It is a handsome paper,1explanatory note & if it succeeds in its aim, & puts some practical snap & unornamental horse sense into the compositions of the girls, & clothes the same in direct & simple language, it will do an excellent work. Wasn’t it your Academy which employed David Grey & me to judge the essays & award the prizes, once? Precious few thanks we got for the piece of honest work which we turned out upon that occasion. They printed our report, but they manifestly disapproveld of its of somewhat pungent hints. I am going to allow myself the liberty to believe they would have done better to adopt that report as the composition-gospel of the Academy. The Chapter in Tom Sawyer which you refer to was suggested by that mournful experience of ours in your school. The politic committee were not courageous enough to support us in our decision after asking us to act, but ignominiously deserted us, & awarded a third prize themselves—gave it to a composition which hadn’t a merit in the world, & which rendered wholly val worthless a sheet of paper which had possessed a value previously—I mean when it was blank.

You’ve got a “Thursday Class.” It is a good thing. We’ve got a young girls’ club here, too. It is six or seven years old. I’ve been a member of it from the start; & I’m the only young girl of my sex that is. They waived sex, in my case, because they preferred solid wisdom to perfunctory technicalities. (Perfunctory is a pretty good word, though I am a little dim as to its meaning.) At first we girls did as you are doing now: crammed for a subject & brought in brief essays upon it. But that grew tiresome & rather interestless, for there is really very little wearying, at last—, &, if you won’t be offended with me for saying it, there is really not sufficient profit about that sort of exercise. So we don’t read essays any more—we talk. Talking is the thing. To be able to talk with vigor & facility is worth heaps; yes, & we found it was desperately uphillⒶemendation work, too, to speak up & say your say in presence of twenty watchful, silent girls.—along at first. We were so scared, that if we had an opinion we couldn’t get it out. It’s a good thing to pack one’s system full of information; & it’s a good thing to be able to set it down on paper; but it is also an almost invaluable thing to be able to talk it with ease & interestingly upon sudden call. Isn’t that true? T Ⓐemendation We have one brief essay—the rest of the time is given to off-handⒶemendation discussion of it. Our first attempt was a failure. The young lady chose a sub Ⓐemendation the strong side of her question & wrote an essay that didn’t leave much to be said. And nothing was said. Well, the girls were all frightened, you know, Ⓐemendation & couldn’t have talked, anyway. But now—after two years of practice—that apparently strong essay would be handsomely riddled if it were brought before our girls again. Maybe we don’t talk as well as we ought to, yet; but there’s one thing sure, we are not afraid. That bugaboo has been weighed in the scales & found wanting. (That’s another pretty neat figure, though it doesn’t seem to be quite as relevant as I thought it was at first. going to be.) Nowadays we make the essay weak; untenable; it takes the feeble side of the question, & leaves the strong side to the assaulting forces. You ought to see us girls on the war-path, once, with such an objective as that. Ah, its is excellent practice. Frequently strangers point to me & say, “How well he talks!” Then some native rejoins, “O, that’s nothing surprising, she belongs to the Club.” (I’ve got plenty of siexes, now, you see.)

Well, I was going to suggest——but wait: perhaps you talk in your club? Then there isn’t any need of my suggesting anything, is there? And you are not offended at all thoese these sisterly freedoms of mine? Very well, then, I wish you health, & length of days, & the same to the “Magnet;” & am