The best mental development is accomplished under the stress of many demands.

One claim balances the other; a touch of hardness and privation gives strength of mind and makes self-denial a reality; a little anxiety teaches foresight and draws out resourcefulness, and the tendency to fret about trifles is corrected by the contact of the realities of life.
To come to practice--What can be done for girls during their years at school?
In the first place the teaching of the fundamental handicraft of women, needlework, deserves a place of honour.

In many schools it has almost perished by neglect, or the thorns of the examination programme have grown up and choked it.

This misfortune has been fairly common where the English "University Locals" and the Irish "Intermediate" held sway.
There literally was not time for it, and the loss became so general that it was taken as a matter of course, scarcely regretted; to the children themselves, so easily carried off by _vogue_, it became almost a matter for self-complacency, "not to be able to hold a needle" was accepted as an indication of something superior in attainments.

And it must be owned that there were certain antiquated methods of teaching the art which made it quite excusable to "hate needlework." One "went through so much to learn so little"; and the results depending so often upon help from others to bring them to any conclusion, there was no sense of personal achievement in a work accomplished.