"My interest in woman and our common humanity is my only apology for writing this book. I see multitudes of young women about me, whose general training is so deficient in all that pertains to the best ideas of life, and whose aims and efforts are so unworthy of their powers of mind and heart, that I can not make peace with my own conscience without doing something to elevate their aims and quicken their aspirations for the good and pure in thought and life." The book is an interesting piece of history, such as is needed now more than ever. If people were to be raised to have a proper set of manners rather than an over-developed sense of entitlement, this nation might not be in quite the same degree of crudeness that it is unfortunately mired in today.