This, however, is a digression.  The reader wants to know what this quality of being interesting has to do with girls’ schools.  It is admitted that if one goes into a new place he estimates the agreeableness of it according to the number of people it contains with whom it is a pleasure to converse, who have either the ability to talk well or the intelligence to listen appreciatingly even if deceivingly, whose society has the beguiling charm that makes even natural scenery satisfactory.  It is admitted also that in our day the burden of this end of life, making it agreeable, is mainly thrown upon women.  Men make their business an excuse for not being entertaining, or the few who cultivate the mind (aside from the politicians, who always try to be winning) scarcely think it worth while to contribute anything to make society bright and engaging.  Now if the girls’ schools and colleges, technical and other, merely add to the number of people who have practical training and knowledge without personal charm, what becomes of social life?  We are impressed with the excellence of the schools and colleges for women —­impressed also with the co-educating institutions.  There is no sight more inspiring than an assemblage of four or five hundred young women attacking literature, science, and all the arts.  The grace and courage of the attack alone are worth all it costs.  All the arts and science and literature are benefited, but one of the chief purposes that should be in view is unattained if the young women are not made more interesting, both to themselves and to others.  Ability to earn an independent living may be conceded to be important, health is indispensable, and beauty of face and form are desirable; knowledge is priceless, and unselfish amiability is above the price of rubies; but how shall we set a value, so far as the pleasure of living is concerned, upon the power to be interesting?  We hear a good deal about the highly educated young woman with reverence, about the emancipated young woman with fear and trembling, but what can take the place of the interesting woman?  Anxiety is this moment agitating the minds of tens of thousands of mothers about the education of their daughters.  Suppose their education should be directed to the purpose of making them interesting women, what a fascinating country this would be about the year 1900.

GIVE THE MEN A CHANCE

Give the men a chance.  Upon the young women of America lies a great responsibility.  The next generation will be pretty much what they choose to make it; and what are they doing for the elevation of young men?  It is true that there are the colleges for men, which still perform a good work—­though some of them run a good deal more to a top-dressing of accomplishments than to a sub-soiling of discipline—­but these colleges reach comparatively few.  There remain the great mass who are devoted to business and pleasure, and only get such intellectual cultivation