Your letter pleases me very much, for it shows me that you are learning
how to study. Some boys think that they can learn all that is essential
about a branch or a study from their school text-books. On the contrary,
the most that a text-book can do is to give outlines and arbitrary facts
or lay down principles. A full and rounded scholarship implies a great
deal of side study. The ambitious pupil will find something to bear on
what he is learning in HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE, in the books he finds at a
friend's house or in his father's library, and in the daily paper. When
the attention is duly called to it, it is wonderful how all sorts of
things seem to come to your help in the special line of study you have
adopted. If the C. Y.'s will notice this, they will be surprised to
observe how many curious coincidences there are to aid progress when
people are very earnestly bent on one pursuit.
* * * * *
Will the Postmistress please tell me why unmarried ladies are
sometimes called spinsters? It never seems to me like a title of
respect.