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diff --git a/16520-h/16520-h.htm b/16520-h/16520-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b16c6a0 --- /dev/null +++ b/16520-h/16520-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4508 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Girl And Her Religion, by Margaret Slattery. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 1em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 3em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> + +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's The Girl and Her Religion, by Margaret Slattery + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Girl and Her Religion + +Author: Margaret Slattery + +Release Date: August 13, 2005 [EBook #16520] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL AND HER RELIGION *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Eva Sweeney and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>THE GIRL AND HER RELIGION</h1> + +<h2>BY MARGARET SLATTERY</h2> + +<h3>THE PILGRIM PRESS</h3> +<h3>BOSTON CHICAGO</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h4>COPYRIGHT, 1913</h4> +<h4>BY LUTHER H. CARY</h4> + + +<h5><i>Fifth Printing</i></h5> + + +<h4>THE PILGRIM PRESS</h4> +<h4>BOSTON</h4> + + + + + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 333px;"> +<img src="images/1college.jpg" width="333" height="440" alt="WHILE PACKING HER TRUNK SHE DREAMED OF COLLEGE." title="WHILE PACKING HER TRUNK SHE DREAMED OF COLLEGE" /> +<span class="caption">WHILE PACKING HER TRUNK SHE DREAMED OF COLLEGE</span> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="FOREWORD" id="FOREWORD"></a>FOREWORD</h2> + +<p>TO THOSE WHO READ THIS BOOK</p> + +<p>It is not a technical book, it does not attempt philosophy. It does not +contain the solution of all girl problems. It is not a great book, it is +simple and concrete. It is a record of some things about which the girls +I have known have compelled me to think. I have but one request to make +of those who read it—that they also <i>think</i>—not of the book, not of +the author, but of the <i>girls</i>—for <i>action</i> is born of thought.</p> + +<p>THE AUTHOR.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table summary="Table of Contents"> + +<tr><td></td><td><h3><a href="#PART_I">THE GIRL</a></h3></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#I"><b>I</b></a></td><td>THE RIGHTS OF A GIRL</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#II"><b>II</b></a></td><td>THE HANDICAPPED GIRL</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#III"><b>III</b></a></td><td>THE PRIVILEGED GIRL</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#IV"><b>IV</b></a></td><td>THE GIRL WHO IS EASILY LED</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#V"><b>V</b></a></td><td>THE GIRL WHO IS MISUNDERSTOOD</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#VI"><b>VI</b></a></td><td>THE INDIFFERENT GIRL</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#VII"><b>VII</b></a></td><td>THE GIRL WHO WORSHIPS THE TWIN IDOLS</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#VIII"><b>VIII</b></a></td><td>THE GIRL WHO DRIFTS</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#IX"><b>IX</b></a></td><td>THE GIRL WITH HIGH IDEALS</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#X"><b>X</b></a></td><td>THE AVERAGE GIRL</td></tr> + +<tr><td></td><td><h3><a href="#PART_II">HER RELIGION</a></h3></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#XI"><b>XI</b></a></td><td>THE GIRL AND THE UNIVERSE</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#XII"><b>XII</b></a></td><td>IN THE HANDS OF A TRIAD</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#XIII"><b>XIII</b></a></td><td>THOU SHALT NOT</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#XIV"><b>XIV</b></a></td><td>THOU SHALT</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#XV"><b>XV</b></a></td><td>A MATTER OF CULTIVATION</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#XVI"><b>XVI</b></a></td><td>A PLEA AND A PROMISE</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#XVII"><b>XVII</b></a></td><td>A PERSON NOT A FACT</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#XVIII"><b>XVIII</b></a></td><td>THE GLORY OF THE CLIMAX</td></tr> +</table> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PART_I" id="PART_I"></a>PART I</h2> + +<h2><i>The Girl</i></h2> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2> + +<h3>THE RIGHTS OF A GIRL</h3> + + +<p>She has certain inalienable rights, regardless of race, color or social +state. When it has thought about her at all, society in general has +supposed, until recently, that in a free country, a glorious land of +opportunity, the girl has her rights—the right to work, the right to +play, the right to secure an education and to enter the professions, the +right to marry or to refuse, the right in short to do as she shall +choose. And in a sense and to the casual observer this is true. Our +country gives to her some rights which she can enjoy nowhere else in the +world. But as one learns to know her, little by little the stupendous +fact is impressed upon him that girlhood has been and is being denied +<i>its rights</i>.</p> + +<p><i>It is the right of every girl</i> to be born into a community where the +sanitary conditions are such that she has at least a fair chance to +enter upon life without being physically handicapped at the start. But +hundreds of girls every year open their baby eyes in dark inner rooms +where the dim gas light steals what oxygen there may chance to be in the +heavy air, take their first steps in foul alleys, find their first toys +in garbage cans and gutters. They have been denied their rights at the +start. In a Christian land, they grow weak, anemic, yield to the white +specter and in a few years pass out of the unfair world to which they +came, or remain to fight out a miserable existence against terrific +odds. They make up an army of girls who have been denied their rights. +And her religion? What is it that religion may offer to her in +compensation for that which she has been denied?</p> + +<p><i>It is the right of every girl</i> to be born under conditions which will +make possible sufficient food and clothing for her natural growth and +development. But scores of little girls go shivering to school every +morning after a breakfast of bread and tea, they return numb with cold +after a dinner of more bread and tea and they go home to a supper of the +same with a piece of stale cake or a cookie to help out. Nature calls +aloud for nourishment and there is no answer. The girl enters her +teens, finds a "job," goes to work, hungry the long year through, +fighting to win out over the cold in winter, and to endure the scorching +days of summer. And her religion? What is it that religion may offer to +her in compensation for what she has been denied?</p> + +<p><i>It is the right of every girl</i> to receive, through the educational work +of the community, training which shall fit her for clean, honest and +efficient living. Yet every year sees hundreds of girls turned out into +the world wholly unequipped for life, their special talents +undiscovered, their energies undirected, their purposes unformed, their +ambitions unawakened.</p> + +<p><i>It is the right of every girl</i> to be shielded from the moral danger and +physical strain of labor for her daily bread, at least until she shall +reach the age of sixteen. Yet every year sees a long procession of girls +from eight to sixteen entering into the economic struggle who cannot +claim their rights.</p> + +<p><i>It is the right of every girl</i> to have a good time, to play under +conditions that are morally safe, and to enjoy amusements that leave no +stain. Hundreds of girls live in communities where this is absolutely +impossible. What has religion to offer to a girl denied an education +which will fit her for the life she must live, compelled to enter into a +fierce struggle for daily bread while still a child, surrounded by every +sort of cheap, exotic amusement behind which temptation lurks? Has it +anything to offer in compensation, if it permits conditions to go on +unchanged?</p> + +<p><i>It is the right of every girl</i> to enjoy companionship and friends. +Thousands of girls toil through the day in shops, factories, offices and +kitchens and at night sit friendless and alone until the loneliness +becomes unendurable and they seek companionship of the unfit and the +refuge of the street. Has religion anything to do with lonely girlhood?</p> + +<p><i>It is the right of every girl</i> to receive such instruction regarding +her own physical life and development as shall serve to protect her from +the pitfalls laid for the thoughtless and ignorant, and shall fit her to +understand, and when the time comes accept the privileges and +responsibilities of motherhood. Every year sees thousands of girls enter +the teens whose only knowledge of self and motherhood is gained through +the half truths revealed by companions, the suggestions of patent +medicine and kindred advertisements, or the falsehoods of those who seek +to corrupt. What has a girl's religion to do with these simple +undeniable facts?</p> + +<p><i>It is the right of every girl</i> to receive the protection of wise +parental authority. The guidance of parents who earnestly, wisely and +with the highest motives require obedience from those too young to +choose for themselves is the right of every girl. Yet thousands of girls +every year are left to decide life's most important questions, while +parents, weak, indifferent or careless sleep until it is too late. Has +religion anything to offer to girls whose parents have laid down their +task and neglected their duty?</p> + +<p><i>It is the right of every girl</i> to receive such moral and religious +instruction as shall develop and strengthen her higher nature, fortify +her against temptation and lead her in the spirit of the Author of the +Golden Rule into service for her fellows. Yet thousands of girls are +without definite moral and religious instruction and unconscious of the +fact that it is their right, and thousands more receive moral and +religious training in haphazard fashion and from sources inadequate to +the task.</p> + +<p>When the community awakens to the necessity for sanitary conditions in +the environment of every girl and honestly seeks the solution of the +problems of economic injustice; when the educational system seeks to +prepare its girls for the life they must live; when laws for the +regulation of labor for girls are made in the interest of the girl +herself; when the community makes it possible for its girls to play in +safety and makes provision for friendless and lonely girlhood; when +mothers instruct their daughters in the most important facts of life, +parents exercise protective authority and the church provides adequate +assistance in the task of moral and religious instruction, then, and not +till then, will the girl receive her rights.</p> + +<p>And the girl's religion? The girl is naturally religious. Without +religion no girl comes into her own. Whenever and wherever religion +concerns itself with the rights of a girl it becomes a girl's religion +to which she can pledge body, mind and soul. For the coming of that +religion the world of girlhood eagerly waits.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2> + +<h3>THE HANDICAPPED GIRL</h3> + + +<p>They were both handicapped, as a careful observer could tell at a +glance. One stood behind the counter, the other in front of it examining +the toys she was about to purchase for a Christmas box for some young +cousins in the country. She had not been able to find just what she +wanted and was impatient in voice and manner as she explained to the +girl on the other side of the counter what she had hoped to find. She +was extravagantly gowned in a fashion not at all in good taste for +morning shopping, but she was pretty and her fair complexion, her +shining hair, soft and well cared for, the beautiful fur thrown back +over her shoulders fascinated the other girl and filled her heart with +envy. She was pale and anemic, her hair was dark and there was barely +enough of it to "do up" even when helped out by the puffs she had bought +from the counter on the opposite side. The weather had been bitterly +cold and she was suffering from sore throat and headache. She had turned +up the collar of her thin coat but it had failed to protect her and she +was thinking of that as she looked at the fur. She was worn out by the +strain of the Christmas season, had slept late, and then rushed to the +store with only a cup of coffee to help her do the work of the morning. +She did not care much whether the girl before her found the toys she +wanted or not. Toys seemed such a small part of life and Christmas +aroused in her all sorts of conflicting emotions. It was winter and life +looked very hard, as it can look to a girl of fourteen upon whom poverty +had laid a heavy hand and whose life has been robbed by the sins and +misfortunes of others, who has been handicapped from the beginning.</p> + +<p>The girl before the counter finally decided upon the toys, ordered them +sent to her home and looking scornfully at the cheap jewelry and tawdry +ornaments passed out of the store. She was thinking what a nuisance +cousins were, how ridiculous it was in her father to insist each year +upon her remembering his poor relations at Christmas, just when she +needed all her allowance for herself, and planning to tell him that next +year she did not intend to do it. She was in a most unhappy mood because +she had been denied permission to attend a house-party and she could not +bear to be denied anything. She was handicapped by the heavy hand of +money, newly acquired by her father and by the atmosphere of pride, +vanity and social ambition which surrounded her.</p> + +<p>All day through the busy streets of the shopping district they +passed—the city's handicapped girls. Some were held back from the best +that life can give by poverty, which like a great yawning chasm lies +between the girl and all her natural desires and ambitions, some held +back from the joy of simple, natural living by the forced, artificial +social system of which they are a part, some pitiful specimens of +physical and mental handicap and some who showed the strain of the +handicap of sin, mingled in that Christmas crowd.</p> + +<p>Through the open door of great sea-port cities there have poured during +the years past steady streams of handicapped girls. They are poor, they +are plunged into a life whose manners and customs they cannot grasp, +they are handicapped by a language they do not understand and by great +expectations seldom destined to be fulfilled.</p> + +<p>According to our government statistics during nineteen hundred twelve, +ninety three thousand, two hundred sixty-one (93,261) girls from fifteen +to twenty-one years of age came to us from across the sea and in three +years an army of two hundred forty-six thousand, five hundred fifty-four +(246,554) became a part of the girl problem our country must meet. It is +hard to picture in concrete fashion how great this host of girlhood is. +Sometimes when one looks into the faces of a thousand college girls at +Wellesley, Vassar, or Smith and realizes that in a single year more than +ninety three times as many girls from fifteen to twenty-one came to test +the opportunities of a new land, the significance of the figure becomes +a little more clear to him. When he realizes that in three years enough +young girls land in this country to found a city the size of Rochester +or St. Paul, when he tries to imagine this army of girls marching six +abreast through city streets for hours and hours until the thousands +upon thousands, representing scores of tongues and nations, have passed, +some conception of the great task facing any organization attempting to +direct that army of unprepared, unequipped and largely unprotected +girlhood comes to him.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 333px;"> +<img src="images/2anticip.jpg" width="333" height="432" alt="UNCONSCIOUS OF HER HANDICAPS SHE ANTICIPATES KEENLY LIFE +IN THE NEW WORLD" title="UNCONSCIOUS OF HER HANDICAPS SHE ANTICIPATES KEENLY LIFE IN THE NEW WORLD" /> +<span class="caption">UNCONSCIOUS OF HER HANDICAPS SHE ANTICIPATES KEENLY LIFE +IN THE NEW WORLD</span> +</div> + +<p>Where will they be in another year—those ninety-three thousand and more +who came to us in nineteen hundred twelve? What an array of factories +and kitchens, what rows of dingy tenements, the moving picture film +could reveal to us if it followed these handicapped girls! It does not +follow them—they come in over the blue waters of the bay, look with +shining eyes at Liberty with her promise of fulfilment of all the +heart's desires, they sit in the long rows of benches at Ellis Island, +pass through the gate and are gone, the majority to be lost in the mass +that struggles for a mere livelihood—just the chance to keep on living.</p> + +<p>What if some summer morning, or in the dim twilight of a bitter winter +day, a miracle should be wrought and the handicapped should be lifted so +that girlhood might be free to work out the realization of its dreams! +Many have prayed for such a miracle, some have hoped for it—but it +will not come. There will be no miracle suddenly wrought for men to gaze +upon in wonder and after a time forget. The release of the handicapped +can come only through man's God-inspired effort on behalf of his brother +man. In removing his brother's handicap he will remove his own and both +shall be free to live. But it cannot be done in a moment. Effort is +slow. It cannot be done by any organization, or church, or creed or +individual. It must be done by the public conscience. Educating the +public conscience is a long process and America is in the midst of that +process now. There are two qualifications without which the educator of +the public conscience cannot succeed—one is patience, the other +persistence. All educators of the public sense of right, like Jane +Addams, have had these two characteristics in marked degree, and all +churches, creeds and organizations which have had local success in +removing local handicaps have shown the ability to wait and the power to +persevere despite every opposition.</p> + +<p>How the public conscience will act in directing the work of removing the +conditions which so sadly handicap girlhood today we cannot say. It may +be that vocational schools built and maintained by the State, not by +charity, will be one strong hand laid upon the inefficiency and +ignorance that handicap. It may be that the Welfare teacher whose salary +and rank shall equal that of the teacher of Greek, Ancient History or +arithmetic will be another hand laid upon the shoulder of the girl +limited by the lack of friendship and protection. It may be that houses +maintained as a business proposition and paying honest returns, built in +such a way that girls obliged to work away from home may be decently +housed and have a fair chance for health, will be another strong hand +reached out to release her from the things that handicap. It may be that +a minimum wage, safety devices, laws wiping out sweat-shop methods, will +reduce the number of handicapped girls.</p> + +<p>Wise cities may establish special schools for the immigrant girl where +she shall learn something of the language while being taught the making +of beds, simple cooking and the common kitchen tasks, then to be +recommended with some equipment to the homes greatly in need of her. +Even if she should choose later to go into shop or store, the State will +have gone a long way toward removing the great handicap by having taught +her to understand the language of the new land, to care for a room, cook +simple food and keep clean.</p> + +<p>It may be that some thoughtful States will require school attendance +until a girl is sixteen, the age under which no girl should enter the +business world as a wage earner.</p> + +<p>It may be that the natural good sense of the true American woman will +finally triumph over the extravagant and unnatural living of the present +day and that the handicap of false standards, superficiality, display +idleness, and wild pursuit of exotic pleasures shall be lifted from the +girls now held prisoners by the tyranny of money and complex social +life.</p> + +<p>It may be that in all these ways and scores of others, the public +conscience, working out along lines in which it finds itself best fitted +and most interested to work, will solve the problem of the handicapped +girl.</p> + +<p>Before one can possibly help another in a permanent way he must know +what is the trouble with him, and then <i>what</i> has <i>caused</i> the trouble. +The greatest encouragement in our girl problem today lies in the fact +that <i>politics</i> is looking at her and asking questions it scarcely dares +to answer; the corporation is looking at her, compelled to do so often +against its will; City Government, School Board, Board of Health are all +looking at her; women's clubs, whose individual members have never given +her a thought, are reaching out a hand to her; the Church, whose part we +shall study definitely later on, is looking more practically and +sensibly and with deeper interest than ever before; the Young Women's +Christian Associations are looking wisely and intelligently, getting +facts which speak with tremendous power and showing them to the world. +More than all this the handicapped girl is looking at herself.</p> + +<p>It has become in these days the passionate desire of those who see the +problem with both heart and mind, and are interested not in abstract +girlhood but in the individual, living, real girl, that the public +conscience be more deeply touched and stirred until it shall feel that +by whatever means the thing is to be accomplished, the bounden duty of +Church and State to give themselves to the task of solving the problem +is clear.</p> + +<p>For in the midst of every problem—political, social, economic, +religious, there stands <i>The Handicapped Girl.</i> God help her—and +us—for until we have gained the wisdom to remove her handicap the whole +problem will remain unsolved. We are learning—every year shows a gain +and in this fact lies our hope.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2> + +<h3>THE PRIVILEGED GIRL</h3> + + +<p>One finds her in all sorts of unexpected places. Last summer I saw her +in a home of wealth and luxury. She was fifteen, the eldest of a family +of four children. Behind her was a long line of ancestry of which anyone +might rightfully be proud. Her face was pure and sweet and her eyes +revealed the frankness and honest purpose of past generations. After +breakfast she played for the hymns at prayers and in a clear, true, +soprano led the singing. A twelve-year-old brother had selected the part +of the Bible to be read and the eight-year-old sister had chosen the +hymns. The father's prayer was simple and sincere and some of its +sentences were remembered for many a day. After prayers the girl +attended to the flowers. This was her work for the summer. I saw her +gather from their lovely garden dainty blossoms and sprays of green, +making them with unusual skill into bouquets for the Flower Mission in +the city. Then three small baskets were filled with pansies. These went +to three old ladies in the factory section of the village. She told me +they were "the sweetest old ladies" and "dear friends" of hers. She +seemed to take real delight in making the baskets beautiful. I saw her +later in the day galloping off through the woods on her horse, her face +glowing with health and happiness. In the afternoon she spent an hour on +German which she said was her "hopeless study," but I found her reading +German folk lore with ease. She was familiar with the best things in +literature, was intensely interested in art and revealed unusual +knowledge without any evidence of precociousness. She was just a normal, +healthy, natural girl, well-born, well-bred, a girl with every +advantage. When I said good-night to her in her lovely room and thought +of her protected, sheltered life, I wondered how she might be helped to +know into what pleasant places her lot had fallen and how she might come +to understand and do in later years her full duty toward the other +fifteen-year-old girl who that day made paper boxes, feathers, flowers +or shirtwaists, toiled in the laundries or the cotton factory, or walked +with heavy heart from place to place searching for work. They are +dependent upon one another, these two. They do not know it now, but if +each is to be her best, they must know.</p> + +<p>How to lead her daughter to value and help this <i>other girl</i>, that sweet +mother told me as we talked in the library that night she felt was her +great problem. "We women are responsible for so much," she said, "and +our daughters will be responsible for still more. We must help them +estimate things at their right value." With that thought and spirit in +her mother's heart the girl I had watched all day with such pleasure +seemed doubly privileged.</p> + +<p>Last September I saw another privileged girl. She showed me her trunk +packed for college. Every member of the family was interested in it, +perhaps most of all her father who had put into the bank that first +dollar on the day that she was born with the faith that what should be +added to it might one day mean college. Behind her was a long line of +honest ancestry, simple people who had worked hard and managed to "get +along." She was the first on either side of the family to "go to +college." No one in the family, even the most distant relative, failed +to feel the importance of the event. "Tom's Dorothy goes to college this +week—think of it," a great aunt, in a little unpainted, low-roofed +farmhouse far away in the hills, told all her friends at church.</p> + +<p>Great ambition, hopes and dreams were packed into that trunk and the day +when she should graduate and come back to teach in the high school +seemed near. Jack and Bessie and Newton were in her plans for using the +money she should earn when those four short years were over.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 333px;"> +<img src="images/3ambition.jpg" width="333" height="453" alt="SHE WAS FULL OF AMBITION AND WILLING TO WORK" title="SHE WAS FULL OF AMBITION AND WILLING TO WORK" /> +<span class="caption">SHE WAS FULL OF AMBITION AND WILLING TO WORK</span> +</div> + +<p>Looking at her sweet, fresh face so full of happiness one knew her to be +a privileged girl. All through high school she had had her purpose +clear, her studies were a pleasure, her simple good times were enjoyed +to the full and life, every moment of it, was worth the living. When I +saw her lock the trunk and excitedly instruct the expressman as to just +how it must be carried, I had a sudden vision of the thousands of girls, +with happy faces filled with anticipation of all that is wrapped up in +that one word, <i>college</i>. A great army of privileged girls, they are. +One cannot help wishing that he might feel sure that when they leave +those college halls it might be with a deep appreciation and real +sympathetic understanding of the other girls who have turned their eyes +with longing toward four years more of study and fun, but whose feet +were obliged to walk in other pathways. They are so dependent upon one +another, these girls who can go to college and the other girls who +cannot go. They do not know it now but neither girl can ever come to her +best until the privileged girl sees and understands.</p> + +<p>One of the most interesting of the privileged girls I met one morning +going to work. It was her third month in the office. "One of the finest +in the city. There's a chance to work up, and me for the top," she told +me, her face beaming. Her father had come across the sea from Sweden +when a boy. Long generations of honest folk were behind him and he made +good in the new land. He saved a good share of the wages he made in the +bicycle shop, studied with a correspondence school and assumed more and +more responsible positions with higher wages. At last he was able to +build a house for his young family, at the end of the car line where the +children had room to play and the cow and chickens kept the boys busy +and taught them to work. Olga was the eldest and it was a proud night +for the family when she graduated from grammar school. Going home on the +trolley her father determined that she should have the desire of her +heart and go for two years to business college. There was great +rejoicing on the part of the family when he made his decision known and +Olga hardly slept that night. When the two years were over the principal +of the school had said such fine things of her work that Olga had +blushed to hear them. More than that, he offered her the best position +open to his students. He was a little astonished the next morning when +Olga's father came down to ask in his careful English regarding the +character of the men in the office where his daughter was to work. To +Olga's great joy he was able to satisfy the father to whom the matter +was of enough importance to make him put on his best clothes and take +half a day off, in order to make sure that all was right.</p> + +<p>It was a great day when Olga came home with her yellow envelope and laid +the money on the table. Not a cent would her father take. "No, Olga," he +said, "the money is yours. You shall keep the account of it and show it +to your father. You shall buy the new bed for your room and the chairs. +Your mother wants the house made pretty. Perhaps you will help. That +will be very good. But the money is yours." No one seeing the girl's +face as she related her father's words could doubt the appreciation in +her heart. Her girl friends had "paid their board" and she had expected +to do the same. That night she refurnished the house in her dreams and +the memory of that dream room of her mother's, with paper on the wall +and rugs on the floor, helped her save her money until the dream came +true.</p> + +<p>Olga is indeed a privileged girl. She has parents wise enough to have +given her the best equipment possible for the work she wanted to do. She +has her own money and may dress as well as any girl in the office. She +has an object for saving what she can and knows the joy of helping to +make home beautiful. The suburban church is the center of many of her +pleasures, for it is alive and the young people in it know how to enjoy +themselves. She is loved and sheltered in a real home. She can live a +normal, useful, happy life with opportunity for promotion in her work +and an object for her ambition. She has health, sane pleasures and good +friends. Any such girl is indeed <i>privileged</i>.</p> + +<p>When one sees her going happily to work he is forced to think of the +other girl, her homeless boarding place, chance friends, pitiful +economies and few pleasures; the girl who has forgotten what it means to +be sheltered and protected, if she ever knew, to whom love is a myth or +a dream.</p> + +<p>Perhaps one of the happiest of the privileged girls was the one who took +me to her room on a beautiful June day to show me her cedar chest, her +gowns and the gifts already beginning to come. <i>The</i> day was near. The +young man whom she was to marry was honest and fine, in business with +his father and hoping to make the firm a greater success than ever, as +the years should pass. The girl was just twenty-one. After high school, +a mother who was not strong needed her help and she had made that home a +center of enjoyment for three years. Surrounded by the loving +appreciation of parents and brothers, her life was filled with +happiness. Now in a few days she would go across the street to the house +built for her and furnished simply and well, with the articles which he +and she had chosen on the long shopping tours during the months past. +She was in every sense a privileged girl.</p> + +<p>The <i>other girl</i> saw her married. She was looking forward to her own +wedding day but it seemed farther away than ever. She had no hope for a +house built for her, but she knew where there was a flat for rental +which she had mentally furnished many times that month. But they could +not afford it. They had added and subtracted and gone over the figures +again and again but it was of no use. He was manly and fine, he had hope +and ambition, but the clerkship was only fifteen dollars a week and he +had tried in vain for another position. Fifteen dollars a week would not +do in their city. Butter, eggs, coal, ice, milk and meat stood in the +way. So they were waiting and there were tears in her eyes at the +wedding of the privileged girl.</p> + +<p>That day was a hard one for another girl. She read of the wedding—the +decorations, the gifts, the congratulations of friends—then putting +down the paper forced back the tears and went out to finish the shirt +waist she was making, for it must be ready to wear to the office in the +morning. That evening he would come, she knew, to tell her again that it +was not fair, that her family would get along some way and that he had +been patient for a long time. She knew that he must continue to wait, +for her mother was doing her utmost, Wilbur could earn only a little and +the other two children were too young to leave school. It was three +years since her father's death. The young man had said then that he +could wait <i>ten</i> years. She had begged him to take his release but he +refused. Of late he had been very insistent. She knew she must stand by +her mother and help her through. If he could not see it that way there +was but one thing to do. She found it hard even to think the words that +she must say and she thought of the privileged girl with longing in her +soul. But the privileged girl did not know. If she had, her sympathy and +understanding would have helped.</p> + +<p>One rejoices as he remembers the thousands of pure, sweet, wholesome +girls who have been privileged to enjoy the results of a long ancestry +unstained by weakness and sin, the results of training, guidance and +protection, the opportunity for healthful, normal living, for pleasures +and the satisfaction of human friendship and love. Our country looks +today with increasing hopefulness to these privileged girls for the +solution of many of the problems of the other girl. Our country looks to +them for another generation of privileged girls even stronger and wiser +than they.</p> + +<p>One of the greatest of the problems with which our country is concerned +today, the solution of which involves every phase of social, religious +and economic life, is the providing of ways and means by which the +unprivileged girl may, in large numbers, be promoted into the privileged +class.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2> + +<h3>THE GIRL WHO IS EASILY LED</h3> + + +<p>She is a chameleon sort of girl but she is not rare. So often she is +sweet and lovable. Almost without exception she is obliging, a jolly +companion, fearless and frank. One often finds her a girl of talent and +natural ability. She is the very opposite of the indifferent girl for +she responds to everything. The girl she will finally become depends +upon the companions whose lead she follows. Her safety lies in the +establishment of the habit of going in the right way. She is the girl +who most needs care and guardianship. So much depends upon her choice of +friends that parents and teachers must be wise for her.</p> + +<p>A little ten-year-old, in whom all her teachers were interested because +of her versatility and quick response to every interest, moved into a +new neighborhood. Some weeks later because of her ability to learn +rapidly she was put into a higher grade. Her new home and new +classmates in a short time entirely changed the character of her +environment. Before long the girl herself began to show the result of +the change. She had always been too much interested in her studies to +waste time or disobey the school rules. Following the leadership of some +of the newly made friends she entered into all the little conspiracies +of a group of girls and boys who made things hard for the teacher, a +rather weak disciplinarian. One day, the girl hitherto perfectly honest, +told a lie to get out of the trouble into which the following of the new +leaders had brought her. It troubled her conscience and she cried on the +way home from school, but her companions laughed at her, told her she +was "all right," and had stood by them splendidly. They made her feel +heroic and she dried her eyes and stifled her desire to tell her mother. +Before the year was over the child had entirely changed. Her studies +suffered, she seemed to lose her ambition, her naturalness and +spontaneity vanished. Her mother began to discover increasing +untruthfulness. One day, toward the close of the school year, the child +asked to wear her best dress to school, saying there was to be an +entertainment. There was no entertainment. Instead there was a party at +the home of one of the girls of whom her mother disapproved. The party +began later than they had planned and it was nearly six before the child +reached home. She found her mother greatly troubled and said quite +glibly that she had stayed after school to help the teacher. Next day +the mother called at the school to remonstrate with the teacher for +keeping the child so often and so late to "help" her. Then the whole +truth came out and the mother was dismayed. She felt that the matter was +so serious that she must remove her daughter at once from her companions +and before school opened in the fall the family had moved back to their +former neighborhood and the parents were permitted to send the little +girl to another school where new associates were carefully chosen. +Before she left that grammar school she had recovered her frank, sweet +spirit, her interest in her studies returned, and surrounded by a group +of fine boys and girls she went through the high school with the love +and respect of teachers and companions.</p> + +<p>This child is the type of many, who as early as ten years and younger, +are so easily led that their natural tendencies toward good are wholly +transformed by association with evil companions whose strong personality +and power of leadership can so easily turn the weak wills into the wrong +pathway.</p> + +<p>Parents and teachers cannot be too careful of the companions of a girl +of vacillating, easy-going, versatile temperament, for they may ruin or +make her.</p> + +<p>When Leonora moved from the great manufacturing city, which had been her +home for fourteen years, to the home of her aunt, in a quiet suburb, +where the children attending the high school were from homes of real +culture and refinement, she was disconsolate. Voices, language, games, +manner of recitation, behavior on the school grounds and street, +perplexed her. She seemed lost in her new environment. She had never +been a leader but had followed with all her heart. Her playground had +been the street. She had enjoyed boisterous good times, had patronized +moving pictures of every sort, had entered into the mischief of "the +crowd" always close to the leader. In a pathetic letter to one of her +chums she said that at the very first opportunity she should run away +and be with them all again. She characterized the beautiful suburb with +its neatly kept lawns and pretty homes as "a dead old hole" from which +she could not wait to escape. Still, her aunt's home, the new wardrobe +containing the lovely dresses, becoming hats and coats, for which she +had always longed, tempted her to remain. One day, early in October, her +classmates made the discovery that she could sing. She had quite a +remarkable voice for a girl of her age. The teacher of music became her +interested friend and found she could play unusually well, though mostly +"by ear." The leader among the girls who "adored" any one who could sing +adopted Leonora as her special friend. The new wardrobe added greatly to +her attractiveness, and her aunt's social position opened many doors for +her. Her new friend's mother was pleased with her daughter's choice of a +companion despite the lack of good breeding and lapses in English.</p> + +<p>Leonora became the obedient and devoted follower of the new girl friend +and the influence of the music teacher was indeed remarkable. Almost as +by magic Leonora dropped the coarse slang, loud talking and shouting of +her companions, who in the city had been termed "wild" and adopted the +ways of the new leader. At the end of two years it would have been quite +impossible to recognize in the pretty, interesting, well-mannered girl +of sixteen, who sang so sweetly, the uncultured, ill-mannered, slangy +girl of fourteen.</p> + +<p>Leonora was so easily led that it was not a difficult task or a great +accomplishment to have so transformed her. If she remains until she is +eighteen or twenty in her present environment, the chances are that the +good friend, <i>Habit</i>, will have determined the way that she shall go. If +she should now drop back into the old street, the old companionship, the +place which until her father's death he had tried with her help to make +a home, the chances are the old voice and manner, the old slang and old +interests would return.</p> + +<p>For a girl of Leonora's type the impress of the right environment, the +guidance of the right hand, means everything. To discover such girls, +to open the way for the working of new friendships, which shall furnish +new leadership for them, is a fine task and a great pleasure for the +lovers of girlhood.</p> + +<p>But so impossible is the task of attempting, through the individual, to +touch the great mass of girls who are easily led, that one can work +effectually only through the individual effort plus the <i>law</i>. It must +be made "to go hard" with those who, for selfish ends and financial +profit, plan to take advantage of the weak will and trusting, +unsuspecting mind of the girl who is easily led.</p> + +<p>Most of the girls in their teens, who are walking in evil ways, are +there because they have followed friends and companions. There are girls +who have blazed the way to paths of evil for themselves, but they are +comparatively few. Any court, or school for delinquent girls, which +contains a sympathetic man or woman to whom the whole truth may be +poured out, will testify that <i>somebody</i> led the way. When allowance is +made for the tendency to lay the blame upon other shoulders, the facts +bear out the testimony that there has been a <i>leader</i>. The girls who by +nature are weak of will, and have had no training which could tend to +strengthen or develop that will, must be protected, and that protection +must be furnished by the community. It may be furnished by putting the +welfare teacher into the school; by making the street on which so many +girls find companionship as safe as possible; by driving professional +leaders of the unsuspecting and easily led from all places of recreation +and amusement; by helping parents, especially those parents, who, +themselves born across the sea are attempting to bring up daughters in +the new land, to see and understand the dangers; and by making it a real +crime to lead the easily led astray.</p> + +<p>But this is not enough. Perhaps the greatest steps toward the +safe-guarding of the easily led were taken when the carefully supervised +public playground and the school gardens were started and the women +police were sent out into the streets of cities.</p> + +<p>A strong, wise, sane woman who is neither a prude nor a crank can do +more toward preventing the first steps into forbidden ways than those +interested in great city problems have yet dreamed. The day will come +when these women will make the arm of the law an efficient friend of the +weak and unprotected girl and give all the positive, helpful agencies an +opportunity to strengthen her against temptation.</p> + +<p>I shall never forget my visit that Sunday afternoon to a detention +school for delinquent girls. Over in the corner of the room where the +afternoon service was to be held was the piano, the orchestra, made up +of members of the school, was gathering. There was a cornetist, two or +three violins followed, then a banjo and guitar. The service that day +was to be a great event, for the wonderful woman in charge of that +school who had done away with the cells, taken down the great spiked +iron fence and planted flowers in its stead had persuaded board, +committee and municipality to permit her to follow out the one great +desire of her heart. The girls were to wear on Sundays and other dress +occasions white Peter Thompson suits, big bows of ribbon in their hair +and shining, well-fitted shoes.</p> + +<p>Soon <i>she</i> entered the room. One could hardly take her eyes from that +sweet, sympathetic, calm, face. A glance told one she might trust her +with her soul's secrets without fear and might tell her <i>anything</i> and +she would understand. After her came the girls and quietly, with an +attractive self-consciousness because of their new glory raiment, they +took their seats. Who could fail to forgive them if they fingered +lovingly the great soft silk Peter Thompson ties and patted the bows on +their hair. Some of them seemed scarcely more than children though some +were in their later teens. No one of the group present that afternoon +will ever forget how they sang, nor how they listened with eager +responsive faces. No one can tell what new hopes and ambitions were born +as they sat in their new finery, some of them for the first time in +their lives becomingly dressed.</p> + +<p>After the service they filed out, put on their long checked aprons and +got supper. We saw the beds in the wards where all the new comers must +sleep, then the smaller rooms with six and four beds, the still smaller +with two and the honor rooms which a girl might occupy alone and might +arrange as she chose. There were flowers in all the single rooms and +pictures on the walls.</p> + +<p>It almost seemed as we walked along the edge of the drive over the walk +the girls had laid, that we were leaving a boarding school where girls +were being taught household economics and the arts and crafts.</p> + +<p>The woman who had wrought the miracle which had been wrought in that +school stood at the end of the drive as we left and in response to the +exclamation, "It seems impossible that these girls could ever have been +guilty of the deeds the records show!" she answered, "These girls are +not vicious. It is after all a question of leadership and they followed +the wrong leaders." She paused a moment, looked back at the buildings, +and then said softly, "God pity the girl who is easily led." And in our +hearts we echoed her prayer.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2> + +<h3>THE GIRL WHO IS MISUNDERSTOOD</h3> + + +<p>Every girl in the world I suppose has sometime in her life felt that she +was misunderstood, that every one looked at her through the wrong +glasses, that no one saw her good qualities or appreciated her abilities +and that all with whom she had to do interpreted her at her worst. The +cry of a girl's heart for someone who understands is the cry of +humanity. No one can perfectly understand another, therefore only God +can be just. And so in a sense all girls are misunderstood. But there +are special types of girls who suffer more from being misunderstood by +their families, neighbors, friends, and by strangers than do others.</p> + +<p>There is the self-conscious girl. Shy and made awkward by her shyness, +unable to forget that she has hands and feet, painfully aware that she +must walk while others watch her, that she is expected to say something +and those who listen will criticize, she suffers intensely. The great +onrush of self overwhelms her, she stammers, blushes, fingers and eyes +help to reveal her suffering and as soon as possible she beats a +retreat. How intense her sufferings are only those who know by +experience can say. The shy and self-conscious girl will always be +misunderstood. People may be very sorry for her but they do not +understand her. She needs a friend who has passed through the +self-conscious stage to sympathize with and help her, or some girl quick +to see her good qualities who can show confidence in her and smooth over +the awkward places for her, until she becomes convinced that she is like +other girls and that she can do as they do.</p> + +<p>I shall never forget the change which her first year in college made in +a girl friend of mine. In the high school she was exceedingly shy. Her +recitations were accompanied by so much suffering that they were painful +to witness. Her written tests revealed an unusual mind, keen and active. +She won the prize for the best essay in a county contest. She was asked +to read it to the school and though she begged to be excused, her +teacher insisted. She slept little and ate little during the days before +it must be read and on the morning when the school assembled to hear it +looked pale and wan. It was with very evident effort that she walked to +the front of the platform. Her lips opened but no voice came. Her sister +thought she was going to faint but she pulled herself together and was +able to read in a thin scared voice which could not be heard three seats +away. But those who heard and those who read marveled at the thoughts +which the girl had written in a clear and original fashion. Still when +she left for college she was a misunderstood and unappreciated girl in +her own home and among her neighbors.</p> + +<p>It seemed as if she could not endure the thought of a roommate but +necessity offered no alternative. She reached the room first and +arranged all her belongings in her accustomed careful and orderly way. +She sat by the window lonely and miserable, trying to read, when the +roommate came. She was a rosy-cheeked, laughing, vivacious girl who +greeted her as if she had always known her and did not seem to notice +that she received monosyllabic replies. Before an hour had passed the +shy, self-conscious girl was down on her knees helping her new friend +unpack her trunk and talking to her more naturally than she had ever +talked with anyone before.</p> + +<p>The new roommate was a very wise girl, a little older than most girls +entering college. She knew that the girl with whom she must live was shy +the moment she caught sight of her and felt the dread with which she had +waited her coming. From the time she was fourteen until she left for +college she had helped her father make strangers in his church and +congregation feel "at home." She knew just how.</p> + +<p>During the first trying days every one greeted the shy girl cordially +and then gave their attention to the wide-awake, interesting roommate. +But the roommate always included her. "How was it, Clara? I don't just +remember what was said," she would say, suddenly turning to the girl who +blushed but answered and found she could, to her great surprise. Under +the warmth of her roommate's confidence in her and pride in her +scholarship and the ease with which she conquered the most difficult +subjects she learned to forget herself. A great longing to help the +girls who found things hard came to her and they gladly accepted her +help and loved her for her sympathy. The months wrought a marvelous +change and though she found it difficult in the presence of the critical +family to talk naturally at first, still the things she had to tell +proved so interesting that they forgot to criticize and she forgot +herself while they listened. At the High School Seniors' banquet she +spoke for her college and her brother declared it the best speech made.</p> + +<p>She is a graduate now and all traces of the old awkwardness have left +her. She is reserved but easy, simple and gracious in meeting those whom +her work calls her to meet and her eye and her heart alike are open for +the self-conscious girl wherever she meets her. If she were to try all +her life, she tells me, she could never express her gratitude for what +that roommate did for her.</p> + +<p>What was it that happened to her? She forgot herself. People had told +her to do that before but she couldn't, for she felt that they were +watching to see her make the attempt. They called attention to her +shyness, her roommate ignored it. They bade her take part in +conversation and join with others in what they were doing; her roommate +gave her a part in the conversation and made a place for her in all that +they were doing. Her family and school friends said by their manner and +sometimes in words, "The poor girl is so shy, what a pity it is." The +roommate expressed calm confidence in her and in manner and words said, +"You have no idea how fine she is and how well worth knowing."</p> + +<p>If a girl chances to read this page who is herself popular and who finds +it easy to meet people and join naturally in whatever her neighbors may +be doing, has in her circle of friends a shy, awkward, self-conscious +girl, may she see her opportunity and realize her mission. The pure +kindliness of heart and the thoughtfulness which prompts a happy girl, +free from the pain of self-consciousness, and always at ease with her +friends, to shelter, stand by and call out the best in a shy girl +suffering from awkwardness deserve a rich reward.</p> + +<p>The very opposite of the girl who is misunderstood and undervalued +because of her shyness, is the girl who, because of her boldness and +independence, her carelessness of speech, hilarity and adventuresomeness +is misunderstood.</p> + +<p>"She doesn't mean anything by it," said one girl of another whom she was +trying to defend in the presence of a critic, "she is good hearted, +generous and just fine, but she has been brought up in a large family +where they have noisy times together." The critic accepted the +explanation but strangers, new people whom she met, men and women upon +the street, constantly misunderstood the girl whose unfortunate manners +would lead one to believe she was a most undesirable friend. The girl +was conscious that she was misjudged and misunderstood and was growing +hard and beginning not to care when an older woman who loved her showed +her with real tact where the trouble lay. No one could help admiring +that girl as she struggled to overcome the things which had been the +cause of all the misunderstandings.</p> + +<p>I met awhile ago, a girl whom her companions described as <i>wooden</i>. I +knew that she wanted to talk with me, that she was interested in the +people whom the group were discussing. She seemed like a bright girl and +I felt sure that she had thoughts of her own worth hearing if she would +only express them. That was her trouble. She couldn't find words so she +said "yes," and "no" with effort when a remark was addressed directly to +her, otherwise she was silent. Later in the day a girl friend who really +appreciated her told me how very interesting she was when one knew her +well enough to dispel the awful fear that she should say the wrong +thing. She read the very best things and was conversant with the history +of important events all over the world. "She is a regular encyclopedia," +said her ardent defender.</p> + +<p>This wooden girl is misunderstood simply because she has not learned to +express the thoughts she has. She is unhappy, and feels that people do +not like her, and do not enjoy her company. In her heart she blames +<i>them</i>. But one cannot expect everyone to penetrate the exterior and see +and appreciate real worth. Most people take us for what we seem to be +and if we appear cold, uninteresting and ill at ease, they seek +pleasanter companions. The wooden girl <i>can</i> overcome her stiffness and +learn to let people see that she thinks. She can cultivate a very rare +art—the art of listening with appreciation. There are very few +listeners in any group of people and often not one in a group of women. +It is a great thing to be able to listen with that attention and +interest which draws out the very best in the one who is talking.</p> + +<p>More than that the girl who is termed wooden can learn to express +herself in words. She may never become a great talker but she need not +regret that. She can take part in conversation and can make it easy for +people to talk with her. I know a girl who plans before spending a +social evening with friends what she will talk about. Following the +advice of her mother who has suffered much through inability to talk, +she holds imaginary conversations which often become real when she meets +people later. She makes a special effort to remember the names of those +whom she meets and some of the things in which they are especially +interested. She is learning to remember the names of books and their +authors and publishers, she takes special pains to remember worth while +magazine articles and last spring people appealed to her again and again +for information regarding the Balkan situation. She is making herself +an interesting companion and in a few years I believe all traces of the +awkward wooden silence will disappear.</p> + +<p>In the long line of misunderstood girls, are many whose interests and +enthusiasms are altogether outside their immediate environment. There +are girls at college and sometimes at boarding-school who have seen a +larger world and have come to love the real things of life. They find it +very hard to waste the days in superficialities. They long to have life +mean more than a round of social events, and the family and friends +misunderstand. Some girls of this sort have solved the problem by +gaining consent to plan their own days. Some have never been able to +gain that consent and have gone on for years in unhappiness. Others have +learned to inject into the seemingly superficial some real things and +have found an outlet for the best that is in them through work for those +in need. One must feel real sympathy for the girl who, striving to be +her best, to live above the round of pettiness and selfish pleasure, is +met with disapproval and misunderstanding.</p> + +<p>Many a girl is misunderstood by the one person in the world who ought to +understand her best—her mother. Perhaps more bitter tears are shed by +girls because their mothers do not understand than for any other reason. +The misunderstanding oftentimes is the result of temperament. It is +exceedingly hard for two people of diametrically opposite temperaments +to live in close association without clashes. One of the most pitiful +things in home life today is seen where mother and daughter have +opposite interests and sympathies and lack self-control. The constant +criticism and judging of one another, the quick-tempered commands and +demands on the part of one and the sullen yielding on the part of the +other make one heart-sick.</p> + +<p>I am reading over a letter from a girl who says, "I honestly love my +mother. I am proud of the things she can do and I admire her beauty.... I +am twenty-two years old, very ordinary looking and not a social success. +I am a constant disappointment to mother. Our opinions about everything +differ. We cannot agree upon the most trivial things. When father was +living he laughed at us and his genial spirit made things easier but the +last two years have been dreadful. What can we do? Mother does not need +me. When I am away on a visit everything goes smoothly at home and her +letters to me are affectionate. I love them and have kept them to read +when it does not seem as if she <i>could</i> care for me. My uncle has asked +me to come to their home in D—— to be a companion for his +seventeen-year-old daughter who is lame. I love her and we get on well +together. Ought I leave my mother and go? She says I may do just as I +wish and does not seem to mind the thought of my going...."</p> + +<p>Here is a clear case of clash of temperaments. Both are to blame, each +is misunderstood. In this particular case it seems wise that the +daughter should, for a time at least, accept her uncle's offer. She may +learn from a distance to understand her mother better and her mother may +more fully appreciate her daughter. Often it is far better that two +people who constantly clash should learn apart to respect and honor one +another than to live in a quarrelsome, fretful atmosphere which is bound +to banish deep affection and respect as well. Some daughters cannot be +their best at home and some mothers can never reveal their best selves +in their daughters' presence. That such can be the case is most +unfortunate and wrong. Away back in the daughter's childhood someone was +careless, in early girlhood a thin partition was raised which shut out +mutual love and trust. It might then have been destroyed, but was left +until it became a barrier almost impossible to break down.</p> + +<p>But there are some girls who are misunderstood by their mothers, and who +because of circumstances must accept it and learn, despite +misunderstanding, to let love triumph. There is much that every girl +owes to her mother even though it be true that she is unfair and unjust.</p> + +<p>One of the sweetest home makers I have ever known, in whose family it +seems to me no cross or critical word is ever spoken, whose boys and +girls trust her absolutely and love her devotedly, learned her patience +and forbearance, acquired her fine courtesy and graciousness in the +years when she was a misunderstood girl and had to live in an atmosphere +of petulance, ill-temper and selfishness.</p> + +<p>The misunderstood girl whatever may be the reason for the +misunderstanding must cultivate frankness. She must learn to be +generous, she must help people to understand her. She must believe that +being misunderstood should deepen her sympathy and increase her tact. +One of the most marvelous teachers in our country today, who succeeds in +awakening dull hearts and minds, in controlling wayward and wilful +childhood, when asked to explain her power said simply, "I was a +misunderstood child. How I suffered! My mission is to relieve the +suffering of the misunderstood, whatever the cause."</p> + +<p>There is a very brief prayer which every misunderstood girl might well +pray daily, "Help us to understand as we long to be understood."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2> + +<h3>THE INDIFFERENT GIRL</h3> + + +<p>Until she has entered upon her teens the attitude of the "don't-care" is +rare with the average girl. She either heartily approves or frankly +disapproves of those things that cross her path or claim her attention. +But with the coming of the teens those closely associated with the girl +often become conscious of the loss of that spontaneous response which +has made her such a delight. The teacher is puzzled by this change, +wonders if she has offended the girl, redoubles her efforts to make the +lesson interesting and seeks to win the girl's confidence. Sometimes her +efforts are rewarded by renewed interest but often the attitude of +indifference persists. The girl's mother feels keenly the change in her +once expressive, often demonstrative child, eager to talk and anxious to +join in everything, and says in a tone of condemnation that she cannot +understand her daughter.</p> + +<p>The presence, in a class of ten or twelve girls, of even one indifferent +girl, or the presence in the schoolroom of three or four such girls, +chills the enthusiasm of the teacher and the class. Such a girl is a +"wet blanket," she is a cloud steal-in across the sun on a glorious +morning. Her indifference is contagious. She changes the atmosphere. If +the class is planning an entertainment she "does not care" what they +have, she does not care whether she has any part in it or not, she has +no choice as to the way the class funds are spent, she does not want to +look up any assigned topics, do any special work, or take part in any +debate or discussion.</p> + +<p>She is a very real problem to teacher, parents and friends. To be able +to diagnose her trouble correctly and find a remedy for it is well worth +every effort of those who have her present and future in charge. Before +one can hope to help her he must discover the cause of her trouble. +Reprimanding her is of little avail, and discussing her indifference +with her is useless.</p> + +<p>Some years ago a young teacher in the eighth grade in a public school +consulted me regarding a girl of fourteen whose indifference was a +great source of trial. The girl came to school with fair regularity. At +ten and eleven she had been considered a very bright pupil but was now +below the average in all her work. She often expressed the wish that she +need not go to school but when allowed to remain at home was restless +and unhappy.</p> + +<p>Observation of the girl in class showed all that the young teacher had +said to be true. The girl took no voluntary part in the recitation and +when called upon her usual answer was "I don't know." I talked with her +and she said she liked the teacher, she liked the school and her +classmates. She did not care about them especially. She did not know +whether she would go to high school or not; she "didn't care either +way." She did not know what she wanted to do when she grew older. Her +excuse for falling so far behind her record of other years and her +unwillingness to recite was that she did not feel like studying and that +she could not seem to remember what she read. She said she felt well but +she was growing very rapidly and did not seem strong.</p> + +<p>I called upon her mother and learned that she was greatly concerned +because of the changes in her daughter. I was surprised to find, +however, that she stated quite calmly that the girl's appetite was not +good and that she complained of being unable to sleep and of having +"dreadful dreams." The mother had not consulted a physician. She scolded +the girl for being lazy and indifferent; at school the teacher +reprimanded her constantly. I urged the mother by all the arguments I +knew to see a physician at once. She said her husband seriously objected +to one's "running to the doctor all the time," and that he thought the +girl would come out all right. If she did not "brace up pretty soon," +she added, they might "take her out of school and put her to work." +During the winter the girl contracted a heavy cold and her indifference +and apparent laziness increased. The mother was finally enough impressed +by our concern for the girl to take her to a good physician. He found +her to be in a very run-down state, in bad condition nervously, and +really ill.</p> + +<p>A year out of school, spent in a country town with her aunt, where she +had the best of food, fresh air and exercise, cured this indifferent +girl entirely.</p> + +<p>Continual headache is often the cause of indifference, and eye strain or +improper food the cause of the headache. The first duty of those in +charge of the indifferent girl, before passing judgment upon her, is to +make sure that the physical condition is not at the bottom of the +trouble. Many a case of indifference and loss of spontaneous interest, +which cannot be cured by punishment, by persuasion, by prayers or +exhortation, <i>can</i> be cured by a wise physician.</p> + +<p>Sometimes a girl becomes indifferent from lack of a sympathetic +environment. She feels that others do not care about her and that what +she does makes no real difference to any one. She may be surrounded by +poverty, where the struggle to exist is so keen that there is no time to +think of the girl and her needs, or she may have every luxury yet be +denied the companionship of one who understands.</p> + +<p>I am thinking now of a girl of fifteen, who does not seem in any way to +belong in the family where she was born. Her sisters are at work in the +factory and content. They are sweet, attractive and good. But she does +not want to work in the factory. She would "give the world to have a +room alone, that could be all fixed up," as she would like it. The +family cannot understand her. She can have none of the things for which +she longs, she is not able to be with the sort of people she loves and +admires. She wants good books, she enjoys music and longs to be +permitted to finish her high school course. She is willing to work out +of school hours, to do anything if only she may continue to study. +Because the family consider all her notions ridiculous, and all she +longs for seems impossible, the don't-care, reckless spirit and the +indifferent "what's the use anyway" are gradually enveloping her whole +life.</p> + +<p>Surrounded by much that money can buy, a most interesting girl whom I +met recently is surrendering all her interests to the "don't-care" +spirit because the one great desire of her heart is not to be gratified. +She has been urged to enter upon the duties of the social world but says +she has tried it and "despises society." She does not care about travel, +she wants to be trained as a nurse, enter a school of philanthropy and +then become a district worker among the poor. Her father will not +listen to the plan, her aunt opposes it, her brother laughs at it.</p> + +<p>She says that now since all her most earnest desires can never be +fulfilled she doesn't care about anything. It was a long time before the +teacher of the Bible class of which she was a member could believe that +this indifferent girl whose silence had annoyed her each Sunday was +longing to serve her fellowmen and had lost heart because the way was +blocked. It was only when she had made a special and earnest attempt to +really know the girl that she learned the truth.</p> + +<p>No one can act wisely in the dark, and before passing judgment upon the +indifferent girl who may try one's soul, he should know whether in the +thwarting of all her desires, the denial of the right to follow her +natural inclination for work and service, lies the explanation of her +indifference.</p> + +<p>Many times the girl who <i>seems</i> indifferent, is so only on the outside. +She has developed more as a boy develops and does not wish to reveal her +best self, nor even in the least degree her deeper feelings. She hides. +When things are very serious or pathetic she sometimes laughs half +nervously. She looks out of the window, at the ceiling, whispers to her +neighbor or assumes the most disinterested, superior air possible if she +is at all impressed. When one sees her alone, it is a great surprise to +discover a new girl who is by no means indifferent, who has thoughts and +can express them when other girls are not there to listen. Her +indifference is not a serious matter, is usually of short duration and +is explained by the attitude of self-sufficiency which manifests itself +in the teens.</p> + +<p>The girl really indifferent to <i>everything</i>, unless she be ill, does not +exist. There is a point of contact, a line of interest. The girl +indifferent to religion, to the work of the church, to her studies, may +be keenly alive to the call of other things—her friends, plans for her +future, all lines of social life. Last summer I met a girl of seventeen, +indifferent to all interests save nature study. She had failed in the +languages, was defeated by mathematics, but could sit hours in the woods +waiting for a tiny bird, or a squirrel to pose for her. She had made +some remarkable photographs and tinted them beautifully.</p> + +<p>The usual social interests of the girls of her age bored her. Her mother +stated to sympathetic friends that the girl was hopeless, indifferent to +every plan for her future. The girl in turn said half defiantly, that +she did not care, and it made no difference to her what people thought +of her. It would have been so easy had the right guidance been given, to +help the girl see the great need a real naturalist would one day feel +for the languages, to show her that she had some social duties and to +let them be as few as possible, giving her every opportunity to develop +her special talents and interests. But the wise guiding hand was not +present and so the girl grew hard, indifferent, and created an +atmosphere of constant friction.</p> + +<p>Into a night court in one of the cities there was brought an exceedingly +pretty girl just out of her teens. She seemed wholly indifferent to any +moral appeal and conscience was evidently dead. She would make no +promises for future good-behavior, she showed no evidence of shame. She +was unmoved by the matron's words of appeal. When she found that she was +to be detained through the day she begged the woman probation officer +to go with her to her home saying that her mother was ill and she feared +the result if she did not return as usual. With a great desire to +befriend the girl the officer went. She found a sweet pale-faced woman +suffering from incurable heart trouble, a bright beautiful girl of +sixteen who was taking the business course in the high school and a +ten-year-old boy. The flat was airy, neatly furnished and seemed a very +happy home. The girl told her mother that she had had breakfast and must +be away that day on business but would return for supper. The love of +that mother for the daughter who bade her good-by so tenderly, the +evident affection of the younger sister and the admiration of the boy +greatly impressed the officer.</p> + +<p>The girl walked in silence back to the station, then she broke down.</p> + +<p>"Now, you see why I chose the street to make a living," she said. "We +used father's life insurance and mother had to have things. She will not +live a month now, the doctor says. My sister can soon earn her own +living and I can help Fred until he is old enough to help himself, by +working in my old position. But for a while I <i>must</i> have money! I hate +myself, you understand, but I had to have the money. Oh, mother, +mother, it is the last thing you would have me do, but I did it for you +and the children," she sobbed. This was the hard, indifferent girl who +didn't care for anything. The matron and officer looking at the sobbing +girl recorded one more tragedy upon the annals of their experience and +set about helping one more girl back into the straight way.</p> + +<p>In how many types we find her, the indifferent girl and the girl who +does not care, and for what varied reasons indifference and the don't +care spirit have fallen upon her. Whatever the cause of her indifference +she is a problem. One of the High School girls in a group discussing +another girl put it quite forcefully when she said, "Yes, I'd like to +help Alice, but she doesn't want to be helped. She just doesn't care +about anything. If you don't invite her she doesn't seem to mind, if you +do she doesn't care whether she goes or not. I'd rather die than not +care about <i>anything</i>." "Such people are so uncomfortable to have +around, I'd rather have a girl who gets mad," was the opinion of another +in the group. Young people feel naturally that there is something +vitally wrong about the girl who has no enthusiasm, whom all the +interesting life of every day fails to arouse. And there <i>is</i> something +wrong. The problem facing those who have to do with the indifferent, +don't care girl is to find <i>what is wrong</i>. Indifference is merely a +symptom—there is always a cause. One may discover if he will the things +to which the girl is <i>not</i> indifferent, her real interests. Knowing +these, he sees the door through which he must go to awaken other +interests. Sympathy and friendship are the foes of indifference. If one +"feels with" the girl who does not care, he may help to awaken her +interests. Friendship can discover causes which nothing else can find.</p> + +<p>But there is one word which must be stricken from the vocabulary of +parents, teachers and friends, who hope to awaken the indifferent girl. +It is the word <i>hopelessly. Hopelessly</i> dull, <i>hopelessly</i> bad, +<i>hopelessly indifferent</i>! Experience teaches that these must go. No +teacher has a hopeless pupil, no mother has a hopeless daughter. One may +regard the indifferent girl as a difficult problem but never a hopeless +one. Behind the indifference and the don't-care is the <i>real girl</i> and +one must with patience and sympathy find <i>her</i>.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2> + +<h3>THE GIRL WHO WORSHIPS THE TWIN IDOLS</h3> + + +<p>The twin idols that accept with all the complacency of an ancient Buddha +the devotion of more worshipers than any church or creed can claim are +Fashion and Pleasure. Not sane fashion which helps make men and women +attractive and clothes them with neatness and care, protects them by +courtesies, and shields them by conventionalities, but <i>mad</i> fashion. +Not real pleasure that fills eye with delight and days with happiness +that will be remembered even when one is old and days are dark and hard +but <i>mad</i> pleasure, the thief and robber.</p> + +<p>What costly sacrifices are offered every hour of the day and night to +the twin idols. When men and women away back in the dim past laid their +children in the hands of Baal they made their weird music, sang their +wild songs and shouted aloud that they might drown the appeal of the +sacrifice. The dark ages have passed. It is the enlightened age—and yet +with music and shoutings, weird dancings and songs men and women today +drown the appeal of the costly sacrifice laid on the altar before +Fashion and Pleasure.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 333px;"> +<img src="images/4fashion.jpg" width="333" height="443" alt="SHE WORSHIPS PLEASURE AND FASHION" title="SHE WORSHIPS PLEASURE AND FASHION" /> +<span class="caption">SHE WORSHIPS PLEASURE AND FASHION</span> +</div> + +<p>There in her room sits Ellen Gregg, that is she used to be Ellen, she is +now deeply offended if friends forget to call her Eleanor. She is an +ardent worshiper of the Idols. When she was twelve and fourteen she was +a frank, contented, happy girl, simple in her tastes and able to have a +good time in most inexpensive ways. A trolley ride to a park and supper +under the trees she looked forward to for days and enjoyed in +retrospect, until a trip to the lake, a concert, a visit to the picture +galleries, or a shopping tour down town where she spent the twenty-five +cents she had earned and saved, gave her another happy day to remember. +Eleanor is now eighteen and she has been at work for two years. She +needs plain becoming dresses, plenty of shirt waists, sensible, pretty +shoes, rubbers, a rain-coat, a suit, two becoming hats, for it is the +beginning of winter. But she has none of these things. She has just +been kneeling before the altar and has laid her costly sacrifice of +common sense and comfort, perhaps of health, there in the presence of +Fashion and Pleasure. Her face is troubled as she sits there in her room +for the memory of her mother's reproof and her brother's disapproval +stings a little. But in a moment she looks toward the bed. Lying upon +it, smoothed out carefully, is the result of the sacrifice—a thin silk +gown of palest blue draped with a fragile chiffon, trimmed and caught up +with crystal drops and tiny rosebuds. It is a pretty thing. Besides it +is a spotless white outing coat, rough, and to quote the words of the +clerk who helped her select it, "exceedingly modish." There are pale +blue stockings and pumps. She did hesitate about the pumps but they were +there. The hat was there too. She hoped to go perhaps to two dances, she +knew she should go to the theater, for she already had an invitation and +there might be another. Besides that she intended to go herself and +invite one of the girls if she were able to get all the things paid for +before the theater season was over. Last year everything got shabby so +quickly and "looked like a rag," before the season was over but she +hoped for better luck this time. She rose and put her new possessions +away very carefully in the little closet and boxes and turned to the +mirror. The hair dresser had shown her a new way to dress her hair and +she tried it now herself. After a long time she met with fair success. +She did not call the family to see the result, for there might be more +words of disapproval and though they would not influence her in the +least still it was a bore to listen to them. The new arrangement was +very uncomfortable and it did seem strange to be apparently without ears +but she was an earnest devotee and what it pleased the idol to dictate, +that she did. Next she tried the new concoctions for cheeks and +eyebrows. The result pleased her. She called to her mother to ask the +time and exclaiming at the lateness of the hour called back that she was +dead tired and would go to bed. When she hung up her skirt she was +dismayed to see how worn it was. She had paid for the style in it, not +for the material. She did not go to sleep directly though she had a +right to be tired, for she had to get up very early each morning and she +was obliged to stand all day at her work. But she was troubled. Even +the pleasure of possessing the clothes so carefully protected in the +closet could not take away the anxiety produced by the conscious need of +rubbers and a winter suit. But at last the poor little devotee, the +ardent worshiper of the twin idols, worn out by thinking of it all fell +asleep.</p> + +<p>Over on Blank Street, in another part of town that day, another +worshiper and her devoted mother had been talking over plans for the +future. Both were "climbers," at least they thought it was climbing. +They had social ambitions and it was whispered by their enemies that +they intended, at whatever cost to enter the inner circle of those who +worshiped the idols. Last year the young girl who wanted to go to +college had "come out." It had been a wonderful season but it had left +her with a pale face and dark circles under her lovely eyes. The rest +cure had done much for her but her physician had said another season in +town would undo all that had been done. Her mother was loath to believe +it. She had always been able to dismiss her husband's arguments and had +done so successfully the night before when he plead for a year of +roughing it in the west, society forgotten and the things of nature for +amusement and fun. "If we drop out now," she told her daughter, "all is +lost." And so they made their plans. The daughter was not an adept in +learning the rapid succession of combination dances wherein orientalism, +the harem, the submerged tenth, and the various beasts of the field and +fowls of the barnyard figured, so the first step was to secure a teacher +who would correct her errors and give her skill in the performances +which had robbed so many of her friends of all reserve and had taught +them the abandonment of motion.</p> + +<p>She had tried to take a nap that afternoon but sleep would not come +though she obeyed all the rules for capturing it. Her father's blood was +in her veins and even her training had failed to obliterate all of the +hard sense which had helped him pass his neighbors in the race for money +which should win the coveted title "A Success."</p> + +<p>She did not like the dances, she knew she was not equal to the round of +varied functions that lay before her. But she was a worshiper—she +blindly followed Fashion—she bowed in the presence of Pleasure—and at +last sighing wearily, murmured softly, "Well, there is no way out. +Mother has set her heart on it and one might as well die as to be out of +everything"—she laid her sacrifice upon the altar, took up a book and +stopped thinking.</p> + +<p>It is easy to think that she is but one, and perhaps the great +exception, that because she is not physically strong she shrinks from +the long gay season. But she is only one of many, some very young and +strong, and some in the twenties who have hearts and find them +unsatisfied, who long to be free but held in the grip of the twin idols +at last bow down and worship.</p> + +<p>In the home of a shoemaker where food was coarse but plentiful and where +the loose casements and cracks in walls and doors defied all efforts to +keep out the air, grew up a little rosy-cheeked, black-haired girl. When +she was fourteen she was tall for her age, her black hair was abundant +and beautiful, her large, dark eyes snapped and sparkled in laughter or +in anger. She went to work. As yet she had thought little about the twin +idols. Before the year had passed, she knelt before them. At the end of +the second year she had offered in their name, truth and honesty in +exchange for furs, a silver purse and a beautiful necklace. Her parents +unable to speak English, ready to believe that anything was possible in +the new land suspected nothing. Before the close of the third year, when +she was but seventeen, in mad devotion to Fashion and Pleasure, she had +laid herself, a living sacrifice upon the altar.</p> + +<p>In the same city where she had followed so madly in pursuit of pleasure +and dress, in a comfortable home upon one of the new avenues where young +shade trees, modern houses, neatly trimmed lawns, all spoke of the young +people just starting out for themselves, there lived a family trying in +vain to find happiness. Both were young, she only twenty, he twenty-two. +She worshiped the idols. He worshiped her. She had social ambitions. She +needed money to carry them out. He got it as fast as he could and he was +doing pretty well. But it was not enough. That night they had said +bitter words to each other, then had repented and he had begged her to +be careful, to try for a while to do without unnecessary things for his +sake and said that she was more beautiful than any of the more richly +dressed women he knew and that she ought to be content. She promised to +try. But it was of no use. She heard the call of the idols. She could +not resist and bowed down and worshiped them. Before the year had passed +she had plunged into hopeless debt and in her mad devotion sacrificed +her husband with all his hopes and honest ambitions upon the altar. The +music, the lights, the dresses, the compliments, the promise of opening +doors into the society in which she wanted to shine, for a time drowned +the sight of his suffering and pain. Then suddenly he yielded to +temptation, was discovered taking money that was not his and the gods of +fashion and pleasure forgot them both; the doors of society closed and +she was left with nothing but her bitter thoughts. It was a costly +sacrifice but a common one which the Idols accept again and again.</p> + +<p>Hardly two blocks below was another home with its lawn, its flowers, its +neat window boxes and its young trees. There in his nursery was a little +two-year-old. He stretched out his hand to his mother and cried when she +passed through the hall and down stairs. He had not been well for some +days and missed his old nurse who had been dismissed for a slight +offense the week before. He did not like the new nurse. His mother did +not know much about her. She seemed kind and she was very courteous in +her manner. The mother was going in her friend's machine, out to the +club-house for bridge. She was a little late and could not stop though +the child had looked very pitiful and rather pale. He still cried +despite the nurse's warnings, coaxings and threats. At last she grew +impatient, seized him and shook him until there was no breath left to +scream, laid him on his little bed and left the room. After a while +soft, heart-broken baby sobs came from the tired child and he lay still +as she had bidden him.</p> + +<p>At the club women dressed in all the extremes of fashion, laughed and +chatted or grew tense and strained as they exchanged their cards. Over +in one corner some of the younger women blew curls of smoke into the +air. The baby's mother sat there.</p> + +<p>It seemed very lonely to the little boy lying in his nursery. The sobs +ceased, the baby grew interested in life once more, climbed over the +side of the bed, slipped to the floor, softly opened the door into the +hall. His eyes were swollen and he was weak from the shaking and the +strain of the day and when he reached the shining staircase, his foot +slipped.</p> + +<p>The nurse's face grew pale when she picked up the unconscious child. The +doctor said he would live but the spine seemed to be injured and the +full result of the fall he could not predict.</p> + +<p>While they were bending anxiously over him, he opened his eyes and said +"Muvver." Just then she entered the hall and they could hear the +congratulatory words of her friend. She had won. Then she started up the +stairs. Let us draw the curtain, for on the altar of Fashion and +Pleasure <i>a mother</i> has offered as a sacrifice, <i>her child</i>.</p> + +<p>You who have read this chapter have been looking with me upon a series +of rapidly moving pictures. Perhaps they have seemed too dramatic as +they have passed. But they are not fiction—they picture facts. They are +not in the past. The same scenes are being repeated now all over our +country and across the sea. No one can number the worshipers of the Twin +Idols and no one can estimate the awful cost of the devotion of their +followers.</p> + +<p>It is right that a girl should enjoy pretty clothes and desire them. It +is right that she should spend a fair part of her income on the +necessary gowns for parties and pleasures. It is right that girls should +seek pleasure and enjoy life to the full. It is right that young mothers +keep their youth and enjoy the society of their friends. But when +girlhood erects an altar and in the presence of Fashion and Pleasure +sacrifices time and strength, money, honesty, thrift and virtue, then it +is <i>sin</i> and the individual and society must suffer. At this present +moment in our country, as in the ages past in nations and with peoples +that are now being forgotten, girlhood is worshiping the Twin Idols and +one is compelled to ask himself if the final result will be the same.</p> + +<p>It is not alone the rich girl who bows the knee in the presence of +Fashion and offers her best to Pleasure, the poor girl also worships. In +the multitude that bow are all sorts and conditions of girls.</p> + +<p>We wait for a prophet. A prophet that shall awaken womanhood and +girlhood and show them that to be well dressed means to be +appropriately dressed, that extravagant overdressing is clear evidence +of the lack of good breeding and good taste; that those who indulge in +clothes which they cannot afford and those who make of themselves living +models for the exhibition of the latest extravagances, both proclaim the +unworthy station in life where they <i>truly</i> belong.</p> + +<p>We need a prophet who shall awaken womanhood and girlhood to see that +the wild rush for sensational and unhealthful pleasures has always meant +one thing—final inability to enjoy, the day when all pleasures pall.</p> + +<p>Would that the prophet might come, and speedily, that our girls might +stand up on their feet free, no more slaves to Fashion or servants of +Pleasure. Free—their faces clear, tinted and rosy with the keen joy of +living. Free—their eyes bright with health and energy. Free from the +lines of worry that stamp the faces of all those who yield to the +demands of the Twin Idols.</p> + +<p>It will be a great day when the leaders and worshipers of Fashion and +the devotees of Pleasure blow the trumpets and cry aloud, "Bow down," +and the mass of girlhood and womanhood, beautiful, strong, healthful, +loving life, answer and say, "We will not bow down, nor worship." When +that day comes—and it will come—the reign of the Twin Idols shall +cease.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2> + +<h3>THE GIRL WHO DRIFTS</h3> + + +<p>More than two years have passed since I met one of the girls returning +from a girls' conference where the depths of her nature, unstirred +before had been touched and quickened into life. A passion to serve had +been awakened in her and as she told me of her new visions and desires I +confess that I feared for her. Here she was, the embodiment of all the +charm and power of youth with a soul on fire to accomplish great things, +and the temperament which does <i>not</i> accomplish great things. When the +train stopped she was met by her father, a keen, common sense, average +business man who often expressed the wish that his daughter would "get +busy and do something." She went home to a mother large hearted and +self-sacrificing, proud of her attractive daughter and doing so much for +her that little remained for her to do for herself. On Sunday she went +to a formal, dignified, self-satisfied church; she attended a +Sunday-school where the teacher made the lesson interesting without +requiring much from the girls; she spent the afternoon with a book, the +piano, and the relatives and friends who came to call. Church, home, +friends, seemed content with her just as she was. She meant to do so +much and to some of her friends she told with great enthusiasm her plans +for future work. But the days passed as other days had passed. What +became of her passion to serve, to share in the work of making life +easier and happier? What became of the cry in her heart for something to +do to express the new life which had fired her soul? They died. Slowly +the fire was quenched by inaction, the embers grew cold, the longings +were quieted, life went on as before—so easy it is to <i>drift</i>.</p> + +<p>She has the sympathy of every one of us, the girl who "<i>means to</i>," for +we also intend to do, and fail. Perhaps she learns from our vocabularies +the words and phrases which so often appear in her own. "Tomorrow," she +says, and "I am going to," "I intend" and "I mean some day to." She +enjoys the present but all that she hopes to <i>do</i> she puts into the +future. She does not realize at first that the future always has a day +of reckoning and that suddenly when one least expects it, the future +meets her in the present and says, "How about this and this and this +which you were going to do? The time is past. What now?" Sometimes with +bitter tears, often with deep regret, always in half guilty fashion the +girl answers, "Well, I really meant to do it, only—"</p> + +<p>If the drifting girl who "meant to" is to be strengthened in character +she must be helped to substitute "I have done it" for "I really meant to +do it."</p> + +<p>The girl who continually "means to" and seldom "does," is usually +emotional, responsive, lovable and irresponsible. I remember a most +interesting teacher in the last year of the grammar school who had just +such a girl in her room. The girl admired her teacher greatly, and +whenever she expressed the desire to read a new book, to have the class +see a fine picture, to use certain material for the lesson in drawing or +painting, the girl promised that the book should be brought, the picture +would gladly be loaned by her father, the poppies or tulips she would +get from her garden. Almost never was the promise fulfilled, still she +continued to promise. One afternoon her teacher talked with her after +school and showed her a list of twenty-one things she had promised to do +and had not done. "I know you do not mean to be untruthful, but you +are," the teacher told her. "Whenever you promise now to do a thing, the +other girls smile. You wanted to be chairman of the luncheon committee +the other day and did not receive a single vote, not because the girls +dislike you, but because they cannot depend upon you. You always intend +to do things but they are not done. You—" The girl interrupted:</p> + +<p>"Twenty-one promises to you, broken!" she exclaimed. "Twenty-one! I +shall keep every one of them. Let me see them." Then she burst into +tears and the old excuse fell almost unconsciously from her lips, "I +meant to, I really meant to."</p> + +<p>Sympathetically, but without being spared, the girl was shown that the +promises could not be kept now; the time had passed and the things had +been done by others. The inconvenience and unhappiness caused by many of +these unkept promises were explained to her and the teacher asked that +for one week she should make her no promises and that she should not +volunteer to do anything for her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I want to do things for you. I must!" she cried with all the +passion of her emotional nature.</p> + +<p>"What I want most," the teacher responded, "is that you <i>do</i> things, but +say nothing."</p> + +<p>The girl tried faithfully. Her love and admiration for the teacher +furnished a strong motive, and the week showed a real gain. One day her +mother called at the school. She said that her daughter had made a +strange request of her. "She asked me," said the mother, "to compel her +to do everything she promised to do, or said she was going to do and to +punish her if she failed. I asked her to explain her strange request and +learned of the struggle she has been making. It seems to me she is too +young to assume responsibility to the extent of actually doing +everything she just casually says she is willing to do or intends to do. +We all fail to carry out our intentions."</p> + +<p>The teacher helped that mother to see that a girl of fourteen is old +enough to begin the struggle to establish the habit of <i>doing</i> what one +<i>means</i> to do, and she realized her mistake. Together they decided to +encourage the girl to refrain for the time being from making promises. +Meanwhile they made requests for such services as seemed perfectly +possible for her to render, being careful that but little time need +elapse between the request and its required fulfilment, in order that +action might follow rapidly the resolution to act. In the months that +followed, the girl's effort to do what she said she would do, furnished +many a scene of both tragedy and comedy, but slowly she gained and in +two years the result was marvelous. A girl who because of her +dependableness will be of great value in home, school and community is +being made by the sane, wise sympathy of mother and teacher.</p> + +<p>The girl who drifts because she "means to" and fails, is easy to love +and easy to pardon for things left undone. But those interested in her +welfare will spare neither time nor thought in the effort to help her +gain the power to make connection between the intention to do and the +actual doing.</p> + +<p>When one observes carefully any large cosmopolitan group of young +women, she sees some with hard faces, some marked by suffering, many +marked by selfishness and fretfulness and many more showing +dissatisfaction and unhappiness, and her mind goes back involuntarily to +the fairy story with the mirror which showed "the girl you meant to be." +The contrast between what many a girl meant to be and what she is, +reveals a real tragedy.</p> + +<p>Many a girl drifts through life always meaning to do—to be, yet missing +the joy of accomplishment because she does not summon her will to her +aid, and often because friends are too lenient and parents too +thoughtless to make her see to what failure and unhappiness, meaning to +do and never doing will invariably lead one. If a girl who some day +"means to" should read this chapter let her seize at once the only life +line which can ever save her. It is made up of three short words which +are relentless, but if she obeys they will prove her salvation. <i>Do it +now</i>, they read and for the girl who "intends to," there is no other way +of escape.</p> + +<p>There is another type of girl who drifts. She is explained by the +phrase, "aimlessly drifting about." She is the girl who does not know +where she is going. She has no objective. Often parents, teachers and +friends have neglected to help her centralize her thought upon one thing +which she desires to do and she has not seen for herself that while +trying to do everything one accomplishes nothing. Many times she is a +girl of varied talents and puts all her effort first upon this thing +then upon that but never works long enough to complete anything or learn +to do it well. In school she changes her courses just as often as it is +permitted, in business she changes her position never remaining long +enough in any one place to qualify for a better. If at home she drifts +from settlement work to domestic science, from domestic science to a +dancing club and the golf links. She gives herself to the current and +the wind and <i>drifts</i>. She needs an anchor. She needs the strong will of +another to steady her while she is developing her own. She needs a great +ideal to guide her and hold her with the magnetic power of some North +Star. She needs to have her ambition aroused and to be made to believe +that she, as truly as any one in the world has a "call to serve." She +needs to have great things expected and demanded of her.</p> + +<p>The power which rescues the drifting girl is a power outside herself. It +may be a call from the bank of the stream which causes her to pick up +her oars and leave the current, at the call of danger, in answer to a +cry for help; in times of sorrow and illness, many a drifting girl has +come ashore and rendered noble service. Those who thought they knew her +looked on with unconcealed surprise and said to one another, "I didn't +think she had it in her." Yes, it was in her. There, undreamed of by +those who saw her drifting. The drifting girl has within her all the +possibilities. That is the pity of it. As she drifts she may lose oars, +chart and compass and in the stress of the storm that is bound to come +be carried out into the sea of darkness, or be wrecked upon the shoals +or sandbars that line the stream of life.</p> + +<p>A wise teacher, awakened parents, a good friend, a live church, a great +book, these have the opportunity of pulling the girl out of the current, +and steadying her until she fastens her life to the Ideal which can hold +her.</p> + +<p>I can see now the plain, dreamy face and great black eyes of the girl of +whom parents and relatives said as they looked at her, "What will she +ever amount to?" Their faces betrayed their own conviction that she +would amount to nothing. She tried piano but concluded that the training +necessary to make her a teacher would take too long and took up +stenography. After a few weeks she decided that she was unfitted for the +work and would rather be a nurse. Some weeks were spent at home just +thinking about it, then she began her training. At the end of the period +of probation she left—she knew she could never be a nurse. She spent +the days reading, sewing a little, taking pictures in the woods and +along the shore near her home and tinting them. She drifted through the +months, through a year. One day she posed a group of children, watched +her chance and caught them all unconscious and natural, interested in +their pails and shovels and the tunnel she had helped to dig. The +mothers of the children saw the picture. Beautifully tinted it seemed +alive and they were enthusiastic. The next week she chanced to see a +nine year old fishing with a child's faith. The perfect stillness of +the usually active little body, the expectant look on the small face +charmed her and in a moment, her camera had them. Every one who saw the +picture exclaimed at its naturalness and life and a friend who believed +she saw a future for the girl took it to the best photographer in the +city. That night the photographer's call anchored the drifting girl. He +made her feel that he had discovered an artist for which the city and +many outside of it had been waiting. He fired her imagination and +awakened her ambition. She felt that she had a real mission in +reproducing all the sweet simplicity and naturalness of the child. She +worked hard, the artistic temperament became trained and both fame and +money came to the girl who would probably still have been drifting had +not some one helped her find her work.</p> + +<p>To criticize the drifting girl, even though she sorely tempts one to +criticism of her, is not enough. To preach to her on the evil of +drifting along without aim or purpose, just letting the days slip past, +is not enough. The friends of the drifting girl must help her find her +work and her mission and inspire her with the belief that she has both.</p> + +<p>And there are the girls who drift because strong, capable, efficient +mothers cannot conceive of them as anything but "little girls," cannot +realize that they have grown up and continue to plan for them, to make +all their decisions and choices as they did when their daughters, now +twenty, were children of ten. This sort of girl needs sympathy and help, +for in the years when her own powers should be developing they sleep. +Her mother, though with the best motives and intentions in the world, is +compelling her to drift through the years that should be filled with +experience and effort and when the time comes that she must be left to +herself and depend upon her own resources, her state is pitiful. The +girl in the later teens and early twenties needs direction, advice and +counsel but if she is to be saved from drifting she must learn to think +for herself.</p> + +<p>There is another girl who drifts, not aimlessly about, but downstream. +She has lost her ideals. She has ignored the still small voice that +tried to save her, until now it seldom speaks. One and another of her +friends have been with her in the current but have left her and made +their way to safety. Only those from whom at first she shrank are with +her now. She has reached the place where the current is strong and rapid +and escape is doubtful. Her mother still believes her good, her father +still trusts her, but before long they will have to know. She began by +saying not "I meant to," but "I didn't mean to, I didn't think it was +wrong," not "I will do it tomorrow," but "I will never do it again." But +she did it again and yet again. She let go of the help that the church +offered and gave and went to the pleasure parks on Sunday. She let go of +a good friend who held her to the truth, and made a companion of the +girl who helped her invent the things she told her mother when she came +home very late. She let go of the good books little by little and read +the foolish stories that were exciting and absolutely impossible. She +let go of the little courtesies and one by one of the laws that good +society demands that its girls shall obey. She let go of modesty and in +dress and speech allowed herself to drift into the current where it is +swift and black.</p> + +<p>If only parents had watched more closely, if girl friends had been +stronger, and older friends wiser, it would have been so easy when the +current just touched her and she was still near to all that is pure and +good. But she is drifting—drifting more and more rapidly farther and +farther downstream. Now and then she looks back, remembers all the +ideals she once dreamed to reach and makes a feeble struggle to resist +but the current bears her on. Only some mighty Power can save her.</p> + +<p>To the girl who "means to," and "intends," to the girl who dreams and +waits and dreams again, to the girl who has let go and is in the current +this chapter throws out the challenge—<i>Act now.</i> You can! There is +help. Take it.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX</h2> + +<h3>THE GIRL WITH HIGH IDEALS</h3> + + +<p>Ideals make men and women and the process of ideal making begins in +childhood. A great deal has been written and said about the value of the +early ideals born in the home, but too much cannot be said, and the +value of the influence of good homes and parents whose ideals are high +cannot be overestimated. The girl whose home life during the first seven +years has not brought to her the high ideal must struggle all her later +life to build up and intrench in her mind what might have been hers +without conscious effort. Very early in her life the little girl reveals +in her play, in her conversation, in her countless imitative acts, the +ideals which are being formed.</p> + +<p>One day a little four year old told a lie in my presence. Her mother +looking the child straight in the eyes, said, "Did Esther tell true?" +For a moment the child wavered then nodded her head and said, "Yes, +Esther tell true." The mother simply said, "Very well" in the coldest +of tones. After a moment the little girl turned to her dolls. She took +them to a party, brought them safely back and carefully tucked them into +bed. Then she sat quietly looking at them. Finally she took one from the +group, placed it in the little chair, very straight and said "Look at +me! Did 'oo tell true? 'Oo <i>didn't</i> tell true. Naughty girl." A sigh +followed. Then slowly Esther came over to her mother, ignoring my +presence. Her lips quivered and smoothing her mother's hand she said +sadly, "Esther didn't tell true. Naughty, naughty girl." The little girl +at four years of age had her ideal of a good girl and she acted +according to its dictation. She must "tell true." At fourteen she is a +remarkably truthful girl and very accurate in her statements. Through +fear, that mother as a child had become untruthful and in later years +had a bitter struggle with the temptation to sacrifice the truth to save +herself any annoyance. She determined to give to her own little daughter +an ideal of the beauty of truth which should save her, and she +succeeded.</p> + +<p>Many a little ten-year-old girl has fine ideals of truth, unselfishness +and honor and they steady her through the teen years when temptations +press hard.</p> + +<p>The twelve-year-old girl on the edge of the African jungle arranges her +hair in "mop" fashion because that headdress represents her ideal of +beauty. Rings in the nose, wonderful decorations of ankles and toes, +represent ideals of fashion and beauty. The girl in Japan, China or the +Philippines thinks she has made herself beautiful when she has arrayed +herself in accordance with her ideals. We often term her "awful" and +"ridiculous," shrinking even from her picture and she makes sarcastic +remarks, laughs heartily and never fails to express her curiosity +regarding us and our strange fancies and fashions.</p> + +<p>It is our <i>ideals</i> which act as a great commander-in-chief and we follow +in obedience to their commands. Our country needs today more than ever +before, the girl with high ideals, for it is when ideals are lowered +that character is weakened and sin and evil have their opportunity.</p> + +<p>There are many things in the life and surroundings of the girls of today +that tend to lower and dim their ideals which did not enter at all into +the lives of the girls in our grandmother's and great grandmother's +time, and the girls of today must be stronger if they are able to resist +them. Our great-grandmothers lived in the home and did not enter into +business life. It is hard for the wide awake business girl of today to +imagine how that girl of long ago managed to enjoy life. But monotonous +as her life often was, she was spared many things. She never rode alone +in trains and trolleys nor learned to jostle and push through crowds. +She was not compelled to return home late at night without proper escort +as countless girls are today. She never spent the evening on the +streets, nor was she obliged to join the great army of girls who today +live alone in boarding houses in great cities, suffering from +discomforts and desperate loneliness. Her parents were more careful than +the majority of parents today and she knew what <i>protection</i> meant.</p> + +<p>It is because these things are so that one feels like giving added +praise to the girls who today <i>are</i> girls of high ideals, who refuse to +let the carelessness of the times in which they live gain entrance to +their hearts to tarnish those ideals.</p> + +<p>A short distance up the shore as I write I can hear the roar of the tide +as it rushes into the very center of a great rock of granite. The +geologist can find in that mass of rock the tiny crevice where the water +first gained entrance. It has split it asunder because it was able to +gain entrance through a little crack and each day sent in its drops of +water where now with that roar rushes the tide. Farther along the shore +is a solid block of granite. Its face is polished smooth by the dashing +waves. There is not a crack in it, not a tiny crevice. It presents its +splendid, shining surface to the great sea but offers it no opportunity +for entrance.</p> + +<p>One cannot help wishing with all his soul that we may have more and more +girls who are like that bit of solid granite, strongly resisting those +things that seek a tiny crevice by which to enter. For we have so many +who through some weak spot have let the tide of evil in and slowly it +has done its work until now the once strong and fine ideals lie broken +and beaten by the waves.</p> + +<p>The strong girls of high ideals are with us and it is a comfort and a +joy to look into their young faces so full of promise and of courage. +We find them among the very rich and among the very poor as well as +among the girls who live in comfort with neither riches nor poverty to +make things exceedingly hard.</p> + +<p>Irene is one of the girls who amidst poverty and sin has been able to +keep her ideals high. Her home is poor because her father, a mechanic, +who <i>can</i> earn good wages is a hard drinker. Her mother, an honest, +clean, hard working woman, is nervous and fretful, worn out by the hard +things she has had to meet. It is a quarrelsome household and when the +father comes home intoxicated the law is obliged often to interfere. One +of the boys was expelled from school because his language is so +dreadful. Amid this environment the girl lives. She studies her lessons +in school and at the library. Her mother constantly urges her to give up +school and go to work but an uncle who furnishes her meager supply of +dresses, shoes, coats and hats, says it would only make her father feel +that he could give still less to the family's support and so she +continues to attend. Every evening she helps her mother and on Saturday +works hard for a neighbor with only a pittance for pay.</p> + +<p>The school and the Sunday-school have furnished all her ideals and she +is holding on to them while her father taunts her with being a "saint," +and the girls of the neighborhood tempt her to join with them in the +things she knows are wrong. The hour on Sunday is a great help and on +Monday she loses herself in her lessons and enjoys her school friends. +She is only sixteen and she cannot help hoping that things will be +better soon. But Wednesday there is another dreadful quarrel, bitter +words and her father's drunken threats. When late at night all is quiet +and she creeps into bed beside her little sister, her ideals seem far, +far away, out of her reach, but she says, "I <i>must</i> reach them, I +<i>must</i>, I <i>will</i>." And so day after day she presents to all the waves of +discouragement and evil the strong, granite-like determination that will +not let the tide come in.</p> + +<p>Strong as she is she does not excel another girl surrounded by +extravagant wealth, praised, flattered and pampered, trained to think of +one thing supremely, and that <i>herself</i>. But she is a girl of high +ideals. When a little child her old nurse told her the stories and +taught her the prayers that she never forgets and helped her feel a +deep sympathy for all who suffer and have need. A fine young uncle who +has used his wealth to comfort the old and save the sick, told her many +a tale that stirred her soul, and her admiration for the young man of +millions who worked as hard every day as any man in his office but never +for himself, helped in forming her own ideals. And so she reads and +studies, dreams and plans the good she will do some day, meanwhile +helping in every way open to her and standing firmly for the things she +knows are right, resisting with granite-like determination the onslaught +of the waves of self-indulgence and the tides of wild extravagance and +display.</p> + +<p>The girl of high ideals is everywhere. Every school can claim her. +Despite teasing, sneers and laughter, she remains true to her ideals. +She is not a book-worm but she studies, she is not prudish but she is +high minded and pure, she has fun but it is wholesome and clean and +kind.</p> + +<p>She is found in every shop, every department store is aware of her +presence. Honest, attentive, true, interested in her work, following +amidst many insidious temptations her own high ideals.</p> + +<p>Every college knows her. She resists the petty sins of college life. She +banishes jealousy and self-assertion. Snobbishness she will not +tolerate. She seeks no honors save those fairly won. Keen, alert, pure +and true, capable of sacrifice and hard tasks, sympathetic with all +need, a lover of true sport and real fun she represents the college girl +of high ideals.</p> + +<p>Every factory has her among its operatives. A good worker doing honest +work, refusing to allow the stain of coarse jests to touch her, or the +temptations which come with low wages and great fatigue to enter her +life. Again and again she has revealed her ideals in moments of disaster +and death. It is hard to find words to express one's admiration for the +factory girl as she holds to her high ideals.</p> + +<p>Many a kitchen knows her. Neat, clean, honest, capable, happy in her +work, resisting all the temptations that come through loneliness and +deadly routine, she clings to her ideals with courage.</p> + +<p>Every set in society knows her; turning her back upon temptations to +excess, vanity, pride, scorning all forms of gossip, neither listening +to, nor repeating the words that "they" say, she keeps her mind and +heart fixed upon the undimmed ideals she has set for herself.</p> + +<p>Many a schoolroom and office know her, the girl who does her best work +though no one sees and none commend, refusing to lower her ideals in +obedience to subtile suggestions or definite temptations; a girl who +does what is expected of her and more, who puts her heart into her work +and glorifies it.</p> + +<p>The girl, whatever her station in life, whatever her occupation, who has +kept her ideals high has the right to be happy. She can afford to be +light-hearted, to enjoy fun and frolic and to get the most out of +everything, for she need not spend days in regret, nor wet her pillow +with tears of remorse. Nothing in the world can make up for the loss of +a pure and high ideal. If girls could see the sad faces and know the +suffering hearts of the women who in girlhood forsook their ideals, they +would understand.</p> + +<p>If a girl of high ideals is thinking about them now and knows that she +has of late been tempted to lower them a little, let me ask her to look +at them very earnestly before she consents to tarnish them <i>even a +little</i>. Perhaps it is only to wear upon the street the sort of dress +which attracts attention and causes remarks to fall from the lips of +loafers as she passes, perhaps to accept invitations from those who do +not measure up to the standard, perhaps to engage in a dance in which +the ideal could not join, to repeat gossip which is interesting but may +not be true or to be mean and unkind. Let me beg of every girl to cling +with all her might to the highest ideal of her mind and heart. Never let +it go. Pay the cost of keeping it whatever that cost may be.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X</h2> + +<h3>THE AVERAGE GIRL</h3> + + +<p>The average girl does not want to be average. She wants to stand for +something, to <i>excel</i>, to be beautiful, to do great good in the world, +to sing, to play, to be a social leader, to dress well, to be very +popular, to be <i>something</i>, so that people will single her out and say, +"That is Charlotte Gray; she is the prettiest girl in town," or "That is +Charlotte Gray; she has a most wonderful voice," or "She is the most +popular girl in the office," or "She is the finest girl athlete in the +city." In her day dreams she pictures herself the center, but in real +life she does not find herself there—she is just plain Charlotte Gray.</p> + +<p>The average girl has all the elemental powers of the race; there are +always undeveloped resources in her, always the possibility that she may +bless the world by new ministries, enrich it by the discovery of the art +of living nobly amid the common-place, that she may be the mother of +the great.</p> + +<p>The average girl has some handicaps and some privileges, in some things +she is easily led, she is often misunderstood, she has periods of being +indifferent, she spends too much time following the dictates of fashion +and too much strength endeavoring to have a good time, she means to do +things that never get done, she has times of drifting, she has some high +ideals to which she clings with more or less tenacity—she is a +combination girl.</p> + +<p>The average girl is in many ways the most important member of society, +for what the average girl is, that society is. Society cannot be more +generous-hearted, pure, altruistic, content and happy than its average +girl.</p> + +<p>I am thinking of two towns whose inhabitants number between three and +four thousand. In one, the girls are careless in dress, vulgar in +speech, spend their evenings in the two dance halls and the cheap +picture shows. While still young girls they marry men who drink and +gamble, start homes with practically no money, are poor cooks and +housekeepers and know nothing about the care and training of their +children when they come.</p> + +<p>There are beautiful homes in that town and sweet, fine girls with the +highest ideals. There are wretched hovels in that town with wicked and +criminal inmates. But neither the girl with the highest ideals, nor the +girl with the lowest, can stamp that town; neither the sweet, refined, +cultured girl, nor the immoral and vicious one can stamp that town. The +<i>average</i> girl determines the character of it.</p> + +<p>In the other town the girls impress every stranger with their +cleanliness in dress and in speech; the streets are clean, the homes are +simple and neat. The girls spend the evenings in their own homes, in +"The Center," a house dedicated by one of the churches to the young +people of the town for their enjoyment, in the one excellent moving +picture establishment. They have a debating society, a dramatic club, +and do fine work in the gymnasium. They marry young men of simple tastes +like themselves, start their homes with at least the necessities, they +know how to keep house and they make good mothers.</p> + +<p>There are some girls of culture, some of wealth and fashion in the +town, but they do not stamp it. There are some immoral and degenerate +girls in that town but they do not stamp it. It is the average girl who +leaves her imprint upon it. Neither of these towns can get away from the +impress of the <i>average girl</i>.</p> + +<p>The first town has the licensed saloon and the factory owners have not +the breadth of mental vision to see what good houses, fair wages and +common sense treatment can do to build the character of the average +girl. The second town has never had a saloon, the owners of its +factories and business houses live in the town and they have the keen +vision which sees the value of good houses in which to live, fair pay, +and opportunity for real recreation. They have been able to raise the +standard of the average girl, therefore the enviable record and +character of the town.</p> + +<p>It is the average girl in college who determines the character and +reputation of that college. It is not the brilliant girl, it is not the +girl whose earnest plodding barely carries her through, it is not the +failure, it is the average girl. If the average girl should leave her +college a good athlete, interested in everything athletic, that fact +would determine the general character of the college. If the average +girl leaves her college with broadened sympathies, good scholarship, +intense interest in the affairs of the day, real joy in living and +helping; these things determine the reputation and character of the +college. If the average girl leaves her college with social ambitions +and plunges into the social whirl, giving her time and strength to the +race for social prominence and notoriety, these things determine the +character and decide the reputation of that college.</p> + +<p>The usefulness and character of every church is determined not by the +few people who do all that a church member should do, nor by the few who +utterly fail to fulfil the mission of the church, but by the attitude, +work and conduct of the average member of it.</p> + +<p>The average girl in any occupation determines its standing and +character. The average girl in the employ of any concern determines not +only its value as a public servant but its success.</p> + +<p>The average girl holds the key to all situations touching the life of +girls. As the average girl becomes more efficient, finer in character, +broader in thought, more sound in body, mind and spirit, she raises +society with her; as she loses in efficiency, in power of thought and in +character, grows weaker in body, mind and spirit, she drags society down +with her.</p> + +<p>What should she be like, this all-important average girl? What is she in +the ideal? I have asked scores of girls the question and the following +paragraph is their answer as well as my own.</p> + +<p>The <i>ideal average</i> girl is strong in body, is intelligent, believes in +God and strives to obey His laws. She is not afraid to work and she has +courage to meet hardships and loneliness if they come. She is interested +in pretty clothes, she wants them for herself, she has what she can +honestly afford and she spends time and takes pains to get the very best +she can for the money she has. She refuses to be extreme in style or to +make herself ridiculous or conspicuous. She likes fun, she enjoys +amusements and good times. She will not indulge in things of which her +parents heartily disapprove or which unfit her for work or study, and +which her own conscience tells her are doubtful. She loves friends and +companions and has as many as she can. She chooses carefully her +friends among the boys and men and lets neither word nor act lower in +the least degree their respect for her. She looks forward to the day +when she shall have a home of her own and fits herself to care for it +with intelligence and skill. She is honest, and faithful to the present +tasks. She is kindly, generous, helpful, cheerful, <i>just the sort of +girl one would like to live with every day</i>.</p> + +<p>It is a high average, yes, it is <i>ideal</i>. But the fact that so many +girls are seeking that ideal, that so many against fearful odds are +pressing toward it, and that so many little by little are achieving it +fills one with hope. The fact that so many men and women who but a few +years ago were not concerned with either the needs or rights of a girl +are bending every energy to the task of setting her free from the things +that burden her, hold her back and make her suffer, fills one with +anticipation, for the things which touch the average girl are the things +which concern all who have great hopes and dreams for the future of our +land.</p> + +<p>This chapter and all the chapters preceding are an appeal to the average +girl and those who love her to summon all their strength and raise the +standard of the average.</p> + +<p>Let the average girl be the highest possible average, realizing the +important place she holds in the working out of all problems of right, +justice and public welfare and knowing that God must have had great +faith in the power and possibility of the average girl else He would not +have trusted so much to her keeping.</p> + +<p>The world is grateful for the brilliant girl, for the gifted, the +talented, the beautiful; but without the average girl it could not live. +God bless her and give us more and better.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PART_II" id="PART_II"></a>PART II</h2> + +<h2><i>Her Religion</i></h2> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI</h2> + +<h3>THE GIRL AND THE UNIVERSE</h3> + + +<p>When Wonder suggests its first questions to her they are large +questions. They have to do with the Universe. They are eternal and +unanswerable questions. They fall from baby lips but they baffle sages. +It may be on some bright summer morning that she stands amidst the +daisies scarcely taller than they, listening intently to the words of +wisdom which tell her that God made the daisies every one, and all the +flowers and the butterflies and the cows in the meadows. After a time of +silence she puts her question, her clear eyes searching the face of her +would-be teacher. "Who made God?" she asks, and while the teacher wavers +she repeats her question until some sort of answer comes. That night +when she is tucked into bed her mind returns by way of her evening +prayer, to the subject of the morning. She hurls another question, +"Where is God?" Since she cannot be evaded she is so often told that +God is everywhere and accepting it with all the faith of the literalist +she begins her search for Him. She strives to solve the mysterious fact +that He can be everywhere and yet in all the places where one searches +He is not to be found.</p> + +<p>Then her grandmother who sat in the sunny room upstairs as long as the +little girl can remember is taken sick. Some days pass and her mother +with tears streaming down her face tells her little daughter that +grandmother has gone to heaven. The mystery bearing down upon the little +soul deepens. "What is Heaven?" and "where is Heaven?" she asks. They +tell her of its beauties, its peace, happiness and joy. They say that +grandmother wanted to go and then they cry again. The little girl cannot +understand it all, but she tries. If grandmother is happy and really +wanted to go, why does mother look so sad, why the closed blinds, why is +everything so quiet? She asks the question in the presence of her +practical unimaginative aunt, who bids her be quiet and adds in her +even, impressive voice, "Your grandmother is dead." The word has an +awful sound and she raises her eyes to the severe face above her and +asks, "What <i>is</i> dead?" But the aunt does not answer, and the little +girl goes to the window to think it all over. She knows that <i>dead</i> is +dreadful—grandmother has gone, the house is quiet, father will not play +with her and mother cries. She is only a very little girl but she has +met the unanswerable questions, "Who made God? Where did I come from? +Where is Heaven? What is it like? What is Death?"</p> + +<p>As the years pass her instructors in religion attempt to teach her. In +varied words, according to varied creeds they answer or postpone the +answer to her questions. She learns that God is good and God is great; +that He takes care of people, at night especially; that one may ask Him +for whatever she wants and if it is best she will get it; that if one +would please God she must be very good and there are many things she +must not do; that those who please Him shall be rewarded and those who +fail shall be punished.</p> + +<p>Her instructors do not mean always that this shall be the sum total of +their teachings but stripped of all the songs, the pictures and cards, +the birthday greetings, the flowers and stories, these things in the +majority of cases sum up the little girl's conclusions. There enters +into her religion in many cases that name which seems so often to sound +sweeter when murmured by baby lips than at any other time. The little +girl has learned to love the Baby asleep in the hay, the Child before +whom the Magi knelt, the obedient and lovable boy who played in +Nazareth. Then the new outlook comes and the little girl sees Jesus the +Redeemer and God the Father. She listens with eager fascinated interest +to the stories of what He did and said, tries to obey the commands He +gave, suffers for her sins of commission, prays and hopes to be +forgiven. The One who searches the hearts of men must find as honest, +devoted faith among these little girls as anywhere in His army of +believing followers.</p> + +<p>Then the spirit of altruism begins to awaken. She is no longer a +<i>little</i> girl. She begins to understand the meaning of <i>sacrifice</i>, she +is stirred with the desire to serve. Christ the Messiah, the Savior and +Master, claims her interest and her heart is filled with desire to serve +and to prove her love to Him. She pledges herself to His service, +strives to be faithful, suffers agonies of remorse over her failures. +Among all the hosts who follow Him there are none more loyal and loving +than this girl in her teens.</p> + +<p>The years pass and in the later teens and early twenties another world +forces itself upon the girl. It is the world of sin and evil, of +selfishness, greed and hypocrisy. She shrinks from it but it is bound to +be revealed. She catches a glimpse of a world of suffering and pain that +makes her heart ache. And while these worlds are pressing hard she is +plunging into the secrets of things. The revelation of biology, +astronomy, chemistry, the history of peoples, languages and books, the +science of economics, and the mysteries of psychology are demanding +consideration. Something happens to the bright, sweet unquestioned +faith. Questions persist, doubts suggest themselves and demand answer. +Nature asks "What do you think about me?" The problems of sin and +sickness, accident and injustice ask "How do you explain us?" and +darkness settles over the girl's spirit. Sometimes she refuses to think +things out and accepts the new explanations of things whatever they +happen to be, turning in cynicism from the old. But more often she does +think—asking the old questions she faced as a little girl all over +again out of a larger world and a trained mind. "Who made God?—what was +the very beginning of beginnings?" she asks. "Is it some <i>one</i> or some +<i>thing</i>?" "What is Death and what is after that? How am I to <i>know</i>?" +Soul, mind and spirit cry out for concrete proof of that which can never +be concretely proven.</p> + +<p>The thing she needs just here, is the very thing she is most often +denied. She needs some one who can show to her the larger God and the +greater Christ for her larger world and greater thought. She is losing +or has lost her smaller conceptions in the maze of wonders which have +been revealed to mind and heart. She needs to know that she has not lost +her God, rather is she just beginning to discover Him; that she has not +lost her Christ, instead the Christ is just beginning to be revealed to +her in all His greatness. She needs some one to make clear to her the +meaning of the promise, "<i>Seek</i> and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be +opened unto you." From a new view-point with a larger horizon she may +be helped to begin her trustful search for God knowing that truth can +never lead away from God. She is just a girl but the Universe is hers in +which to seek Him. Its laws, as fast as she can discover them, are her +servants to lead her to Him and its broadening horizons but bring her +nearer.</p> + +<p>When she can face all the new knowledge, feel the shaking of the old +foundations, in this spirit of trustful <i>discovery</i>, her doubts will +pass away. The world is saved through Christ, not through dogma and if +she can have the wise instructor or friend who can show her these things +she is safe.</p> + +<p>Whenever one thinks of the little girl among the daisies there comes to +him in woful contrast the little girl in the crowded cities' wretched +streets. She is denied the daisy field. Stars do not tempt her to +wonder. The narrow streets filled with material things, pressing close, +crowd out sun and moon. The name of God is familiar to her ears but she +does not ask questions about Him. She associates the name with loud +voices, angry faces and often with blows. Death awakens wonder but there +is little time for answers to puzzled questionings. The few days of +relief from noise, the expressions of sympathy and friendship, the +unusual words of tenderness all make a deep impression—then life goes +on as before only harder because of the added expense. As the years pass +she accepts the teachings of her church, she can recite them more or +less glibly but they have nothing special to do with her life. +Philosophy and science do not trouble her. She says her prayers thinking +about other things and when she grows older stops saying them, save at +church.</p> + +<p>Oftentimes as a little girl she receives no religious instruction, never +enters a church and the name of God drops in curses from her own lips. +Only now and then fear of the future takes possession of her for a +moment. Only in great stress of unusual suffering or pain, or in the +presence of awful sorrow is her soul stirred to ask the little girl's +question, "What is Heaven like?"</p> + +<p>Sometimes the bitterness of her lot causes her to treat the idea of God +with scorn. "Look at me," she said one day in my presence. "What have I +done that God should punish me with the troubles I've got. There ain't +no God, that's what I say, anyways."</p> + +<p>Poor girl! The church must give to her the God whom she can trust and +love, but it will have to give Him in widespread, simple justice. First +she must see Him in <i>deeds</i> and then in words.</p> + +<p>The girl amidst the squalor of wretched conditions in heartless cities, +needs a God who is her defender and champion as well as her Savior. When +some wise instructor or inspired friend can give to her this view of the +Lord God of Hosts, the Father of all, who seeks through His children to +save His children her salvation has begun.</p> + +<p>Oftentimes one meets the gentle, trustful, lovable little girl who asks +her question and receiving the answer accepts it, never to doubt it +through all the years, never to ask the great universal questions again. +Sometimes it is because the answers were so wisely given, sometimes +because the depths of the girl's mental and spiritual life are never +touched. She has a comfortable faith, earnest, true, honest and sincere. +It does not embrace the world, nor is it deeply concerned with the great +problems with which the world wrestles. It is not necessary perhaps that +it should be. The girl is naturally religious, trustful and believing. +Her sweet, untroubled faith blesses the life of every day.</p> + +<p>Those who are interested in the religion of girlhood and young womanhood +are filled with hope today as they listen to the answers which are being +given by wise mothers and teachers, to the great questions of the +universe. The answers leave room for a <i>growing</i> religion which grows as +the girl grows.</p> + +<p>A while ago my friend walked through the country fields with a little +six year old. My friend says she has left behind an "outgrown religion." +Her complacence and cynicism received a shock that afternoon. A lamb +which was the baby of the flock had been made a special pet by the +children and came immediately when the six year old called. The days +were getting cold and the lamb's woolly coat was thick. My friend, +intending to instruct the child said, "Put your hand on the lambie's +thick wool. Cold days are coming and Nature makes the lamb's wool nice +and warm."</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered the child, her eyes shining, "the Heavenly Father makes +its coat warm. He didn't give them a papa like mine to get their +clothes. He gives them to them himself."</p> + +<p>My friend was surprised by the words and before she could think of a +suitable reply, the child continued—</p> + +<p>"He tells the birdies to go down where it's warm and there are flowers +all the time. Just a few stay here when it's cold and they have warm +feathers. The bear and the foxes and the horsie and kitty,—the Heavenly +Father makes all their coats warm. He is very, very busy," she added +impressively.</p> + +<p>For weeks during the preparations which nature makes for the coming +winter, my friend, hitherto satisfied with abstract law found her mind +going back to the Heavenly Father "very, very busy" in the great world +He had made. She was so impressed that she went with the child to her +kindergarten class in school and in Sunday-school and in both she heard +of the love and care of the Heavenly Father.</p> + +<p>As she listened to the simple teachings, the children's answers and +comments, she realized that in the circle there was a very real +personality called the Heavenly Father whom these children knew and +loved. "I wish such had been my training," she said regretfully. +"Perhaps I should have been saved the darkness and perplexity in which +I have lived for years."</p> + +<p>Months after in a large class of earnest, eager and attentive girls I +listened to a wonderful teacher. I loved with a deeper love, after that +lesson, the Christ whose presence seemed to fill that room as the +teacher showed her girls the Master at His task of saving the world by +showing it God, the Father.</p> + +<p>One day I stood in a silent home with a brilliant, cultured girl, who +had traveled much and enjoyed every privilege. She had that afternoon +left her mother beside her father out on the sloping hillside in the +great silent city. We raised the curtains the maid had drawn, the girl +laid aside her coat and hat and said sadly, "Now life must begin again, +without all that is dearest to me." I tried to find words to strengthen +her but she turned her calm face toward me and said, "How do people live +through it and go on, who haven't God? The Father of the World has them +both in His keeping. I can wait till I find them again."</p> + +<p>This girl had never doubted. She had wondered and thought, questioned +and <i>believed</i>. Wise parents had given to her the God of the +Universe—the Father, and His Son the revelation of Himself to men that +it might be saved, in such simple terms, so free from petty dogma that +as she had grown in mind and spirit He grew in wonder and majesty and +power, commanding her love and worship.</p> + +<p>If a girl, troubled and perplexed by the things the mind cannot grasp or +heart understand, chances to read this chapter let her know that the +trouble lies not with the God of whom she has been taught but with those +who, trying to do their best, have been weak in their teaching.</p> + +<p>If we can banish from our faith all its man made littleness, all its +chaos of bickerings, all the fret of the conflicting opinions of those +who, after all, are themselves but children searching after truth, and +give to the growing girl, a growing religion, the God of the Universe +will become her God and she will worship him in sincerity and truth all +the days of her life.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Dear Lord and Father of mankind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forgive our feverish ways;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Reclothe us in our rightful mind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In purer lives thy service find,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In deeper reverence, praise."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII</h2> + +<h3>IN THE HANDS OF A TRIAD</h3> + + +<p>Despite all the words that have been written and spoken in the past it +is still true that many of those engaged in the religious training of a +girl, or responsible for the form of religion which is presented to her, +do not realize, or else they ignore the fact that she is in the hands of +a triad—body, mind and spirit. As a triad she develops if she be a +normal girl, as a triad she acts. Her character is made by these three +agencies working together. It is a fact, the significance of which none +of us fully realize, as yet, that a clean mind and a clean heart in an +unclean body is very rare. A quick, alert balanced mind and a pure, +heroic spirit in a starved and diseased body is also rare. A +well-nourished, well-cared-for body with all its functions doing their +work and a mental weakling is a rare combination.</p> + +<p>Once we did not know that adenoids made children mentally deficient, nor +did we dream that teeth properly attended to, and a pair of glasses +could transform a girl from a sullen, morose disobedient child into an +interesting, happy and obedient one; but some of us have seen that +transformation and marveled at it. Once we believed that inherent moral +degeneracy sent a twelve-year-old girl to the courts. Now we are +beginning to see the relationship between a room with no windows and no +running water, a dirty alley or a wretched street and the moral +degeneracy. Once we shook our heads and said, "Well, they say there's +one black sheep in every family." Now we are beginning to see that the +black sheep may be made by the gratification of every physical desire +and every mental whim and the neglect of the spirit.</p> + +<p>Churches, schools and individuals are beginning at last to <i>seriously</i> +consider the teaching of morals and religion and as they give themselves +to the task of laying down practical workable plans, suddenly as if it +were a new revelation comes the <i>fact</i> that the individual is a triad +and she must be taught as such.</p> + +<p>If homes were ideal it would be an easy task. If it were possible for +the majority of homes to approach the ideal it would seem an easier +task. But with poverty, ignorance, inefficiency and indifference +clutching at the very center of dynamic power, the task is one of the +greatest which men have as yet been asked to meet. If homes were ideal, +from the moment the little girl comes into the world, and even before +her coming, sensible, rational care would be taken of her body, not only +to make it beautiful but that it might do its work for her in healthful, +normal fashion and be a good servant throughout her life. Her mind would +be awakened and trained to think, her will to act and to control and all +her sense of reverence, wonder and worship developed while her love for +the good and the beautiful, the heroic and self-sacrificing was +stimulated.</p> + +<p>But homes are not ideal and the majority have neither accepted nor +considered deeply the task of preparing the <i>whole</i> girl for life. Some +prepare her physically and let the rest of the triad develop as it will. +Some prepare her mentally and morally while both body and spirit suffer. +Some seek to prepare her spiritually by fitting on as a sort of garment +what they believe to be religion while body and mind receive little +attention and some let all three develop as convenience and chance may +dictate.</p> + +<p>When men's consciences have been awakened and they find the home +incapable or inert, they have turned the responsibility over to the +public school and the church. Of late civic forces have given their aid. +Those directly interested in the religious training of the girl are +coming to agree that these three agencies are needed and that they must +work <i>together</i> if the whole girl is to be helped.</p> + +<p><i>Some one</i> must teach a girl the things about herself that she ought to +know. That some one is her mother. No one else can do it with the same +power. Neither church nor school can perform well the delicate task of +revealing life's secrets, and blundering is deadly. But church and +school and civic forces together can help the mother, can give her a +proper conception of her duty, give her the words to say, perhaps. The +school can teach morals and keep its own moral standards high; the +church can awaken the spiritual life of a girl and nurture it, that +knowledge and high ideals may work together to fortify and strengthen +her. The civic forces can see to it that the girl has the opportunity +for pure physical enjoyment, for mental stimulation and moral uplift.</p> + +<p>What civic forces have been able to do through tuberculosis exhibitions +and child welfare exhibits, by showing parents the truth regarding the +importance of the physical care of their girls, furnishes encouragement +to go further. Good newspapers may speak to parents untouched by the +school and out of touch with the church and have done so. The majority +of parents when they see and believe will act.</p> + +<p>There was a time, and not long since, when those engaged in teaching +religion were not concerned with the number of hours the girl worked, +the age at which she began, the sort of room in which she slept, the +amount of real food she had. And because they were not concerned they +lost her. Today a teacher cannot teach religion if she does not care +about life. She attempts it but she fails. Jesus astonished the Scribes, +Pharisees, Doctors of the Law and Priests of the Temple by His intense +interest in the physical needs of men. He took into account the <i>whole</i> +man and set body, mind and spirit free.</p> + +<p>When one considers how little mental stimulus and training comes to the +average girl after leaving school and is aware of the vast majority who +leave school at any early age, she is not surprised at the lack of power +to think on the part of so many, and at the very limited knowledge she +finds when attempting to teach. The girls of today need to be informed +on matters of public welfare and political and economic affairs as never +before. Where shall they go for that information and how shall they be +led to desire it? Girls need to know the meaning of religion and in +simple fashion the history of creeds and denominations. They need +instruction from the Bible which cannot be given in a half hour a week +of more or less regular study.</p> + +<p>Once those who were teachers of religion were not deeply concerned with +what the girl read and the things about which she thought. Now one +cannot teach religion truly unless she <i>knows</i> what a girl reads, about +what she talks and thinks, whether she is in touch in any way with that +which can broaden her mind and give her food for thought.</p> + +<p>No girl is safe, no girl can be her best or get the most out of life who +is weak on the third side of the triad. Unless she has the help of a +well developed spiritual nature how the littlenesses, the routine, the +difficulties, the jealousies and envyings, the gossiping and petty +dishonesties of life dwarf her.</p> + +<p>Long ago, when I first began to print pictures, I tried to print a +picture of a beautiful rail-boat against long lines of sand dunes, on a +postal card. I couldn't. They explained to me that I must have +sensitized cards, then the imprint could be made. The girls of today +need to be developed and sensitized spiritually that the imprint of +purity and righteousness may be made upon the whole life. The spiritual +life, as well as the mental and physical, is as we shall see in a later +chapter, a matter of cultivation.</p> + +<p>If the girl herself reads this chapter she will stop a moment to examine +the triad which makes up her own life. Perhaps the physical side is +weak. She may strengthen it if she will. Now is the time, while she is +young and it will obey her. When habit has written its words in iron on +muscle, heart and nerves it will be harder for her to control it. +Perhaps she has been careless about fresh air, perhaps has been tempted +to let pie and cake and coffee make a lunch, perhaps to neglect rubbers, +to get only half the sleep she needs or to dress foolishly on cold +winter days. If the physical side of the triad is weak a girl must +suffer. The body is a despotic master and it is a splendid servant. Even +if others have failed to help her and circumstances have been against +her, a girl can if she will, improve her physical condition and every +little improvement is worth the cost. It may not seem to her at first a +part of her religion to keep her body well and to strengthen it by every +means in her power, but it is.</p> + +<p>It may be that the mental side is weak; that it is lazy and does not +want to think; that the only food it craves is the sensational, and +light, <i>very light</i> reading and not much of that. But the girl who is in +earnest can refuse to gossip and learn to talk and think about the great +needs and problems of our day. She can turn quickly the pages where +crime and accidents are recorded and read carefully those that tell of +the progress in science and the happenings among the nations of the +world. She can read a great book once a month or once in three months +according to the time she has and she can think and talk about what she +reads. She can find some hobby in which to be interested. The effort +she makes to compel her mind to work will bring a very real reward.</p> + +<p>It is a pitiful thing to see a woman at thirty or forty who has nothing +to think about but herself and the affairs of her neighbors, and who +never reads. If the mental side of the triad has grown weak through +laziness and neglect, the girl may strengthen it. The effort to make it +strong may not seem a part of religion but it is.</p> + +<p>And if she knows now as she thinks honestly about it, that the spiritual +side of the triad that governs her life is weak, she may strengthen it. +She can read the Book that through all the ages has strengthened men's +spirits and made them conquerors over temptation and sin. She can think +about the words that have helped women to keep sweet and strong amidst +trial, and danger, sorrow and disappointment. And she can pray. She does +not need long prayers. She needs just a word with God, her Father and +her Helper every day to keep her strong, and another at night to give +her courage to go on trying when she has weakly yielded to temptation +and failed. If she has neglected it she may begin now to strengthen the +weak place that she may be saved from spiritual sickness which is the +worst of all.</p> + +<p>One covets for every girl the opportunity to live in the hands of the +healthful, trained, awakened triad. Life is a blessed experience to the +girl who is well physically, alert mentally and strong spiritually. If +that experience is to come to the majority of girls, then those +interested in her religion must more and more understand that true +religion touches all of life—the triad—body, mind and spirit.</p> + +<p>One summer night when the thunder was roaring over the sea and vivid +flashes of lightning blinded for the moment one daring enough to face +the storm, the little village church bell rang the dread alarm of fire. +The apparatus for firefighting was of the type most city people have +forgotten. Men rushed to the fire company's quarters and dragged the +engine forth. From one of the highest hilltops flames lighted the sky. +The men seizing the rope dragged the apparatus up the steep slope. Just +before reaching the top it stuck. Suddenly a sharp appealing voice rang +out into the darkness. It did more than request, it commanded and +demanded. "Everybody take hold" it shouted, and under the power of it +people sprang to obey and the engine reached the hilltop.</p> + +<p>Those who look with sympathy and love at girlhood today, cannot help +wishing that some Voice of power would ring out through every place +where girls are found saying—"Everybody take hold!" If everybody would +respond to the task as that night in the fire and the storm, the girl, +in body, mind and spirit might easily be saved. Everybody may not +respond now—but how about <i>you</i>, the girl herself?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII</h2> + +<h3>THOU SHALT NOT</h3> + + +<p>In our effort to get away from the harsh negative teaching of the past +which made young people feel that life meant "don't," we have made the +mistake of failing to teach with power the fact that there are things to +which God's law and man's law say <i>thou shall not</i>. "I did not know it +would do any harm," is oftentimes a truthful statement and the girl has +the right to be carefully, wisely and sanely taught the things to which +she must say no. A girl's religion must have not only the <i>constraining</i> +power which sends her out to do the kindly deed, say the word of comfort +and cheer, give of her time and her talent to help make life easier for +those who find it hard, but it must have the restraining power which +shall keep her from self-indulgence and sin.</p> + +<p>Whenever the <i>thou shalt not</i> side of religion is mentioned the girls +themselves and those responsible for their training immediately think +of the question of amusements, which is after all only a part of the +greater question of how much leisure a girl should have and what she +should do with it. Preachers, teachers and Christians generally, differ +so widely on the matter of disputed amusement questions that <i>thou shalt +not</i> loses its force. It is the parents' right to decide the girl's +amusements and determine her social life and when one sees the length to +which parents permit and even encourage their daughters to go, he knows +that the <i>thou shalt not</i> might well be said to <i>them</i>. When parents do +not care what their girls do, or are too careless and ignorant to +realize danger, when the girls are without friends and unprotected, then +the teacher of religion must without hesitation, forcefully and with the +arguments of <i>fact</i>, teach them to say "no" to the things which she +believes can bring only harm, which weaken the power to resist other +evils and which are unhealthy for the growing girl. One may teach with +feeling and power the "<i>thou shalt not</i>" in which she believes without +uttering bitter words of condemnation of those who differ with her.</p> + +<p>Religion and the law together have the right to say to the unprotected +girl, lacking wisdom, without discretion, eager for fun and adventure, +ignorant of danger, <i>thou shall not</i>. The words should be written over +every unchaperoned or inadequately chaperoned high school dance, over +the public dance hall, over the cabaret, over the vaudeville where the +vulgar hides behind a mask, over every place which by its very nature +opens doors of temptation and lowers powers of resistance. The teachers +of religion, and all agencies for moral training and uplift, <i>because</i> +of the comparative helplessness of girlhood, have the right to teach by +every means at their command <i>thou shalt not</i>.</p> + +<p>Some one must teach the growing girl that extravagance is sin; some one +must say <i>thou shalt not</i> to her common faults of promising without +thought of the cost of keeping the promise, of exaggeration and +untruthfulness. Some one must help her see the utter folly of +snobbishness and false pride. In some way she must be taught the cruelty +and meanness of gossip, the results of a sharp tongue and a critical +spirit. She must be shown the sin of ingratitude and the curse of +jealousy and envy. In fact the old ten commandments are needed by the +girlhood of today as truly as they were needed by that great army of +people in the days of the youth of a race, when their great law giver +and leader strove to save them from the results of their own ignorance +and newly acquired liberty.</p> + +<p>Who teaches <i>thou shalt not</i> to the girl of today? Indirectly, a great +many people. Directly, clearly, definitely so that she understands and +is impressed, very few. The Sunday-school in a half-hour a week attempts +to do it, but the Sunday-school reaches a very small part of the +girlhood of our land, and its work with those whom it has reached is +often ineffective. It is at present engaged in a serious effort to make +its teachings more effective and far reaching. The public school is not +directly teaching the <i>thou shalt not</i>, for teaching it does not mean +saying it, in the form of a command. It does much indirect moral +teaching, which is invaluable. It is experimenting with direct moral +teaching and many of the experiments have shown highly gratifying +results, which lead us to hope that the day is not far distant when +direct teaching of the common laws of moral living shall find a place +in every school. We shall have to find some new definition first, for +such words as success, wealth, honesty, courage, honor and the long list +in the vocabularies which the pupils in every school make for +themselves.</p> + +<p>In reacting against the thundering negatives of the past, the church +has, in the decade or more that lies behind us, been teaching an +unbalanced religion. "Thou shalt," and "thou shalt not" must be taught +together if the best results are to be reached. In individual instances +so great success has been won by the teacher of religion that his method +is worth one's earnest study.</p> + +<p>One morning there came into Sunday-school class a very ordinary looking +little girl of ten years. Her father was a truck driver, her mother had +been a domestic. There were four children in the home, the little girl +being next to the youngest. The parents had no relation to any church. +The two older children had turned out great disappointments to them and +when a neighbor invited the ten-year-old to go to Sunday-school the +mother gave her consent, saying that perhaps the church could keep her +from following her brother and sister. It did.</p> + +<p>In that home there was no moral instruction, no moral suasion. When the +children had told a lie directly to the mother they were punished +severely. When they told a lie to a teacher or neighbor the mother was +their defender and they escaped punishment. They heard their mother lie +to her husband, to her neighbors, to the rent collector and the grocer. +They learned not to fear a <i>lie</i> but to fear being discovered in it. +They became clever liars and the little girl at ten was an adept. For +disobedience, cheating, taking food and pennies they were alternately +turned over to their father for punishment or shielded from his wrath +according to the mother's temper at the time of the offense. They were +not taught or helped to hate sin or to see it in its hideous aspect. +<i>Thou shalt not</i> was a matter of convenience, not of principle.</p> + +<p>The teacher into whose class the little girl came was a woman of +experience who before her marriage had been a teacher in the public +school. She called in the home, she learned the standing of the girl in +the day school, in less than a month she <i>knew</i> her. What she found out +made her determine to help the child hate falsehood and cheating in +every form. By story and incidents she showed Sunday after Sunday, side +by side, the cowardice and unhappiness of the liar, the distrust of his +fellowmen, the misery which he must suffer and the courage, happiness +and freedom of the truth-loving and truth-telling child. Every lesson +said "don't lie" and "speak and act the truth." One day the little girl +was invited to her teacher's home to look at pictures and choose some +books to read, for the teacher had discovered her love for pictures and +books. After a very happy hour, while saying good-by in the hall, the +child suddenly seized her teacher's hand and stammered, "How can you +help telling lies?" The teacher says, "As I looked into her plain little +face with its quivering lips, I loved her. I determined to fight for her +and with her." It was a fight, for habit was strong and environment did +not change. For over five years that teacher faithfully presented the +"<i>thou shall not</i>" and "<i>thou shall</i>" which shaped the girl's ideals and +helped her reach them. She taught her to pray; she inspired her with a +genuine love for God the Helper, who would "see her through," she opened +doors of service for her. At twenty she is a truthful and truth-loving +girl, she has been able to say "no" to the things which proved the +downfall of brother and sister; she is a useful, self-supporting, +thoroughly respectable member of society and an earnest Christian. She +has been able to lead her younger brother safely past the dangerous +places and is helping him through school. What the church, through its +religious instruction, has been able to do for this girl and many others +it might do in far larger measure were it equipped with a regular +teaching force adequate to its need, if its preachers could come into +real contact with the children and youth of the community and present to +them with power the <i>thou shalt not</i> which shall give them at least an +opportunity to strive to obey.</p> + +<p>If the girl herself is reading this chapter I know she will agree with +me when I say that a girl respects and honors in her heart the teacher +who presents to her, fearlessly and honestly, the things which she +believes a girl cannot do with safety, which lead into dangerous places +and which make it hard for her to keep pure, true, unselfish in thought +and deed; and she respects even more highly the teacher who can give +her broad sane reasons for finding substitutes for these things. She +may, as she grows older, come to the conclusion that her teacher was +mistaken but she respects her for her honest effort to help.</p> + +<p>In every girl's creed there must be some negative. The <i>law</i> says you +must and you must not. As she reads this page perhaps some girl will +stop for a moment and write out the things to which she believes a girl +should say "no." Here is such a list, written in the form of a creed by +a girl when a sophomore at college.</p> + +<p>"I believe that a girl should not indulge in amusements which make her +nervous and excited, give her a headache, make it hard for her to study, +cost her a good deal of money and crowd out all thoughts of duty and +which make her feel envious and jealous of those who are more popular or +fortunate than she, and sometimes make her think things she hates to +remember.</p> + +<p>I believe that a girl should <i>never</i> repeat what she has heard about +another person if it could in any way injure that person's character.</p> + +<p>I believe that she should not lie even by looks or by silence. I +believe that she should never deceive another, never make fun of the +weaknesses or misfortunes of other people and never treat another girl +as she would not herself want to be treated."</p> + +<p>This is a negative creed. It does not say <i>do</i>, it says <i>don't</i>, but +there are times when every girl needs <i>Don't</i>. Put <i>don't</i> into your own +creed, you girls who are thinking over these things.</p> + +<p>When you are tempted to lose your head and plunge into things you have +been taught are wrong, just because "<i>everybody</i>" that mysterious +mischief maker, is doing these things, keep steady and <i>Don't</i>.</p> + +<p>When you are tempted to make things more comfortable, more interesting, +more exciting by exaggeration—Don't.</p> + +<p>When you are tempted to escape by a lie the consequences of what you +have said or done—<i>Don't</i>.</p> + +<p>When you are tempted to let envy or jealousy find expression in words or +acts of meanness and unkindness—<i>Don't</i>.</p> + +<p>When you are tempted to repeat a story or say a daring thing you would +not say in the presence of the one whose respect you desire—<i>Don't</i>.</p> + +<p>When you are tired of the struggle to be true and do right, tired of the +effort to seek always the best things and are tempted to give +up—<i>Don't</i>.</p> + +<p>When you are tempted to repay injustice with revenge, unkindness with +cruelty, jealousy with malice, to do to others as they do to +you—<i>Don't</i>.</p> + +<p>Learn the power of control, of <i>restraint</i> and though it be only the +negative side of religion, it will help to make you strong.</p> + +<p>When the instructor in religion opens his eyes and sees the peril which +lies in wait for the girl wage earner, the society girl and even the +schoolgirl, what he is forced to see makes him say with a passionate cry +from his soul, as he thinks of the individual girls whom he knows and +loves, "<i>Thou shall not</i>."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV</h2> + +<h3>THOU SHALT</h3> + + +<p>A thought which slumbers in the mind has within it the germ of life. At +any moment when the right stimuli have been given, it may spring into +conscious being and find expression in action that will color the entire +life. While it slumbers today, tomorrow may bring the waking moment and +so it must be reckoned with in the formation of character. Still it +lacks the positive element. It is limited.</p> + +<p>It becomes the work of those interested in the welfare of the girl to +cause the awakening and constant stimulation of those thoughts which +shall lead to action along right lines. The repeated impression upon the +mind of deeds of heroism, of unselfish daily living, of great action on +the part of ordinary people in a common-place environment has an +unmistakable effect upon the forming character.</p> + +<p>But if the thoughts engendered by the deeds of heroism and achievement +be called into action by the opportunity in the girl's life to reproduce +them, then the effect upon the character is made definite and intense. +It is not until the girl has done a kindred thing, until the impression +has found its way out in action, that the full result upon the forming +character is seen. All the complex life about her is busy through the +eye and ear, through numberless sensations and instinctive reactions +leaving impressions. Their imprint upon her life may be seen by any +close observer when the girl herself is unconscious of it. But it is the +special set of impressions which <i>habitually</i> find <i>expression</i> that +determine character.</p> + +<p>This is most encouraging, for it means that if the girl can be lead to +express the right impression and leave the others to fade away into the +recesses of consciousness where it will be hard to awaken them, the +determination of her character will be a possible task. It means that in +the years of habit formation and character making those who share the +task of the girl's training have the opportunity to lead her to +repeatedly express in positive action the high ideal, the noble +self-sacrifice, the great deed or ambition, the generous impulse +slumbering in her thoughts and appearing in her day dreams. The material +which is furnished her for thought creates her day dreams, what she sees +in her day dream <i>effects</i> character, what she <i>does makes</i> it.</p> + +<p>It is for this reason that parents and teachers who are seriously +concerned with the problem of making a girl's religion a real and vital +thing seek ways and means by which she may be led to express both in +words and actions the thoughts and desires which their teaching has +awakened.</p> + +<p>A successful teacher had been studying with her class for some weeks the +lessons founded upon "Unto the least of these, my brethren"—"A cup of +cold water even," "Ye have done it unto me," and kindred texts. She +taught well and the girls were thinking. Some attempted as individuals +to express what they thought. In the minds of most, the stories, +illustrations and facts slumbered. One Saturday three of the more +thoughtless girls were asked to accompany the teacher on a visit to a +children's hospital. They were much impressed by what they saw. The +convalescent ward proved of great interest and the babies fighting +for their lives against pneumonia brought tears to their eyes. On their +way home they expressed the wish that the class might make some of the +bonnets and gowns which the sweet-faced young nurse had said the +hospital needed so much for its baby patients. "Perhaps the other girls +will not be interested," said the teacher. Immediately the most +thoughtless girl in the class replied, "Oh, Miss D——, they cannot help +it. We will <i>tell</i> them what we saw! We have been studying long enough +about what we ought to do. We haven't done a thing! At least—I +haven't—" she added.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 333px;"> +<img src="images/5heart.jpg" width="333" height="404" alt="HER HEART IS FILLED WITH A DEEP DESIRE TO SERVE" title="HER HEART IS FILLED WITH A DEEP DESIRE TO SERVE" /> +<span class="caption">HER HEART IS FILLED WITH A DEEP DESIRE TO SERVE</span> +</div> + +<p>Two dozen bonnets and gowns, well made after the pattern furnished by +the hospital, were the result of the interest of that class. While the +girls sewed they talked. They discussed in simple girlish fashion the +problems of poverty and illness and the duty of one part of society to +the other. In this sort of informal discussion they expressed themselves +far more freely than in their Sunday-school class or their classroom at +school. By the expression of high and generous thoughts they +strengthened their own ideals and placed themselves in the presence of +their friends and companions on the side of Christ-like living.</p> + +<p>About a week after the last bonnet and gown made by the class had been +sent to the hospital the teacher was surprised by a visit from Arline, a +heedless and hitherto disinterested member of the class. It was a bitter +cold day, the sunless air penetrating even the warmest garments.</p> + +<p>"I brought you this box of things to give away," the girl said as the +teacher tried to conceal her surprise. "There must be a good many babies +in the river district who need warmer clothing these cold days. I had +some time for sewing and my aunts helped."</p> + +<p>The teacher found three bonnets and gowns carefully made, three tiny +flannel petticoats, six pairs of warm stockings and three small hot +water bottles.</p> + +<p>"I bought the things with my own money," said the girl. "It is the first +time I ever did anything like this. I enjoyed it."</p> + +<p>The church visitor found a needy place for each thing and told Arline +most heartily how grateful she was for the help she had been able to +pass on. The simple deed by which Arline expressed in the positive +terms of action what she had been thinking seemed to make a definite +change in her character and about three months from the time she had +made her gift, in a simple and natural way she came into the church. As +the girls were given more and more definite opportunity to express +themselves in thoughtful acts and kindly words, the teacher found +sympathetic, interested listeners to the lessons she tried to make +inspiring and practical in their appeal, and one by one the girls +decided for themselves to come into the church and help it do its work +in the world. The definite stand of such a group of interesting girls, +easily leaders in school and the social life, made a decided difference +in the standards of the young people of that community. The community as +a whole, and the parents of the girls especially, owe to that teacher a +very real debt for her part in the character building of those girls, +who before they came in contact with her had had only vague and hazy +ideas of a girl's duties and privileges. She furnished them with +material for thought and with opportunity for translating that thought +into action which is rapidly determining their characters.</p> + +<p>A class of girls in another community made up of "freshmen" and +"sophomores" in the high school who were accused by other girls, and +with reason, of being "snobbish," "proud," and of forming "cliques," had +been studying with a most interesting teacher a course on Christian life +and conduct. They had been urged to show in their own lives, in school, +in their social relations, the characteristics they learned each Sunday +should belong, not only to every Christian but to every girl. Then their +teacher began to make the suggestions definite, getting as many as she +could from the girls themselves. They were asked to increase the +membership of their club, attend and take part in young peoples' socials +from which their "set" had held aloof, join in the work of the Girls' +Guild, to which they had given a little money but nothing else. These +things were hard for some of them. At first they were not able to do +them naturally and easily and they found the friendship and confidence +of the other girls hard to gain. But they had come to the conclusion in +class that these things were right and the enthusiasm and approval of +their teacher over the attempts they were making spurred them on. Then +they began to make discoveries. They found out what interesting girls +there were outside their "set." They found they had exaggerated their +own importance. They began to enjoy the good times of the young people +in the church societies and to want a real part in them. The change in +the spirit and life of that class, even in a year, was wonderful. At the +end of the second year with that teacher the spirit of the young people +in that cosmopolitan church had entirely changed. Those girls had +wrought the change because they had themselves been transformed. They +had been expressing, day after day, in positive action the things they +learned, and the impressions which before had slumbered in the mind +burst into life through the daily deed. They studied Christ's rules for +living, they traced the results of obedience to those rules in the lives +of those who truly followed Him and <i>they</i> tried to <i>do</i> in their own +every day lives, until <i>doing</i> brought <i>power</i> to do and character was +being made.</p> + +<p>In the religion of every girl there must be the positive side; whether +she works in a factory or attends a fashionable boarding school her +character will be made and her religious life formed through the +impressions which constantly find expression in words and actions.</p> + +<p>A girl's religion, especially in the early teens, must be active not +passive. She must be made to feel—<i>and be given the right outlet for +the feelings aroused within</i> her, to dream—<i>and be helped to find a way +to work out her dreams</i>. She must be given knowledge and <i>be shown the +way in which to use it.</i></p> + +<p>It is in this way that the girl, every girl, may hope to find a sane and +natural religion which shall be a real help in the real world where she +must live. Christ was a doer of deeds. The gospel record of His life has +somewhat to say of the things He did <i>not</i> do but its pages are filled +with the things that He did. Lame, blind, lepers, insane, poor, lonely +and sorrowful as well as "sinners," His friends and His disciples bear +witness to the things that He <i>did</i>. Christianity is a religion of deeds +and whether it be through a factory-club, a neighborhood house, Camp +Fire Girls, Christian Associations, the summer camp, girls' conferences, +the Sunday-school or the home, the girl must be impressed with the fact +that religion and life go hand in hand and must be shown the way to +give that impression opportunity to express itself, until repeated +expression shall have marked out the trend of <i>character</i>.</p> + +<p>If the girl herself is reading this chapter she will realize that while +in a girl's religion there must of necessity be the simple definite +"thou shalt not," the most important part of that religion is Thou +Shalt. The girl herself should be so busy doing the things that ought to +be done that there is no time for the undesirable and forbidden things. +It is much to the girl's credit that she loves a religion that does +things. The world needs, every church, every community, every school and +every home needs, girls who have found their religion and put it into +practise. Find yours, then put it to work, <i>helping</i>, helping +<i>everywhere</i>.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV</h2> + +<h3>A MATTER OF CULTIVATION</h3> + + +<p>A great many people are willing to sow seed. There is an inspiration in +the picture which the word "Sower" brings to the mind. I can never +forget those days when the boys and girls just entering their teens took +their spades and hoes, left the schoolroom with its algebra and +technical grammar behind and went out into the glorious spring sunshine +to plant their school gardens. On the various packages of seed were +pictured the promised flowers or vegetables and with joy they looked +forward to the day when they should be able to proudly exhibit the +results of their planting.</p> + +<p>When the planting was done most of the children believed that the +hardest part of the task was over. Year after year successive classes +failed to realize the fact of <i>Time</i>. As the weeks passed and the slow +development that is nature's way to perfection went on, one would hear a +boy say, "Next year I'm going to plant radishes; they grow faster," and +another, "You will never get me to plant squashes again; they're too +slow."</p> + +<p>These young gardeners found very difficult, and some found quite +impossible, the task of <i>waiting</i>, meanwhile working with the soil and +protecting the growing plants, that the flower and fruit might be as +fine as possible. Despite encouragement from other children and from +instructors, some of the boys and girls lost their enthusiasm entirely +and seldom looked at their gardens.</p> + +<p>Those boys and girls, planting their seeds of flower and fruit on the +sunny hillside and in the shaded nooks where the school gardens lay, +were not at all unlike the men and women who today plant the good seed +in the gardens of hearts that come to them in the glorious springtime of +life ready for the sowing. Like the boys and girls these older gardeners +are pleased with the picture of the result of their seed sowing. With +enthusiasm they enter upon the task of planting, with eagerness they +watch for the first appearance of results. And then Time enters in. +There is evidence of weeds; slugs and worms appear. Then comes the clear +call for the two great virtues of the sower who will win a +harvest—Labor and Patience. He must cultivate the soil, else only the +meager harvest can be his. The art of cultivation is the one so many +would-be harvesters fail to learn.</p> + +<p>To realize what the art of cultivation can accomplish one needs to read +carefully the increase in the record of the producing power of certain +wheat fields in our country during the past four years. Courage comes +with the study of the reports of modern miracles accomplished through +the advice and instruction of the agricultural schools and colleges +which have escaped from the thraldom of the abstract. Every one should +look once into the faces of boys and girls of the rural schools who +having been instructed in the art of cultivation have practised it and +increased the value and quantity of the output on their fathers' farms, +ten-fold. It fills one with hope to look into the bright eager face of a +fourteen-year-old prize winner, holding side by side in his hand the +stalks of corn, one small and meager, the other rich and full, made so +by the art of cultivation which he has so patiently practised.</p> + +<p>What the cultivation of the soil has accomplished in the agricultural +world it can accomplish in the teaching of religion. If young America is +irreligious today it is because we have sown the seed and left it to +itself. In the soil of young hearts are the elements which make a sane, +full output of religious life possible—but cultivation is <i>necessary</i> +and, if we are to raise the type of our girlhood, <i>imperative</i>. We shall +be compelled to resist the temptation to give up because the seed does +not grow faster.</p> + +<p>Those entrusted with the cultivation of this human soil into which the +seed has been dropped must know what that seed needs as it +develops—urging forward here, that through self-expression it may grow +strong, restraining there, that it may not spread itself out and through +over-expression become weak. Only loving personal knowledge of each +individual life will make possible this guidance and restraint. They +must know the environment in the midst of which the good seed is +striving to climb to fruition, else they cannot know just what to drop +into the soil to stimulate the seed in its fight for strength, nor how +to protect it from growths that threaten to choke it.</p> + +<p>Those entrusted with the cultivation of this soil, if they are to be +successful, must learn to use the mighty stimulus to growth that comes +from simple friendship. Seed which can come to fruition under no other +conditions springs into vigorous life under the power of warm +friendship. Many a seed which might have developed and borne rich fruit +has shriveled and dried in the chill of unfriendliness and +misunderstanding. These cultivators of the heart soil must learn very +quickly the value of sunshine. Young life needs the rain and has it, but +young life loves the sunshine, it blossoms in the presence of hope and +expectation, it droops in the atmosphere of distrust.</p> + +<p>If one obeys the law in the sowing of the seed and follows the direction +in its nurturing, the Lord of all harvests will himself give the +increase.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"God's Word should be sown in the heart like seed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then men's hands must tend it, their lives defend it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till it bursts into flower as a deathless deed."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Somewhere in the religious training of a girl there must be a large +place for the feeding of the soul; for unless food which is able to +sustain life and expand it is supplied the girl can never become a power +in herself. Hers will not be an invigorating religion; there will not be +in her that vitality which will make it possible for her to banish fear +and fret, to rise above discouragement, to endure suffering, to triumph +over sorrow, to forget self. But if she can gain this energizing power +she will not join, in womanhood, the ranks of those spending their days +in search of inspiration; she will have it in her own soul. If she lacks +this vital power she will become one of the multitude of Christians who +are dependent upon circumstances for their happiness, upon the words of +others for their encouragement, upon the pleas and persuasion of others +to move them to service. From this sort of woman, who is kindly and +pleasant when things go smoothly, who courageously attacks a problem as +long as another stands by to brace up and urge on, who gives time, +thought or money when some strong appeal is made and then loses interest +and forgets, until another "prod" is given, from this sort of expression +of religious life all who are interested in girls would save them and so +are seeking the means of nourishing their souls that power may be +generated from within.</p> + +<p>It is not possible to get inspiration from a source with which one has +no connection and the whole task of those attempting to give to the girl +a workable religion, is the task of making connections with the Source +of power.</p> + +<p>Some weeks ago I observed the work of an instructor attempting to make +the connection through the study of the Bible. She knew that telling a +girl to read her Bible is not helping or training her to do it. These +girls had purchased ten and twenty cent Testaments which could be cut, +and small loose-leaf note books, on the covers of which were pasted one +of the pictures of Christ. The girls had spent two weeks clipping from +the Testaments and pasting in their note books "the things Jesus said +about himself and the words God spoke concerning Him." Two weeks more +were spent clipping the "things others said about Him"—Peter, Paul, +John, the Pharisees. The next work was to clip what Jesus said about +forgiveness, about one's duty to neighbors, treatment of one's enemies, +the way to be happy. Later they were to use both Old and New Testaments, +cutting out the verses which they thought would be of comfort to any +one in sorrow, to one who had greatly sinned, and verses which they +considered good advice to young people. That instructor was making a +sane, practical attempt to feed the souls of those girls by helping them +search out for themselves what the Bible has to say on topics of real +interest.</p> + +<p>I saw a note book recently prepared by a fifteen-year-old girl which I +believe most valuable because of the things about which it has lead her +to think. She had taken as the subject of her book, "The Good Shepherd." +On the cover was a picture with that title; in the inside a fine +collection of pictures representing Jesus as the Good Shepherd, +clippings regarding oriental shepherd life, "The Shepherd Psalm," the +Parable of the Lost Sheep and the words of hymns like "The Ninety and +Nine" and poems like "That Li'l Black Sheep."</p> + +<p>One cannot soon forget that book with its decorated margins, its neat +mounting of cards and clippings and its beautiful pictures. The effect +of the book upon the girl who made it, the teachers said was very +apparent. Another book was entitled "Come Unto Me," and the pictures, +verses and hymns were most impressive. When each girl has exchanged +books with each member of the class, they are to be sent to a rescue +home for girls.</p> + +<p>The Bible messages to mankind brought by such simple methods into direct +contact with a girl in her early teens is one means of nourishing her +soul. If it is true that the best in poetry, art, literature and +oratory, as well as the greatest uplift to character, finds its source +in that Book the girl should come into real touch with it that it may +feed her expanding soul. It is this sort of first-hand, individual study +while she is still a girl which will help her later to turn to the Book +for encouragement, comfort and strength, and lead her to great thoughts +and the attempting of great things because her own soul is inspired.</p> + +<p>The majority of teachers, superintendents and leaders interested in +religious instruction today were trained in Christian homes and taught +as little children to pray. Attendance at church services of various +kinds gave to them almost unconsciously a phraseology of prayer and +impressed upon them the place of prayer in the Christian life. So +familiar is the fact of prayer that they forget that the majority of +pupils in the average Sunday-school of today are not familiar with the +words of prayer at family worship, are at best irregular in church +attendance and that many are associated with no society in the church +where there is any training in prayer.</p> + +<p>To such young people prayer has nothing to do with life. They say the +Lord's Prayer at school perhaps, formally and hurriedly in the morning, +they hear the prayer from the superintendent's desk on Sunday, or +perchance remember the evening, "Now I lay me down to sleep," which is +said in many homes not Christian, by the little child. But the prayer; +which though only an echo of adult prayers, and only half understood, +calms many a fear in a childish heart, helps to victory over sin many a +struggling ten-year-old reared in a Christian home, is utterly foreign +to the child who has none of these influences and who meets in the +average Sunday-school not cultivation, but the abstract taken for +granted type of instruction.</p> + +<p>I have in my possession a most interesting set of papers written by +girls in their early twenties regarding their memories of their own +training in prayer and the result of it in their lives. I quote first +from the papers of girls brought up in Christian homes.</p> + +<p>"I can remember now the very wording of some of my father's prayers and +those words found their way into my own—some of them are still there. +Often when a child, I prayed impulsively, using unconventional terms and +saying 'you' instead of 'thou.' Before I was twelve mother often +reminded me of my prayers when she said good night. As I grew older +nothing was said to me about it. I was hot-tempered and continually +'getting mad' at other girls and teachers and almost every one. No one +will ever know the remorse I suffered after one of those outbursts. At +night I would pour out my soul in a plea for forgiveness. I was sure God +forgave me and started next day with determination to conquer. I often +prayed about examinations which were very hard for me. Once or twice I +prayed that mother would see that I needed a different kind of dress +from the one she planned. I am sure that I felt God was a sympathetic +friend and prayer to me was natural."</p> + +<p>Here was a girl who because of the cultivation in the home turned +simply and naturally to God to supply her need. She is today a pure, +healthy, natural young woman who has seemingly triumphed over her +propensity to "get mad." Another girl says:</p> + +<p>"I have prayed ever since I remember. We always had family prayers at +home and in church our pastor always prayed for us children. I used to +pray when I was afraid, which I often was at night when the wind blew, +and I felt comforted. My little sister was not strong and for years I +prayed every night that God would let us keep her. Sometimes when I had +been scolded in school for whispering, in which I was a great offender, +I prayed in shame and remorse for forgiveness. As I grew older I still +prayed when afraid and repentant and often on a beautiful day, or in the +canoe at sunset when I could not say all I felt. When I was about +eighteen I began to pray for the missionaries and people who were poor +and sick. I do not remember any definite instruction about prayer. It +seemed natural to me. I often felt doubts when the answer didn't come +but had a very definite feeling that the trouble must be with me."</p> + +<p>This girl by environment and unconscious training has also found +speaking with God a natural thing. There are so many papers which +express through different personalities the same general facts which +cannot fail to impress one who reads, with the power of the cultivation +of prayer.</p> + +<p>But in the papers and from the interviews of girls in the early twenties +whose only definite relation with the church is the Sunday-school class, +who come from non-Christian homes, whose parents almost never enter a +church a different note sounds.</p> + +<p>One says:</p> + +<p>"I am trying to be a Christian. I have not joined the church. I cannot +say that I pray very regularly but I have tried to. It does not seem to +help me much. The minister prayed for me the day my brother died and it +helped. Sometimes I read in a book of prayers."</p> + +<p>And another writes:</p> + +<p>"I do not believe I ever was taught to say my prayers when a child. I do +not remember ever praying except the Lord's Prayer. I am interested in +our class, the teacher makes the lessons interesting. I like to hear +them discuss things. I always bow my head during prayer anywhere. +Sometimes I have thought I would pray for myself but I never have."</p> + +<p>One of the most interesting papers is written by a young woman engaged +in rescue work for girls, or has talked personally with a great many +girls about prayer. She says:</p> + +<p>"There was another girl with whom I talked one afternoon whose face I +can see clearly now. She was suffering from great remorse because of her +sin, for up to the time of her misfortune she had been 'a good girl.' +One of the workers suggested that she pray for strength and forgiveness. +'<i>Pray</i>,' she said bitterly. 'They told me that when I was a little girl +and went to Sunday-school. <i>Pray</i>. How can I talk to God? What would he +do for me? I tried last night when I couldn't sleep but <i>don't know what +to say</i>!'"</p> + +<p>There was no natural turning to a strong sympathetic Friend and Father +on the part of these girls, or the twenty or more whose testimony I have +been looking over. Those who were trying to be Christians made it a +matter of duty to try to pray but it was irregular and forced; there +was no natural spontaneity about it. It wasn't real to them, it played +no vital part in life. In looking over the papers one is convinced of +the tremendous asset the girl has who from childhood has been trained to +turn to the Source of Strength when in fear or trouble or need and when +filled with the joy of living. A girl's life must be raised to a higher +plane by daily contact with the Highest. If she sincerely speaks but for +a moment to God, realizing his love, mercy, justice and righteousness, +it will not be as easy for her to be jealous, unkind, untrue or a +gossip. One covets for all girls this natural, spontaneous turning to +God which has seemed to come to so many through the Christian home and +its unconscious influence and instruction. Nothing can take the place of +the earnest daily prayer of a manly father, and the instruction of a +sweet, Christian mother. But the task which so many homes lays down the +community must take up. The public school <i>cannot</i> cultivate the spirit +of prayer, and if the home does not, the church remains the only +possible agent through which it may be done. The Sunday-school teacher +is the church's most potent instrument, therefore a large share of the +task is hers.</p> + +<p>The teachers in the Beginners' departments realize the need of the +cultivation of prayer and pray simply and often during the session, baby +lips repeating the words. Through cards and memory verses prayers go +into homes where none are ever made. In Primary departments the +instruction is continued and children are led to express themselves in +simple words of worship. In the Junior departments there is the +superintendent's prayer—the appeal it makes depending upon the leader's +sympathy, and knowledge of childhood. Often both are lacking. These +Junior girls know the street, the moving picture show, the unsupervised +playground, the temptations of school life; they are beginning to show +the moral effect of poverty on the one hand and social ambitions and +false standards on the other. How many prayers for girls from ten to +twelve does one hear? How many can he find though he search ever so +diligently.</p> + +<p>When we come to the girl in her teens we find often in large numbers of +classes that the only instruction in prayer is the indirect teaching +from the prayer at the desk. How many girls listen reverently to it?</p> + +<p>They come from stores and shops, from high schools, offices, homes of +plenty and homes of want. They know temptation, they meet it in more +dangerous forms than ever before. How does the prayer affect life as +they know it? Very little I am bound to believe unless <i>the great +experience</i> has come to them and they have said in simple girlish +fashion, "O Christ, I choose thee King of my life—I follow thee +wherever the way shall lead," unless that transferring of <i>will</i> from +vague and indefinite desire to a definite purpose has come, the prayer +which is a part of the average opening service will have little +influence. Even if the great decision has been made, the prayer of one +far away at the desk, often out of touch with young life, does not bring +the uplift.</p> + +<p>What a teacher may do the following testimony of a young girl may help +us to see:</p> + +<p>"I never had any special instruction in prayer at home. I think I must +have said my prayers when a very little child. My parents are just fine +but they do not go to church. They almost always spend Sundays with +grandmother on the farm. I do not remember any instruction about prayer, +though of course it was mentioned and I knew good people prayed, until I +was seventeen when the finest teacher I ever had talked to us about it +for four Sundays. Then I saw how much the people who had helped the +world had prayed and how much it did for them. She made Christ seem so +beautiful and sympathetic that though I can't explain it I wanted to +pray myself. That afternoon out in the hammock I did. I shall never +forget how wonderful the world seemed.... In a few weeks three of us +joined the church and we prayed for the other girls. That year eight of +us joined."</p> + +<p>The testimony speaks for itself. She taught them what prayer had done +for others; she made them want to pray. I do not know that teacher but I +feel sure she knew by experience what she taught.</p> + +<p>I know another teacher who is very successful in cultivating the +spiritual life of every class of girls as it comes to her. I find that +each new class has been asked to join with her at night in using wisely +selected prayers written by Stevenson, Rauschenbusch, Phillips Brooks, +and others taken from religious journals and from calendars. Each +prayer is used daily for two weeks. After about six months the teacher +asks that a committee be appointed to write a prayer for the class, this +committee being changed every two weeks.</p> + +<p>Some of the prayers were very helpful and all had a crude, simple +sincerity that was fine. I saw a letter written to this teacher by a +seventeen-year-old girl away from home and out on a strike. It was a +pathetic letter but one sentence cheered the teacher's heart—"The +prayer that Midge and Kate wrote keeps coming to my mind and it helps me +to keep a level head when we all git kinder wild."</p> + +<p>When girls see that prayer is not beseeching an unwilling God for +<i>things</i> the desire for which may be born of pure selfishness, but is +the way by which help to keep steady and strong, power to love one's +fellows and to live courageously and well comes to many, it will make a +difference in what they think about prayer and the way they pray. But +most girls do not know these things intuitively. They must be helped to +know them. The spirit within them must be cultivated. Prayer and +seeking the Bible for courage and help are largely matters of +cultivation. The great Teacher prayed Himself in such a wonderful way +that the disciples listening cried—"Lord, teach us how to pray." And he +answered their request, giving them <i>the words to say</i> until they should +find words for themselves. He made them <i>want</i> to pray.</p> + +<p>If the girl herself chances to read this chapter let her be assured that +there is no lesson in all the world which she can learn which can give +to her anything like the courage, strength, comfort and help to go right +on in the face of hard things, that can come to her through learning how +to truly pray, not empty words, not words for others to hear, but words +that say all she feels of disappointment and longing, of hope and +gladness. The Great God hears <i>all</i> one can say and knows what she +cannot say. Only God can do that. Even the best friends tire of our +struggles and failures. God never does and when I speak to Him I may +<i>know</i> He cares. Though I am one speck of humanity in a great mass of +men and women, though the girl who is reading this is just one ordinary +girl, one among millions the world around, she may speak to God, her +Creator without fear, may touch His <i>greatness</i> and her heart be warmed +by His answering touch.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Speak to Him then, for He heareth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">and spirit with spirit may meet.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Closer is He than breathing,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And nearer than hands and feet."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>XVI</h2> + +<h3>A PLEA AND A PROMISE</h3> + + +<p>The Plea is for a purer, more invigorating atmosphere for our girls to +breathe—the Promise, that when it is given to them they will respond, +their religious, as well as physical and mental life will be normal and +the vitality in it will express itself in action.</p> + +<p>Inspiration is a part of a girl's religion and inspiration means +"inhaling—taking into the life that which creates high and lofty +emotions."</p> + +<p>Memory takes me back to school days when with windows wide open, +shoulders squared and heads erect, the teacher's command bade us inhale +and we filled our lungs to the full with fresh, life-giving air. Then +came the command to exhale, and we emptied our lungs, that there might +be room for more of the clear invigorating air. In life's larger school +our girls of today are inhaling what? Is it the fresh, untainted, +life-giving air?</p> + +<p>The other day on the street I overheard a girl uttering words that made +me turn in dismay to look at her. I saw, not what I expected to see, a +coarse, ill-clad, ignorant girl, but a pretty, fashionably dressed girl +with high school books under her arm. Where had she breathed in the +sentiments regarding honor which in slangy phrases she breathed out with +no hesitation or shame? There was nothing high or lofty in the emotion +enkindled by what she breathed into her soul from her environment, and +what she had breathed out into her companion's ears could not fail to +weaken and injure.</p> + +<p>I found myself wondering what her environment could be and later when I +described her, a girl companion told me her name. I remembered her then, +one of the girls who had grown up quickly, the daughter of a skilled +mechanic who made good wages and owned a comfortable home. She was an +only child and her mother was socially ambitious for her. The mother had +done nothing to interest her daughter in the church, only now and then +did she attend Sunday-school; friends were entertained Sunday evening, +so she had no connection with the young peoples' societies of the +church. She is a type of a vast number of girls whose religious sense +lies dormant.</p> + +<p>Knowing now her environment, I asked myself, "Where can she 'breathe in +that which will stir her soul to high and lofty emotion,' and enable her +to help and bless her world?" At home? Can she there breathe in that +which will enkindle noble ambition to love and serve in a world which so +needs love and service?</p> + +<p>Once there were numberless homes and, thank God, there are still many +where a girl can breathe in deep draughts of the fresh, sweet, wholesome +atmosphere in which the family lives. But knowing something of that +mother, I knew she discussed with her daughter, dress and parties, her +future at college, her music, her marks, and laid wisely and well her +plans for the forming of friendships which she considered "an +advantage." In her presence she criticized friends and neighbors and +related bits of gossip. Occasionally she scolded her for faults that +happened at the moment to annoy. Her father talked boastfully of his +successes and ambitions, criticized the men for whom he did business, +found fault with those whom he employed, occasionally talked of +politics in a vain attempt to interest his wife and daughter. There were +few books in the home. The newspapers and one or more popular magazines +represented the only reading of the family. The daughter played a +little, sang a little, sewed a very little and studied as much as she +must to insure the certificate for entrance to college. But she attended +matinees, dancing parties in large numbers, and belonged to a whist +club. A whist club, poor girl, at sixteen! Her parents were blind and +deaf to the fact that in their daughter's life there was nothing, save +now and then a desperate attempt on the part of an earnest high school +teacher, or a word from a teacher who occasionally found her in the +Sunday-school class, which might inspire her soul with high ideals, +pure, noble thoughts expressed in action which makes life sweeter. Of +nature's beauties, of her countless miracles, of the dramatic acts of +current history, of the lives and needs of other girls she knew almost +nothing. In her pitiful little world she lived, her best self dying for +want of pure air with the oxygen of power in it.</p> + +<p>Can she find in the social life and amusements of the day the +inspiration needed to fill her soul with life that it may develop as her +normal healthy body develops? No, the girls of our country do not find +our social life a help to the higher expression of self. Only here and +there do wise parents make social life simple, free from show and sham, +from false standards and appeals to the senses. But few know how to +center the social life in the home, in the out-of-doors, in clean +sports, instead of letting it center about exotic conditions, +unreasonable hours, and deadly refreshments. Only now and then does the +present social life demand any exercise of mental power.</p> + +<p>It is wonderfully encouraging to find, here and there, groups of girls +of sixteen and their boy friends having their simple good times in each +other's homes, enjoying the picnic and the skating party; or the girls +by themselves enjoying camp life, the tramp in the woods, the gymnasium +class; or with their parents or chaperones enjoying the moving pictures +of high standard, without vaudeville. These girls are such a contrast to +the usual groups of sophisticated, bored, blasé girls who at eighteen +have tired of the ordinary means of recreation and amusement. Our social +life suffers from too rapid growth. It does not offer the tonic for +healthy social nature. It needs pruning. Some of it needs to be torn up +by the roots.</p> + +<p>And what of the schools? Can she find there the atmosphere that will +stir her soul to noble, unselfish joyous living? Yes, in some schools. +Many are engaged in merely continuing the "system," following a +curriculum strangely deficient in those things which touch life +directly, to inspire it and kindle it with ambition.</p> + +<p>Recently, four names, the names of women, were presented to classes of +girls in the last year of the grammar grades and the four years of the +high school. The girls were asked, "Did you ever hear of Frances +Willard? What do you know about her?" Then followed the names of Mary +Lyon, Clara Barton, Alice Freeman Palmer. The show of hands and the +written replies were pitiful. Some had a vague idea that they had heard +the name somewhere, a few gave one or two facts. Clara Barton seemed the +one most familiar but knowledge concerning her was very limited.</p> + +<p>Then Jane Addams' name was tried, the same meager replies resulting. +Finally the name of the wife of a noted and notorious insane criminal +was given and scarcely a hand was down in answer to the first question, +and pencils flew over the paper in answer to the second. What does it +mean? It does not condemn the school, nor does it hold the school +responsible but it does suggest that there might be some substitute +characters for the mythical ones of ancient history, or that possibly +the lives of great and noble women might be studied with greater profit +by the girls of today than certain abstract problems in physics. In many +of the classes where the questions were asked that fresh, clear, +vitalizing atmosphere charged with reality, seemed lacking.</p> + +<p>When we can calmly look at our schools, recognize the tremendous +difficulties under which they work, realize their limitations, and with +profound belief in what they have done, gratitude for what they are +doing and confidence in what they are going to do, get at our task of +setting teachers free and vitalizing courses of study, we shall be able +to generate in them all the atmosphere in which the girl will find +inspiration for noble living.</p> + +<p>Where can the girl turn for the life giving atmosphere? To the church? +Yes, if the church were awake to the facts and equipped to meet her +needs. But what a small part of our country's girlhood comes into direct +contact with the church, and how few churches have adequate leadership +provided for those whom it does touch. The whole problem of adolescence +is a problem of leadership. A wise leader has almost unlimited power in +charging the atmosphere with the spirit of uplift. The church <i>must</i> +furnish leadership. It <i>must</i> guide or lose its youth. It must advise +with practical, possible advice.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the day will come when groups of churches will unite in forming +social centers and the business men of those churches shall <i>seriously</i> +consider the problem of where girls shall meet their young men friends +and how they shall spend their evenings together. Perhaps some day the +men of the church will select in their community a good, clean moving +picture house, and there are some, where they can advise their young +people to go, helping them thus to escape the snare of those who cater +to evil.</p> + +<p>Those most deeply interested in a girl's religion, have come to see its +relation to every other phase of her life, and to know that one may not +snatch amusements from the lives of young people, giving nothing in +return.</p> + +<p>Just what is wisest to give in return is our great problem. The church +<i>must</i> meet it and it needs help.</p> + +<p>The time is ripe and more than ripe for the direct appeal to the home. +It should be made through every avenue and in every language. It should +be made through every newspaper and printed in every +tongue—"<i>Responsibility</i> belongs to the home." All sorts of homes must +help in making the atmosphere in which a young girl must live, <i>safe</i>, +free from poisons that mean suffering and in the long run death to the +best things.</p> + +<p>I happened one day in a smoke laden city upon a group of women in one of +the residential districts who were meeting together to see if all the +families for a certain number of blocks east and west would promise to +use only hard coal in their homes. One of the women, the mother of +three young children, pictured vividly the difference it would make in +the atmosphere their children must breathe and closed her appeal by +saying, "But women, it means that we must <i>all</i> burn it. The help one or +two of us can give amounts to almost nothing. Into each of our cellars +the hard coal must go and each of us must insist upon using nothing +else. Then we shall have clean, pure air for our babies to breathe +throughout all this section."</p> + +<p>She had stated the answer to the whole problem of bringing inspiration +to our girls. It will need <i>every</i> home and <i>every</i> church to keep the +atmosphere clean and invigorating.</p> + +<p>It may be that the girl herself is reading and thinking over this <i>Plea</i> +and <i>Promise</i>. If she is she will realize how earnestly we covet for her +all the best things and how we long for wisdom to help her get them. +Perhaps she will think that <i>she</i> can do a great deal toward getting +them for herself, <i>and she can</i>. Let me recall to her mind one of the +girls whom we find in almost every gymnasium class, whose pale face and +stooping shoulders attract at once the instructor's attention. Let me +remind her of the special exercises given that girl for chest +development, the advice about food and the command, "Live with your +windows open. Let the air into your lungs." Again and again you will +remember the instructor gave the command to the class, "<i>Breathe</i>. Use +your lungs! Half of you use only two-thirds of your lung capacity!" And +then by way of emphasis she contrasted her own chest expansion and +yours, adding, "If you want health, take deep breaths."</p> + +<p>The Plea which I make to the girl herself is that she use, to the full +capacity, her power to inhale those things that shall give inspiration +for pure, helpful living. Every girl has that power. Some use only +two-thirds of it, some one third, some have forgotten its existence. If +a girl wants to really live she must "breathe deep," with her soul's +windows open wide to the atmosphere that will give her strength. If she +is obliged to live with those who do not think of these things, whose +own spirits are starved, she can seek friends who will help, she can go +to the places where her mind and soul are stirred as well as her senses, +she can find in good books great uplift and courage. She will, if she +truly wants inspiration and help to live nobly, attend regularly some +church where the service makes her long to be her best. She will, if +possible, join some class where she can study the life and teachings of +Jesus Christ, who <i>now</i> even as when He was here, lifts those who listen +to Him out of failure and discouragement into hope, in whose presence +every girl may breathe in the atmosphere filled with life giving power.</p> + +<p>If a girl responds to this <i>Plea</i> to open her soul to the great Giver of +life, I can <i>Promise</i> that she will find true happiness and joy.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>XVII</h2> + +<h3>A PERSON NOT A FACT</h3> + + +<p>Every thoughtful person craves facts. They are cold, hard, sometimes +disconcerting but they carry weight. "It is a fact, it has been proven," +hushes many a query and silences many an argument. And yet it is not in +the array of facts which can be given at any moment that young people +find their incentives and inspirations. They may have all the facts at +their tongue's end but lack the fire which shall transfuse those facts +into power to act in accordance with their teachings. Julius Cæsar is a +fact. A girl may have no doubt of his existence, she may not question +the great events of his life, but he does not stir her to action. The +fact of George Washington does not awaken the patriotism of a girl and +in schools where merely the facts regarding his life are given his +influence is practically negative. But whenever the facts have been +breathed upon by a sympathetic spirit and the fact George Washington +transformed into the personality that lives in the girl's presence then +his influence begins to count.</p> + +<p>It is not the facts about Abraham Lincoln that engender heroism. The +facts may be presented in such a way as to hold but passing interest. I +have heard the life and times of Abraham Lincoln taught that way. But I +have seen Abraham Lincoln presented to a class of foreign girls by one +to whom he had become a friend as real and genuine as if he stood by her +side. As I listened <i>I</i> saw Abraham Lincoln. I felt the kindness and +patience of his great soul, the honest purpose and the fine courage of +his life. The facts were there in that lesson but more than the facts +were there. <i>He</i> was there. At the close of the lesson that teacher +looking into the faces of the girls who represented nearly every land +across the sea said to them, "What do you think of him?" One girl +responded eagerly "I think he was <i>grand</i>!" and a dark-haired intense +girl, her black eyes glowing, rose and said with an earnestness and +fervor I can <i>never</i> forget, "I <i>love</i> him!" "You shall hear more +tomorrow," said the teacher, and they looked as if it were hard to wait.</p> + + +<p>A careful observation of the ways of presenting great men of history and +great characters in literature to young people will convince one beyond +doubt that the girl may store the <i>facts</i> in the memory for a time, but +if the living personality is presented <i>it</i> will remain to mold and +guide and influence the life. The teacher's greatest power is never in +what she teaches but in what is revealed to the individual through her +teaching. The mind hungers for facts, searches for facts and wearies of +facts. It follows personality.</p> + +<p>When Richard Watson Gilder tried to voice the plea of the young doubter, +puzzled, perplexed and suffering from the great array of apparently +conflicting facts and most of all from his own failure to win out over +the temptations that swept over him he said:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Thou Christ, my soul is hurt and bruised!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With words the scholars wear me out;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My brain o'erwearied and confused,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thee, myself and all, I doubt.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And must I back to darkness go<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Because I cannot say a creed?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I know not what I think! I know<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Only that <i>Thou</i> art what I need."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The fact is not enough. John Kendrick Bangs says it forcibly—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"A mere acceptance of the fact of love of God above,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of all the vast omnipotence of Him our Maker and Defence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is not believing."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Slowly we are getting back to the recognition of the proper place of +fact, of its power as the background and basis against which and upon +which Personality must stand. Our eyes are opening to see that if the +girl is to gain a religion which shall mean life, she must gain it +through a person who reveals a <i>Person</i>.</p> + +<p>Here is Mary D——, a girl of fifteen, a worker in a mill employing a +very cheap grade of help. Her face was hard, there was no light of +anticipation in her eyes—she had nothing to anticipate. She toiled +through the long hours, for there was no limit to her day in the state +where she lives. Her home was not a home but a place where she could +stay nights—when her father was not so quarrelsome through cheap +drink that he drove her out. One day a woman at a noon service in the +factory shocked at a profane remark of Mary's said reprovingly, "Don't +you believe there is a God?" "Sure I do," said Mary, "but I don't see's +it makes no difference to me." Further questions followed and Mary +declared her belief, adding, "I don't bother much about them things." +Mary had some <i>facts</i> and declared some sort of belief in them, but they +made <i>no difference</i>.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 449px;"> +<img src="images/6hope.jpg" width="333" height="449" alt="THE FUTURE PROMISES NOTHING AND SHE HAS LOST HOPE" title="THE FUTURE PROMISES NOTHING AND SHE HAS LOST HOPE" /> +<span class="caption">THE FUTURE PROMISES NOTHING AND SHE HAS LOST HOPE</span> +</div> + +<p>The next summer, Mary, overcome by the work of the year and an attack of +the grippe, was sent by a woman in one of the churches, to a girl's +camp. She lived in decent fashion, she saw a lake, great mountains, +sunsets and stars! She found flowers and sat quite still watching birds +that seemed so marvelous to her.</p> + +<p>Slowly she grew strong. One night she went to the sloping bank by the +lake under the great pine trees to attend the twilight service. The sky +was crimson with the sunset and there was a wonderful path of light +across the lake. The songs and the beauty moved Mary's soul. She wanted +something with all her heart that she had never wanted before. She did +not know what it (the great change) was at first, but before she slept +she turned to another girl in the tent and expressed it as best she +could—"I want to be <i>good</i>," she said.</p> + +<p>Through the weeks that followed she saw in the faces, in the kindness +and courtesy, in the good times she had never known, in the women who +planned them and in the songs and talks at sunset a <i>Person</i>. She heard +His name often. He represented all of the happiness and comfort she had +ever known and one day with all the eagerness of an awakened soul she +said, "I love Him." They told her what changes must come in the life of +a girl who said those words and meant them, for they had seen the faults +in her and they were many. She was undaunted by all they said she must +do, and answered in her uncouth fashion, "I'd die doin' them fur Him."</p> + +<p>They wanted her to leave the mill but she said no, one of the girls was +leaving and she was to have her place with lighter work. She wanted to +go back and tell the girls some things, she said.</p> + +<p>Not three years have passed but Mary D—— is a new girl. She is +attractive; one can scarcely believe unless he has seen it. She is +clean; she is happy. Her friends secured a position for her father +out-of-doors where he had loved to work as a boy. Mary took him to the +Mission and there he promised to begin the fight against his enemy. The +men in the Mission helped. Regular pay made a decent home possible. They +have begun to live.</p> + +<p>Overcome by the effects of ignorance and sin, failures as citizens, as +individuals, as human souls, they met a <i>Person</i> and life was +transformed. If it were possible to replace in every factory for Mary +D—— who assented to the facts but passed them by as having nothing to +do with her, Mary D—— who met a Person and loved Him what a world of +new moral forces we could create!</p> + +<p>He was revealed to Mary D—— not in the abstract which could not +impress her but in the concrete which she understood. O if only we +<i>could</i> grasp the significance of that!</p> + +<p>Ruth M—— was a college junior with ancestry and wealth, brilliant, +sarcastic, selfish. She knew all the facts and accepted them. She was a +member of a church with which she had united at fourteen as had her +mother and grandmother before her. She did not think much about the +facts, they had not greatly impressed her. If questioned, she promptly +stated that she believed this and that, she thought such and such things +were probable though no one could prove them, and dismissed the subject +to talk of her own plans and interests.</p> + +<p>Then her great sorrow came. In a moment she lost everything dear to her. +They called it an accident. She held God accountable and in bitterness +and anger turned her back upon all the facts. The months passed and her +health breaking she was obliged to leave college. At the beautiful +health resort to which she went she met a girl she had known well when a +little child. They renewed the friendship. Then the girl's sorrow came. +It was not death, it was far worse, scandal and disgrace in her family, +which had been unstained before. Out of a clear sky it came.</p> + +<p>In amazement Ruth watched her friend. She saw her suffer but she saw no +conquering bitterness, heard no words of wild rebellion. She looked into +a sweet calm face and saw a girl less than twenty, with life's +conditions changed in a moment, adjust herself to the new conditions +and go on. Seeking a solution she questioned her friend and met a +Person. Day after day as she saw Him revealed in that heroic life, as +she beheld the girl overcoming in His strength natural resentment +against the injustice and unkindness of those who would make her suffer +for the sins of her parents, the facts were swallowed up in the Person +and she loved Him.</p> + +<p>Together, the past summer, in a rest camp for mothers and babies they +worked out the commands of the Person who had made it possible for them +to take up life after bitter loss and find it sweet.</p> + +<p>If one could summon to a central place the girls who have met the Person +what an inspiration they would be! Of every sort and condition, of every +color and nation, speaking languages new and old and dialects that have +never been written, all uniting in the testimony that He has made life +great for them.</p> + +<p>The facts are in chaotic state. Parts of truth and segments of universal +fact are waiting for man to unite them. Only the perfect whole can speak +with certainty and we must wait for that. The creeds are countless. They +do not matter much. The Person said little about them. They are just +our poor attempts to put in words—God and His will. It is</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Not the Christ of our subtile creeds<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But the Lord of our hearts, of our homes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of our hopes, our prayers, our needs;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The brother of want and blame,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The lover of woman and men,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With a love that puts to shame<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All passions of mortal ken."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The only way to meet a fact is to face it, follow it and see where it +will lead. It is prejudice that blinds one's eyes to facts. It is only +man's limited vision, that makes a part seem as a whole, that accepts as +<i>fact</i> the thing he would <i>like</i> to be a fact, that one need fear. Facts +that <i>are</i> facts need never cause one to doubt. For fact is truth and +truth leads to God. The business of every church and every teacher of +religion is to discover the facts, <i>and present the Person</i>.</p> + +<p>If the girl herself is reading these words let her be assured that more +than any array of facts that she can gather, more than any proofs man +can summon, she needs the Person. The handicapped girl finds in Him +strength to triumph in spite of it, the privileged girl finds in Him +the inspiration for her work of extending her privileges, the girl who +is easily led to find in Him one who never leads astray, the girl who is +misunderstood can find in Him one who understands perfectly, the +indifferent girl who "means to" will find in Him a friend to encourage, +steady and compel, the girl who worships the twin idols can find in Him +a rescuer who shall set her free, the girl of high ideals will see in +Him the highest Ideal, the source of all the others, and the average +girl of the every day with her good points and bad, her successes and +failures, will find in Him a Friend who will make life seem wonderfully +worth while.</p> + +<p>Don't let the multitude of things in which you are interested, the maze +of contradiction, the abstract facts, the trials and hardships of life, +the pleasures you love, or any other thing make you pass Him by. If you +gain everything else in life and miss Him you will fail to know what +life means. If you find Him you will find Love and that is the best +thing life can give.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>XVIII</h2> + +<h3>THE GLORY OF THE CLIMAX</h3> + + +<p>So many miss it. It is more than duty but the path that leads to the +glory of it often begins with the plain, insistent, <i>ought</i> of duty. It +is more than obedience, though without obedience none ever find it. How +many girls there are who are disappointed, dissatisfied, suffering +perhaps in body and soul because they never learned to obey! It is a +great thing to be able to hear "you ought" and then at whatever cost to +<i>obey</i> it. But the climax is not found in these things great as they +are.</p> + +<p>Faithful servants of a religion whose law is duty one finds among girls +and honors them. Good and faithful servants of a religion whose law is +obedience there are among girls. But neither of these have found the +glory of the climax. The climax is Love. The supreme command of the +Founder of true religion is—Thou shalt Love.</p> + +<p>The religion of love is a girl's religion and she can never be +satisfied with any other. If those who have tried to teach her religion +have failed to show her this, then they have succeeded in giving her +only a set of laws to be obeyed or a list of things she should not do. +Love gives to Thou Shalt and Thou Shalt Not <i>power</i> without which they +can accomplish little.</p> + +<p>Love transforms hard, disagreeable, empty service and makes it glorious. +No one knows this better than a girl. She has done things when necessity +compelled her to do them, and she has done them when love compelled her +to do them. She knows the difference. Jesus founded His Kingdom on the +knowledge He had of Love. He <i>knew</i> the kingdom would stand. On his +lonely island of banishment dreaming in the twilight, with all the +struggle and attainment behind him Napoleon realized it as he said, +"Caesar, Charlemagne, I, have founded empires. They were founded on +force and have perished. Jesus Christ has founded a kingdom on Love, and +to this day there are millions who would die for Him."</p> + +<p>When I say that the religion of girlhood is the religion of Love I mean +real love. Warm, sweet, tender, quick to understand, quick to discern +need, tireless in service. I mean the love that does not wait to be +asked to serve, the love that gives because it must give. When a girl's +religion is filled with this love and rests upon it the girl does not +say, "Well, I suppose if I am a Christian I can't do that." The thought +in her heart if it were put into words would be, "I wonder if He would +want me to do that?" Simple, natural, sincere desire not to do the thing +displeasing to One who loves and is loved.</p> + +<p>One day I was looking at a deep well, sunk away down in the rocks. +Machinery dragged the water from the earth and machinery turned it into +service. Some days later I saw a mountain spring. It poured and poured +out over the rocks, down the precipice into the brook, on into the +river. It ran as if it were glad to run and would never stop! Green +things grew on every side of it, mosses clung to the rocks it touched, +rich grass filled the meadow through which it flowed, birds followed it. +Life and beauty seemed to spring from every place it touched.</p> + +<p>When I remembered the well of water deep down in rock, dragged up by +machinery it seemed to me like religion, the religion of service through +duty, and I knew that it would keep right on serving as long as the +machinery worked and would do its part dutifully.</p> + +<p>Then I looked again at the spring. It seemed to me like religion, the +religion of love that blessed because it is its nature to bless and +poured itself out in service because it must.</p> + +<p>It is the religion of love which holds one to the side of the road where +need is great, work must be done, perhaps sacrifice made. That Samaritan +who stopped, dismounted, tenderly cared for an injured brother of hated +race, lifted him to his own beast, slowly walked beside him to a place +where rest and shelter could be provided, knew the love-inspired +religion. The Priest and the Levite were followers of the law, the +letter of the law, but they looked upon the man in his need, crossed to +the other side and <i>passed by</i>.</p> + +<p>The Jericho road is still with us, and the needy who call for help and +for justice are upon it, injured in body or soul. The religion of the +letter of the law looks, crosses to the other side, passes by. On one +side of the road Need, on the other side Greed, and Love always where +Need is.</p> + +<p>The religion of Love follows the road the Founder took, the road that +leads to the place of service. That road may lead to China, it may lead +to the islands of the sea. It took Livingstone to Africa, Dan Crawford +to the Bantus for twenty-two years and now is taking him back for the +rest of his days. It took Carey to India, it left Grenfell in Labrador, +it led last year's college girls to every quarter of the globe. It leads +this one down among the dirty, helpless, little children trying to play +in wretched scorching city streets, it leads that one to the lonely +countryside where girls starved for life are waiting. And, oh, so often +it leads one to the door of her own church, to her own street, to her +own class-room, to the girl beside her in the office. Sometimes it leads +to one's own kitchen, or it stops beside the chair where one's own +mother sits. One can never tell where the road of the religion of love +may lead, but one cannot fail to see that those who follow it have +shining faces and they love to live.</p> + +<p>One day at sunset I waited at the little wharf to walk through the +pines with Elizabeth. She was paddling in her canoe over the lake that +had turned to crimson and gold, from the fresh air camp on the other +side to which she went every afternoon in summer to play games and tell +stories. "I had a great day," she called in her clear, cheering voice as +she neared the wharf, and added as she stepped from the boat, "Little +Billy loves me and Katie Kane whispered softly and <i>blushed</i> when she +said it, that she told me a lie yesterday and was never going to tell a +lie no more as long as she lived! Poor Katie," she laughed.</p> + +<p>When we reached the knoll where the three pines were we stopped and +looked back. Words could never describe what we saw. Elizabeth stood +silently watching it, her sweet face, her dark hair and her middy blouse +tinged with the glow of it. As the sun slowly slipped into the lake she +waved her hand playfully at it. "Good night, old man," she said. "Give +us a cooler day tomorrow. Fifty new children come to camp." After a +moment while we waited for darkness to come stealing over the lake, +forgetful of me, she said with her whole soul in her voice, "Oh, I +<i>love</i> it, I love it <i>all</i>—the world, and those poor blessed +children," then very softly "and God."</p> + +<p>She had found the girls' religion, the religion Jesus Christ said, when +they asked Him, meant two things—"Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God—and +Thy Neighbor."</p> + +<p>This is the girl's religion, for in loving she shall find Love—the +glory of the climax.</p> + +<h3>THE END</h3> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Girl and Her Religion, by Margaret Slattery + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL AND HER RELIGION *** + +***** This file should be named 16520-h.htm or 16520-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/5/2/16520/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Eva Sweeney and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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