“Yes, Madame Mearsom, I’ll try. But—I know you’ll be dreadfully disappointed. I—I don’t know anything, seems if, after hearing those other girls talk.”
“Don’t say that. There may be a difference in the amount of knowledge and in the kinds. You have brains enough. Don’t disparage them. Remember what Goethe said: ‘What you can do, or think you can, begin it. Boldness hath genius, power, and magic in it.’ That’s only a simple example in arithmetic. Be bold and say to yourself ‘I’ll do it!’”
Madame leaned back a little in her high-backed chair and took up the evening paper, while Jessica fixed her eyes upon the written problem. Alas! the figures danced before her as if they were bewitched. Do her utmost she could not possibly tell what would be the difference in the amount of labor performed by two men, one working eight hours per day for eight days, and the other ten hours on six days.
After fifteen minutes of hopeless computation on her part and patient waiting on her examiner’s the student cried:
“I don’t know. It seems as simple as A, B, C; but I haven’t the least idea of that ‘difference,’ I don’t see an atom of sense in the whole question. I—I hate arithmetic, anyway.”
“Oh! no you don’t. Hate is too strong a word for a young gentlewoman to use, except on the extremest provocation. You simply do not know. That’s nothing. You will know some day, soon. That’s why you’re here. Let us try geography. Where is Prince Edward’s Island?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea!” cried poor Jessie, with scarlet face.
“How many kings of England have been named Henry?”
“I didn’t know that any had been.”
Madame smiled. Here surely was “virgin soil” wherein to plant the seeds of learning.