Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: G EFFECTS Mental Growth. : , n " Clear au-ay the parasitic forms That seem to keep her up, but drag her down ; Leave her space to bourgeon out of all Within her." Effects Of Mental GrBOWin. A. Few years since, when Mr. Higginson's essay " Ought Women to learu the Alphabet?" first appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, and I was reading some, of its keen sarcasms to a gentleman just returned from a tour of Eastern travel", he related a bit of his recent experience in the old city of Sychar, in Samaria. There was pointed out to him as an object of great interest and attention, a remarkable girl. She was the theme of animated discussion throughout all the neighborhood of Ebal and Gerizim—the observed of all observers, when she appeared on the street, or went with the maidens of Sychar to draw water from Jacob's well, still the glory of their city. This little maiden's distinction was that she was the first girl in that old city, who, during a period of nine hundred years, had transcended the allotted sphere of woman in so bold a step as that of going to school and learning to read. There had been no special purpose in the act. She had been attracted by the mysterious sounds from the room where boys were taking their first lessons in Talmudic law and lore, and had gratified her curiosity by learning what they meant. " It whistled itself," averred the little school-boy, apologetically, under fear of the rod: so she, another it, learned itself. . It was not until the steps of other little maidens were also tending towards school, that the gravity of her transgression, and the clanger of the innovation, were at all comprehended. Then there was indeed an excitement among the orthodox Samaritans. In the opinion of the staunch appellant.- to the Law and the Prophets, she...