CHAPTER II
THE EDUCATION
The education of a child is commonly supposed to begin and end at school. It neither begins there nor ends there. Reading, writing, and arithmetic may, and should, be taught in every school, as the indispensable equipment of a boy or girl for the battle of life. But the real school is the world of life, however wide or however narrow its boundaries may be. Surroundings of one kind or another encompass child and man alike, forming the outer and larger school, in which all are entered as pupils for self-control, for truthfulness, for honour, and other often neglected but necessary virtues. In the elementary school for reading, writing, and arithmetic, Caroline Herschel can scarcely be said ever to have been entered. She was a neglected child in these respects. To a woman of her quickness of parts and calculating power the multiplication table continued to be a puzzle throughout life. Elementary learning was considered to be of little or no use to a girl who was to attend her brother's whims, cook his dinner, and brush his clothes. The mother, proud of her sons, took no thought of her little daughter, except to reckon up that the girl might save her a servant's wages. Other mothers have committed the same blunder since her
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