The clever girl who wins prizes and scholarships, helps our school to shine, and no one applauds her more than I do, but in my heart, I feel that the school owes even more to the dull plodding girl, who knows she cannot do much, but who determines to give her very best to the school, and to be worthy of it by giving no scamped work.  Perhaps she gets low marks, perhaps she is told she ought to do better,—­and quite rightly, because we want her to rise to give really good work, and are not satisfied till she does; but whether it is good or not, if it is her best, she has fought a good battle for the school, and has “helped to maintain the high standard of duty which was founded in the school by its first and beloved head-mistress—­Ada Benson.”

Rough Notes of a Lesson.

I hope to start a new lesson for some of you, and I have gathered you all here to-day, whether you will be able to come to it or not, because, in thinking over what I wished to say about this one lesson, I found I was led into describing what I should like all lessons to do for you.  My new lesson will be a talk on various things in which you are, or ought to be, interested.  I have tried this plan before, and have sometimes been laughed at for having such miscellaneous lessons, but I found their effect very good.  I had a spare half-hour in the week, which I gave to this Talking Lesson.

Once I took Dante, and after a sketch of his life and of Florence, we went through the “Inferno;” I read the famous parts in full and told the story of the rest, and now many of those children who listened feel, when they come on anything about Dante, as if they had met an old friend.

Then I happened to go to Yorkshire and saw several of its lovely abbeys:  I came back with a craze for architecture, so I and the girls did that together.  Neither they, nor I, imagine that we understand architecture, or are authorities on it; but though we only took the barest outline, it made us all use our eyes and enjoy old buildings.  I often get letters from those girls, saying that they have since enjoyed their travels so much more, because they now notice the architecture.  You know the story of “Eyes and No Eyes”—­how two boys went out for a walk—­one saw nothing to notice, and the other found his way lined with interesting things.  I am sure, architecturally, your way is lined with beauty in Oxford, which deserves both outward and “inward eyes.”

Another time we took the French writers of Louis XIV. and we all feel that Moliere and La Fontaine and Mme. de Sevigne are our personal friends, so that the value of their books is doubled to us!

We took mythology at one time, and many girls found that they understood, much better, allusions in books and various pictures in the Academy, which are often about mythological subjects.  Ignorance on this point may sometimes be very awkward.  I have heard of an American lady who invited her artistic friends to come and see a picture she had lately bought of “Jupiter and Ten.”  The friends puzzled over her notes of invitation, and, on arriving at her house, were still more puzzled to know how to pass off the mistake gracefully, when they found that the picture was one of “Jupiter and Io.”  I trust you will not cause your friends embarrassment of this kind!