{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_16520/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_16520","id":"gutenberg_16520","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16520","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Gender & Sexuality Studies","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Girls -- Conduct of life","Girls -- Religious life"],"text":"Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Eva Sweeney and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE GIRL AND HER RELIGION\n\nBY MARGARET SLATTERY\n\nTHE PILGRIM PRESS\nBOSTON CHICAGO\n\n\n\n\nCOPYRIGHT, 1913\nBY LUTHER H. CARY\n\n_Fifth Printing_\n\nTHE PILGRIM PRESS\nBOSTON\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: WHILE PACKING HER TRUNK SHE DREAMED OF COLLEGE.]\n\n\n\n\nFOREWORD\n\nTO THOSE WHO READ THIS BOOK\n\nIt is not a technical book, it does not attempt philosophy. It does not\ncontain the solution of all girl problems. It is not a great book, it is\nsimple and concrete. It is a record of some things about which the girls\nI have known have compelled me to think. I have but one request to make\nof those who read it--that they also _think_--not of the book, not of\nthe author, but of the _girls_--for _action_ is born of thought.\n\nTHE AUTHOR.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n                                       PAGE\nTHE GIRL\n    I THE RIGHTS OF A GIRL                3\n   II THE HANDICAPPED GIRL                9\n  III THE PRIVILEGED GIRL                19\n   IV THE GIRL WHO IS EASILY LED         30\n    V THE GIRL WHO IS MISUNDERSTOOD      41\n   VI THE INDIFFERENT GIRL               55\n  VII THE GIRL WHO WORSHIPS\n        THE TWIN IDOLS                   68\n VIII THE GIRL WHO DRIFTS                82\n   IX THE GIRL WITH HIGH IDEALS          96\n    X THE AVERAGE GIRL                  107\n\nHER RELIGION\n   XI THE GIRL AND THE UNIVERSE         117\n  XII IN THE HANDS OF A TRIAD           130\n XIII THOU SHALT NOT                    141\n  XIV THOU SHALT                        152\n   XV A MATTER OF CULTIVATION           162\n  XVI A PLEA AND A PROMISE              183\n XVII A PERSON NOT A FACT               195\nXVIII THE GLORY OF THE CLIMAX           206\n\n\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS\n\nWhile packing her trunk she dreamed of\ncollege                          _Frontispiece_\n\n                                     FACING PAGE\nUnconscious of her handicaps she\nanticipates keenly life in the new world      12\n\nShe was full of ambition and willing to\nwork                                          22\n\nShe worships Pleasure and Fashion             68\n\nHer heart is filled with a deep desire to\nserve                                        154\n\nThe future promises nothing and she has\nlost hope                                    198\n\n\n\n\nPART I\n\n_The Girl_\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE RIGHTS OF A GIRL\n\n\nShe has certain inalienable rights, regardless of race, color or social\nstate. When it has thought about her at all, society in general has\nsupposed, until recently, that in a free country, a glorious land of\nopportunity, the girl has her rights--the right to work, the right to\nplay, the right to secure an education and to enter the professions, the\nright to marry or to refuse, the right in short to do as she shall\nchoose. And in a sense and to the casual observer this is true. Our\ncountry gives to her some rights which she can enjoy nowhere else in the\nworld. But as one learns to know her, little by little the stupendous\nfact is impressed upon him that girlhood has been and is being denied\n_its rights_.\n\n_It is the right of every girl_ to be born into a community where the\nsanitary conditions are such that she has at least a fair chance to\nenter upon life without being physically handicapped at the start. But\nhundreds of girls every year open their baby eyes in dark inner rooms\nwhere the dim gas light steals what oxygen there may chance to be in the\nheavy air, take their first steps in foul alleys, find their first toys\nin garbage cans and gutters. They have been denied their rights at the\nstart. In a Christian land, they grow weak, anemic, yield to the white\nspecter and in a few years pass out of the unfair world to which they\ncame, or remain to fight out a miserable existence against terrific\nodds. They make up an army of girls who have been denied their rights.\nAnd her religion? What is it that religion may offer to her in\ncompensation for that which she has been denied?\n\n_It is the right of every girl_ to be born under conditions which will\nmake possible sufficient food and clothing for her natural growth and\ndevelopment. But scores of little girls go shivering to school every\nmorning after a breakfast of bread and tea, they return numb with cold\nafter a dinner of more bread and tea and they go home to a supper of the\nsame with a piece of stale cake or a cookie to help out. Nature calls\naloud for nourishment and there is no answer. The girl enters her\nteens, finds a \"job,\" goes to work, hungry the long year through,\nfighting to win out over the cold in winter, and to endure the scorching\ndays of summer. And her religion? What is it that religion may offer to\nher in compensation for what she has been denied?\n\n_It is the right of every girl_ to receive, through the educational work\nof the community, training which shall fit her for clean, honest and\nefficient living. Yet every year sees hundreds of girls turned out into\nthe world wholly unequipped for life, their special talents\nundiscovered, their energies undirected, their purposes unformed, their\nambitions unawakened.\n\n_It is the right of every girl_ to be shielded from the moral danger and\nphysical strain of labor for her daily bread, at least until she shall\nreach the age of sixteen. Yet every year sees a long procession of girls\nfrom eight to sixteen entering into the economic struggle who cannot\nclaim their rights.\n\n_It is the right of every girl_ to have a good time, to play under\nconditions that are morally safe, and to enjoy amusements that leave no\nstain. Hundreds of girls live in communities where this is absolutely\nimpossible. What has religion to offer to a girl denied an education\nwhich will fit her for the life she must live, compelled to enter into a\nfierce struggle for daily bread while still a child, surrounded by every\nsort of cheap, exotic amusement behind which temptation lurks? Has it\nanything to offer in compensation, if it permits conditions to go on\nunchanged?\n\n_It is the right of every girl_ to enjoy companionship and friends.\nThousands of girls toil through the day in shops, factories, offices and\nkitchens and at night sit friendless and alone until the loneliness\nbecomes unendurable and they seek companionship of the unfit and the\nrefuge of the street. Has religion anything to do with lonely girlhood?\n\n_It is the right of every girl_ to receive such instruction regarding\nher own physical life and development as shall serve to protect her from\nthe pitfalls laid for the thoughtless and ignorant, and shall fit her to\nunderstand, and when the time comes accept the privileges and\nresponsibilities of motherhood. Every year sees thousands of girls enter\nthe teens whose only knowledge of self and motherhood is gained through\nthe half truths revealed by companions, the suggestions of patent\nmedicine and kindred advertisements, or the falsehoods of those who seek\nto corrupt. What has a girl's religion to do with these simple\nundeniable facts?\n\n_It is the right of every girl_ to receive the protection of wise\nparental authority. The guidance of parents who earnestly, wisely and\nwith the highest motives require obedience from those too young to\nchoose for themselves is the right of every girl. Yet thousands of girls\nevery year are left to decide life's most important questions, while\nparents, weak, indifferent or careless sleep until it is too late. Has\nreligion anything to offer to girls whose parents have laid down their\ntask and neglected their duty?\n\n_It is the right of every girl_ to receive such moral and religious\ninstruction as shall develop and strengthen her higher nature, fortify\nher against temptation and lead her in the spirit of the Author of the\nGolden Rule into service for her fellows. Yet thousands of girls are\nwithout definite moral and religious instruction and unconscious of the\nfact that it is their right, and thousands more receive moral and\nreligious training in haphazard fashion and from sources inadequate to\nthe task.\n\nWhen the community awakens to the necessity for sanitary conditions in\nthe environment of every girl and honestly seeks the solution of the\nproblems of economic injustice; when the educational system seeks to\nprepare its girls for the life they must live; when laws for the\nregulation of labor for girls are made in the interest of the girl\nherself; when the community makes it possible for its girls to play in\nsafety and makes provision for friendless and lonely girlhood; when\nmothers instruct their daughters in the most important facts of life,\nparents exercise protective authority and the church provides adequate\nassistance in the task of moral and religious instruction, then, and not\ntill then, will the girl receive her rights.\n\nAnd the girl's religion? The girl is naturally religious. Without\nreligion no girl comes into her own. Whenever and wherever religion\nconcerns itself with the rights of a girl it becomes a girl's religion\nto which she can pledge body, mind and soul. For the coming of that\nreligion the world of girlhood eagerly waits.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE HANDICAPPED GIRL\n\n\nThey were both handicapped, as a careful observer could tell at a\nglance. One stood behind the counter, the other in front of it examining\nthe toys she was about to purchase for a Christmas box for some young\ncousins in the country. She had not been able to find just what she\nwanted and was impatient in voice and manner as she explained to the\ngirl on the other side of the counter what she had hoped to find. She\nwas extravagantly gowned in a fashion not at all in good taste for\nmorning shopping, but she was pretty and her fair complexion, her\nshining hair, soft and well cared for, the beautiful fur thrown back\nover her shoulders fascinated the other girl and filled her heart with\nenvy. She was pale and anemic, her hair was dark and there was barely\nenough of it to \"do up\" even when helped out by the puffs she had bought\nfrom the counter on the opposite side. The weather had been bitterly\ncold and she was suffering from sore throat and headache. She had turned\nup the collar of her thin coat but it had failed to protect her and she\nwas thinking of that as she looked at the fur. She was worn out by the\nstrain of the Christmas season, had slept late, and then rushed to the\nstore with only a cup of coffee to help her do the work of the morning.\nShe did not care much whether the girl before her found the toys she\nwanted or not. Toys seemed such a small part of life and Christmas\naroused in her all sorts of conflicting emotions. It was winter and life\nlooked very hard, as it can look to a girl of fourteen upon whom poverty\nhad laid a heavy hand and whose life has been robbed by the sins and\nmisfortunes of others, who has been handicapped from the beginning.\n\nThe girl before the counter finally decided upon the toys, ordered them\nsent to her home and looking scornfully at the cheap jewelry and tawdry\nornaments passed out of the store. She was thinking what a nuisance\ncousins were, how ridiculous it was in her father to insist each year\nupon her remembering his poor relations at Christmas, just when she\nneeded all her allowance for herself, and planning to tell him that next\nyear she did not intend to do it. She was in a most unhappy mood because\nshe had been denied permission to attend a house-party and she could not\nbear to be denied anything. She was handicapped by the heavy hand of\nmoney, newly acquired by her father and by the atmosphere of pride,\nvanity and social ambition which surrounded her.\n\nAll day through the busy streets of the shopping district they\npassed--the city's handicapped girls. Some were held back from the best\nthat life can give by poverty, which like a great yawning chasm lies\nbetween the girl and all her natural desires and ambitions, some held\nback from the joy of simple, natural living by the forced, artificial\nsocial system of which they are a part, some pitiful specimens of\nphysical and mental handicap and some who showed the strain of the\nhandicap of sin, mingled in that Christmas crowd.\n\nThrough the open door of great sea-port cities there have poured during\nthe years past steady streams of handicapped girls. They are poor, they\nare plunged into a life whose manners and customs they cannot grasp,\nthey are handicapped by a language they do not understand and by great\nexpectations seldom destined to be fulfilled.\n\nAccording to our government statistics during nineteen hundred twelve,\nninety three thousand, two hundred sixty-one (93,261) girls from fifteen\nto twenty-one years of age came to us from across the sea and in three\nyears an army of two hundred forty-six thousand, five hundred fifty-four\n(246,554) became a part of the girl problem our country must meet. It is\nhard to picture in concrete fashion how great this host of girlhood is.\nSometimes when one looks into the faces of a thousand college girls at\nWellesley, Vassar, or Smith and realizes that in a single year more than\nninety three times as many girls from fifteen to twenty-one came to test\nthe opportunities of a new land, the significance of the figure becomes\na little more clear to him. When he realizes that in three years enough\nyoung girls land in this country to found a city the size of Rochester\nor St. Paul, when he tries to imagine this army of girls marching six\nabreast through city streets for hours and hours until the thousands\nupon thousands, representing scores of tongues and nations, have passed,\nsome conception of the great task facing any organization attempting to\ndirect that army of unprepared, unequipped and largely unprotected\ngirlhood comes to him.\n\n[Illustration: UNCONSCIOUS OF HER HANDICAPS SHE ANTICIPATES KEENLY LIFE\nIN THE NEW WORLD]\n\nWhere will they be in another year--those ninety-three thousand and more\nwho came to us in nineteen hundred twelve? What an array of factories\nand kitchens, what rows of dingy tenements, the moving picture film\ncould reveal to us if it followed these handicapped girls! It does not\nfollow them--they come in over the blue waters of the bay, look with\nshining eyes at Liberty with her promise of fulfilment of all the\nheart's desires, they sit in the long rows of benches at Ellis Island,\npass through the gate and are gone, the majority to be lost in the mass\nthat struggles for a mere livelihood--just the chance to keep on living.\n\nWhat if some summer morning, or in the dim twilight of a bitter winter\nday, a miracle should be wrought and the handicapped should be lifted so\nthat girlhood might be free to work out the realization of its dreams!\nMany have prayed for such a miracle, some have hoped for it--but it\nwill not come. There will be no miracle suddenly wrought for men to gaze\nupon in wonder and after a time forget. The release of the handicapped\ncan come only through man's God-inspired effort on behalf of his brother\nman. In removing his brother's handicap he will remove his own and both\nshall be free to live. But it cannot be done in a moment. Effort is\nslow. It cannot be done by any organization, or church, or creed or\nindividual. It must be done by the public conscience. Educating the\npublic conscience is a long process and America is in the midst of that\nprocess now. There are two qualifications without which the educator of\nthe public conscience cannot succeed--one is patience, the other\npersistence. All educators of the public sense of right, like Jane\nAddams, have had these two characteristics in marked degree, and all\nchurches, creeds and organizations which have had local success in\nremoving local handicaps have shown the ability to wait and the power to\npersevere despite every opposition.\n\nHow the public conscience will act in directing the work of removing the\nconditions which so sadly handicap girlhood today we cannot say. It may\nbe that vocational schools built and maintained by the State, not by\ncharity, will be one strong hand laid upon the inefficiency and\nignorance that handicap. It may be that the Welfare teacher whose salary\nand rank shall equal that of the teacher of Greek, Ancient History or\narithmetic will be another hand laid upon the shoulder of the girl\nlimited by the lack of friendship and protection. It may be that houses\nmaintained as a business proposition and paying honest returns, built in\nsuch a way that girls obliged to work away from home may be decently\nhoused and have a fair chance for health, will be another strong hand\nreached out to release her from the things that handicap. It may be that\na minimum wage, safety devices, laws wiping out sweat-shop methods, will\nreduce the number of handicapped girls.\n\nWise cities may establish special schools for the immigrant girl where\nshe shall learn something of the language while being taught the making\nof beds, simple cooking and the common kitchen tasks, then to be\nrecommended with some equipment to the homes greatly in need of her.\nEven if she should choose later to go into shop or store, the State will\nhave gone a long way toward removing the great handicap by having taught\nher to understand the language of the new land, to care for a room, cook\nsimple food and keep clean.\n\nIt may be that some thoughtful States will require school attendance\nuntil a girl is sixteen, the age under which no girl should enter the\nbusiness world as a wage earner.\n\nIt may be that the natural good sense of the true American woman will\nfinally triumph over the extravagant and unnatural living of the present\nday and that the handicap of false standards, superficiality, display\nidleness, and wild pursuit of exotic pleasures shall be lifted from the\ngirls now held prisoners by the tyranny of money and complex social\nlife.\n\nIt may be that in all these ways and scores of others, the public\nconscience, working out along lines in which it finds itself best fitted\nand most interested to work, will solve the problem of the handicapped\ngirl.\n\nBefore one can possibly help another in a permanent way he must know\nwhat is the trouble with him, and then _what_ has _caused_ the trouble.\nThe greatest encouragement in our girl problem today lies in the fact\nthat _politics_ is looking at her and asking questions it scarcely dares\nto answer; the corporation is looking at her, compelled to do so often\nagainst its will; City Government, School Board, Board of Health are all\nlooking at her; women's clubs, whose individual members have never given\nher a thought, are reaching out a hand to her; the Church, whose part we\nshall study definitely later on, is looking more practically and\nsensibly and with deeper interest than ever before; the Young Women's\nChristian Associations are looking wisely and intelligently, getting\nfacts which speak with tremendous power and showing them to the world.\nMore than all this the handicapped girl is looking at herself.\n\nIt has become in these days the passionate desire of those who see the\nproblem with both heart and mind, and are interested not in abstract\ngirlhood but in the individual, living, real girl, that the public\nconscience be more deeply touched and stirred until it shall feel that\nby whatever means the thing is to be accomplished, the bounden duty of\nChurch and State to give themselves to the task of solving the problem\nis clear.\n\nFor in the midst of every problem--political, social, economic,\nreligious, there stands _The Handicapped Girl._ God help her--and\nus--for until we have gained the wisdom to remove her handicap the whole\nproblem will remain unsolved. We are learning--every year shows a gain\nand in this fact lies our hope.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE PRIVILEGED GIRL\n\n\nOne finds her in all sorts of unexpected places. Last summer I saw her\nin a home of wealth and luxury. She was fifteen, the eldest of a family\nof four children. Behind her was a long line of ancestry of which anyone\nmight rightfully be proud. Her face was pure and sweet and her eyes\nrevealed the frankness and honest purpose of past generations. After\nbreakfast she played for the hymns at prayers and in a clear, true,\nsoprano led the singing. A twelve-year-old brother had selected the part\nof the Bible to be read and the eight-year-old sister had chosen the\nhymns. The father's prayer was simple and sincere and some of its\nsentences were remembered for many a day. After prayers the girl\nattended to the flowers. This was her work for the summer. I saw her\ngather from their lovely garden dainty blossoms and sprays of green,\nmaking them with unusual skill into bouquets for the Flower Mission in\nthe city. Then three small baskets were filled with pansies. These went\nto three old ladies in the factory section of the village. She told me\nthey were \"the sweetest old ladies\" and \"dear friends\" of hers. She\nseemed to take real delight in making the baskets beautiful. I saw her\nlater in the day galloping off through the woods on her horse, her face\nglowing with health and happiness. In the afternoon she spent an hour on\nGerman which she said was her \"hopeless study,\" but I found her reading\nGerman folk lore with ease. She was familiar with the best things in\nliterature, was intensely interested in art and revealed unusual\nknowledge without any evidence of precociousness. She was just a normal,\nhealthy, natural girl, well-born, well-bred, a girl with every\nadvantage. When I said good-night to her in her lovely room and thought\nof her protected, sheltered life, I wondered how she might be helped to\nknow into what pleasant places her lot had fallen and how she might come\nto understand and do in later years her full duty toward the other\nfifteen-year-old girl who that day made paper boxes, feathers, flowers\nor shirtwaists, toiled in the laundries or the cotton factory, or walked\nwith heavy heart from place to place searching for work. They are\ndependent upon one another, these two. They do not know it now, but if\neach is to be her best, they must know.\n\nHow to lead her daughter to value and help this _other girl_, that sweet\nmother told me as we talked in the library that night she felt was her\ngreat problem. \"We women are responsible for so much,\" she said, \"and\nour daughters will be responsible for still more. We must help them\nestimate things at their right value.\" With that thought and spirit in\nher mother's heart the girl I had watched all day with such pleasure\nseemed doubly privileged.\n\nLast September I saw another privileged girl. She showed me her trunk\npacked for college. Every member of the family was interested in it,\nperhaps most of all her father who had put into the bank that first\ndollar on the day that she was born with the faith that what should be\nadded to it might one day mean college. Behind her was a long line of\nhonest ancestry, simple people who had worked hard and managed to \"get\nalong.\" She was the first on either side of the family to \"go to\ncollege.\" No one in the family, even the most distant relative, failed\nto feel the importance of the event. \"Tom's Dorothy goes to college this\nweek--think of it,\" a great aunt, in a little unpainted, low-roofed\nfarmhouse far away in the hills, told all her friends at church.\n\nGreat ambition, hopes and dreams were packed into that trunk and the day\nwhen she should graduate and come back to teach in the high school\nseemed near. Jack and Bessie and Newton were in her plans for using the\nmoney she should earn when those four short years were over.\n\n[Illustration: SHE WAS FULL OF AMBITION AND WILLING TO WORK]\n\nLooking at her sweet, fresh face so full of happiness one knew her to be\na privileged girl. All through high school she had had her purpose\nclear, her studies were a pleasure, her simple good times were enjoyed\nto the full and life, every moment of it, was worth the living. When I\nsaw her lock the trunk and excitedly instruct the expressman as to just\nhow it must be carried, I had a sudden vision of the thousands of girls,\nwith happy faces filled with anticipation of all that is wrapped up in\nthat one word, _college_. A great army of privileged girls, they are.\nOne cannot help wishing that he might feel sure that when they leave\nthose college halls it might be with a deep appreciation and real\nsympathetic understanding of the other girls who have turned their eyes\nwith longing toward four years more of study and fun, but whose feet\nwere obliged to walk in other pathways. They are so dependent upon one\nanother, these girls who can go to college and the other girls who\ncannot go. They do not know it now but neither girl can ever come to her\nbest until the privileged girl sees and understands.\n\nOne of the most interesting of the privileged girls I met one morning\ngoing to work. It was her third month in the office. \"One of the finest\nin the city. There's a chance to work up, and me for the top,\" she told\nme, her face beaming. Her father had come across the sea from Sweden\nwhen a boy. Long generations of honest folk were behind him and he made\ngood in the new land. He saved a good share of the wages he made in the\nbicycle shop, studied with a correspondence school and assumed more and\nmore responsible positions with higher wages. At last he was able to\nbuild a house for his young family, at the end of the car line where the\nchildren had room to play and the cow and chickens kept the boys busy\nand taught them to work. Olga was the eldest and it was a proud night\nfor the family when she graduated from grammar school. Going home on the\ntrolley her father determined that she should have the desire of her\nheart and go for two years to business college. There was great\nrejoicing on the part of the family when he made his decision known and\nOlga hardly slept that night. When the two years were over the principal\nof the school had said such fine things of her work that Olga had\nblushed to hear them. More than that, he offered her the best position\nopen to his students. He was a little astonished the next morning when\nOlga's father came down to ask in his careful English regarding the\ncharacter of the men in the office where his daughter was to work. To\nOlga's great joy he was able to satisfy the father to whom the matter\nwas of enough importance to make him put on his best clothes and take\nhalf a day off, in order to make sure that all was right.\n\nIt was a great day when Olga came home with her yellow envelope and laid\nthe money on the table. Not a cent would her father take. \"No, Olga,\" he\nsaid, \"the money is yours. You shall keep the account of it and show it\nto your father. You shall buy the new bed for your room and the chairs.\nYour mother wants the house made pretty. Perhaps you will help. That\nwill be very good. But the money is yours.\" No one seeing the girl's\nface as she related her father's words could doubt the appreciation in\nher heart. Her girl friends had \"paid their board\" and she had expected\nto do the same. That night she refurnished the house in her dreams and\nthe memory of that dream room of her mother's, with paper on the wall\nand rugs on the floor, helped her save her money until the dream came\ntrue.\n\nOlga is indeed a privileged girl. She has parents wise enough to have\ngiven her the best equipment possible for the work she wanted to do. She\nhas her own money and may dress as well as any girl in the office. She\nhas an object for saving what she can and knows the joy of helping to\nmake home beautiful. The suburban church is the center of many of her\npleasures, for it is alive and the young people in it know how to enjoy\nthemselves. She is loved and sheltered in a real home. She can live a\nnormal, useful, happy life with opportunity for promotion in her work\nand an object for her ambition. She has health, sane pleasures and good\nfriends. Any such girl is indeed _privileged_.\n\nWhen one sees her going happily to work he is forced to think of the\nother girl, her homeless boarding place, chance friends, pitiful\neconomies and few pleasures; the girl who has forgotten what it means to\nbe sheltered and protected, if she ever knew, to whom love is a myth or\na dream.\n\nPerhaps one of the happiest of the privileged girls was the one who took\nme to her room on a beautiful June day to show me her cedar chest, her\ngowns and the gifts already beginning to come. _The_ day was near. The\nyoung man whom she was to marry was honest and fine, in business with\nhis father and hoping to make the firm a greater success than ever, as\nthe years should pass. The girl was just twenty-one. After high school,\na mother who was not strong needed her help and she had made that home a\ncenter of enjoyment for three years. Surrounded by the loving\nappreciation of parents and brothers, her life was filled with\nhappiness. Now in a few days she would go across the street to the house\nbuilt for her and furnished simply and well, with the articles which he\nand she had chosen on the long shopping tours during the months past.\nShe was in every sense a privileged girl.\n\nThe _other girl_ saw her married. She was looking forward to her own\nwedding day but it seemed farther away than ever. She had no hope for a\nhouse built for her, but she knew where there was a flat for rental\nwhich she had mentally furnished many times that month. But they could\nnot afford it. They had added and subtracted and gone over the figures\nagain and again but it was of no use. He was manly and fine, he had hope\nand ambition, but the clerkship was only fifteen dollars a week and he\nhad tried in vain for another position. Fifteen dollars a week would not\ndo in their city. Butter, eggs, coal, ice, milk and meat stood in the\nway. So they were waiting and there were tears in her eyes at the\nwedding of the privileged girl.\n\nThat day was a hard one for another girl. She read of the wedding--the\ndecorations, the gifts, the congratulations of friends--then putting\ndown the paper forced back the tears and went out to finish the shirt\nwaist she was making, for it must be ready to wear to the office in the\nmorning. That evening he would come, she knew, to tell her again that it\nwas not fair, that her family would get along some way and that he had\nbeen patient for a long time. She knew that he must continue to wait,\nfor her mother was doing her utmost, Wilbur could earn only a little and\nthe other two children were too young to leave school. It was three\nyears since her father's death. The young man had said then that he\ncould wait _ten_ years. She had begged him to take his release but he\nrefused. Of late he had been very insistent. She knew she must stand by\nher mother and help her through. If he could not see it that way there\nwas but one thing to do. She found it hard even to think the words that\nshe must say and she thought of the privileged girl with longing in her\nsoul. But the privileged girl did not know. If she had, her sympathy and\nunderstanding would have helped.\n\nOne rejoices as he remembers the thousands of pure, sweet, wholesome\ngirls who have been privileged to enjoy the results of a long ancestry\nunstained by weakness and sin, the results of training, guidance and\nprotection, the opportunity for healthful, normal living, for pleasures\nand the satisfaction of human friendship and love. Our country looks\ntoday with increasing hopefulness to these privileged girls for the\nsolution of many of the problems of the other girl. Our country looks to\nthem for another generation of privileged girls even stronger and wiser\nthan they.\n\nOne of the greatest of the problems with which our country is concerned\ntoday, the solution of which involves every phase of social, religious\nand economic life, is the providing of ways and means by which the\nunprivileged girl may, in large numbers, be promoted into the privileged\nclass.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE GIRL WHO IS EASILY LED\n\n\nShe is a chameleon sort of girl but she is not rare. So often she is\nsweet and lovable. Almost without exception she is obliging, a jolly\ncompanion, fearless and frank. One often finds her a girl of talent and\nnatural ability. She is the very opposite of the indifferent girl for\nshe responds to everything. The girl she will finally become depends\nupon the companions whose lead she follows. Her safety lies in the\nestablishment of the habit of going in the right way. She is the girl\nwho most needs care and guardianship. So much depends upon her choice of\nfriends that parents and teachers must be wise for her.\n\nA little ten-year-old, in whom all her teachers were interested because\nof her versatility and quick response to every interest, moved into a\nnew neighborhood. Some weeks later because of her ability to learn\nrapidly she was put into a higher grade. Her new home and new\nclassmates in a short time entirely changed the character of her\nenvironment. Before long the girl herself began to show the result of\nthe change. She had always been too much interested in her studies to\nwaste time or disobey the school rules. Following the leadership of some\nof the newly made friends she entered into all the little conspiracies\nof a group of girls and boys who made things hard for the teacher, a\nrather weak disciplinarian. One day, the girl hitherto perfectly honest,\ntold a lie to get out of the trouble into which the following of the new\nleaders had brought her. It troubled her conscience and she cried on the\nway home from school, but her companions laughed at her, told her she\nwas \"all right,\" and had stood by them splendidly. They made her feel\nheroic and she dried her eyes and stifled her desire to tell her mother.\nBefore the year was over the child had entirely changed. Her studies\nsuffered, she seemed to lose her ambition, her naturalness and\nspontaneity vanished. Her mother began to discover increasing\nuntruthfulness. One day, toward the close of the school year, the child\nasked to wear her best dress to school, saying there was to be an\nentertainment. There was no entertainment. Instead there was a party at\nthe home of one of the girls of whom her mother disapproved. The party\nbegan later than they had planned and it was nearly six before the child\nreached home. She found her mother greatly troubled and said quite\nglibly that she had stayed after school to help the teacher. Next day\nthe mother called at the school to remonstrate with the teacher for\nkeeping the child so often and so late to \"help\" her. Then the whole\ntruth came out and the mother was dismayed. She felt that the matter was\nso serious that she must remove her daughter at once from her companions\nand before school opened in the fall the family had moved back to their\nformer neighborhood and the parents were permitted to send the little\ngirl to another school where new associates were carefully chosen.\nBefore she left that grammar school she had recovered her frank, sweet\nspirit, her interest in her studies returned, and surrounded by a group\nof fine boys and girls she went through the high school with the love\nand respect of teachers and companions.\n\nThis child is the type of many, who as early as ten years and younger,\nare so easily led that their natural tendencies toward good are wholly\ntransformed by association with evil companions whose strong personality\nand power of leadership can so easily turn the weak wills into the wrong\npathway.\n\nParents and teachers cannot be too careful of the companions of a girl\nof vacillating, easy-going, versatile temperament, for they may ruin or\nmake her.\n\nWhen Leonora moved from the great manufacturing city, which had been her\nhome for fourteen years, to the home of her aunt, in a quiet suburb,\nwhere the children attending the high school were from homes of real\nculture and refinement, she was disconsolate. Voices, language, games,\nmanner of recitation, behavior on the school grounds and street,\nperplexed her. She seemed lost in her new environment. She had never\nbeen a leader but had followed with all her heart. Her playground had\nbeen the street. She had enjoyed boisterous good times, had patronized\nmoving pictures of every sort, had entered into the mischief of \"the\ncrowd\" always close to the leader. In a pathetic letter to one of her\nchums she said that at the very first opportunity she should run away\nand be with them all again. She characterized the beautiful suburb with\nits neatly kept lawns and pretty homes as \"a dead old hole\" from which\nshe could not wait to escape. Still, her aunt's home, the new wardrobe\ncontaining the lovely dresses, becoming hats and coats, for which she\nhad always longed, tempted her to remain. One day, early in October, her\nclassmates made the discovery that she could sing. She had quite a\nremarkable voice for a girl of her age. The teacher of music became her\ninterested friend and found she could play unusually well, though mostly\n\"by ear.\" The leader among the girls who \"adored\" any one who could sing\nadopted Leonora as her special friend. The new wardrobe added greatly to\nher attractiveness, and her aunt's social position opened many doors for\nher. Her new friend's mother was pleased with her daughter's choice of a\ncompanion despite the lack of good breeding and lapses in English.\n\nLeonora became the obedient and devoted follower of the new girl friend\nand the influence of the music teacher was indeed remarkable. Almost as\nby magic Leonora dropped the coarse slang, loud talking and shouting of\nher companions, who in the city had been termed \"wild\" and adopted the\nways of the new leader. At the end of two years it would have been quite\nimpossible to recognize in the pretty, interesting, well-mannered girl\nof sixteen, who sang so sweetly, the uncultured, ill-mannered, slangy\ngirl of fourteen.\n\nLeonora was so easily led that it was not a difficult task or a great\naccomplishment to have so transformed her. If she remains until she is\neighteen or twenty in her present environment, the chances are that the\ngood friend, _Habit_, will have determined the way that she shall go. If\nshe should now drop back into the old street, the old companionship, the\nplace which until her father's death he had tried with her help to make\na home, the chances are the old voice and manner, the old slang and old\ninterests would return.\n\nFor a girl of Leonora's type the impress of the right environment, the\nguidance of the right hand, means everything. To discover such girls,\nto open the way for the working of new friendships, which shall furnish\nnew leadership for them, is a fine task and a great pleasure for the\nlovers of girlhood.\n\nBut so impossible is the task of attempting, through the individual, to\ntouch the great mass of girls who are easily led, that one can work\neffectually only through the individual effort plus the _law_. It must\nbe made \"to go hard\" with those who, for selfish ends and financial\nprofit, plan to take advantage of the weak will and trusting,\nunsuspecting mind of the girl who is easily led.\n\nMost of the girls in their teens, who are walking in evil ways, are\nthere because they have followed friends and companions. There are girls\nwho have blazed the way to paths of evil for themselves, but they are\ncomparatively few. Any court, or school for delinquent girls, which\ncontains a sympathetic man or woman to whom the whole truth may be\npoured out, will testify that _somebody_ led the way. When allowance is\nmade for the tendency to lay the blame upon other shoulders, the facts\nbear out the testimony that there has been a _leader_. The girls who by\nnature are weak of will, and have had no training which could tend to\nstrengthen or develop that will, must be protected, and that protection\nmust be furnished by the community. It may be furnished by putting the\nwelfare teacher into the school; by making the street on which so many\ngirls find companionship as safe as possible; by driving professional\nleaders of the unsuspecting and easily led from all places of recreation\nand amusement; by helping parents, especially those parents, who,\nthemselves born across the sea are attempting to bring up daughters in\nthe new land, to see and understand the dangers; and by making it a real\ncrime to lead the easily led astray.\n\nBut this is not enough. Perhaps the greatest steps toward the\nsafe-guarding of the easily led were taken when the carefully supervised\npublic playground and the school gardens were started and the women\npolice were sent out into the streets of cities.\n\nA strong, wise, sane woman who is neither a prude nor a crank can do\nmore toward preventing the first steps into forbidden ways than those\ninterested in great city problems have yet dreamed. The day will come\nwhen these women will make the arm of the law an efficient friend of the\nweak and unprotected girl and give all the positive, helpful agencies an\nopportunity to strengthen her against temptation.\n\nI shall never forget my visit that Sunday afternoon to a detention\nschool for delinquent girls. Over in the corner of the room where the\nafternoon service was to be held was the piano, the orchestra, made up\nof members of the school, was gathering. There was a cornetist, two or\nthree violins followed, then a banjo and guitar. The service that day\nwas to be a great event, for the wonderful woman in charge of that\nschool who had done away with the cells, taken down the great spiked\niron fence and planted flowers in its stead had persuaded board,\ncommittee and municipality to permit her to follow out the one great\ndesire of her heart. The girls were to wear on Sundays and other dress\noccasions white Peter Thompson suits, big bows of ribbon in their hair\nand shining, well-fitted shoes.\n\nSoon _she_ entered the room. One could hardly take her eyes from that\nsweet, sympathetic, calm, face. A glance told one she might trust her\nwith her soul's secrets without fear and might tell her _anything_ and\nshe would understand. After her came the girls and quietly, with an\nattractive self-consciousness because of their new glory raiment, they\ntook their seats. Who could fail to forgive them if they fingered\nlovingly the great soft silk Peter Thompson ties and patted the bows on\ntheir hair. Some of them seemed scarcely more than children though some\nwere in their later teens. No one of the group present that afternoon\nwill ever forget how they sang, nor how they listened with eager\nresponsive faces. No one can tell what new hopes and ambitions were born\nas they sat in their new finery, some of them for the first time in\ntheir lives becomingly dressed.\n\nAfter the service they filed out, put on their long checked aprons and\ngot supper. We saw the beds in the wards where all the new comers must\nsleep, then the smaller rooms with six and four beds, the still smaller\nwith two and the honor rooms which a girl might occupy alone and might\narrange as she chose. There were flowers in all the single rooms and\npictures on the walls.\n\nIt almost seemed as we walked along the edge of the drive over the walk\nthe girls had laid, that we were leaving a boarding school where girls\nwere being taught household economics and the arts and crafts.\n\nThe woman who had wrought the miracle which had been wrought in that\nschool stood at the end of the drive as we left and in response to the\nexclamation, \"It seems impossible that these girls could ever have been\nguilty of the deeds the records show!\" she answered, \"These girls are\nnot vicious. It is after all a question of leadership and they followed\nthe wrong leaders.\" She paused a moment, looked back at the buildings,\nand then said softly, \"God pity the girl who is easily led.\" And in our\nhearts we echoed her prayer.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nTHE GIRL WHO IS MISUNDERSTOOD\n\n\nEvery girl in the world I suppose has sometime in her life felt that she\nwas misunderstood, that every one looked at her through the wrong\nglasses, that no one saw her good qualities or appreciated her abilities\nand that all with whom she had to do interpreted her at her worst. The\ncry of a girl's heart for someone who understands is the cry of\nhumanity. No one can perfectly understand another, therefore only God\ncan be just. And so in a sense all girls are misunderstood. But there\nare special types of girls who suffer more from being misunderstood by\ntheir families, neighbors, friends, and by strangers than do others.\n\nThere is the self-conscious girl. Shy and made awkward by her shyness,\nunable to forget that she has hands and feet, painfully aware that she\nmust walk while others watch her, that she is expected to say something\nand those who listen will criticize, she suffers intensely. The great\nonrush of self overwhelms her, she stammers, blushes, fingers and eyes\nhelp to reveal her suffering and as soon as possible she beats a\nretreat. How intense her sufferings are only those who know by\nexperience can say. The shy and self-conscious girl will always be\nmisunderstood. People may be very sorry for her but they do not\nunderstand her. She needs a friend who has passed through the\nself-conscious stage to sympathize with and help her, or some girl quick\nto see her good qualities who can show confidence in her and smooth over\nthe awkward places for her, until she becomes convinced that she is like\nother girls and that she can do as they do.\n\nI shall never forget the change which her first year in college made in\na girl friend of mine. In the high school she was exceedingly shy. Her\nrecitations were accompanied by so much suffering that they were painful\nto witness. Her written tests revealed an unusual mind, keen and active.\nShe won the prize for the best essay in a county contest. She was asked\nto read it to the school and though she begged to be excused, her\nteacher insisted. She slept little and ate little during the days before\nit must be read and on the morning when the school assembled to hear it\nlooked pale and wan. It was with very evident effort that she walked to\nthe front of the platform. Her lips opened but no voice came. Her sister\nthought she was going to faint but she pulled herself together and was\nable to read in a thin scared voice which could not be heard three seats\naway. But those who heard and those who read marveled at the thoughts\nwhich the girl had written in a clear and original fashion. Still when\nshe left for college she was a misunderstood and unappreciated girl in\nher own home and among her neighbors.\n\nIt seemed as if she could not endure the thought of a roommate but\nnecessity offered no alternative. She reached the room first and\narranged all her belongings in her accustomed careful and orderly way.\nShe sat by the window lonely and miserable, trying to read, when the\nroommate came. She was a rosy-cheeked, laughing, vivacious girl who\ngreeted her as if she had always known her and did not seem to notice\nthat she received monosyllabic replies. Before an hour had passed the\nshy, self-conscious girl was down on her knees helping her new friend\nunpack her trunk and talking to her more naturally than she had ever\ntalked with anyone before.\n\nThe new roommate was a very wise girl, a little older than most girls\nentering college. She knew that the girl with whom she must live was shy\nthe moment she caught sight of her and felt the dread with which she had\nwaited her coming. From the time she was fourteen until she left for\ncollege she had helped her father make strangers in his church and\ncongregation feel \"at home.\" She knew just how.\n\nDuring the first trying days every one greeted the shy girl cordially\nand then gave their attention to the wide-awake, interesting roommate.\nBut the roommate always included her. \"How was it, Clara? I don't just\nremember what was said,\" she would say, suddenly turning to the girl who\nblushed but answered and found she could, to her great surprise. Under\nthe warmth of her roommate's confidence in her and pride in her\nscholarship and the ease with which she conquered the most difficult\nsubjects she learned to forget herself. A great longing to help the\ngirls who found things hard came to her and they gladly accepted her\nhelp and loved her for her sympathy. The months wrought a marvelous\nchange and though she found it difficult in the presence of the critical\nfamily to talk naturally at first, still the things she had to tell\nproved so interesting that they forgot to criticize and she forgot\nherself while they listened. At the High School Seniors' banquet she\nspoke for her college and her brother declared it the best speech made.\n\nShe is a graduate now and all traces of the old awkwardness have left\nher. She is reserved but easy, simple and gracious in meeting those whom\nher work calls her to meet and her eye and her heart alike are open for\nthe self-conscious girl wherever she meets her. If she were to try all\nher life, she tells me, she could never express her gratitude for what\nthat roommate did for her.\n\nWhat was it that happened to her? She forgot herself. People had told\nher to do that before but she couldn't, for she felt that they were\nwatching to see her make the attempt. They called attention to her\nshyness, her roommate ignored it. They bade her take part in\nconversation and join with others in what they were doing; her roommate\ngave her a part in the conversation and made a place for her in all that\nthey were doing. Her family and school friends said by their manner and\nsometimes in words, \"The poor girl is so shy, what a pity it is.\" The\nroommate expressed calm confidence in her and in manner and words said,\n\"You have no idea how fine she is and how well worth knowing.\"\n\nIf a girl chances to read this page who is herself popular and who finds\nit easy to meet people and join naturally in whatever her neighbors may\nbe doing, has in her circle of friends a shy, awkward, self-conscious\ngirl, may she see her opportunity and realize her mission. The pure\nkindliness of heart and the thoughtfulness which prompts a happy girl,\nfree from the pain of self-consciousness, and always at ease with her\nfriends, to shelter, stand by and call out the best in a shy girl\nsuffering from awkwardness deserve a rich reward.\n\nThe very opposite of the girl who is misunderstood and undervalued\nbecause of her shyness, is the girl who, because of her boldness and\nindependence, her carelessness of speech, hilarity and adventuresomeness\nis misunderstood.\n\n\"She doesn't mean anything by it,\" said one girl of another whom she was\ntrying to defend in the presence of a critic, \"she is good hearted,\ngenerous and just fine, but she has been brought up in a large family\nwhere they have noisy times together.\" The critic accepted the\nexplanation but strangers, new people whom she met, men and women upon\nthe street, constantly misunderstood the girl whose unfortunate manners\nwould lead one to believe she was a most undesirable friend. The girl\nwas conscious that she was misjudged and misunderstood and was growing\nhard and beginning not to care when an older woman who loved her showed\nher with real tact where the trouble lay. No one could help admiring\nthat girl as she struggled to overcome the things which had been the\ncause of all the misunderstandings.\n\nI met awhile ago, a girl whom her companions described as _wooden_. I\nknew that she wanted to talk with me, that she was interested in the\npeople whom the group were discussing. She seemed like a bright girl and\nI felt sure that she had thoughts of her own worth hearing if she would\nonly express them. That was her trouble. She couldn't find words so she\nsaid \"yes,\" and \"no\" with effort when a remark was addressed directly to\nher, otherwise she was silent. Later in the day a girl friend who really\nappreciated her told me how very interesting she was when one knew her\nwell enough to dispel the awful fear that she should say the wrong\nthing. She read the very best things and was conversant with the history\nof important events all over the world. \"She is a regular encyclopedia,\"\nsaid her ardent defender.\n\nThis wooden girl is misunderstood simply because she has not learned to\nexpress the thoughts she has. She is unhappy, and feels that people do\nnot like her, and do not enjoy her company. In her heart she blames\n_them_. But one cannot expect everyone to penetrate the exterior and see\nand appreciate real worth. Most people take us for what we seem to be\nand if we appear cold, uninteresting and ill at ease, they seek\npleasanter companions. The wooden girl _can_ overcome her stiffness and\nlearn to let people see that she thinks. She can cultivate a very rare\nart--the art of listening with appreciation. There are very few\nlisteners in any group of people and often not one in a group of women.\nIt is a great thing to be able to listen with that attention and\ninterest which draws out the very best in the one who is talking.\n\nMore than that the girl who is termed wooden can learn to express\nherself in words. She may never become a great talker but she need not\nregret that. She can take part in conversation and can make it easy for\npeople to talk with her. I know a girl who plans before spending a\nsocial evening with friends what she will talk about. Following the\nadvice of her mother who has suffered much through inability to talk,\nshe holds imaginary conversations which often become real when she meets\npeople later. She makes a special effort to remember the names of those\nwhom she meets and some of the things in which they are especially\ninterested. She is learning to remember the names of books and their\nauthors and publishers, she takes special pains to remember worth while\nmagazine articles and last spring people appealed to her again and again\nfor information regarding the Balkan situation. She is making herself\nan interesting companion and in a few years I believe all traces of the\nawkward wooden silence will disappear.\n\nIn the long line of misunderstood girls, are many whose interests and\nenthusiasms are altogether outside their immediate environment. There\nare girls at college and sometimes at boarding-school who have seen a\nlarger world and have come to love the real things of life. They find it\nvery hard to waste the days in superficialities. They long to have life\nmean more than a round of social events, and the family and friends\nmisunderstand. Some girls of this sort have solved the problem by\ngaining consent to plan their own days. Some have never been able to\ngain that consent and have gone on for years in unhappiness. Others have\nlearned to inject into the seemingly superficial some real things and\nhave found an outlet for the best that is in them through work for those\nin need. One must feel real sympathy for the girl who, striving to be\nher best, to live above the round of pettiness and selfish pleasure, is\nmet with disapproval and misunderstanding.\n\nMany a girl is misunderstood by the one person in the world who ought to\nunderstand her best--her mother. Perhaps more bitter tears are shed by\ngirls because their mothers do not understand than for any other reason.\nThe misunderstanding oftentimes is the result of temperament. It is\nexceedingly hard for two people of diametrically opposite temperaments\nto live in close association without clashes. One of the most pitiful\nthings in home life today is seen where mother and daughter have\nopposite interests and sympathies and lack self-control. The constant\ncriticism and judging of one another, the quick-tempered commands and\ndemands on the part of one and the sullen yielding on the part of the\nother make one heart-sick.\n\nI am reading over a letter from a girl who says, \"I honestly love my\nmother. I am proud of the things she can do and I admire her beauty.... I\nam twenty-two years old, very ordinary looking and not a social success.\nI am a constant disappointment to mother. Our opinions about everything\ndiffer. We cannot agree upon the most trivial things. When father was\nliving he laughed at us and his genial spirit made things easier but the\nlast two years have been dreadful. What can we do? Mother does not need\nme. When I am away on a visit everything goes smoothly at home and her\nletters to me are affectionate. I love them and have kept them to read\nwhen it does not seem as if she _could_ care for me. My uncle has asked\nme to come to their home in D---- to be a companion for his\nseventeen-year-old daughter who is lame. I love her and we get on well\ntogether. Ought I leave my mother and go? She says I may do just as I\nwish and does not seem to mind the thought of my going....\"\n\nHere is a clear case of clash of temperaments. Both are to blame, each\nis misunderstood. In this particular case it seems wise that the\ndaughter should, for a time at least, accept her uncle's offer. She may\nlearn from a distance to understand her mother better and her mother may\nmore fully appreciate her daughter. Often it is far better that two\npeople who constantly clash should learn apart to respect and honor one\nanother than to live in a quarrelsome, fretful atmosphere which is bound\nto banish deep affection and respect as well. Some daughters cannot be\ntheir best at home and some mothers can never reveal their best selves\nin their daughters' presence. That such can be the case is most\nunfortunate and wrong. Away back in the daughter's childhood someone was\ncareless, in early girlhood a thin partition was raised which shut out\nmutual love and trust. It might then have been destroyed, but was left\nuntil it became a barrier almost impossible to break down.\n\nBut there are some girls who are misunderstood by their mothers, and who\nbecause of circumstances must accept it and learn, despite\nmisunderstanding, to let love triumph. There is much that every girl\nowes to her mother even though it be true that she is unfair and unjust.\n\nOne of the sweetest home makers I have ever known, in whose family it\nseems to me no cross or critical word is ever spoken, whose boys and\ngirls trust her absolutely and love her devotedly, learned her patience\nand forbearance, acquired her fine courtesy and graciousness in the\nyears when she was a misunderstood girl and had to live in an atmosphere\nof petulance, ill-temper and selfishness.\n\nThe misunderstood girl whatever may be the reason for the\nmisunderstanding must cultivate frankness. She must learn to be\ngenerous, she must help people to understand her. She must believe that\nbeing misunderstood should deepen her sympathy and increase her tact.\nOne of the most marvelous teachers in our country today, who succeeds in\nawakening dull hearts and minds, in controlling wayward and wilful\nchildhood, when asked to explain her power said simply, \"I was a\nmisunderstood child. How I suffered! My mission is to relieve the\nsuffering of the misunderstood, whatever the cause.\"\n\nThere is a very brief prayer which every misunderstood girl might well\npray daily, \"Help us to understand as we long to be understood.\"\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE INDIFFERENT GIRL\n\n\nUntil she has entered upon her teens the attitude of the \"don't-care\" is\nrare with the average girl. She either heartily approves or frankly\ndisapproves of those things that cross her path or claim her attention.\nBut with the coming of the teens those closely associated with the girl\noften become conscious of the loss of that spontaneous response which\nhas made her such a delight. The teacher is puzzled by this change,\nwonders if she has offended the girl, redoubles her efforts to make the\nlesson interesting and seeks to win the girl's confidence. Sometimes her\nefforts are rewarded by renewed interest but often the attitude of\nindifference persists. The girl's mother feels keenly the change in her\nonce expressive, often demonstrative child, eager to talk and anxious to\njoin in everything, and says in a tone of condemnation that she cannot\nunderstand her daughter.\n\nThe presence, in a class of ten or twelve girls, of even one indifferent\ngirl, or the presence in the schoolroom of three or four such girls,\nchills the enthusiasm of the teacher and the class. Such a girl is a\n\"wet blanket,\" she is a cloud steal-in across the sun on a glorious\nmorning. Her indifference is contagious. She changes the atmosphere. If\nthe class is planning an entertainment she \"does not care\" what they\nhave, she does not care whether she has any part in it or not, she has\nno choice as to the way the class funds are spent, she does not want to\nlook up any assigned topics, do any special work, or take part in any\ndebate or discussion.\n\nShe is a very real problem to teacher, parents and friends. To be able\nto diagnose her trouble correctly and find a remedy for it is well worth\nevery effort of those who have her present and future in charge. Before\none can hope to help her he must discover the cause of her trouble.\nReprimanding her is of little avail, and discussing her indifference\nwith her is useless.\n\nSome years ago a young teacher in the eighth grade in a public school\nconsulted me regarding a girl of fourteen whose indifference was a\ngreat source of trial. The girl came to school with fair regularity. At\nten and eleven she had been considered a very bright pupil but was now\nbelow the average in all her work. She often expressed the wish that she\nneed not go to school but when allowed to remain at home was restless\nand unhappy.\n\nObservation of the girl in class showed all that the young teacher had\nsaid to be true. The girl took no voluntary part in the recitation and\nwhen called upon her usual answer was \"I don't know.\" I talked with her\nand she said she liked the teacher, she liked the school and her\nclassmates. She did not care about them especially. She did not know\nwhether she would go to high school or not; she \"didn't care either\nway.\" She did not know what she wanted to do when she grew older. Her\nexcuse for falling so far behind her record of other years and her\nunwillingness to recite was that she did not feel like studying and that\nshe could not seem to remember what she read. She said she felt well but\nshe was growing very rapidly and did not seem strong.\n\nI called upon her mother and learned that she was greatly concerned\nbecause of the changes in her daughter. I was surprised to find,\nhowever, that she stated quite calmly that the girl's appetite was not\ngood and that she complained of being unable to sleep and of having\n\"dreadful dreams.\" The mother had not consulted a physician. She scolded\nthe girl for being lazy and indifferent; at school the teacher\nreprimanded her constantly. I urged the mother by all the arguments I\nknew to see a physician at once. She said her husband seriously objected\nto one's \"running to the doctor all the time,\" and that he thought the\ngirl would come out all right. If she did not \"brace up pretty soon,\"\nshe added, they might \"take her out of school and put her to work.\"\nDuring the winter the girl contracted a heavy cold and her indifference\nand apparent laziness increased. The mother was finally enough impressed\nby our concern for the girl to take her to a good physician. He found\nher to be in a very run-down state, in bad condition nervously, and\nreally ill.\n\nA year out of school, spent in a country town with her aunt, where she\nhad the best of food, fresh air and exercise, cured this indifferent\ngirl entirely.\n\nContinual headache is often the cause of indifference, and eye strain or\nimproper food the cause of the headache. The first duty of those in\ncharge of the indifferent girl, before passing judgment upon her, is to\nmake sure that the physical condition is not at the bottom of the\ntrouble. Many a case of indifference and loss of spontaneous interest,\nwhich cannot be cured by punishment, by persuasion, by prayers or\nexhortation, _can_ be cured by a wise physician.\n\nSometimes a girl becomes indifferent from lack of a sympathetic\nenvironment. She feels that others do not care about her and that what\nshe does makes no real difference to any one. She may be surrounded by\npoverty, where the struggle to exist is so keen that there is no time to\nthink of the girl and her needs, or she may have every luxury yet be\ndenied the companionship of one who understands.\n\nI am thinking now of a girl of fifteen, who does not seem in any way to\nbelong in the family where she was born. Her sisters are at work in the\nfactory and content. They are sweet, attractive and good. But she does\nnot want to work in the factory. She would \"give the world to have a\nroom alone, that could be all fixed up,\" as she would like it. The\nfamily cannot understand her. She can have none of the things for which\nshe longs, she is not able to be with the sort of people she loves and\nadmires. She wants good books, she enjoys music and longs to be\npermitted to finish her high school course. She is willing to work out\nof school hours, to do anything if only she may continue to study.\nBecause the family consider all her notions ridiculous, and all she\nlongs for seems impossible, the don't-care, reckless spirit and the\nindifferent \"what's the use anyway\" are gradually enveloping her whole\nlife.\n\nSurrounded by much that money can buy, a most interesting girl whom I\nmet recently is surrendering all her interests to the \"don't-care\"\nspirit because the one great desire of her heart is not to be gratified.\nShe has been urged to enter upon the duties of the social world but says\nshe has tried it and \"despises society.\" She does not care about travel,\nshe wants to be trained as a nurse, enter a school of philanthropy and\nthen become a district worker among the poor. Her father will not\nlisten to the plan, her aunt opposes it, her brother laughs at it.\n\nShe says that now since all her most earnest desires can never be\nfulfilled she doesn't care about anything. It was a long time before the\nteacher of the Bible class of which she was a member could believe that\nthis indifferent girl whose silence had annoyed her each Sunday was\nlonging to serve her fellowmen and had lost heart because the way was\nblocked. It was only when she had made a special and earnest attempt to\nreally know the girl that she learned the truth.\n\nNo one can act wisely in the dark, and before passing judgment upon the\nindifferent girl who may try one's soul, he should know whether in the\nthwarting of all her desires, the denial of the right to follow her\nnatural inclination for work and service, lies the explanation of her\nindifference.\n\nMany times the girl who _seems_ indifferent, is so only on the outside.\nShe has developed more as a boy develops and does not wish to reveal her\nbest self, nor even in the least degree her deeper feelings. She hides.\nWhen things are very serious or pathetic she sometimes laughs half\nnervously. She looks out of the window, at the ceiling, whispers to her\nneighbor or assumes the most disinterested, superior air possible if she\nis at all impressed. When one sees her alone, it is a great surprise to\ndiscover a new girl who is by no means indifferent, who has thoughts and\ncan express them when other girls are not there to listen. Her\nindifference is not a serious matter, is usually of short duration and\nis explained by the attitude of self-sufficiency which manifests itself\nin the teens.\n\nThe girl really indifferent to _everything_, unless she be ill, does not\nexist. There is a point of contact, a line of interest. The girl\nindifferent to religion, to the work of the church, to her studies, may\nbe keenly alive to the call of other things--her friends, plans for her\nfuture, all lines of social life. Last summer I met a girl of seventeen,\nindifferent to all interests save nature study. She had failed in the\nlanguages, was defeated by mathematics, but could sit hours in the woods\nwaiting for a tiny bird, or a squirrel to pose for her. She had made\nsome remarkable photographs and tinted them beautifully.\n\nThe usual social interests of the girls of her age bored her. Her mother\nstated to sympathetic friends that the girl was hopeless, indifferent to\nevery plan for her future. The girl in turn said half defiantly, that\nshe did not care, and it made no difference to her what people thought\nof her. It would have been so easy had the right guidance been given, to\nhelp the girl see the great need a real naturalist would one day feel\nfor the languages, to show her that she had some social duties and to\nlet them be as few as possible, giving her every opportunity to develop\nher special talents and interests. But the wise guiding hand was not\npresent and so the girl grew hard, indifferent, and created an\natmosphere of constant friction.\n\nInto a night court in one of the cities there was brought an exceedingly\npretty girl just out of her teens. She seemed wholly indifferent to any\nmoral appeal and conscience was evidently dead. She would make no\npromises for future good-behavior, she showed no evidence of shame. She\nwas unmoved by the matron's words of appeal. When she found that she was\nto be detained through the day she begged the woman probation officer\nto go with her to her home saying that her mother was ill and she feared\nthe result if she did not return as usual. With a great desire to\nbefriend the girl the officer went. She found a sweet pale-faced woman\nsuffering from incurable heart trouble, a bright beautiful girl of\nsixteen who was taking the business course in the high school and a\nten-year-old boy. The flat was airy, neatly furnished and seemed a very\nhappy home. The girl told her mother that she had had breakfast and must\nbe away that day on business but would return for supper. The love of\nthat mother for the daughter who bade her good-by so tenderly, the\nevident affection of the younger sister and the admiration of the boy\ngreatly impressed the officer.\n\nThe girl walked in silence back to the station, then she broke down.\n\n\"Now, you see why I chose the street to make a living,\" she said. \"We\nused father's life insurance and mother had to have things. She will not\nlive a month now, the doctor says. My sister can soon earn her own\nliving and I can help Fred until he is old enough to help himself, by\nworking in my old position. But for a while I _must_ have money! I hate\nmyself, you understand, but I had to have the money. Oh, mother,\nmother, it is the last thing you would have me do, but I did it for you\nand the children,\" she sobbed. This was the hard, indifferent girl who\ndidn't care for anything. The matron and officer looking at the sobbing\ngirl recorded one more tragedy upon the annals of their experience and\nset about helping one more girl back into the straight way.\n\nIn how many types we find her, the indifferent girl and the girl who\ndoes not care, and for what varied reasons indifference and the don't\ncare spirit have fallen upon her. Whatever the cause of her indifference\nshe is a problem. One of the High School girls in a group discussing\nanother girl put it quite forcefully when she said, \"Yes, I'd like to\nhelp Alice, but she doesn't want to be helped. She just doesn't care\nabout anything. If you don't invite her she doesn't seem to mind, if you\ndo she doesn't care whether she goes or not. I'd rather die than not\ncare about _anything_.\" \"Such people are so uncomfortable to have\naround, I'd rather have a girl who gets mad,\" was the opinion of another\nin the group. Young people feel naturally that there is something\nvitally wrong about the girl who has no enthusiasm, whom all the\ninteresting life of every day fails to arouse. And there _is_ something\nwrong. The problem facing those who have to do with the indifferent,\ndon't care girl is to find _what is wrong_. Indifference is merely a\nsymptom--there is always a cause. One may discover if he will the things\nto which the girl is _not_ indifferent, her real interests. Knowing\nthese, he sees the door through which he must go to awaken other\ninterests. Sympathy and friendship are the foes of indifference. If one\n\"feels with\" the girl who does not care, he may help to awaken her\ninterests. Friendship can discover causes which nothing else can find.\n\nBut there is one word which must be stricken from the vocabulary of\nparents, teachers and friends, who hope to awaken the indifferent girl.\nIt is the word _hopelessly. Hopelessly_ dull, _hopelessly_ bad,\n_hopelessly indifferent_! Experience teaches that these must go. No\nteacher has a hopeless pupil, no mother has a hopeless daughter. One may\nregard the indifferent girl as a difficult problem but never a hopeless\none. Behind the indifference and the don't-care is the _real girl_ and\none must with patience and sympathy find _her_.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nTHE GIRL WHO WORSHIPS THE TWIN IDOLS\n\n\nThe twin idols that accept with all the complacency of an ancient Buddha\nthe devotion of more worshipers than any church or creed can claim are\nFashion and Pleasure. Not sane fashion which helps make men and women\nattractive and clothes them with neatness and care, protects them by\ncourtesies, and shields them by conventionalities, but _mad_ fashion.\nNot real pleasure that fills eye with delight and days with happiness\nthat will be remembered even when one is old and days are dark and hard\nbut _mad_ pleasure, the thief and robber.\n\nWhat costly sacrifices are offered every hour of the day and night to\nthe twin idols. When men and women away back in the dim past laid their\nchildren in the hands of Baal they made their weird music, sang their\nwild songs and shouted aloud that they might drown the appeal of the\nsacrifice. The dark ages have passed. It is the enlightened age--and yet\nwith music and shoutings, weird dancings and songs men and women today\ndrown the appeal of the costly sacrifice laid on the altar before\nFashion and Pleasure.\n\n[Illustration: SHE WORSHIPS PLEASURE AND FASHION]\n\nThere in her room sits Ellen Gregg, that is she used to be Ellen, she is\nnow deeply offended if friends forget to call her Eleanor. She is an\nardent worshiper of the Idols. When she was twelve and fourteen she was\na frank, contented, happy girl, simple in her tastes and able to have a\ngood time in most inexpensive ways. A trolley ride to a park and supper\nunder the trees she looked forward to for days and enjoyed in\nretrospect, until a trip to the lake, a concert, a visit to the picture\ngalleries, or a shopping tour down town where she spent the twenty-five\ncents she had earned and saved, gave her another happy day to remember.\nEleanor is now eighteen and she has been at work for two years. She\nneeds plain becoming dresses, plenty of shirt waists, sensible, pretty\nshoes, rubbers, a rain-coat, a suit, two becoming hats, for it is the\nbeginning of winter. But she has none of these things. She has just\nbeen kneeling before the altar and has laid her costly sacrifice of\ncommon sense and comfort, perhaps of health, there in the presence of\nFashion and Pleasure. Her face is troubled as she sits there in her room\nfor the memory of her mother's reproof and her brother's disapproval\nstings a little. But in a moment she looks toward the bed. Lying upon\nit, smoothed out carefully, is the result of the sacrifice--a thin silk\ngown of palest blue draped with a fragile chiffon, trimmed and caught up\nwith crystal drops and tiny rosebuds. It is a pretty thing. Besides it\nis a spotless white outing coat, rough, and to quote the words of the\nclerk who helped her select it, \"exceedingly modish.\" There are pale\nblue stockings and pumps. She did hesitate about the pumps but they were\nthere. The hat was there too. She hoped to go perhaps to two dances, she\nknew she should go to the theater, for she already had an invitation and\nthere might be another. Besides that she intended to go herself and\ninvite one of the girls if she were able to get all the things paid for\nbefore the theater season was over. Last year everything got shabby so\nquickly and \"looked like a rag,\" before the season was over but she\nhoped for better luck this time. She rose and put her new possessions\naway very carefully in the little closet and boxes and turned to the\nmirror. The hair dresser had shown her a new way to dress her hair and\nshe tried it now herself. After a long time she met with fair success.\nShe did not call the family to see the result, for there might be more\nwords of disapproval and though they would not influence her in the\nleast still it was a bore to listen to them. The new arrangement was\nvery uncomfortable and it did seem strange to be apparently without ears\nbut she was an earnest devotee and what it pleased the idol to dictate,\nthat she did. Next she tried the new concoctions for cheeks and\neyebrows. The result pleased her. She called to her mother to ask the\ntime and exclaiming at the lateness of the hour called back that she was\ndead tired and would go to bed. When she hung up her skirt she was\ndismayed to see how worn it was. She had paid for the style in it, not\nfor the material. She did not go to sleep directly though she had a\nright to be tired, for she had to get up very early each morning and she\nwas obliged to stand all day at her work. But she was troubled. Even\nthe pleasure of possessing the clothes so carefully protected in the\ncloset could not take away the anxiety produced by the conscious need of\nrubbers and a winter suit. But at last the poor little devotee, the\nardent worshiper of the twin idols, worn out by thinking of it all fell\nasleep.\n\nOver on Blank Street, in another part of town that day, another\nworshiper and her devoted mother had been talking over plans for the\nfuture. Both were \"climbers,\" at least they thought it was climbing.\nThey had social ambitions and it was whispered by their enemies that\nthey intended, at whatever cost to enter the inner circle of those who\nworshiped the idols. Last year the young girl who wanted to go to\ncollege had \"come out.\" It had been a wonderful season but it had left\nher with a pale face and dark circles under her lovely eyes. The rest\ncure had done much for her but her physician had said another season in\ntown would undo all that had been done. Her mother was loath to believe\nit. She had always been able to dismiss her husband's arguments and had\ndone so successfully the night before when he plead for a year of\nroughing it in the west, society forgotten and the things of nature for\namusement and fun. \"If we drop out now,\" she told her daughter, \"all is\nlost.\" And so they made their plans. The daughter was not an adept in\nlearning the rapid succession of combination dances wherein orientalism,\nthe harem, the submerged tenth, and the various beasts of the field and\nfowls of the barnyard figured, so the first step was to secure a teacher\nwho would correct her errors and give her skill in the performances\nwhich had robbed so many of her friends of all reserve and had taught\nthem the abandonment of motion.\n\nShe had tried to take a nap that afternoon but sleep would not come\nthough she obeyed all the rules for capturing it. Her father's blood was\nin her veins and even her training had failed to obliterate all of the\nhard sense which had helped him pass his neighbors in the race for money\nwhich should win the coveted title \"A Success.\"\n\nShe did not like the dances, she knew she was not equal to the round of\nvaried functions that lay before her. But she was a worshiper--she\nblindly followed Fashion--she bowed in the presence of Pleasure--and at\nlast sighing wearily, murmured softly, \"Well, there is no way out.\nMother has set her heart on it and one might as well die as to be out of\neverything\"--she laid her sacrifice upon the altar, took up a book and\nstopped thinking.\n\nIt is easy to think that she is but one, and perhaps the great\nexception, that because she is not physically strong she shrinks from\nthe long gay season. But she is only one of many, some very young and\nstrong, and some in the twenties who have hearts and find them\nunsatisfied, who long to be free but held in the grip of the twin idols\nat last bow down and worship.\n\nIn the home of a shoemaker where food was coarse but plentiful and where\nthe loose casements and cracks in walls and doors defied all efforts to\nkeep out the air, grew up a little rosy-cheeked, black-haired girl. When\nshe was fourteen she was tall for her age, her black hair was abundant\nand beautiful, her large, dark eyes snapped and sparkled in laughter or\nin anger. She went to work. As yet she had thought little about the twin\nidols. Before the year had passed, she knelt before them. At the end of\nthe second year she had offered in their name, truth and honesty in\nexchange for furs, a silver purse and a beautiful necklace. Her parents\nunable to speak English, ready to believe that anything was possible in\nthe new land suspected nothing. Before the close of the third year, when\nshe was but seventeen, in mad devotion to Fashion and Pleasure, she had\nlaid herself, a living sacrifice upon the altar.\n\nIn the same city where she had followed so madly in pursuit of pleasure\nand dress, in a comfortable home upon one of the new avenues where young\nshade trees, modern houses, neatly trimmed lawns, all spoke of the young\npeople just starting out for themselves, there lived a family trying in\nvain to find happiness. Both were young, she only twenty, he twenty-two.\nShe worshiped the idols. He worshiped her. She had social ambitions. She\nneeded money to carry them out. He got it as fast as he could and he was\ndoing pretty well. But it was not enough. That night they had said\nbitter words to each other, then had repented and he had begged her to\nbe careful, to try for a while to do without unnecessary things for his\nsake and said that she was more beautiful than any of the more richly\ndressed women he knew and that she ought to be content. She promised to\ntry. But it was of no use. She heard the call of the idols. She could\nnot resist and bowed down and worshiped them. Before the year had passed\nshe had plunged into hopeless debt and in her mad devotion sacrificed\nher husband with all his hopes and honest ambitions upon the altar. The\nmusic, the lights, the dresses, the compliments, the promise of opening\ndoors into the society in which she wanted to shine, for a time drowned\nthe sight of his suffering and pain. Then suddenly he yielded to\ntemptation, was discovered taking money that was not his and the gods of\nfashion and pleasure forgot them both; the doors of society closed and\nshe was left with nothing but her bitter thoughts. It was a costly\nsacrifice but a common one which the Idols accept again and again.\n\nHardly two blocks below was another home with its lawn, its flowers, its\nneat window boxes and its young trees. There in his nursery was a little\ntwo-year-old. He stretched out his hand to his mother and cried when she\npassed through the hall and down stairs. He had not been well for some\ndays and missed his old nurse who had been dismissed for a slight\noffense the week before. He did not like the new nurse. His mother did\nnot know much about her. She seemed kind and she was very courteous in\nher manner. The mother was going in her friend's machine, out to the\nclub-house for bridge. She was a little late and could not stop though\nthe child had looked very pitiful and rather pale. He still cried\ndespite the nurse's warnings, coaxings and threats. At last she grew\nimpatient, seized him and shook him until there was no breath left to\nscream, laid him on his little bed and left the room. After a while\nsoft, heart-broken baby sobs came from the tired child and he lay still\nas she had bidden him.\n\nAt the club women dressed in all the extremes of fashion, laughed and\nchatted or grew tense and strained as they exchanged their cards. Over\nin one corner some of the younger women blew curls of smoke into the\nair. The baby's mother sat there.\n\nIt seemed very lonely to the little boy lying in his nursery. The sobs\nceased, the baby grew interested in life once more, climbed over the\nside of the bed, slipped to the floor, softly opened the door into the\nhall. His eyes were swollen and he was weak from the shaking and the\nstrain of the day and when he reached the shining staircase, his foot\nslipped.\n\nThe nurse's face grew pale when she picked up the unconscious child. The\ndoctor said he would live but the spine seemed to be injured and the\nfull result of the fall he could not predict.\n\nWhile they were bending anxiously over him, he opened his eyes and said\n\"Muvver.\" Just then she entered the hall and they could hear the\ncongratulatory words of her friend. She had won. Then she started up the\nstairs. Let us draw the curtain, for on the altar of Fashion and\nPleasure _a mother_ has offered as a sacrifice, _her child_.\n\nYou who have read this chapter have been looking with me upon a series\nof rapidly moving pictures. Perhaps they have seemed too dramatic as\nthey have passed. But they are not fiction--they picture facts. They are\nnot in the past. The same scenes are being repeated now all over our\ncountry and across the sea. No one can number the worshipers of the Twin\nIdols and no one can estimate the awful cost of the devotion of their\nfollowers.\n\nIt is right that a girl should enjoy pretty clothes and desire them. It\nis right that she should spend a fair part of her income on the\nnecessary gowns for parties and pleasures. It is right that girls should\nseek pleasure and enjoy life to the full. It is right that young mothers\nkeep their youth and enjoy the society of their friends. But when\ngirlhood erects an altar and in the presence of Fashion and Pleasure\nsacrifices time and strength, money, honesty, thrift and virtue, then it\nis _sin_ and the individual and society must suffer. At this present\nmoment in our country, as in the ages past in nations and with peoples\nthat are now being forgotten, girlhood is worshiping the Twin Idols and\none is compelled to ask himself if the final result will be the same.\n\nIt is not alone the rich girl who bows the knee in the presence of\nFashion and offers her best to Pleasure, the poor girl also worships. In\nthe multitude that bow are all sorts and conditions of girls.\n\nWe wait for a prophet. A prophet that shall awaken womanhood and\ngirlhood and show them that to be well dressed means to be\nappropriately dressed, that extravagant overdressing is clear evidence\nof the lack of good breeding and good taste; that those who indulge in\nclothes which they cannot afford and those who make of themselves living\nmodels for the exhibition of the latest extravagances, both proclaim the\nunworthy station in life where they _truly_ belong.\n\nWe need a prophet who shall awaken womanhood and girlhood to see that\nthe wild rush for sensational and unhealthful pleasures has always meant\none thing--final inability to enjoy, the day when all pleasures pall.\n\nWould that the prophet might come, and speedily, that our girls might\nstand up on their feet free, no more slaves to Fashion or servants of\nPleasure. Free--their faces clear, tinted and rosy with the keen joy of\nliving. Free--their eyes bright with health and energy. Free from the\nlines of worry that stamp the faces of all those who yield to the\ndemands of the Twin Idols.\n\nIt will be a great day when the leaders and worshipers of Fashion and\nthe devotees of Pleasure blow the trumpets and cry aloud, \"Bow down,\"\nand the mass of girlhood and womanhood, beautiful, strong, healthful,\nloving life, answer and say, \"We will not bow down, nor worship.\" When\nthat day comes--and it will come--the reign of the Twin Idols shall\ncease.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nTHE GIRL WHO DRIFTS\n\n\nMore than two years have passed since I met one of the girls returning\nfrom a girls' conference where the depths of her nature, unstirred\nbefore had been touched and quickened into life. A passion to serve had\nbeen awakened in her and as she told me of her new visions and desires I\nconfess that I feared for her. Here she was, the embodiment of all the\ncharm and power of youth with a soul on fire to accomplish great things,\nand the temperament which does _not_ accomplish great things. When the\ntrain stopped she was met by her father, a keen, common sense, average\nbusiness man who often expressed the wish that his daughter would \"get\nbusy and do something.\" She went home to a mother large hearted and\nself-sacrificing, proud of her attractive daughter and doing so much for\nher that little remained for her to do for herself. On Sunday she went\nto a formal, dignified, self-satisfied church; she attended a\nSunday-school where the teacher made the lesson interesting without\nrequiring much from the girls; she spent the afternoon with a book, the\npiano, and the relatives and friends who came to call. Church, home,\nfriends, seemed content with her just as she was. She meant to do so\nmuch and to some of her friends she told with great enthusiasm her plans\nfor future work. But the days passed as other days had passed. What\nbecame of her passion to serve, to share in the work of making life\neasier and happier? What became of the cry in her heart for something to\ndo to express the new life which had fired her soul? They died. Slowly\nthe fire was quenched by inaction, the embers grew cold, the longings\nwere quieted, life went on as before--so easy it is to _drift_.\n\nShe has the sympathy of every one of us, the girl who \"_means to_,\" for\nwe also intend to do, and fail. Perhaps she learns from our vocabularies\nthe words and phrases which so often appear in her own. \"Tomorrow,\" she\nsays, and \"I am going to,\" \"I intend\" and \"I mean some day to.\" She\nenjoys the present but all that she hopes to _do_ she puts into the\nfuture. She does not realize at first that the future always has a day\nof reckoning and that suddenly when one least expects it, the future\nmeets her in the present and says, \"How about this and this and this\nwhich you were going to do? The time is past. What now?\" Sometimes with\nbitter tears, often with deep regret, always in half guilty fashion the\ngirl answers, \"Well, I really meant to do it, only--\"\n\nIf the drifting girl who \"meant to\" is to be strengthened in character\nshe must be helped to substitute \"I have done it\" for \"I really meant to\ndo it.\"\n\nThe girl who continually \"means to\" and seldom \"does,\" is usually\nemotional, responsive, lovable and irresponsible. I remember a most\ninteresting teacher in the last year of the grammar school who had just\nsuch a girl in her room. The girl admired her teacher greatly, and\nwhenever she expressed the desire to read a new book, to have the class\nsee a fine picture, to use certain material for the lesson in drawing or\npainting, the girl promised that the book should be brought, the picture\nwould gladly be loaned by her father, the poppies or tulips she would\nget from her garden. Almost never was the promise fulfilled, still she\ncontinued to promise. One afternoon her teacher talked with her after\nschool and showed her a list of twenty-one things she had promised to do\nand had not done. \"I know you do not mean to be untruthful, but you\nare,\" the teacher told her. \"Whenever you promise now to do a thing, the\nother girls smile. You wanted to be chairman of the luncheon committee\nthe other day and did not receive a single vote, not because the girls\ndislike you, but because they cannot depend upon you. You always intend\nto do things but they are not done. You--\" The girl interrupted:\n\n\"Twenty-one promises to you, broken!\" she exclaimed. \"Twenty-one! I\nshall keep every one of them. Let me see them.\" Then she burst into\ntears and the old excuse fell almost unconsciously from her lips, \"I\nmeant to, I really meant to.\"\n\nSympathetically, but without being spared, the girl was shown that the\npromises could not be kept now; the time had passed and the things had\nbeen done by others. The inconvenience and unhappiness caused by many of\nthese unkept promises were explained to her and the teacher asked that\nfor one week she should make her no promises and that she should not\nvolunteer to do anything for her.\n\n\"Oh, but I want to do things for you. I must!\" she cried with all the\npassion of her emotional nature.\n\n\"What I want most,\" the teacher responded, \"is that you _do_ things, but\nsay nothing.\"\n\nThe girl tried faithfully. Her love and admiration for the teacher\nfurnished a strong motive, and the week showed a real gain. One day her\nmother called at the school. She said that her daughter had made a\nstrange request of her. \"She asked me,\" said the mother, \"to compel her\nto do everything she promised to do, or said she was going to do and to\npunish her if she failed. I asked her to explain her strange request and\nlearned of the struggle she has been making. It seems to me she is too\nyoung to assume responsibility to the extent of actually doing\neverything she just casually says she is willing to do or intends to do.\nWe all fail to carry out our intentions.\"\n\nThe teacher helped that mother to see that a girl of fourteen is old\nenough to begin the struggle to establish the habit of _doing_ what one\n_means_ to do, and she realized her mistake. Together they decided to\nencourage the girl to refrain for the time being from making promises.\nMeanwhile they made requests for such services as seemed perfectly\npossible for her to render, being careful that but little time need\nelapse between the request and its required fulfilment, in order that\naction might follow rapidly the resolution to act. In the months that\nfollowed, the girl's effort to do what she said she would do, furnished\nmany a scene of both tragedy and comedy, but slowly she gained and in\ntwo years the result was marvelous. A girl who because of her\ndependableness will be of great value in home, school and community is\nbeing made by the sane, wise sympathy of mother and teacher.\n\nThe girl who drifts because she \"means to\" and fails, is easy to love\nand easy to pardon for things left undone. But those interested in her\nwelfare will spare neither time nor thought in the effort to help her\ngain the power to make connection between the intention to do and the\nactual doing.\n\nWhen one observes carefully any large cosmopolitan group of young\nwomen, she sees some with hard faces, some marked by suffering, many\nmarked by selfishness and fretfulness and many more showing\ndissatisfaction and unhappiness, and her mind goes back involuntarily to\nthe fairy story with the mirror which showed \"the girl you meant to be.\"\nThe contrast between what many a girl meant to be and what she is,\nreveals a real tragedy.\n\nMany a girl drifts through life always meaning to do--to be, yet missing\nthe joy of accomplishment because she does not summon her will to her\naid, and often because friends are too lenient and parents too\nthoughtless to make her see to what failure and unhappiness, meaning to\ndo and never doing will invariably lead one. If a girl who some day\n\"means to\" should read this chapter let her seize at once the only life\nline which can ever save her. It is made up of three short words which\nare relentless, but if she obeys they will prove her salvation. _Do it\nnow_, they read and for the girl who \"intends to,\" there is no other way\nof escape.\n\nThere is another type of girl who drifts. She is explained by the\nphrase, \"aimlessly drifting about.\" She is the girl who does not know\nwhere she is going. She has no objective. Often parents, teachers and\nfriends have neglected to help her centralize her thought upon one thing\nwhich she desires to do and she has not seen for herself that while\ntrying to do everything one accomplishes nothing. Many times she is a\ngirl of varied talents and puts all her effort first upon this thing\nthen upon that but never works long enough to complete anything or learn\nto do it well. In school she changes her courses just as often as it is\npermitted, in business she changes her position never remaining long\nenough in any one place to qualify for a better. If at home she drifts\nfrom settlement work to domestic science, from domestic science to a\ndancing club and the golf links. She gives herself to the current and\nthe wind and _drifts_. She needs an anchor. She needs the strong will of\nanother to steady her while she is developing her own. She needs a great\nideal to guide her and hold her with the magnetic power of some North\nStar. She needs to have her ambition aroused and to be made to believe\nthat she, as truly as any one in the world has a \"call to serve.\" She\nneeds to have great things expected and demanded of her.\n\nThe power which rescues the drifting girl is a power outside herself. It\nmay be a call from the bank of the stream which causes her to pick up\nher oars and leave the current, at the call of danger, in answer to a\ncry for help; in times of sorrow and illness, many a drifting girl has\ncome ashore and rendered noble service. Those who thought they knew her\nlooked on with unconcealed surprise and said to one another, \"I didn't\nthink she had it in her.\" Yes, it was in her. There, undreamed of by\nthose who saw her drifting. The drifting girl has within her all the\npossibilities. That is the pity of it. As she drifts she may lose oars,\nchart and compass and in the stress of the storm that is bound to come\nbe carried out into the sea of darkness, or be wrecked upon the shoals\nor sandbars that line the stream of life.\n\nA wise teacher, awakened parents, a good friend, a live church, a great\nbook, these have the opportunity of pulling the girl out of the current,\nand steadying her until she fastens her life to the Ideal which can hold\nher.\n\nI can see now the plain, dreamy face and great black eyes of the girl of\nwhom parents and relatives said as they looked at her, \"What will she\never amount to?\" Their faces betrayed their own conviction that she\nwould amount to nothing. She tried piano but concluded that the training\nnecessary to make her a teacher would take too long and took up\nstenography. After a few weeks she decided that she was unfitted for the\nwork and would rather be a nurse. Some weeks were spent at home just\nthinking about it, then she began her training. At the end of the period\nof probation she left--she knew she could never be a nurse. She spent\nthe days reading, sewing a little, taking pictures in the woods and\nalong the shore near her home and tinting them. She drifted through the\nmonths, through a year. One day she posed a group of children, watched\nher chance and caught them all unconscious and natural, interested in\ntheir pails and shovels and the tunnel she had helped to dig. The\nmothers of the children saw the picture. Beautifully tinted it seemed\nalive and they were enthusiastic. The next week she chanced to see a\nnine year old fishing with a child's faith. The perfect stillness of\nthe usually active little body, the expectant look on the small face\ncharmed her and in a moment, her camera had them. Every one who saw the\npicture exclaimed at its naturalness and life and a friend who believed\nshe saw a future for the girl took it to the best photographer in the\ncity. That night the photographer's call anchored the drifting girl. He\nmade her feel that he had discovered an artist for which the city and\nmany outside of it had been waiting. He fired her imagination and\nawakened her ambition. She felt that she had a real mission in\nreproducing all the sweet simplicity and naturalness of the child. She\nworked hard, the artistic temperament became trained and both fame and\nmoney came to the girl who would probably still have been drifting had\nnot some one helped her find her work.\n\nTo criticize the drifting girl, even though she sorely tempts one to\ncriticism of her, is not enough. To preach to her on the evil of\ndrifting along without aim or purpose, just letting the days slip past,\nis not enough. The friends of the drifting girl must help her find her\nwork and her mission and inspire her with the belief that she has both.\n\nAnd there are the girls who drift because strong, capable, efficient\nmothers cannot conceive of them as anything but \"little girls,\" cannot\nrealize that they have grown up and continue to plan for them, to make\nall their decisions and choices as they did when their daughters, now\ntwenty, were children of ten. This sort of girl needs sympathy and help,\nfor in the years when her own powers should be developing they sleep.\nHer mother, though with the best motives and intentions in the world, is\ncompelling her to drift through the years that should be filled with\nexperience and effort and when the time comes that she must be left to\nherself and depend upon her own resources, her state is pitiful. The\ngirl in the later teens and early twenties needs direction, advice and\ncounsel but if she is to be saved from drifting she must learn to think\nfor herself.\n\nThere is another girl who drifts, not aimlessly about, but downstream.\nShe has lost her ideals. She has ignored the still small voice that\ntried to save her, until now it seldom speaks. One and another of her\nfriends have been with her in the current but have left her and made\ntheir way to safety. Only those from whom at first she shrank are with\nher now. She has reached the place where the current is strong and rapid\nand escape is doubtful. Her mother still believes her good, her father\nstill trusts her, but before long they will have to know. She began by\nsaying not \"I meant to,\" but \"I didn't mean to, I didn't think it was\nwrong,\" not \"I will do it tomorrow,\" but \"I will never do it again.\" But\nshe did it again and yet again. She let go of the help that the church\noffered and gave and went to the pleasure parks on Sunday. She let go of\na good friend who held her to the truth, and made a companion of the\ngirl who helped her invent the things she told her mother when she came\nhome very late. She let go of the good books little by little and read\nthe foolish stories that were exciting and absolutely impossible. She\nlet go of the little courtesies and one by one of the laws that good\nsociety demands that its girls shall obey. She let go of modesty and in\ndress and speech allowed herself to drift into the current where it is\nswift and black.\n\nIf only parents had watched more closely, if girl friends had been\nstronger, and older friends wiser, it would have been so easy when the\ncurrent just touched her and she was still near to all that is pure and\ngood. But she is drifting--drifting more and more rapidly farther and\nfarther downstream. Now and then she looks back, remembers all the\nideals she once dreamed to reach and makes a feeble struggle to resist\nbut the current bears her on. Only some mighty Power can save her.\n\nTo the girl who \"means to,\" and \"intends,\" to the girl who dreams and\nwaits and dreams again, to the girl who has let go and is in the current\nthis chapter throws out the challenge--_Act now._ You can! There is\nhelp. Take it.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nTHE GIRL WITH HIGH IDEALS\n\n\nIdeals make men and women and the process of ideal making begins in\nchildhood. A great deal has been written and said about the value of the\nearly ideals born in the home, but too much cannot be said, and the\nvalue of the influence of good homes and parents whose ideals are high\ncannot be overestimated. The girl whose home life during the first seven\nyears has not brought to her the high ideal must struggle all her later\nlife to build up and intrench in her mind what might have been hers\nwithout conscious effort. Very early in her life the little girl reveals\nin her play, in her conversation, in her countless imitative acts, the\nideals which are being formed.\n\nOne day a little four year old told a lie in my presence. Her mother\nlooking the child straight in the eyes, said, \"Did Esther tell true?\"\nFor a moment the child wavered then nodded her head and said, \"Yes,\nEsther tell true.\" The mother simply said, \"Very well\" in the coldest\nof tones. After a moment the little girl turned to her dolls. She took\nthem to a party, brought them safely back and carefully tucked them into\nbed. Then she sat quietly looking at them. Finally she took one from the\ngroup, placed it in the little chair, very straight and said \"Look at\nme! Did 'oo tell true? 'Oo _didn't_ tell true. Naughty girl.\" A sigh\nfollowed. Then slowly Esther came over to her mother, ignoring my\npresence. Her lips quivered and smoothing her mother's hand she said\nsadly, \"Esther didn't tell true. Naughty, naughty girl.\" The little girl\nat four years of age had her ideal of a good girl and she acted\naccording to its dictation. She must \"tell true.\" At fourteen she is a\nremarkably truthful girl and very accurate in her statements. Through\nfear, that mother as a child had become untruthful and in later years\nhad a bitter struggle with the temptation to sacrifice the truth to save\nherself any annoyance. She determined to give to her own little daughter\nan ideal of the beauty of truth which should save her, and she\nsucceeded.\n\nMany a little ten-year-old girl has fine ideals of truth, unselfishness\nand honor and they steady her through the teen years when temptations\npress hard.\n\nThe twelve-year-old girl on the edge of the African jungle arranges her\nhair in \"mop\" fashion because that headdress represents her ideal of\nbeauty. Rings in the nose, wonderful decorations of ankles and toes,\nrepresent ideals of fashion and beauty. The girl in Japan, China or the\nPhilippines thinks she has made herself beautiful when she has arrayed\nherself in accordance with her ideals. We often term her \"awful\" and\n\"ridiculous,\" shrinking even from her picture and she makes sarcastic\nremarks, laughs heartily and never fails to express her curiosity\nregarding us and our strange fancies and fashions.\n\nIt is our _ideals_ which act as a great commander-in-chief and we follow\nin obedience to their commands. Our country needs today more than ever\nbefore, the girl with high ideals, for it is when ideals are lowered\nthat character is weakened and sin and evil have their opportunity.\n\nThere are many things in the life and surroundings of the girls of today\nthat tend to lower and dim their ideals which did not enter at all into\nthe lives of the girls in our grandmother's and great grandmother's\ntime, and the girls of today must be stronger if they are able to resist\nthem. Our great-grandmothers lived in the home and did not enter into\nbusiness life. It is hard for the wide awake business girl of today to\nimagine how that girl of long ago managed to enjoy life. But monotonous\nas her life often was, she was spared many things. She never rode alone\nin trains and trolleys nor learned to jostle and push through crowds.\nShe was not compelled to return home late at night without proper escort\nas countless girls are today. She never spent the evening on the\nstreets, nor was she obliged to join the great army of girls who today\nlive alone in boarding houses in great cities, suffering from\ndiscomforts and desperate loneliness. Her parents were more careful than\nthe majority of parents today and she knew what _protection_ meant.\n\nIt is because these things are so that one feels like giving added\npraise to the girls who today _are_ girls of high ideals, who refuse to\nlet the carelessness of the times in which they live gain entrance to\ntheir hearts to tarnish those ideals.\n\nA short distance up the shore as I write I can hear the roar of the tide\nas it rushes into the very center of a great rock of granite. The\ngeologist can find in that mass of rock the tiny crevice where the water\nfirst gained entrance. It has split it asunder because it was able to\ngain entrance through a little crack and each day sent in its drops of\nwater where now with that roar rushes the tide. Farther along the shore\nis a solid block of granite. Its face is polished smooth by the dashing\nwaves. There is not a crack in it, not a tiny crevice. It presents its\nsplendid, shining surface to the great sea but offers it no opportunity\nfor entrance.\n\nOne cannot help wishing with all his soul that we may have more and more\ngirls who are like that bit of solid granite, strongly resisting those\nthings that seek a tiny crevice by which to enter. For we have so many\nwho through some weak spot have let the tide of evil in and slowly it\nhas done its work until now the once strong and fine ideals lie broken\nand beaten by the waves.\n\nThe strong girls of high ideals are with us and it is a comfort and a\njoy to look into their young faces so full of promise and of courage.\nWe find them among the very rich and among the very poor as well as\namong the girls who live in comfort with neither riches nor poverty to\nmake things exceedingly hard.\n\nIrene is one of the girls who amidst poverty and sin has been able to\nkeep her ideals high. Her home is poor because her father, a mechanic,\nwho _can_ earn good wages is a hard drinker. Her mother, an honest,\nclean, hard working woman, is nervous and fretful, worn out by the hard\nthings she has had to meet. It is a quarrelsome household and when the\nfather comes home intoxicated the law is obliged often to interfere. One\nof the boys was expelled from school because his language is so\ndreadful. Amid this environment the girl lives. She studies her lessons\nin school and at the library. Her mother constantly urges her to give up\nschool and go to work but an uncle who furnishes her meager supply of\ndresses, shoes, coats and hats, says it would only make her father feel\nthat he could give still less to the family's support and so she\ncontinues to attend. Every evening she helps her mother and on Saturday\nworks hard for a neighbor with only a pittance for pay.\n\nThe school and the Sunday-school have furnished all her ideals and she\nis holding on to them while her father taunts her with being a \"saint,\"\nand the girls of the neighborhood tempt her to join with them in the\nthings she knows are wrong. The hour on Sunday is a great help and on\nMonday she loses herself in her lessons and enjoys her school friends.\nShe is only sixteen and she cannot help hoping that things will be\nbetter soon. But Wednesday there is another dreadful quarrel, bitter\nwords and her father's drunken threats. When late at night all is quiet\nand she creeps into bed beside her little sister, her ideals seem far,\nfar away, out of her reach, but she says, \"I _must_ reach them, I\n_must_, I _will_.\" And so day after day she presents to all the waves of\ndiscouragement and evil the strong, granite-like determination that will\nnot let the tide come in.\n\nStrong as she is she does not excel another girl surrounded by\nextravagant wealth, praised, flattered and pampered, trained to think of\none thing supremely, and that _herself_. But she is a girl of high\nideals. When a little child her old nurse told her the stories and\ntaught her the prayers that she never forgets and helped her feel a\ndeep sympathy for all who suffer and have need. A fine young uncle who\nhas used his wealth to comfort the old and save the sick, told her many\na tale that stirred her soul, and her admiration for the young man of\nmillions who worked as hard every day as any man in his office but never\nfor himself, helped in forming her own ideals. And so she reads and\nstudies, dreams and plans the good she will do some day, meanwhile\nhelping in every way open to her and standing firmly for the things she\nknows are right, resisting with granite-like determination the onslaught\nof the waves of self-indulgence and the tides of wild extravagance and\ndisplay.\n\nThe girl of high ideals is everywhere. Every school can claim her.\nDespite teasing, sneers and laughter, she remains true to her ideals.\nShe is not a book-worm but she studies, she is not prudish but she is\nhigh minded and pure, she has fun but it is wholesome and clean and\nkind.\n\nShe is found in every shop, every department store is aware of her\npresence. Honest, attentive, true, interested in her work, following\namidst many insidious temptations her own high ideals.\n\nEvery college knows her. She resists the petty sins of college life. She\nbanishes jealousy and self-assertion. Snobbishness she will not\ntolerate. She seeks no honors save those fairly won. Keen, alert, pure\nand true, capable of sacrifice and hard tasks, sympathetic with all\nneed, a lover of true sport and real fun she represents the college girl\nof high ideals.\n\nEvery factory has her among its operatives. A good worker doing honest\nwork, refusing to allow the stain of coarse jests to touch her, or the\ntemptations which come with low wages and great fatigue to enter her\nlife. Again and again she has revealed her ideals in moments of disaster\nand death. It is hard to find words to express one's admiration for the\nfactory girl as she holds to her high ideals.\n\nMany a kitchen knows her. Neat, clean, honest, capable, happy in her\nwork, resisting all the temptations that come through loneliness and\ndeadly routine, she clings to her ideals with courage.\n\nEvery set in society knows her; turning her back upon temptations to\nexcess, vanity, pride, scorning all forms of gossip, neither listening\nto, nor repeating the words that \"they\" say, she keeps her mind and\nheart fixed upon the undimmed ideals she has set for herself.\n\nMany a schoolroom and office know her, the girl who does her best work\nthough no one sees and none commend, refusing to lower her ideals in\nobedience to subtile suggestions or definite temptations; a girl who\ndoes what is expected of her and more, who puts her heart into her work\nand glorifies it.\n\nThe girl, whatever her station in life, whatever her occupation, who has\nkept her ideals high has the right to be happy. She can afford to be\nlight-hearted, to enjoy fun and frolic and to get the most out of\neverything, for she need not spend days in regret, nor wet her pillow\nwith tears of remorse. Nothing in the world can make up for the loss of\na pure and high ideal. If girls could see the sad faces and know the\nsuffering hearts of the women who in girlhood forsook their ideals, they\nwould understand.\n\nIf a girl of high ideals is thinking about them now and knows that she\nhas of late been tempted to lower them a little, let me ask her to look\nat them very earnestly before she consents to tarnish them _even a\nlittle_. Perhaps it is only to wear upon the street the sort of dress\nwhich attracts attention and causes remarks to fall from the lips of\nloafers as she passes, perhaps to accept invitations from those who do\nnot measure up to the standard, perhaps to engage in a dance in which\nthe ideal could not join, to repeat gossip which is interesting but may\nnot be true or to be mean and unkind. Let me beg of every girl to cling\nwith all her might to the highest ideal of her mind and heart. Never let\nit go. Pay the cost of keeping it whatever that cost may be.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nTHE AVERAGE GIRL\n\n\nThe average girl does not want to be average. She wants to stand for\nsomething, to _excel_, to be beautiful, to do great good in the world,\nto sing, to play, to be a social leader, to dress well, to be very\npopular, to be _something_, so that people will single her out and say,\n\"That is Charlotte Gray; she is the prettiest girl in town,\" or \"That is\nCharlotte Gray; she has a most wonderful voice,\" or \"She is the most\npopular girl in the office,\" or \"She is the finest girl athlete in the\ncity.\" In her day dreams she pictures herself the center, but in real\nlife she does not find herself there--she is just plain Charlotte Gray.\n\nThe average girl has all the elemental powers of the race; there are\nalways undeveloped resources in her, always the possibility that she may\nbless the world by new ministries, enrich it by the discovery of the art\nof living nobly amid the common-place, that she may be the mother of\nthe great.\n\nThe average girl has some handicaps and some privileges, in some things\nshe is easily led, she is often misunderstood, she has periods of being\nindifferent, she spends too much time following the dictates of fashion\nand too much strength endeavoring to have a good time, she means to do\nthings that never get done, she has times of drifting, she has some high\nideals to which she clings with more or less tenacity--she is a\ncombination girl.\n\nThe average girl is in many ways the most important member of society,\nfor what the average girl is, that society is. Society cannot be more\ngenerous-hearted, pure, altruistic, content and happy than its average\ngirl.\n\nI am thinking of two towns whose inhabitants number between three and\nfour thousand. In one, the girls are careless in dress, vulgar in\nspeech, spend their evenings in the two dance halls and the cheap\npicture shows. While still young girls they marry men who drink and\ngamble, start homes with practically no money, are poor cooks and\nhousekeepers and know nothing about the care and training of their\nchildren when they come.\n\nThere are beautiful homes in that town and sweet, fine girls with the\nhighest ideals. There are wretched hovels in that town with wicked and\ncriminal inmates. But neither the girl with the highest ideals, nor the\ngirl with the lowest, can stamp that town; neither the sweet, refined,\ncultured girl, nor the immoral and vicious one can stamp that town. The\n_average_ girl determines the character of it.\n\nIn the other town the girls impress every stranger with their\ncleanliness in dress and in speech; the streets are clean, the homes are\nsimple and neat. The girls spend the evenings in their own homes, in\n\"The Center,\" a house dedicated by one of the churches to the young\npeople of the town for their enjoyment, in the one excellent moving\npicture establishment. They have a debating society, a dramatic club,\nand do fine work in the gymnasium. They marry young men of simple tastes\nlike themselves, start their homes with at least the necessities, they\nknow how to keep house and they make good mothers.\n\nThere are some girls of culture, some of wealth and fashion in the\ntown, but they do not stamp it. There are some immoral and degenerate\ngirls in that town but they do not stamp it. It is the average girl who\nleaves her imprint upon it. Neither of these towns can get away from the\nimpress of the _average girl_.\n\nThe first town has the licensed saloon and the factory owners have not\nthe breadth of mental vision to see what good houses, fair wages and\ncommon sense treatment can do to build the character of the average\ngirl. The second town has never had a saloon, the owners of its\nfactories and business houses live in the town and they have the keen\nvision which sees the value of good houses in which to live, fair pay,\nand opportunity for real recreation. They have been able to raise the\nstandard of the average girl, therefore the enviable record and\ncharacter of the town.\n\nIt is the average girl in college who determines the character and\nreputation of that college. It is not the brilliant girl, it is not the\ngirl whose earnest plodding barely carries her through, it is not the\nfailure, it is the average girl. If the average girl should leave her\ncollege a good athlete, interested in everything athletic, that fact\nwould determine the general character of the college. If the average\ngirl leaves her college with broadened sympathies, good scholarship,\nintense interest in the affairs of the day, real joy in living and\nhelping; these things determine the reputation and character of the\ncollege. If the average girl leaves her college with social ambitions\nand plunges into the social whirl, giving her time and strength to the\nrace for social prominence and notoriety, these things determine the\ncharacter and decide the reputation of that college.\n\nThe usefulness and character of every church is determined not by the\nfew people who do all that a church member should do, nor by the few who\nutterly fail to fulfil the mission of the church, but by the attitude,\nwork and conduct of the average member of it.\n\nThe average girl in any occupation determines its standing and\ncharacter. The average girl in the employ of any concern determines not\nonly its value as a public servant but its success.\n\nThe average girl holds the key to all situations touching the life of\ngirls. As the average girl becomes more efficient, finer in character,\nbroader in thought, more sound in body, mind and spirit, she raises\nsociety with her; as she loses in efficiency, in power of thought and in\ncharacter, grows weaker in body, mind and spirit, she drags society down\nwith her.\n\nWhat should she be like, this all-important average girl? What is she in\nthe ideal? I have asked scores of girls the question and the following\nparagraph is their answer as well as my own.\n\nThe _ideal average_ girl is strong in body, is intelligent, believes in\nGod and strives to obey His laws. She is not afraid to work and she has\ncourage to meet hardships and loneliness if they come. She is interested\nin pretty clothes, she wants them for herself, she has what she can\nhonestly afford and she spends time and takes pains to get the very best\nshe can for the money she has. She refuses to be extreme in style or to\nmake herself ridiculous or conspicuous. She likes fun, she enjoys\namusements and good times. She will not indulge in things of which her\nparents heartily disapprove or which unfit her for work or study, and\nwhich her own conscience tells her are doubtful. She loves friends and\ncompanions and has as many as she can. She chooses carefully her\nfriends among the boys and men and lets neither word nor act lower in\nthe least degree their respect for her. She looks forward to the day\nwhen she shall have a home of her own and fits herself to care for it\nwith intelligence and skill. She is honest, and faithful to the present\ntasks. She is kindly, generous, helpful, cheerful, _just the sort of\ngirl one would like to live with every day_.\n\nIt is a high average, yes, it is _ideal_. But the fact that so many\ngirls are seeking that ideal, that so many against fearful odds are\npressing toward it, and that so many little by little are achieving it\nfills one with hope. The fact that so many men and women who but a few\nyears ago were not concerned with either the needs or rights of a girl\nare bending every energy to the task of setting her free from the things\nthat burden her, hold her back and make her suffer, fills one with\nanticipation, for the things which touch the average girl are the things\nwhich concern all who have great hopes and dreams for the future of our\nland.\n\nThis chapter and all the chapters preceding are an appeal to the average\ngirl and those who love her to summon all their strength and raise the\nstandard of the average.\n\nLet the average girl be the highest possible average, realizing the\nimportant place she holds in the working out of all problems of right,\njustice and public welfare and knowing that God must have had great\nfaith in the power and possibility of the average girl else He would not\nhave trusted so much to her keeping.\n\nThe world is grateful for the brilliant girl, for the gifted, the\ntalented, the beautiful; but without the average girl it could not live.\nGod bless her and give us more and better.\n\n\n\n\nPART II\n\n_Her Religion_\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nTHE GIRL AND THE UNIVERSE\n\n\nWhen Wonder suggests its first questions to her they are large\nquestions. They have to do with the Universe. They are eternal and\nunanswerable questions. They fall from baby lips but they baffle sages.\nIt may be on some bright summer morning that she stands amidst the\ndaisies scarcely taller than they, listening intently to the words of\nwisdom which tell her that God made the daisies every one, and all the\nflowers and the butterflies and the cows in the meadows. After a time of\nsilence she puts her question, her clear eyes searching the face of her\nwould-be teacher. \"Who made God?\" she asks, and while the teacher wavers\nshe repeats her question until some sort of answer comes. That night\nwhen she is tucked into bed her mind returns by way of her evening\nprayer, to the subject of the morning. She hurls another question,\n\"Where is God?\" Since she cannot be evaded she is so often told that\nGod is everywhere and accepting it with all the faith of the literalist\nshe begins her search for Him. She strives to solve the mysterious fact\nthat He can be everywhere and yet in all the places where one searches\nHe is not to be found.\n\nThen her grandmother who sat in the sunny room upstairs as long as the\nlittle girl can remember is taken sick. Some days pass and her mother\nwith tears streaming down her face tells her little daughter that\ngrandmother has gone to heaven. The mystery bearing down upon the little\nsoul deepens. \"What is Heaven?\" and \"where is Heaven?\" she asks. They\ntell her of its beauties, its peace, happiness and joy. They say that\ngrandmother wanted to go and then they cry again. The little girl cannot\nunderstand it all, but she tries. If grandmother is happy and really\nwanted to go, why does mother look so sad, why the closed blinds, why is\neverything so quiet? She asks the question in the presence of her\npractical unimaginative aunt, who bids her be quiet and adds in her\neven, impressive voice, \"Your grandmother is dead.\" The word has an\nawful sound and she raises her eyes to the severe face above her and\nasks, \"What _is_ dead?\" But the aunt does not answer, and the little\ngirl goes to the window to think it all over. She knows that _dead_ is\ndreadful--grandmother has gone, the house is quiet, father will not play\nwith her and mother cries. She is only a very little girl but she has\nmet the unanswerable questions, \"Who made God? Where did I come from?\nWhere is Heaven? What is it like? What is Death?\"\n\nAs the years pass her instructors in religion attempt to teach her. In\nvaried words, according to varied creeds they answer or postpone the\nanswer to her questions. She learns that God is good and God is great;\nthat He takes care of people, at night especially; that one may ask Him\nfor whatever she wants and if it is best she will get it; that if one\nwould please God she must be very good and there are many things she\nmust not do; that those who please Him shall be rewarded and those who\nfail shall be punished.\n\nHer instructors do not mean always that this shall be the sum total of\ntheir teachings but stripped of all the songs, the pictures and cards,\nthe birthday greetings, the flowers and stories, these things in the\nmajority of cases sum up the little girl's conclusions. There enters\ninto her religion in many cases that name which seems so often to sound\nsweeter when murmured by baby lips than at any other time. The little\ngirl has learned to love the Baby asleep in the hay, the Child before\nwhom the Magi knelt, the obedient and lovable boy who played in\nNazareth. Then the new outlook comes and the little girl sees Jesus the\nRedeemer and God the Father. She listens with eager fascinated interest\nto the stories of what He did and said, tries to obey the commands He\ngave, suffers for her sins of commission, prays and hopes to be\nforgiven. The One who searches the hearts of men must find as honest,\ndevoted faith among these little girls as anywhere in His army of\nbelieving followers.\n\nThen the spirit of altruism begins to awaken. She is no longer a\n_little_ girl. She begins to understand the meaning of _sacrifice_, she\nis stirred with the desire to serve. Christ the Messiah, the Savior and\nMaster, claims her interest and her heart is filled with desire to serve\nand to prove her love to Him. She pledges herself to His service,\nstrives to be faithful, suffers agonies of remorse over her failures.\nAmong all the hosts who follow Him there are none more loyal and loving\nthan this girl in her teens.\n\nThe years pass and in the later teens and early twenties another world\nforces itself upon the girl. It is the world of sin and evil, of\nselfishness, greed and hypocrisy. She shrinks from it but it is bound to\nbe revealed. She catches a glimpse of a world of suffering and pain that\nmakes her heart ache. And while these worlds are pressing hard she is\nplunging into the secrets of things. The revelation of biology,\nastronomy, chemistry, the history of peoples, languages and books, the\nscience of economics, and the mysteries of psychology are demanding\nconsideration. Something happens to the bright, sweet unquestioned\nfaith. Questions persist, doubts suggest themselves and demand answer.\nNature asks \"What do you think about me?\" The problems of sin and\nsickness, accident and injustice ask \"How do you explain us?\" and\ndarkness settles over the girl's spirit. Sometimes she refuses to think\nthings out and accepts the new explanations of things whatever they\nhappen to be, turning in cynicism from the old. But more often she does\nthink--asking the old questions she faced as a little girl all over\nagain out of a larger world and a trained mind. \"Who made God?--what was\nthe very beginning of beginnings?\" she asks. \"Is it some _one_ or some\n_thing_?\" \"What is Death and what is after that? How am I to _know_?\"\nSoul, mind and spirit cry out for concrete proof of that which can never\nbe concretely proven.\n\nThe thing she needs just here, is the very thing she is most often\ndenied. She needs some one who can show to her the larger God and the\ngreater Christ for her larger world and greater thought. She is losing\nor has lost her smaller conceptions in the maze of wonders which have\nbeen revealed to mind and heart. She needs to know that she has not lost\nher God, rather is she just beginning to discover Him; that she has not\nlost her Christ, instead the Christ is just beginning to be revealed to\nher in all His greatness. She needs some one to make clear to her the\nmeaning of the promise, \"_Seek_ and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be\nopened unto you.\" From a new view-point with a larger horizon she may\nbe helped to begin her trustful search for God knowing that truth can\nnever lead away from God. She is just a girl but the Universe is hers in\nwhich to seek Him. Its laws, as fast as she can discover them, are her\nservants to lead her to Him and its broadening horizons but bring her\nnearer.\n\nWhen she can face all the new knowledge, feel the shaking of the old\nfoundations, in this spirit of trustful _discovery_, her doubts will\npass away. The world is saved through Christ, not through dogma and if\nshe can have the wise instructor or friend who can show her these things\nshe is safe.\n\nWhenever one thinks of the little girl among the daisies there comes to\nhim in woful contrast the little girl in the crowded cities' wretched\nstreets. She is denied the daisy field. Stars do not tempt her to\nwonder. The narrow streets filled with material things, pressing close,\ncrowd out sun and moon. The name of God is familiar to her ears but she\ndoes not ask questions about Him. She associates the name with loud\nvoices, angry faces and often with blows. Death awakens wonder but there\nis little time for answers to puzzled questionings. The few days of\nrelief from noise, the expressions of sympathy and friendship, the\nunusual words of tenderness all make a deep impression--then life goes\non as before only harder because of the added expense. As the years pass\nshe accepts the teachings of her church, she can recite them more or\nless glibly but they have nothing special to do with her life.\nPhilosophy and science do not trouble her. She says her prayers thinking\nabout other things and when she grows older stops saying them, save at\nchurch.\n\nOftentimes as a little girl she receives no religious instruction, never\nenters a church and the name of God drops in curses from her own lips.\nOnly now and then fear of the future takes possession of her for a\nmoment. Only in great stress of unusual suffering or pain, or in the\npresence of awful sorrow is her soul stirred to ask the little girl's\nquestion, \"What is Heaven like?\"\n\nSometimes the bitterness of her lot causes her to treat the idea of God\nwith scorn. \"Look at me,\" she said one day in my presence. \"What have I\ndone that God should punish me with the troubles I've got. There ain't\nno God, that's what I say, anyways.\"\n\nPoor girl! The church must give to her the God whom she can trust and\nlove, but it will have to give Him in widespread, simple justice. First\nshe must see Him in _deeds_ and then in words.\n\nThe girl amidst the squalor of wretched conditions in heartless cities,\nneeds a God who is her defender and champion as well as her Savior. When\nsome wise instructor or inspired friend can give to her this view of the\nLord God of Hosts, the Father of all, who seeks through His children to\nsave His children her salvation has begun.\n\nOftentimes one meets the gentle, trustful, lovable little girl who asks\nher question and receiving the answer accepts it, never to doubt it\nthrough all the years, never to ask the great universal questions again.\nSometimes it is because the answers were so wisely given, sometimes\nbecause the depths of the girl's mental and spiritual life are never\ntouched. She has a comfortable faith, earnest, true, honest and sincere.\nIt does not embrace the world, nor is it deeply concerned with the great\nproblems with which the world wrestles. It is not necessary perhaps that\nit should be. The girl is naturally religious, trustful and believing.\nHer sweet, untroubled faith blesses the life of every day.\n\nThose who are interested in the religion of girlhood and young womanhood\nare filled with hope today as they listen to the answers which are being\ngiven by wise mothers and teachers, to the great questions of the\nuniverse. The answers leave room for a _growing_ religion which grows as\nthe girl grows.\n\nA while ago my friend walked through the country fields with a little\nsix year old. My friend says she has left behind an \"outgrown religion.\"\nHer complacence and cynicism received a shock that afternoon. A lamb\nwhich was the baby of the flock had been made a special pet by the\nchildren and came immediately when the six year old called. The days\nwere getting cold and the lamb's woolly coat was thick. My friend,\nintending to instruct the child said, \"Put your hand on the lambie's\nthick wool. Cold days are coming and Nature makes the lamb's wool nice\nand warm.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" answered the child, her eyes shining, \"the Heavenly Father makes\nits coat warm. He didn't give them a papa like mine to get their\nclothes. He gives them to them himself.\"\n\nMy friend was surprised by the words and before she could think of a\nsuitable reply, the child continued--\n\n\"He tells the birdies to go down where it's warm and there are flowers\nall the time. Just a few stay here when it's cold and they have warm\nfeathers. The bear and the foxes and the horsie and kitty,--the Heavenly\nFather makes all their coats warm. He is very, very busy,\" she added\nimpressively.\n\nFor weeks during the preparations which nature makes for the coming\nwinter, my friend, hitherto satisfied with abstract law found her mind\ngoing back to the Heavenly Father \"very, very busy\" in the great world\nHe had made. She was so impressed that she went with the child to her\nkindergarten class in school and in Sunday-school and in both she heard\nof the love and care of the Heavenly Father.\n\nAs she listened to the simple teachings, the children's answers and\ncomments, she realized that in the circle there was a very real\npersonality called the Heavenly Father whom these children knew and\nloved. \"I wish such had been my training,\" she said regretfully.\n\"Perhaps I should have been saved the darkness and perplexity in which\nI have lived for years.\"\n\nMonths after in a large class of earnest, eager and attentive girls I\nlistened to a wonderful teacher. I loved with a deeper love, after that\nlesson, the Christ whose presence seemed to fill that room as the\nteacher showed her girls the Master at His task of saving the world by\nshowing it God, the Father.\n\nOne day I stood in a silent home with a brilliant, cultured girl, who\nhad traveled much and enjoyed every privilege. She had that afternoon\nleft her mother beside her father out on the sloping hillside in the\ngreat silent city. We raised the curtains the maid had drawn, the girl\nlaid aside her coat and hat and said sadly, \"Now life must begin again,\nwithout all that is dearest to me.\" I tried to find words to strengthen\nher but she turned her calm face toward me and said, \"How do people live\nthrough it and go on, who haven't God? The Father of the World has them\nboth in His keeping. I can wait till I find them again.\"\n\nThis girl had never doubted. She had wondered and thought, questioned\nand _believed_. Wise parents had given to her the God of the\nUniverse--the Father, and His Son the revelation of Himself to men that\nit might be saved, in such simple terms, so free from petty dogma that\nas she had grown in mind and spirit He grew in wonder and majesty and\npower, commanding her love and worship.\n\nIf a girl, troubled and perplexed by the things the mind cannot grasp or\nheart understand, chances to read this chapter let her know that the\ntrouble lies not with the God of whom she has been taught but with those\nwho, trying to do their best, have been weak in their teaching.\n\nIf we can banish from our faith all its man made littleness, all its\nchaos of bickerings, all the fret of the conflicting opinions of those\nwho, after all, are themselves but children searching after truth, and\ngive to the growing girl, a growing religion, the God of the Universe\nwill become her God and she will worship him in sincerity and truth all\nthe days of her life.\n\n  \"Dear Lord and Father of mankind,\n  Forgive our feverish ways;\n  Reclothe us in our rightful mind,\n  In purer lives thy service find,\n  In deeper reverence, praise.\"\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\nIN THE HANDS OF A TRIAD\n\n\nDespite all the words that have been written and spoken in the past it\nis still true that many of those engaged in the religious training of a\ngirl, or responsible for the form of religion which is presented to her,\ndo not realize, or else they ignore the fact that she is in the hands of\na triad--body, mind and spirit. As a triad she develops if she be a\nnormal girl, as a triad she acts. Her character is made by these three\nagencies working together. It is a fact, the significance of which none\nof us fully realize, as yet, that a clean mind and a clean heart in an\nunclean body is very rare. A quick, alert balanced mind and a pure,\nheroic spirit in a starved and diseased body is also rare. A\nwell-nourished, well-cared-for body with all its functions doing their\nwork and a mental weakling is a rare combination.\n\nOnce we did not know that adenoids made children mentally deficient, nor\ndid we dream that teeth properly attended to, and a pair of glasses\ncould transform a girl from a sullen, morose disobedient child into an\ninteresting, happy and obedient one; but some of us have seen that\ntransformation and marveled at it. Once we believed that inherent moral\ndegeneracy sent a twelve-year-old girl to the courts. Now we are\nbeginning to see the relationship between a room with no windows and no\nrunning water, a dirty alley or a wretched street and the moral\ndegeneracy. Once we shook our heads and said, \"Well, they say there's\none black sheep in every family.\" Now we are beginning to see that the\nblack sheep may be made by the gratification of every physical desire\nand every mental whim and the neglect of the spirit.\n\nChurches, schools and individuals are beginning at last to _seriously_\nconsider the teaching of morals and religion and as they give themselves\nto the task of laying down practical workable plans, suddenly as if it\nwere a new revelation comes the _fact_ that the individual is a triad\nand she must be taught as such.\n\nIf homes were ideal it would be an easy task. If it were possible for\nthe majority of homes to approach the ideal it would seem an easier\ntask. But with poverty, ignorance, inefficiency and indifference\nclutching at the very center of dynamic power, the task is one of the\ngreatest which men have as yet been asked to meet. If homes were ideal,\nfrom the moment the little girl comes into the world, and even before\nher coming, sensible, rational care would be taken of her body, not only\nto make it beautiful but that it might do its work for her in healthful,\nnormal fashion and be a good servant throughout her life. Her mind would\nbe awakened and trained to think, her will to act and to control and all\nher sense of reverence, wonder and worship developed while her love for\nthe good and the beautiful, the heroic and self-sacrificing was\nstimulated.\n\nBut homes are not ideal and the majority have neither accepted nor\nconsidered deeply the task of preparing the _whole_ girl for life. Some\nprepare her physically and let the rest of the triad develop as it will.\nSome prepare her mentally and morally while both body and spirit suffer.\nSome seek to prepare her spiritually by fitting on as a sort of garment\nwhat they believe to be religion while body and mind receive little\nattention and some let all three develop as convenience and chance may\ndictate.\n\nWhen men's consciences have been awakened and they find the home\nincapable or inert, they have turned the responsibility over to the\npublic school and the church. Of late civic forces have given their aid.\nThose directly interested in the religious training of the girl are\ncoming to agree that these three agencies are needed and that they must\nwork _together_ if the whole girl is to be helped.\n\n_Some one_ must teach a girl the things about herself that she ought to\nknow. That some one is her mother. No one else can do it with the same\npower. Neither church nor school can perform well the delicate task of\nrevealing life's secrets, and blundering is deadly. But church and\nschool and civic forces together can help the mother, can give her a\nproper conception of her duty, give her the words to say, perhaps. The\nschool can teach morals and keep its own moral standards high; the\nchurch can awaken the spiritual life of a girl and nurture it, that\nknowledge and high ideals may work together to fortify and strengthen\nher. The civic forces can see to it that the girl has the opportunity\nfor pure physical enjoyment, for mental stimulation and moral uplift.\n\nWhat civic forces have been able to do through tuberculosis exhibitions\nand child welfare exhibits, by showing parents the truth regarding the\nimportance of the physical care of their girls, furnishes encouragement\nto go further. Good newspapers may speak to parents untouched by the\nschool and out of touch with the church and have done so. The majority\nof parents when they see and believe will act.\n\nThere was a time, and not long since, when those engaged in teaching\nreligion were not concerned with the number of hours the girl worked,\nthe age at which she began, the sort of room in which she slept, the\namount of real food she had. And because they were not concerned they\nlost her. Today a teacher cannot teach religion if she does not care\nabout life. She attempts it but she fails. Jesus astonished the Scribes,\nPharisees, Doctors of the Law and Priests of the Temple by His intense\ninterest in the physical needs of men. He took into account the _whole_\nman and set body, mind and spirit free.\n\nWhen one considers how little mental stimulus and training comes to the\naverage girl after leaving school and is aware of the vast majority who\nleave school at any early age, she is not surprised at the lack of power\nto think on the part of so many, and at the very limited knowledge she\nfinds when attempting to teach. The girls of today need to be informed\non matters of public welfare and political and economic affairs as never\nbefore. Where shall they go for that information and how shall they be\nled to desire it? Girls need to know the meaning of religion and in\nsimple fashion the history of creeds and denominations. They need\ninstruction from the Bible which cannot be given in a half hour a week\nof more or less regular study.\n\nOnce those who were teachers of religion were not deeply concerned with\nwhat the girl read and the things about which she thought. Now one\ncannot teach religion truly unless she _knows_ what a girl reads, about\nwhat she talks and thinks, whether she is in touch in any way with that\nwhich can broaden her mind and give her food for thought.\n\nNo girl is safe, no girl can be her best or get the most out of life who\nis weak on the third side of the triad. Unless she has the help of a\nwell developed spiritual nature how the littlenesses, the routine, the\ndifficulties, the jealousies and envyings, the gossiping and petty\ndishonesties of life dwarf her.\n\nLong ago, when I first began to print pictures, I tried to print a\npicture of a beautiful rail-boat against long lines of sand dunes, on a\npostal card. I couldn't. They explained to me that I must have\nsensitized cards, then the imprint could be made. The girls of today\nneed to be developed and sensitized spiritually that the imprint of\npurity and righteousness may be made upon the whole life. The spiritual\nlife, as well as the mental and physical, is as we shall see in a later\nchapter, a matter of cultivation.\n\nIf the girl herself reads this chapter she will stop a moment to examine\nthe triad which makes up her own life. Perhaps the physical side is\nweak. She may strengthen it if she will. Now is the time, while she is\nyoung and it will obey her. When habit has written its words in iron on\nmuscle, heart and nerves it will be harder for her to control it.\nPerhaps she has been careless about fresh air, perhaps has been tempted\nto let pie and cake and coffee make a lunch, perhaps to neglect rubbers,\nto get only half the sleep she needs or to dress foolishly on cold\nwinter days. If the physical side of the triad is weak a girl must\nsuffer. The body is a despotic master and it is a splendid servant. Even\nif others have failed to help her and circumstances have been against\nher, a girl can if she will, improve her physical condition and every\nlittle improvement is worth the cost. It may not seem to her at first a\npart of her religion to keep her body well and to strengthen it by every\nmeans in her power, but it is.\n\nIt may be that the mental side is weak; that it is lazy and does not\nwant to think; that the only food it craves is the sensational, and\nlight, _very light_ reading and not much of that. But the girl who is in\nearnest can refuse to gossip and learn to talk and think about the great\nneeds and problems of our day. She can turn quickly the pages where\ncrime and accidents are recorded and read carefully those that tell of\nthe progress in science and the happenings among the nations of the\nworld. She can read a great book once a month or once in three months\naccording to the time she has and she can think and talk about what she\nreads. She can find some hobby in which to be interested. The effort\nshe makes to compel her mind to work will bring a very real reward.\n\nIt is a pitiful thing to see a woman at thirty or forty who has nothing\nto think about but herself and the affairs of her neighbors, and who\nnever reads. If the mental side of the triad has grown weak through\nlaziness and neglect, the girl may strengthen it. The effort to make it\nstrong may not seem a part of religion but it is.\n\nAnd if she knows now as she thinks honestly about it, that the spiritual\nside of the triad that governs her life is weak, she may strengthen it.\nShe can read the Book that through all the ages has strengthened men's\nspirits and made them conquerors over temptation and sin. She can think\nabout the words that have helped women to keep sweet and strong amidst\ntrial, and danger, sorrow and disappointment. And she can pray. She does\nnot need long prayers. She needs just a word with God, her Father and\nher Helper every day to keep her strong, and another at night to give\nher courage to go on trying when she has weakly yielded to temptation\nand failed. If she has neglected it she may begin now to strengthen the\nweak place that she may be saved from spiritual sickness which is the\nworst of all.\n\nOne covets for every girl the opportunity to live in the hands of the\nhealthful, trained, awakened triad. Life is a blessed experience to the\ngirl who is well physically, alert mentally and strong spiritually. If\nthat experience is to come to the majority of girls, then those\ninterested in her religion must more and more understand that true\nreligion touches all of life--the triad--body, mind and spirit.\n\nOne summer night when the thunder was roaring over the sea and vivid\nflashes of lightning blinded for the moment one daring enough to face\nthe storm, the little village church bell rang the dread alarm of fire.\nThe apparatus for firefighting was of the type most city people have\nforgotten. Men rushed to the fire company's quarters and dragged the\nengine forth. From one of the highest hilltops flames lighted the sky.\nThe men seizing the rope dragged the apparatus up the steep slope. Just\nbefore reaching the top it stuck. Suddenly a sharp appealing voice rang\nout into the darkness. It did more than request, it commanded and\ndemanded. \"Everybody take hold\" it shouted, and under the power of it\npeople sprang to obey and the engine reached the hilltop.\n\nThose who look with sympathy and love at girlhood today, cannot help\nwishing that some Voice of power would ring out through every place\nwhere girls are found saying--\"Everybody take hold!\" If everybody would\nrespond to the task as that night in the fire and the storm, the girl,\nin body, mind and spirit might easily be saved. Everybody may not\nrespond now--but how about _you_, the girl herself?\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\nTHOU SHALT NOT\n\n\nIn our effort to get away from the harsh negative teaching of the past\nwhich made young people feel that life meant \"don't,\" we have made the\nmistake of failing to teach with power the fact that there are things to\nwhich God's law and man's law say _thou shall not_. \"I did not know it\nwould do any harm,\" is oftentimes a truthful statement and the girl has\nthe right to be carefully, wisely and sanely taught the things to which\nshe must say no. A girl's religion must have not only the _constraining_\npower which sends her out to do the kindly deed, say the word of comfort\nand cheer, give of her time and her talent to help make life easier for\nthose who find it hard, but it must have the restraining power which\nshall keep her from self-indulgence and sin.\n\nWhenever the _thou shalt not_ side of religion is mentioned the girls\nthemselves and those responsible for their training immediately think\nof the question of amusements, which is after all only a part of the\ngreater question of how much leisure a girl should have and what she\nshould do with it. Preachers, teachers and Christians generally, differ\nso widely on the matter of disputed amusement questions that _thou shalt\nnot_ loses its force. It is the parents' right to decide the girl's\namusements and determine her social life and when one sees the length to\nwhich parents permit and even encourage their daughters to go, he knows\nthat the _thou shalt not_ might well be said to _them_. When parents do\nnot care what their girls do, or are too careless and ignorant to\nrealize danger, when the girls are without friends and unprotected, then\nthe teacher of religion must without hesitation, forcefully and with the\narguments of _fact_, teach them to say \"no\" to the things which she\nbelieves can bring only harm, which weaken the power to resist other\nevils and which are unhealthy for the growing girl. One may teach with\nfeeling and power the \"_thou shalt not_\" in which she believes without\nuttering bitter words of condemnation of those who differ with her.\n\nReligion and the law together have the right to say to the unprotected\ngirl, lacking wisdom, without discretion, eager for fun and adventure,\nignorant of danger, _thou shall not_. The words should be written over\nevery unchaperoned or inadequately chaperoned high school dance, over\nthe public dance hall, over the cabaret, over the vaudeville where the\nvulgar hides behind a mask, over every place which by its very nature\nopens doors of temptation and lowers powers of resistance. The teachers\nof religion, and all agencies for moral training and uplift, _because_\nof the comparative helplessness of girlhood, have the right to teach by\nevery means at their command _thou shalt not_.\n\nSome one must teach the growing girl that extravagance is sin; some one\nmust say _thou shalt not_ to her common faults of promising without\nthought of the cost of keeping the promise, of exaggeration and\nuntruthfulness. Some one must help her see the utter folly of\nsnobbishness and false pride. In some way she must be taught the cruelty\nand meanness of gossip, the results of a sharp tongue and a critical\nspirit. She must be shown the sin of ingratitude and the curse of\njealousy and envy. In fact the old ten commandments are needed by the\ngirlhood of today as truly as they were needed by that great army of\npeople in the days of the youth of a race, when their great law giver\nand leader strove to save them from the results of their own ignorance\nand newly acquired liberty.\n\nWho teaches _thou shalt not_ to the girl of today? Indirectly, a great\nmany people. Directly, clearly, definitely so that she understands and\nis impressed, very few. The Sunday-school in a half-hour a week attempts\nto do it, but the Sunday-school reaches a very small part of the\ngirlhood of our land, and its work with those whom it has reached is\noften ineffective. It is at present engaged in a serious effort to make\nits teachings more effective and far reaching. The public school is not\ndirectly teaching the _thou shalt not_, for teaching it does not mean\nsaying it, in the form of a command. It does much indirect moral\nteaching, which is invaluable. It is experimenting with direct moral\nteaching and many of the experiments have shown highly gratifying\nresults, which lead us to hope that the day is not far distant when\ndirect teaching of the common laws of moral living shall find a place\nin every school. We shall have to find some new definition first, for\nsuch words as success, wealth, honesty, courage, honor and the long list\nin the vocabularies which the pupils in every school make for\nthemselves.\n\nIn reacting against the thundering negatives of the past, the church\nhas, in the decade or more that lies behind us, been teaching an\nunbalanced religion. \"Thou shalt,\" and \"thou shalt not\" must be taught\ntogether if the best results are to be reached. In individual instances\nso great success has been won by the teacher of religion that his method\nis worth one's earnest study.\n\nOne morning there came into Sunday-school class a very ordinary looking\nlittle girl of ten years. Her father was a truck driver, her mother had\nbeen a domestic. There were four children in the home, the little girl\nbeing next to the youngest. The parents had no relation to any church.\nThe two older children had turned out great disappointments to them and\nwhen a neighbor invited the ten-year-old to go to Sunday-school the\nmother gave her consent, saying that perhaps the church could keep her\nfrom following her brother and sister. It did.\n\nIn that home there was no moral instruction, no moral suasion. When the\nchildren had told a lie directly to the mother they were punished\nseverely. When they told a lie to a teacher or neighbor the mother was\ntheir defender and they escaped punishment. They heard their mother lie\nto her husband, to her neighbors, to the rent collector and the grocer.\nThey learned not to fear a _lie_ but to fear being discovered in it.\nThey became clever liars and the little girl at ten was an adept. For\ndisobedience, cheating, taking food and pennies they were alternately\nturned over to their father for punishment or shielded from his wrath\naccording to the mother's temper at the time of the offense. They were\nnot taught or helped to hate sin or to see it in its hideous aspect.\n_Thou shalt not_ was a matter of convenience, not of principle.\n\nThe teacher into whose class the little girl came was a woman of\nexperience who before her marriage had been a teacher in the public\nschool. She called in the home, she learned the standing of the girl in\nthe day school, in less than a month she _knew_ her. What she found out\nmade her determine to help the child hate falsehood and cheating in\nevery form. By story and incidents she showed Sunday after Sunday, side\nby side, the cowardice and unhappiness of the liar, the distrust of his\nfellowmen, the misery which he must suffer and the courage, happiness\nand freedom of the truth-loving and truth-telling child. Every lesson\nsaid \"don't lie\" and \"speak and act the truth.\" One day the little girl\nwas invited to her teacher's home to look at pictures and choose some\nbooks to read, for the teacher had discovered her love for pictures and\nbooks. After a very happy hour, while saying good-by in the hall, the\nchild suddenly seized her teacher's hand and stammered, \"How can you\nhelp telling lies?\" The teacher says, \"As I looked into her plain little\nface with its quivering lips, I loved her. I determined to fight for her\nand with her.\" It was a fight, for habit was strong and environment did\nnot change. For over five years that teacher faithfully presented the\n\"_thou shall not_\" and \"_thou shall_\" which shaped the girl's ideals and\nhelped her reach them. She taught her to pray; she inspired her with a\ngenuine love for God the Helper, who would \"see her through,\" she opened\ndoors of service for her. At twenty she is a truthful and truth-loving\ngirl, she has been able to say \"no\" to the things which proved the\ndownfall of brother and sister; she is a useful, self-supporting,\nthoroughly respectable member of society and an earnest Christian. She\nhas been able to lead her younger brother safely past the dangerous\nplaces and is helping him through school. What the church, through its\nreligious instruction, has been able to do for this girl and many others\nit might do in far larger measure were it equipped with a regular\nteaching force adequate to its need, if its preachers could come into\nreal contact with the children and youth of the community and present to\nthem with power the _thou shalt not_ which shall give them at least an\nopportunity to strive to obey.\n\nIf the girl herself is reading this chapter I know she will agree with\nme when I say that a girl respects and honors in her heart the teacher\nwho presents to her, fearlessly and honestly, the things which she\nbelieves a girl cannot do with safety, which lead into dangerous places\nand which make it hard for her to keep pure, true, unselfish in thought\nand deed; and she respects even more highly the teacher who can give\nher broad sane reasons for finding substitutes for these things. She\nmay, as she grows older, come to the conclusion that her teacher was\nmistaken but she respects her for her honest effort to help.\n\nIn every girl's creed there must be some negative. The _law_ says you\nmust and you must not. As she reads this page perhaps some girl will\nstop for a moment and write out the things to which she believes a girl\nshould say \"no.\" Here is such a list, written in the form of a creed by\na girl when a sophomore at college.\n\n\"I believe that a girl should not indulge in amusements which make her\nnervous and excited, give her a headache, make it hard for her to study,\ncost her a good deal of money and crowd out all thoughts of duty and\nwhich make her feel envious and jealous of those who are more popular or\nfortunate than she, and sometimes make her think things she hates to\nremember.\n\nI believe that a girl should _never_ repeat what she has heard about\nanother person if it could in any way injure that person's character.\n\nI believe that she should not lie even by looks or by silence. I\nbelieve that she should never deceive another, never make fun of the\nweaknesses or misfortunes of other people and never treat another girl\nas she would not herself want to be treated.\"\n\nThis is a negative creed. It does not say _do_, it says _don't_, but\nthere are times when every girl needs _Don't_. Put _don't_ into your own\ncreed, you girls who are thinking over these things.\n\nWhen you are tempted to lose your head and plunge into things you have\nbeen taught are wrong, just because \"_everybody_\" that mysterious\nmischief maker, is doing these things, keep steady and _Don't_.\n\nWhen you are tempted to make things more comfortable, more interesting,\nmore exciting by exaggeration--Don't.\n\nWhen you are tempted to escape by a lie the consequences of what you\nhave said or done--_Don't_.\n\nWhen you are tempted to let envy or jealousy find expression in words or\nacts of meanness and unkindness--_Don't_.\n\nWhen you are tempted to repeat a story or say a daring thing you would\nnot say in the presence of the one whose respect you desire--_Don't_.\n\nWhen you are tired of the struggle to be true and do right, tired of the\neffort to seek always the best things and are tempted to give\nup--_Don't_.\n\nWhen you are tempted to repay injustice with revenge, unkindness with\ncruelty, jealousy with malice, to do to others as they do to\nyou--_Don't_.\n\nLearn the power of control, of _restraint_ and though it be only the\nnegative side of religion, it will help to make you strong.\n\nWhen the instructor in religion opens his eyes and sees the peril which\nlies in wait for the girl wage earner, the society girl and even the\nschoolgirl, what he is forced to see makes him say with a passionate cry\nfrom his soul, as he thinks of the individual girls whom he knows and\nloves, \"_Thou shall not_.\"\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\nTHOU SHALT\n\n\nA thought which slumbers in the mind has within it the germ of life. At\nany moment when the right stimuli have been given, it may spring into\nconscious being and find expression in action that will color the entire\nlife. While it slumbers today, tomorrow may bring the waking moment and\nso it must be reckoned with in the formation of character. Still it\nlacks the positive element. It is limited.\n\nIt becomes the work of those interested in the welfare of the girl to\ncause the awakening and constant stimulation of those thoughts which\nshall lead to action along right lines. The repeated impression upon the\nmind of deeds of heroism, of unselfish daily living, of great action on\nthe part of ordinary people in a common-place environment has an\nunmistakable effect upon the forming character.\n\nBut if the thoughts engendered by the deeds of heroism and achievement\nbe called into action by the opportunity in the girl's life to reproduce\nthem, then the effect upon the character is made definite and intense.\nIt is not until the girl has done a kindred thing, until the impression\nhas found its way out in action, that the full result upon the forming\ncharacter is seen. All the complex life about her is busy through the\neye and ear, through numberless sensations and instinctive reactions\nleaving impressions. Their imprint upon her life may be seen by any\nclose observer when the girl herself is unconscious of it. But it is the\nspecial set of impressions which _habitually_ find _expression_ that\ndetermine character.\n\nThis is most encouraging, for it means that if the girl can be lead to\nexpress the right impression and leave the others to fade away into the\nrecesses of consciousness where it will be hard to awaken them, the\ndetermination of her character will be a possible task. It means that in\nthe years of habit formation and character making those who share the\ntask of the girl's training have the opportunity to lead her to\nrepeatedly express in positive action the high ideal, the noble\nself-sacrifice, the great deed or ambition, the generous impulse\nslumbering in her thoughts and appearing in her day dreams. The material\nwhich is furnished her for thought creates her day dreams, what she sees\nin her day dream _effects_ character, what she _does makes_ it.\n\nIt is for this reason that parents and teachers who are seriously\nconcerned with the problem of making a girl's religion a real and vital\nthing seek ways and means by which she may be led to express both in\nwords and actions the thoughts and desires which their teaching has\nawakened.\n\nA successful teacher had been studying with her class for some weeks the\nlessons founded upon \"Unto the least of these, my brethren\"--\"A cup of\ncold water even,\" \"Ye have done it unto me,\" and kindred texts. She\ntaught well and the girls were thinking. Some attempted as individuals\nto express what they thought. In the minds of most, the stories,\nillustrations and facts slumbered. One Saturday three of the more\nthoughtless girls were asked to accompany the teacher on a visit to a\nchildren's hospital. They were much impressed by what they saw. The\nconvalescent ward proved of great interest and the babies fighting\nfor their lives against pneumonia brought tears to their eyes. On their\nway home they expressed the wish that the class might make some of the\nbonnets and gowns which the sweet-faced young nurse had said the\nhospital needed so much for its baby patients. \"Perhaps the other girls\nwill not be interested,\" said the teacher. Immediately the most\nthoughtless girl in the class replied, \"Oh, Miss D----, they cannot help\nit. We will _tell_ them what we saw! We have been studying long enough\nabout what we ought to do. We haven't done a thing! At least--I\nhaven't--\" she added.\n\n[Illustration: HER HEART IS FILLED WITH A DEEP DESIRE TO SERVE]\n\nTwo dozen bonnets and gowns, well made after the pattern furnished by\nthe hospital, were the result of the interest of that class. While the\ngirls sewed they talked. They discussed in simple girlish fashion the\nproblems of poverty and illness and the duty of one part of society to\nthe other. In this sort of informal discussion they expressed themselves\nfar more freely than in their Sunday-school class or their classroom at\nschool. By the expression of high and generous thoughts they\nstrengthened their own ideals and placed themselves in the presence of\ntheir friends and companions on the side of Christ-like living.\n\nAbout a week after the last bonnet and gown made by the class had been\nsent to the hospital the teacher was surprised by a visit from Arline, a\nheedless and hitherto disinterested member of the class. It was a bitter\ncold day, the sunless air penetrating even the warmest garments.\n\n\"I brought you this box of things to give away,\" the girl said as the\nteacher tried to conceal her surprise. \"There must be a good many babies\nin the river district who need warmer clothing these cold days. I had\nsome time for sewing and my aunts helped.\"\n\nThe teacher found three bonnets and gowns carefully made, three tiny\nflannel petticoats, six pairs of warm stockings and three small hot\nwater bottles.\n\n\"I bought the things with my own money,\" said the girl. \"It is the first\ntime I ever did anything like this. I enjoyed it.\"\n\nThe church visitor found a needy place for each thing and told Arline\nmost heartily how grateful she was for the help she had been able to\npass on. The simple deed by which Arline expressed in the positive\nterms of action what she had been thinking seemed to make a definite\nchange in her character and about three months from the time she had\nmade her gift, in a simple and natural way she came into the church. As\nthe girls were given more and more definite opportunity to express\nthemselves in thoughtful acts and kindly words, the teacher found\nsympathetic, interested listeners to the lessons she tried to make\ninspiring and practical in their appeal, and one by one the girls\ndecided for themselves to come into the church and help it do its work\nin the world. The definite stand of such a group of interesting girls,\neasily leaders in school and the social life, made a decided difference\nin the standards of the young people of that community. The community as\na whole, and the parents of the girls especially, owe to that teacher a\nvery real debt for her part in the character building of those girls,\nwho before they came in contact with her had had only vague and hazy\nideas of a girl's duties and privileges. She furnished them with\nmaterial for thought and with opportunity for translating that thought\ninto action which is rapidly determining their characters.\n\nA class of girls in another community made up of \"freshmen\" and\n\"sophomores\" in the high school who were accused by other girls, and\nwith reason, of being \"snobbish,\" \"proud,\" and of forming \"cliques,\" had\nbeen studying with a most interesting teacher a course on Christian life\nand conduct. They had been urged to show in their own lives, in school,\nin their social relations, the characteristics they learned each Sunday\nshould belong, not only to every Christian but to every girl. Then their\nteacher began to make the suggestions definite, getting as many as she\ncould from the girls themselves. They were asked to increase the\nmembership of their club, attend and take part in young peoples' socials\nfrom which their \"set\" had held aloof, join in the work of the Girls'\nGuild, to which they had given a little money but nothing else. These\nthings were hard for some of them. At first they were not able to do\nthem naturally and easily and they found the friendship and confidence\nof the other girls hard to gain. But they had come to the conclusion in\nclass that these things were right and the enthusiasm and approval of\ntheir teacher over the attempts they were making spurred them on. Then\nthey began to make discoveries. They found out what interesting girls\nthere were outside their \"set.\" They found they had exaggerated their\nown importance. They began to enjoy the good times of the young people\nin the church societies and to want a real part in them. The change in\nthe spirit and life of that class, even in a year, was wonderful. At the\nend of the second year with that teacher the spirit of the young people\nin that cosmopolitan church had entirely changed. Those girls had\nwrought the change because they had themselves been transformed. They\nhad been expressing, day after day, in positive action the things they\nlearned, and the impressions which before had slumbered in the mind\nburst into life through the daily deed. They studied Christ's rules for\nliving, they traced the results of obedience to those rules in the lives\nof those who truly followed Him and _they_ tried to _do_ in their own\nevery day lives, until _doing_ brought _power_ to do and character was\nbeing made.\n\nIn the religion of every girl there must be the positive side; whether\nshe works in a factory or attends a fashionable boarding school her\ncharacter will be made and her religious life formed through the\nimpressions which constantly find expression in words and actions.\n\nA girl's religion, especially in the early teens, must be active not\npassive. She must be made to feel--_and be given the right outlet for\nthe feelings aroused within_ her, to dream--_and be helped to find a way\nto work out her dreams_. She must be given knowledge and _be shown the\nway in which to use it._\n\nIt is in this way that the girl, every girl, may hope to find a sane and\nnatural religion which shall be a real help in the real world where she\nmust live. Christ was a doer of deeds. The gospel record of His life has\nsomewhat to say of the things He did _not_ do but its pages are filled\nwith the things that He did. Lame, blind, lepers, insane, poor, lonely\nand sorrowful as well as \"sinners,\" His friends and His disciples bear\nwitness to the things that He _did_. Christianity is a religion of deeds\nand whether it be through a factory-club, a neighborhood house, Camp\nFire Girls, Christian Associations, the summer camp, girls' conferences,\nthe Sunday-school or the home, the girl must be impressed with the fact\nthat religion and life go hand in hand and must be shown the way to\ngive that impression opportunity to express itself, until repeated\nexpression shall have marked out the trend of _character_.\n\nIf the girl herself is reading this chapter she will realize that while\nin a girl's religion there must of necessity be the simple definite\n\"thou shalt not,\" the most important part of that religion is Thou\nShalt. The girl herself should be so busy doing the things that ought to\nbe done that there is no time for the undesirable and forbidden things.\nIt is much to the girl's credit that she loves a religion that does\nthings. The world needs, every church, every community, every school and\nevery home needs, girls who have found their religion and put it into\npractise. Find yours, then put it to work, _helping_, helping\n_everywhere_.\n\n\n\n\nXV\n\nA MATTER OF CULTIVATION\n\n\nA great many people are willing to sow seed. There is an inspiration in\nthe picture which the word \"Sower\" brings to the mind. I can never\nforget those days when the boys and girls just entering their teens took\ntheir spades and hoes, left the schoolroom with its algebra and\ntechnical grammar behind and went out into the glorious spring sunshine\nto plant their school gardens. On the various packages of seed were\npictured the promised flowers or vegetables and with joy they looked\nforward to the day when they should be able to proudly exhibit the\nresults of their planting.\n\nWhen the planting was done most of the children believed that the\nhardest part of the task was over. Year after year successive classes\nfailed to realize the fact of _Time_. As the weeks passed and the slow\ndevelopment that is nature's way to perfection went on, one would hear a\nboy say, \"Next year I'm going to plant radishes; they grow faster,\" and\nanother, \"You will never get me to plant squashes again; they're too\nslow.\"\n\nThese young gardeners found very difficult, and some found quite\nimpossible, the task of _waiting_, meanwhile working with the soil and\nprotecting the growing plants, that the flower and fruit might be as\nfine as possible. Despite encouragement from other children and from\ninstructors, some of the boys and girls lost their enthusiasm entirely\nand seldom looked at their gardens.\n\nThose boys and girls, planting their seeds of flower and fruit on the\nsunny hillside and in the shaded nooks where the school gardens lay,\nwere not at all unlike the men and women who today plant the good seed\nin the gardens of hearts that come to them in the glorious springtime of\nlife ready for the sowing. Like the boys and girls these older gardeners\nare pleased with the picture of the result of their seed sowing. With\nenthusiasm they enter upon the task of planting, with eagerness they\nwatch for the first appearance of results. And then Time enters in.\nThere is evidence of weeds; slugs and worms appear. Then comes the clear\ncall for the two great virtues of the sower who will win a\nharvest--Labor and Patience. He must cultivate the soil, else only the\nmeager harvest can be his. The art of cultivation is the one so many\nwould-be harvesters fail to learn.\n\nTo realize what the art of cultivation can accomplish one needs to read\ncarefully the increase in the record of the producing power of certain\nwheat fields in our country during the past four years. Courage comes\nwith the study of the reports of modern miracles accomplished through\nthe advice and instruction of the agricultural schools and colleges\nwhich have escaped from the thraldom of the abstract. Every one should\nlook once into the faces of boys and girls of the rural schools who\nhaving been instructed in the art of cultivation have practised it and\nincreased the value and quantity of the output on their fathers' farms,\nten-fold. It fills one with hope to look into the bright eager face of a\nfourteen-year-old prize winner, holding side by side in his hand the\nstalks of corn, one small and meager, the other rich and full, made so\nby the art of cultivation which he has so patiently practised.\n\nWhat the cultivation of the soil has accomplished in the agricultural\nworld it can accomplish in the teaching of religion. If young America is\nirreligious today it is because we have sown the seed and left it to\nitself. In the soil of young hearts are the elements which make a sane,\nfull output of religious life possible--but cultivation is _necessary_\nand, if we are to raise the type of our girlhood, _imperative_. We shall\nbe compelled to resist the temptation to give up because the seed does\nnot grow faster.\n\nThose entrusted with the cultivation of this human soil into which the\nseed has been dropped must know what that seed needs as it\ndevelops--urging forward here, that through self-expression it may grow\nstrong, restraining there, that it may not spread itself out and through\nover-expression become weak. Only loving personal knowledge of each\nindividual life will make possible this guidance and restraint. They\nmust know the environment in the midst of which the good seed is\nstriving to climb to fruition, else they cannot know just what to drop\ninto the soil to stimulate the seed in its fight for strength, nor how\nto protect it from growths that threaten to choke it.\n\nThose entrusted with the cultivation of this soil, if they are to be\nsuccessful, must learn to use the mighty stimulus to growth that comes\nfrom simple friendship. Seed which can come to fruition under no other\nconditions springs into vigorous life under the power of warm\nfriendship. Many a seed which might have developed and borne rich fruit\nhas shriveled and dried in the chill of unfriendliness and\nmisunderstanding. These cultivators of the heart soil must learn very\nquickly the value of sunshine. Young life needs the rain and has it, but\nyoung life loves the sunshine, it blossoms in the presence of hope and\nexpectation, it droops in the atmosphere of distrust.\n\nIf one obeys the law in the sowing of the seed and follows the direction\nin its nurturing, the Lord of all harvests will himself give the\nincrease.\n\n  \"God's Word should be sown in the heart like seed;\n  Then men's hands must tend it, their lives defend it,\n  Till it bursts into flower as a deathless deed.\"\n\nSomewhere in the religious training of a girl there must be a large\nplace for the feeding of the soul; for unless food which is able to\nsustain life and expand it is supplied the girl can never become a power\nin herself. Hers will not be an invigorating religion; there will not be\nin her that vitality which will make it possible for her to banish fear\nand fret, to rise above discouragement, to endure suffering, to triumph\nover sorrow, to forget self. But if she can gain this energizing power\nshe will not join, in womanhood, the ranks of those spending their days\nin search of inspiration; she will have it in her own soul. If she lacks\nthis vital power she will become one of the multitude of Christians who\nare dependent upon circumstances for their happiness, upon the words of\nothers for their encouragement, upon the pleas and persuasion of others\nto move them to service. From this sort of woman, who is kindly and\npleasant when things go smoothly, who courageously attacks a problem as\nlong as another stands by to brace up and urge on, who gives time,\nthought or money when some strong appeal is made and then loses interest\nand forgets, until another \"prod\" is given, from this sort of expression\nof religious life all who are interested in girls would save them and so\nare seeking the means of nourishing their souls that power may be\ngenerated from within.\n\nIt is not possible to get inspiration from a source with which one has\nno connection and the whole task of those attempting to give to the girl\na workable religion, is the task of making connections with the Source\nof power.\n\nSome weeks ago I observed the work of an instructor attempting to make\nthe connection through the study of the Bible. She knew that telling a\ngirl to read her Bible is not helping or training her to do it. These\ngirls had purchased ten and twenty cent Testaments which could be cut,\nand small loose-leaf note books, on the covers of which were pasted one\nof the pictures of Christ. The girls had spent two weeks clipping from\nthe Testaments and pasting in their note books \"the things Jesus said\nabout himself and the words God spoke concerning Him.\" Two weeks more\nwere spent clipping the \"things others said about Him\"--Peter, Paul,\nJohn, the Pharisees. The next work was to clip what Jesus said about\nforgiveness, about one's duty to neighbors, treatment of one's enemies,\nthe way to be happy. Later they were to use both Old and New Testaments,\ncutting out the verses which they thought would be of comfort to any\none in sorrow, to one who had greatly sinned, and verses which they\nconsidered good advice to young people. That instructor was making a\nsane, practical attempt to feed the souls of those girls by helping them\nsearch out for themselves what the Bible has to say on topics of real\ninterest.\n\nI saw a note book recently prepared by a fifteen-year-old girl which I\nbelieve most valuable because of the things about which it has lead her\nto think. She had taken as the subject of her book, \"The Good Shepherd.\"\nOn the cover was a picture with that title; in the inside a fine\ncollection of pictures representing Jesus as the Good Shepherd,\nclippings regarding oriental shepherd life, \"The Shepherd Psalm,\" the\nParable of the Lost Sheep and the words of hymns like \"The Ninety and\nNine\" and poems like \"That Li'l Black Sheep.\"\n\nOne cannot soon forget that book with its decorated margins, its neat\nmounting of cards and clippings and its beautiful pictures. The effect\nof the book upon the girl who made it, the teachers said was very\napparent. Another book was entitled \"Come Unto Me,\" and the pictures,\nverses and hymns were most impressive. When each girl has exchanged\nbooks with each member of the class, they are to be sent to a rescue\nhome for girls.\n\nThe Bible messages to mankind brought by such simple methods into direct\ncontact with a girl in her early teens is one means of nourishing her\nsoul. If it is true that the best in poetry, art, literature and\noratory, as well as the greatest uplift to character, finds its source\nin that Book the girl should come into real touch with it that it may\nfeed her expanding soul. It is this sort of first-hand, individual study\nwhile she is still a girl which will help her later to turn to the Book\nfor encouragement, comfort and strength, and lead her to great thoughts\nand the attempting of great things because her own soul is inspired.\n\nThe majority of teachers, superintendents and leaders interested in\nreligious instruction today were trained in Christian homes and taught\nas little children to pray. Attendance at church services of various\nkinds gave to them almost unconsciously a phraseology of prayer and\nimpressed upon them the place of prayer in the Christian life. So\nfamiliar is the fact of prayer that they forget that the majority of\npupils in the average Sunday-school of today are not familiar with the\nwords of prayer at family worship, are at best irregular in church\nattendance and that many are associated with no society in the church\nwhere there is any training in prayer.\n\nTo such young people prayer has nothing to do with life. They say the\nLord's Prayer at school perhaps, formally and hurriedly in the morning,\nthey hear the prayer from the superintendent's desk on Sunday, or\nperchance remember the evening, \"Now I lay me down to sleep,\" which is\nsaid in many homes not Christian, by the little child. But the prayer;\nwhich though only an echo of adult prayers, and only half understood,\ncalms many a fear in a childish heart, helps to victory over sin many a\nstruggling ten-year-old reared in a Christian home, is utterly foreign\nto the child who has none of these influences and who meets in the\naverage Sunday-school not cultivation, but the abstract taken for\ngranted type of instruction.\n\nI have in my possession a most interesting set of papers written by\ngirls in their early twenties regarding their memories of their own\ntraining in prayer and the result of it in their lives. I quote first\nfrom the papers of girls brought up in Christian homes.\n\n\"I can remember now the very wording of some of my father's prayers and\nthose words found their way into my own--some of them are still there.\nOften when a child, I prayed impulsively, using unconventional terms and\nsaying 'you' instead of 'thou.' Before I was twelve mother often\nreminded me of my prayers when she said good night. As I grew older\nnothing was said to me about it. I was hot-tempered and continually\n'getting mad' at other girls and teachers and almost every one. No one\nwill ever know the remorse I suffered after one of those outbursts. At\nnight I would pour out my soul in a plea for forgiveness. I was sure God\nforgave me and started next day with determination to conquer. I often\nprayed about examinations which were very hard for me. Once or twice I\nprayed that mother would see that I needed a different kind of dress\nfrom the one she planned. I am sure that I felt God was a sympathetic\nfriend and prayer to me was natural.\"\n\nHere was a girl who because of the cultivation in the home turned\nsimply and naturally to God to supply her need. She is today a pure,\nhealthy, natural young woman who has seemingly triumphed over her\npropensity to \"get mad.\" Another girl says:\n\n\"I have prayed ever since I remember. We always had family prayers at\nhome and in church our pastor always prayed for us children. I used to\npray when I was afraid, which I often was at night when the wind blew,\nand I felt comforted. My little sister was not strong and for years I\nprayed every night that God would let us keep her. Sometimes when I had\nbeen scolded in school for whispering, in which I was a great offender,\nI prayed in shame and remorse for forgiveness. As I grew older I still\nprayed when afraid and repentant and often on a beautiful day, or in the\ncanoe at sunset when I could not say all I felt. When I was about\neighteen I began to pray for the missionaries and people who were poor\nand sick. I do not remember any definite instruction about prayer. It\nseemed natural to me. I often felt doubts when the answer didn't come\nbut had a very definite feeling that the trouble must be with me.\"\n\nThis girl by environment and unconscious training has also found\nspeaking with God a natural thing. There are so many papers which\nexpress through different personalities the same general facts which\ncannot fail to impress one who reads, with the power of the cultivation\nof prayer.\n\nBut in the papers and from the interviews of girls in the early twenties\nwhose only definite relation with the church is the Sunday-school class,\nwho come from non-Christian homes, whose parents almost never enter a\nchurch a different note sounds.\n\nOne says:\n\n\"I am trying to be a Christian. I have not joined the church. I cannot\nsay that I pray very regularly but I have tried to. It does not seem to\nhelp me much. The minister prayed for me the day my brother died and it\nhelped. Sometimes I read in a book of prayers.\"\n\nAnd another writes:\n\n\"I do not believe I ever was taught to say my prayers when a child. I do\nnot remember ever praying except the Lord's Prayer. I am interested in\nour class, the teacher makes the lessons interesting. I like to hear\nthem discuss things. I always bow my head during prayer anywhere.\nSometimes I have thought I would pray for myself but I never have.\"\n\nOne of the most interesting papers is written by a young woman engaged\nin rescue work for girls, or has talked personally with a great many\ngirls about prayer. She says:\n\n\"There was another girl with whom I talked one afternoon whose face I\ncan see clearly now. She was suffering from great remorse because of her\nsin, for up to the time of her misfortune she had been 'a good girl.'\nOne of the workers suggested that she pray for strength and forgiveness.\n'_Pray_,' she said bitterly. 'They told me that when I was a little girl\nand went to Sunday-school. _Pray_. How can I talk to God? What would he\ndo for me? I tried last night when I couldn't sleep but _don't know what\nto say_!'\"\n\nThere was no natural turning to a strong sympathetic Friend and Father\non the part of these girls, or the twenty or more whose testimony I have\nbeen looking over. Those who were trying to be Christians made it a\nmatter of duty to try to pray but it was irregular and forced; there\nwas no natural spontaneity about it. It wasn't real to them, it played\nno vital part in life. In looking over the papers one is convinced of\nthe tremendous asset the girl has who from childhood has been trained to\nturn to the Source of Strength when in fear or trouble or need and when\nfilled with the joy of living. A girl's life must be raised to a higher\nplane by daily contact with the Highest. If she sincerely speaks but for\na moment to God, realizing his love, mercy, justice and righteousness,\nit will not be as easy for her to be jealous, unkind, untrue or a\ngossip. One covets for all girls this natural, spontaneous turning to\nGod which has seemed to come to so many through the Christian home and\nits unconscious influence and instruction. Nothing can take the place of\nthe earnest daily prayer of a manly father, and the instruction of a\nsweet, Christian mother. But the task which so many homes lays down the\ncommunity must take up. The public school _cannot_ cultivate the spirit\nof prayer, and if the home does not, the church remains the only\npossible agent through which it may be done. The Sunday-school teacher\nis the church's most potent instrument, therefore a large share of the\ntask is hers.\n\nThe teachers in the Beginners' departments realize the need of the\ncultivation of prayer and pray simply and often during the session, baby\nlips repeating the words. Through cards and memory verses prayers go\ninto homes where none are ever made. In Primary departments the\ninstruction is continued and children are led to express themselves in\nsimple words of worship. In the Junior departments there is the\nsuperintendent's prayer--the appeal it makes depending upon the leader's\nsympathy, and knowledge of childhood. Often both are lacking. These\nJunior girls know the street, the moving picture show, the unsupervised\nplayground, the temptations of school life; they are beginning to show\nthe moral effect of poverty on the one hand and social ambitions and\nfalse standards on the other. How many prayers for girls from ten to\ntwelve does one hear? How many can he find though he search ever so\ndiligently.\n\nWhen we come to the girl in her teens we find often in large numbers of\nclasses that the only instruction in prayer is the indirect teaching\nfrom the prayer at the desk. How many girls listen reverently to it?\n\nThey come from stores and shops, from high schools, offices, homes of\nplenty and homes of want. They know temptation, they meet it in more\ndangerous forms than ever before. How does the prayer affect life as\nthey know it? Very little I am bound to believe unless _the great\nexperience_ has come to them and they have said in simple girlish\nfashion, \"O Christ, I choose thee King of my life--I follow thee\nwherever the way shall lead,\" unless that transferring of _will_ from\nvague and indefinite desire to a definite purpose has come, the prayer\nwhich is a part of the average opening service will have little\ninfluence. Even if the great decision has been made, the prayer of one\nfar away at the desk, often out of touch with young life, does not bring\nthe uplift.\n\nWhat a teacher may do the following testimony of a young girl may help\nus to see:\n\n\"I never had any special instruction in prayer at home. I think I must\nhave said my prayers when a very little child. My parents are just fine\nbut they do not go to church. They almost always spend Sundays with\ngrandmother on the farm. I do not remember any instruction about prayer,\nthough of course it was mentioned and I knew good people prayed, until I\nwas seventeen when the finest teacher I ever had talked to us about it\nfor four Sundays. Then I saw how much the people who had helped the\nworld had prayed and how much it did for them. She made Christ seem so\nbeautiful and sympathetic that though I can't explain it I wanted to\npray myself. That afternoon out in the hammock I did. I shall never\nforget how wonderful the world seemed.... In a few weeks three of us\njoined the church and we prayed for the other girls. That year eight of\nus joined.\"\n\nThe testimony speaks for itself. She taught them what prayer had done\nfor others; she made them want to pray. I do not know that teacher but I\nfeel sure she knew by experience what she taught.\n\nI know another teacher who is very successful in cultivating the\nspiritual life of every class of girls as it comes to her. I find that\neach new class has been asked to join with her at night in using wisely\nselected prayers written by Stevenson, Rauschenbusch, Phillips Brooks,\nand others taken from religious journals and from calendars. Each\nprayer is used daily for two weeks. After about six months the teacher\nasks that a committee be appointed to write a prayer for the class, this\ncommittee being changed every two weeks.\n\nSome of the prayers were very helpful and all had a crude, simple\nsincerity that was fine. I saw a letter written to this teacher by a\nseventeen-year-old girl away from home and out on a strike. It was a\npathetic letter but one sentence cheered the teacher's heart--\"The\nprayer that Midge and Kate wrote keeps coming to my mind and it helps me\nto keep a level head when we all git kinder wild.\"\n\nWhen girls see that prayer is not beseeching an unwilling God for\n_things_ the desire for which may be born of pure selfishness, but is\nthe way by which help to keep steady and strong, power to love one's\nfellows and to live courageously and well comes to many, it will make a\ndifference in what they think about prayer and the way they pray. But\nmost girls do not know these things intuitively. They must be helped to\nknow them. The spirit within them must be cultivated. Prayer and\nseeking the Bible for courage and help are largely matters of\ncultivation. The great Teacher prayed Himself in such a wonderful way\nthat the disciples listening cried--\"Lord, teach us how to pray.\" And he\nanswered their request, giving them _the words to say_ until they should\nfind words for themselves. He made them _want_ to pray.\n\nIf the girl herself chances to read this chapter let her be assured that\nthere is no lesson in all the world which she can learn which can give\nto her anything like the courage, strength, comfort and help to go right\non in the face of hard things, that can come to her through learning how\nto truly pray, not empty words, not words for others to hear, but words\nthat say all she feels of disappointment and longing, of hope and\ngladness. The Great God hears _all_ one can say and knows what she\ncannot say. Only God can do that. Even the best friends tire of our\nstruggles and failures. God never does and when I speak to Him I may\n_know_ He cares. Though I am one speck of humanity in a great mass of\nmen and women, though the girl who is reading this is just one ordinary\ngirl, one among millions the world around, she may speak to God, her\nCreator without fear, may touch His _greatness_ and her heart be warmed\nby His answering touch.\n\n  \"Speak to Him then, for He heareth,\n    and spirit with spirit may meet.\n  Closer is He than breathing,\n    And nearer than hands and feet.\"\n\n\n\n\nXVI\n\nA PLEA AND A PROMISE\n\n\nThe Plea is for a purer, more invigorating atmosphere for our girls to\nbreathe--the Promise, that when it is given to them they will respond,\ntheir religious, as well as physical and mental life will be normal and\nthe vitality in it will express itself in action.\n\nInspiration is a part of a girl's religion and inspiration means\n\"inhaling--taking into the life that which creates high and lofty\nemotions.\"\n\nMemory takes me back to school days when with windows wide open,\nshoulders squared and heads erect, the teacher's command bade us inhale\nand we filled our lungs to the full with fresh, life-giving air. Then\ncame the command to exhale, and we emptied our lungs, that there might\nbe room for more of the clear invigorating air. In life's larger school\nour girls of today are inhaling what? Is it the fresh, untainted,\nlife-giving air?\n\nThe other day on the street I overheard a girl uttering words that made\nme turn in dismay to look at her. I saw, not what I expected to see, a\ncoarse, ill-clad, ignorant girl, but a pretty, fashionably dressed girl\nwith high school books under her arm. Where had she breathed in the\nsentiments regarding honor which in slangy phrases she breathed out with\nno hesitation or shame? There was nothing high or lofty in the emotion\nenkindled by what she breathed into her soul from her environment, and\nwhat she had breathed out into her companion's ears could not fail to\nweaken and injure.\n\nI found myself wondering what her environment could be and later when I\ndescribed her, a girl companion told me her name. I remembered her then,\none of the girls who had grown up quickly, the daughter of a skilled\nmechanic who made good wages and owned a comfortable home. She was an\nonly child and her mother was socially ambitious for her. The mother had\ndone nothing to interest her daughter in the church, only now and then\ndid she attend Sunday-school; friends were entertained Sunday evening,\nso she had no connection with the young peoples' societies of the\nchurch. She is a type of a vast number of girls whose religious sense\nlies dormant.\n\nKnowing now her environment, I asked myself, \"Where can she 'breathe in\nthat which will stir her soul to high and lofty emotion,' and enable her\nto help and bless her world?\" At home? Can she there breathe in that\nwhich will enkindle noble ambition to love and serve in a world which so\nneeds love and service?\n\nOnce there were numberless homes and, thank God, there are still many\nwhere a girl can breathe in deep draughts of the fresh, sweet, wholesome\natmosphere in which the family lives. But knowing something of that\nmother, I knew she discussed with her daughter, dress and parties, her\nfuture at college, her music, her marks, and laid wisely and well her\nplans for the forming of friendships which she considered \"an\nadvantage.\" In her presence she criticized friends and neighbors and\nrelated bits of gossip. Occasionally she scolded her for faults that\nhappened at the moment to annoy. Her father talked boastfully of his\nsuccesses and ambitions, criticized the men for whom he did business,\nfound fault with those whom he employed, occasionally talked of\npolitics in a vain attempt to interest his wife and daughter. There were\nfew books in the home. The newspapers and one or more popular magazines\nrepresented the only reading of the family. The daughter played a\nlittle, sang a little, sewed a very little and studied as much as she\nmust to insure the certificate for entrance to college. But she attended\nmatinees, dancing parties in large numbers, and belonged to a whist\nclub. A whist club, poor girl, at sixteen! Her parents were blind and\ndeaf to the fact that in their daughter's life there was nothing, save\nnow and then a desperate attempt on the part of an earnest high school\nteacher, or a word from a teacher who occasionally found her in the\nSunday-school class, which might inspire her soul with high ideals,\npure, noble thoughts expressed in action which makes life sweeter. Of\nnature's beauties, of her countless miracles, of the dramatic acts of\ncurrent history, of the lives and needs of other girls she knew almost\nnothing. In her pitiful little world she lived, her best self dying for\nwant of pure air with the oxygen of power in it.\n\nCan she find in the social life and amusements of the day the\ninspiration needed to fill her soul with life that it may develop as her\nnormal healthy body develops? No, the girls of our country do not find\nour social life a help to the higher expression of self. Only here and\nthere do wise parents make social life simple, free from show and sham,\nfrom false standards and appeals to the senses. But few know how to\ncenter the social life in the home, in the out-of-doors, in clean\nsports, instead of letting it center about exotic conditions,\nunreasonable hours, and deadly refreshments. Only now and then does the\npresent social life demand any exercise of mental power.\n\nIt is wonderfully encouraging to find, here and there, groups of girls\nof sixteen and their boy friends having their simple good times in each\nother's homes, enjoying the picnic and the skating party; or the girls\nby themselves enjoying camp life, the tramp in the woods, the gymnasium\nclass; or with their parents or chaperones enjoying the moving pictures\nof high standard, without vaudeville. These girls are such a contrast to\nthe usual groups of sophisticated, bored, blase girls who at eighteen\nhave tired of the ordinary means of recreation and amusement. Our social\nlife suffers from too rapid growth. It does not offer the tonic for\nhealthy social nature. It needs pruning. Some of it needs to be torn up\nby the roots.\n\nAnd what of the schools? Can she find there the atmosphere that will\nstir her soul to noble, unselfish joyous living? Yes, in some schools.\nMany are engaged in merely continuing the \"system,\" following a\ncurriculum strangely deficient in those things which touch life\ndirectly, to inspire it and kindle it with ambition.\n\nRecently, four names, the names of women, were presented to classes of\ngirls in the last year of the grammar grades and the four years of the\nhigh school. The girls were asked, \"Did you ever hear of Frances\nWillard? What do you know about her?\" Then followed the names of Mary\nLyon, Clara Barton, Alice Freeman Palmer. The show of hands and the\nwritten replies were pitiful. Some had a vague idea that they had heard\nthe name somewhere, a few gave one or two facts. Clara Barton seemed the\none most familiar but knowledge concerning her was very limited.\n\nThen Jane Addams' name was tried, the same meager replies resulting.\nFinally the name of the wife of a noted and notorious insane criminal\nwas given and scarcely a hand was down in answer to the first question,\nand pencils flew over the paper in answer to the second. What does it\nmean? It does not condemn the school, nor does it hold the school\nresponsible but it does suggest that there might be some substitute\ncharacters for the mythical ones of ancient history, or that possibly\nthe lives of great and noble women might be studied with greater profit\nby the girls of today than certain abstract problems in physics. In many\nof the classes where the questions were asked that fresh, clear,\nvitalizing atmosphere charged with reality, seemed lacking.\n\nWhen we can calmly look at our schools, recognize the tremendous\ndifficulties under which they work, realize their limitations, and with\nprofound belief in what they have done, gratitude for what they are\ndoing and confidence in what they are going to do, get at our task of\nsetting teachers free and vitalizing courses of study, we shall be able\nto generate in them all the atmosphere in which the girl will find\ninspiration for noble living.\n\nWhere can the girl turn for the life giving atmosphere? To the church?\nYes, if the church were awake to the facts and equipped to meet her\nneeds. But what a small part of our country's girlhood comes into direct\ncontact with the church, and how few churches have adequate leadership\nprovided for those whom it does touch. The whole problem of adolescence\nis a problem of leadership. A wise leader has almost unlimited power in\ncharging the atmosphere with the spirit of uplift. The church _must_\nfurnish leadership. It _must_ guide or lose its youth. It must advise\nwith practical, possible advice.\n\nPerhaps the day will come when groups of churches will unite in forming\nsocial centers and the business men of those churches shall _seriously_\nconsider the problem of where girls shall meet their young men friends\nand how they shall spend their evenings together. Perhaps some day the\nmen of the church will select in their community a good, clean moving\npicture house, and there are some, where they can advise their young\npeople to go, helping them thus to escape the snare of those who cater\nto evil.\n\nThose most deeply interested in a girl's religion, have come to see its\nrelation to every other phase of her life, and to know that one may not\nsnatch amusements from the lives of young people, giving nothing in\nreturn.\n\nJust what is wisest to give in return is our great problem. The church\n_must_ meet it and it needs help.\n\nThe time is ripe and more than ripe for the direct appeal to the\nhome. It should be made through every avenue and in every language.\nIt should be made through every newspaper and printed in every\ntongue--\"_Responsibility_ belongs to the home.\" All sorts of homes\nmust help in making the atmosphere in which a young girl must live,\n_safe_, free from poisons that mean suffering and in the long run\ndeath to the best things.\n\nI happened one day in a smoke laden city upon a group of women in one of\nthe residential districts who were meeting together to see if all the\nfamilies for a certain number of blocks east and west would promise to\nuse only hard coal in their homes. One of the women, the mother of\nthree young children, pictured vividly the difference it would make in\nthe atmosphere their children must breathe and closed her appeal by\nsaying, \"But women, it means that we must _all_ burn it. The help one or\ntwo of us can give amounts to almost nothing. Into each of our cellars\nthe hard coal must go and each of us must insist upon using nothing\nelse. Then we shall have clean, pure air for our babies to breathe\nthroughout all this section.\"\n\nShe had stated the answer to the whole problem of bringing inspiration\nto our girls. It will need _every_ home and _every_ church to keep the\natmosphere clean and invigorating.\n\nIt may be that the girl herself is reading and thinking over this _Plea_\nand _Promise_. If she is she will realize how earnestly we covet for her\nall the best things and how we long for wisdom to help her get them.\nPerhaps she will think that _she_ can do a great deal toward getting\nthem for herself, _and she can_. Let me recall to her mind one of the\ngirls whom we find in almost every gymnasium class, whose pale face and\nstooping shoulders attract at once the instructor's attention. Let me\nremind her of the special exercises given that girl for chest\ndevelopment, the advice about food and the command, \"Live with your\nwindows open. Let the air into your lungs.\" Again and again you will\nremember the instructor gave the command to the class, \"_Breathe_. Use\nyour lungs! Half of you use only two-thirds of your lung capacity!\" And\nthen by way of emphasis she contrasted her own chest expansion and\nyours, adding, \"If you want health, take deep breaths.\"\n\nThe Plea which I make to the girl herself is that she use, to the full\ncapacity, her power to inhale those things that shall give inspiration\nfor pure, helpful living. Every girl has that power. Some use only\ntwo-thirds of it, some one third, some have forgotten its existence. If\na girl wants to really live she must \"breathe deep,\" with her soul's\nwindows open wide to the atmosphere that will give her strength. If she\nis obliged to live with those who do not think of these things, whose\nown spirits are starved, she can seek friends who will help, she can go\nto the places where her mind and soul are stirred as well as her senses,\nshe can find in good books great uplift and courage. She will, if she\ntruly wants inspiration and help to live nobly, attend regularly some\nchurch where the service makes her long to be her best. She will, if\npossible, join some class where she can study the life and teachings of\nJesus Christ, who _now_ even as when He was here, lifts those who listen\nto Him out of failure and discouragement into hope, in whose presence\nevery girl may breathe in the atmosphere filled with life giving power.\n\nIf a girl responds to this _Plea_ to open her soul to the great Giver of\nlife, I can _Promise_ that she will find true happiness and joy.\n\n\n\n\nXVII\n\nA PERSON NOT A FACT\n\n\nEvery thoughtful person craves facts. They are cold, hard, sometimes\ndisconcerting but they carry weight. \"It is a fact, it has been proven,\"\nhushes many a query and silences many an argument. And yet it is not in\nthe array of facts which can be given at any moment that young people\nfind their incentives and inspirations. They may have all the facts at\ntheir tongue's end but lack the fire which shall transfuse those facts\ninto power to act in accordance with their teachings. Julius Caesar is a\nfact. A girl may have no doubt of his existence, she may not question\nthe great events of his life, but he does not stir her to action. The\nfact of George Washington does not awaken the patriotism of a girl and\nin schools where merely the facts regarding his life are given his\ninfluence is practically negative. But whenever the facts have been\nbreathed upon by a sympathetic spirit and the fact George Washington\ntransformed into the personality that lives in the girl's presence then\nhis influence begins to count.\n\nIt is not the facts about Abraham Lincoln that engender heroism. The\nfacts may be presented in such a way as to hold but passing interest. I\nhave heard the life and times of Abraham Lincoln taught that way. But I\nhave seen Abraham Lincoln presented to a class of foreign girls by one\nto whom he had become a friend as real and genuine as if he stood by her\nside. As I listened _I_ saw Abraham Lincoln. I felt the kindness and\npatience of his great soul, the honest purpose and the fine courage of\nhis life. The facts were there in that lesson but more than the facts\nwere there. _He_ was there. At the close of the lesson that teacher\nlooking into the faces of the girls who represented nearly every land\nacross the sea said to them, \"What do you think of him?\" One girl\nresponded eagerly \"I think he was _grand_!\" and a dark-haired intense\ngirl, her black eyes glowing, rose and said with an earnestness and\nfervor I can _never_ forget, \"I _love_ him!\" \"You shall hear more\ntomorrow,\" said the teacher, and they looked as if it were hard to wait.\n\nA careful observation of the ways of presenting great men of history and\ngreat characters in literature to young people will convince one beyond\ndoubt that the girl may store the _facts_ in the memory for a time, but\nif the living personality is presented _it_ will remain to mold and\nguide and influence the life. The teacher's greatest power is never in\nwhat she teaches but in what is revealed to the individual through her\nteaching. The mind hungers for facts, searches for facts and wearies of\nfacts. It follows personality.\n\nWhen Richard Watson Gilder tried to voice the plea of the young doubter,\npuzzled, perplexed and suffering from the great array of apparently\nconflicting facts and most of all from his own failure to win out over\nthe temptations that swept over him he said:\n\n  \"Thou Christ, my soul is hurt and bruised!\n    With words the scholars wear me out;\n  My brain o'erwearied and confused,\n    Thee, myself and all, I doubt.\n  And must I back to darkness go\n    Because I cannot say a creed?\n  I know not what I think! I know\n    Only that _Thou_ art what I need.\"\n\nThe fact is not enough. John Kendrick Bangs says it forcibly--\n\n  \"A mere acceptance of the fact of love of God above,\n  Of all the vast omnipotence of Him our Maker and Defence\n  Is not believing.\"\n\nSlowly we are getting back to the recognition of the proper place of\nfact, of its power as the background and basis against which and upon\nwhich Personality must stand. Our eyes are opening to see that if the\ngirl is to gain a religion which shall mean life, she must gain it\nthrough a person who reveals a _Person_.\n\nHere is Mary D----, a girl of fifteen, a worker in a mill employing a\nvery cheap grade of help. Her face was hard, there was no light of\nanticipation in her eyes--she had nothing to anticipate. She toiled\nthrough the long hours, for there was no limit to her day in the state\nwhere she lives. Her home was not a home but a place where she could\nstay nights--when her father was not so quarrelsome through cheap\ndrink that he drove her out. One day a woman at a noon service in the\nfactory shocked at a profane remark of Mary's said reprovingly, \"Don't\nyou believe there is a God?\" \"Sure I do,\" said Mary, \"but I don't see's\nit makes no difference to me.\" Further questions followed and Mary\ndeclared her belief, adding, \"I don't bother much about them things.\"\nMary had some _facts_ and declared some sort of belief in them, but they\nmade _no difference_.\n\n[Illustration: THE FUTURE PROMISES NOTHING AND SHE HAS LOST HOPE]\n\nThe next summer, Mary, overcome by the work of the year and an attack of\nthe grippe, was sent by a woman in one of the churches, to a girl's\ncamp. She lived in decent fashion, she saw a lake, great mountains,\nsunsets and stars! She found flowers and sat quite still watching birds\nthat seemed so marvelous to her.\n\nSlowly she grew strong. One night she went to the sloping bank by the\nlake under the great pine trees to attend the twilight service. The sky\nwas crimson with the sunset and there was a wonderful path of light\nacross the lake. The songs and the beauty moved Mary's soul. She wanted\nsomething with all her heart that she had never wanted before. She did\nnot know what it (the great change) was at first, but before she slept\nshe turned to another girl in the tent and expressed it as best she\ncould--\"I want to be _good_,\" she said.\n\nThrough the weeks that followed she saw in the faces, in the kindness\nand courtesy, in the good times she had never known, in the women who\nplanned them and in the songs and talks at sunset a _Person_. She heard\nHis name often. He represented all of the happiness and comfort she had\never known and one day with all the eagerness of an awakened soul she\nsaid, \"I love Him.\" They told her what changes must come in the life of\na girl who said those words and meant them, for they had seen the faults\nin her and they were many. She was undaunted by all they said she must\ndo, and answered in her uncouth fashion, \"I'd die doin' them fur Him.\"\n\nThey wanted her to leave the mill but she said no, one of the girls was\nleaving and she was to have her place with lighter work. She wanted to\ngo back and tell the girls some things, she said.\n\nNot three years have passed but Mary D---- is a new girl. She is\nattractive; one can scarcely believe unless he has seen it. She is\nclean; she is happy. Her friends secured a position for her father\nout-of-doors where he had loved to work as a boy. Mary took him to the\nMission and there he promised to begin the fight against his enemy. The\nmen in the Mission helped. Regular pay made a decent home possible. They\nhave begun to live.\n\nOvercome by the effects of ignorance and sin, failures as citizens, as\nindividuals, as human souls, they met a _Person_ and life was\ntransformed. If it were possible to replace in every factory for Mary\nD---- who assented to the facts but passed them by as having nothing to\ndo with her, Mary D---- who met a Person and loved Him what a world of\nnew moral forces we could create!\n\nHe was revealed to Mary D---- not in the abstract which could not\nimpress her but in the concrete which she understood. O if only we\n_could_ grasp the significance of that!\n\nRuth M---- was a college junior with ancestry and wealth, brilliant,\nsarcastic, selfish. She knew all the facts and accepted them. She was a\nmember of a church with which she had united at fourteen as had her\nmother and grandmother before her. She did not think much about the\nfacts, they had not greatly impressed her. If questioned, she promptly\nstated that she believed this and that, she thought such and such things\nwere probable though no one could prove them, and dismissed the subject\nto talk of her own plans and interests.\n\nThen her great sorrow came. In a moment she lost everything dear to her.\nThey called it an accident. She held God accountable and in bitterness\nand anger turned her back upon all the facts. The months passed and her\nhealth breaking she was obliged to leave college. At the beautiful\nhealth resort to which she went she met a girl she had known well when a\nlittle child. They renewed the friendship. Then the girl's sorrow came.\nIt was not death, it was far worse, scandal and disgrace in her family,\nwhich had been unstained before. Out of a clear sky it came.\n\nIn amazement Ruth watched her friend. She saw her suffer but she saw no\nconquering bitterness, heard no words of wild rebellion. She looked into\na sweet calm face and saw a girl less than twenty, with life's\nconditions changed in a moment, adjust herself to the new conditions\nand go on. Seeking a solution she questioned her friend and met a\nPerson. Day after day as she saw Him revealed in that heroic life, as\nshe beheld the girl overcoming in His strength natural resentment\nagainst the injustice and unkindness of those who would make her suffer\nfor the sins of her parents, the facts were swallowed up in the Person\nand she loved Him.\n\nTogether, the past summer, in a rest camp for mothers and babies they\nworked out the commands of the Person who had made it possible for them\nto take up life after bitter loss and find it sweet.\n\nIf one could summon to a central place the girls who have met the Person\nwhat an inspiration they would be! Of every sort and condition, of every\ncolor and nation, speaking languages new and old and dialects that have\nnever been written, all uniting in the testimony that He has made life\ngreat for them.\n\nThe facts are in chaotic state. Parts of truth and segments of universal\nfact are waiting for man to unite them. Only the perfect whole can speak\nwith certainty and we must wait for that. The creeds are countless. They\ndo not matter much. The Person said little about them. They are just\nour poor attempts to put in words--God and His will. It is\n\n  \"Not the Christ of our subtile creeds\n    But the Lord of our hearts, of our homes,\n  Of our hopes, our prayers, our needs;\n  The brother of want and blame,\n    The lover of woman and men,\n  With a love that puts to shame\n    All passions of mortal ken.\"\n\nThe only way to meet a fact is to face it, follow it and see where it\nwill lead. It is prejudice that blinds one's eyes to facts. It is only\nman's limited vision, that makes a part seem as a whole, that accepts as\n_fact_ the thing he would _like_ to be a fact, that one need fear. Facts\nthat _are_ facts need never cause one to doubt. For fact is truth and\ntruth leads to God. The business of every church and every teacher of\nreligion is to discover the facts, _and present the Person_.\n\nIf the girl herself is reading these words let her be assured that more\nthan any array of facts that she can gather, more than any proofs man\ncan summon, she needs the Person. The handicapped girl finds in Him\nstrength to triumph in spite of it, the privileged girl finds in Him\nthe inspiration for her work of extending her privileges, the girl who\nis easily led to find in Him one who never leads astray, the girl who is\nmisunderstood can find in Him one who understands perfectly, the\nindifferent girl who \"means to\" will find in Him a friend to encourage,\nsteady and compel, the girl who worships the twin idols can find in Him\na rescuer who shall set her free, the girl of high ideals will see in\nHim the highest Ideal, the source of all the others, and the average\ngirl of the every day with her good points and bad, her successes and\nfailures, will find in Him a Friend who will make life seem wonderfully\nworth while.\n\nDon't let the multitude of things in which you are interested, the maze\nof contradiction, the abstract facts, the trials and hardships of life,\nthe pleasures you love, or any other thing make you pass Him by. If you\ngain everything else in life and miss Him you will fail to know what\nlife means. If you find Him you will find Love and that is the best\nthing life can give.\n\n\n\n\nXVIII\n\nTHE GLORY OF THE CLIMAX\n\n\nSo many miss it. It is more than duty but the path that leads to the\nglory of it often begins with the plain, insistent, _ought_ of duty. It\nis more than obedience, though without obedience none ever find it. How\nmany girls there are who are disappointed, dissatisfied, suffering\nperhaps in body and soul because they never learned to obey! It is a\ngreat thing to be able to hear \"you ought\" and then at whatever cost to\n_obey_ it. But the climax is not found in these things great as they\nare.\n\nFaithful servants of a religion whose law is duty one finds among girls\nand honors them. Good and faithful servants of a religion whose law is\nobedience there are among girls. But neither of these have found the\nglory of the climax. The climax is Love. The supreme command of the\nFounder of true religion is--Thou shalt Love.\n\nThe religion of love is a girl's religion and she can never be\nsatisfied with any other. If those who have tried to teach her religion\nhave failed to show her this, then they have succeeded in giving her\nonly a set of laws to be obeyed or a list of things she should not do.\nLove gives to Thou Shalt and Thou Shalt Not _power_ without which they\ncan accomplish little.\n\nLove transforms hard, disagreeable, empty service and makes it glorious.\nNo one knows this better than a girl. She has done things when necessity\ncompelled her to do them, and she has done them when love compelled her\nto do them. She knows the difference. Jesus founded His Kingdom on the\nknowledge He had of Love. He _knew_ the kingdom would stand. On his\nlonely island of banishment dreaming in the twilight, with all the\nstruggle and attainment behind him Napoleon realized it as he said,\n\"Caesar, Charlemagne, I, have founded empires. They were founded on\nforce and have perished. Jesus Christ has founded a kingdom on Love, and\nto this day there are millions who would die for Him.\"\n\nWhen I say that the religion of girlhood is the religion of Love I mean\nreal love. Warm, sweet, tender, quick to understand, quick to discern\nneed, tireless in service. I mean the love that does not wait to be\nasked to serve, the love that gives because it must give. When a girl's\nreligion is filled with this love and rests upon it the girl does not\nsay, \"Well, I suppose if I am a Christian I can't do that.\" The thought\nin her heart if it were put into words would be, \"I wonder if He would\nwant me to do that?\" Simple, natural, sincere desire not to do the thing\ndispleasing to One who loves and is loved.\n\nOne day I was looking at a deep well, sunk away down in the rocks.\nMachinery dragged the water from the earth and machinery turned it into\nservice. Some days later I saw a mountain spring. It poured and poured\nout over the rocks, down the precipice into the brook, on into the\nriver. It ran as if it were glad to run and would never stop! Green\nthings grew on every side of it, mosses clung to the rocks it touched,\nrich grass filled the meadow through which it flowed, birds followed it.\nLife and beauty seemed to spring from every place it touched.\n\nWhen I remembered the well of water deep down in rock, dragged up by\nmachinery it seemed to me like religion, the religion of service through\nduty, and I knew that it would keep right on serving as long as the\nmachinery worked and would do its part dutifully.\n\nThen I looked again at the spring. It seemed to me like religion, the\nreligion of love that blessed because it is its nature to bless and\npoured itself out in service because it must.\n\nIt is the religion of love which holds one to the side of the road where\nneed is great, work must be done, perhaps sacrifice made. That Samaritan\nwho stopped, dismounted, tenderly cared for an injured brother of hated\nrace, lifted him to his own beast, slowly walked beside him to a place\nwhere rest and shelter could be provided, knew the love-inspired\nreligion. The Priest and the Levite were followers of the law, the\nletter of the law, but they looked upon the man in his need, crossed to\nthe other side and _passed by_.\n\nThe Jericho road is still with us, and the needy who call for help and\nfor justice are upon it, injured in body or soul. The religion of the\nletter of the law looks, crosses to the other side, passes by. On one\nside of the road Need, on the other side Greed, and Love always where\nNeed is.\n\nThe religion of Love follows the road the Founder took, the road that\nleads to the place of service. That road may lead to China, it may lead\nto the islands of the sea. It took Livingstone to Africa, Dan Crawford\nto the Bantus for twenty-two years and now is taking him back for the\nrest of his days. It took Carey to India, it left Grenfell in Labrador,\nit led last year's college girls to every quarter of the globe. It leads\nthis one down among the dirty, helpless, little children trying to play\nin wretched scorching city streets, it leads that one to the lonely\ncountryside where girls starved for life are waiting. And, oh, so often\nit leads one to the door of her own church, to her own street, to her\nown  class-room, to the girl beside her in the office. Sometimes it leads\nto one's own kitchen, or it stops beside the chair where one's own\nmother sits. One can never tell where the road of the religion of love\nmay lead, but one cannot fail to see that those who follow it have\nshining faces and they love to live.\n\nOne day at sunset I waited at the little wharf to walk through the\npines with Elizabeth. She was paddling in her canoe over the lake that\nhad turned to crimson and gold, from the fresh air camp on the other\nside to which she went every afternoon in summer to play games and tell\nstories. \"I had a great day,\" she called in her clear, cheering voice as\nshe neared the wharf, and added as she stepped from the boat, \"Little\nBilly loves me and Katie Kane whispered softly and _blushed_ when she\nsaid it, that she told me a lie yesterday and was never going to tell a\nlie no more as long as she lived! Poor Katie,\" she laughed.\n\nWhen we reached the knoll where the three pines were we stopped and\nlooked back. Words could never describe what we saw. Elizabeth stood\nsilently watching it, her sweet face, her dark hair and her middy blouse\ntinged with the glow of it. As the sun slowly slipped into the lake she\nwaved her hand playfully at it. \"Good night, old man,\" she said. \"Give\nus a cooler day tomorrow. Fifty new children come to camp.\" After a\nmoment while we waited for darkness to come stealing over the lake,\nforgetful of me, she said with her whole soul in her voice, \"Oh, I\n_love_ it, I love it _all_--the world, and those poor blessed\nchildren,\" then very softly \"and God.\"\n\nShe had found the girls' religion, the religion Jesus Christ said, when\nthey asked Him, meant two things--\"Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God--and\nThy Neighbor.\"\n\nThis is the girl's religion, for in loving she shall find Love--the\nglory of the climax.\n\nTHE END","title":"The Girl and Her Religion","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":40807}