pointed out by practical people, that even supposing the training to be good as regards domestic life, parents will not throw away their money on a costly preparation for a profession which is most likely to be