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diff --git a/35949.txt b/35949.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f275203 --- /dev/null +++ b/35949.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3132 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Girl in Her Teens, by Margaret Slattery + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Girl in Her Teens + +Author: Margaret Slattery + +Release Date: April 24, 2011 [EBook #35949] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL IN HER TEENS *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +THE GIRL IN HER TEENS + +BY + +MARGARET SLATTERY + + + + +The Pilgrim Press + +Boston--Chicago + + + + +Copyright 1920 + +By A. W. Fell + +THE JORDAN AND MORE PRESS + +BOSTON + + + + +CONTENTS + + - CHAPTER I--THE TEEN PERIOD + - CHAPTER II--THE PHYSICAL SIDE + - CHAPTER III--THE MENTAL SIDE + - CHAPTER IV--THE SPIRITUAL SIDE + - CHAPTER V--THE SOCIAL SIDE + - CHAPTER VI--HER RELATION TO THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL + - CHAPTER VII--HER RELATION TO THE CHURCH + - CHAPTER VIII--HER RELATION TO THE BIBLE + - CHAPTER IX--HER RELATION TO THE EVERYDAY + - CHAPTER X--HER TEACHER + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE TEEN PERIOD + + +She was a beautiful, well-developed girl of thirteen. Her bright, +eager face, with its changing expression, was a fascination at all +times. It seemed unusually earnest and serious that particular morning +as she stood waiting the opportunity to speak to me. She had asked to +wait until the others had gone, and her manner as she hesitated even +then to speak made me ask, "Are you in trouble, Edith?" + +"No, not exactly trouble,--I don't know whether we ought to ask you, +but all of us girls think,--well, we wish we could have a mirror in the +locker-room. Couldn't we? It's dreadful to go into school without +knowing how your hair looks or anything!" + +I couldn't help laughing. Her manner was so tragic that the mirror +seemed the most important thing in the educational system just then. I +said I would see what could be done about it, and felt sure that what +"all the girls" wanted could be supplied. She thanked me heartily, and +when she entered her own room nodded her head in answer to inquiring +glances from the other girls. + +As I made a note of the request, I remembered the Edith of a year or +more ago. Edith, whose mother found her a great trial; she didn't +"care _how_ she looked." It was true. She wore her hat hanging down +over her black braids, held on by the elastic band around her neck; +she lost hair ribbons continually, and never seemed to miss them. She +was a good scholar, wide-awake, alert, always ready for the next +thing. She loved to recite, and volunteered information generously. In +games she was the leader, and on the playground always the unanimous +choice for the coveted "it" of the game. She was never in the least +self-conscious, and, as her mother had said, how she looked never +seemed to occur to her. + +And now she came asking for a mirror! Her hair ribbons are always +present and her hat securely fastened by hat pins of hammered brass. +She spends a good deal of time in school "arranging" her hair. +Sometimes spelling suffers, sometimes algebra. Before standing to +recite, she carefully arranges her belt. Contrary to her previous +custom, she rarely volunteers, although her scholarship is very good. +If unable to give the correct answer, or when obliged to face the +school, she blushes painfully. One day recently, when the class were +reading "As You Like It," she sat with a dreamy look upon her sweet +face, far, far away from the eighth-grade class-room; could not find +her place when called upon to read, and, although confused and +ashamed, lost it again within ten minutes. + +What has happened to Edith, the child of a year ago? She has gone. The +door has opened. Edith is thirteen. The door opened slowly, and those +who knew her best were perhaps least conscious of the changes, so +gradual had they been. But a new Edith is here. One by one the chief +characteristics of the childhood of the race have been left behind, +and the dawn of the new life has brought to her the dim consciousness +of universal womanhood. Womanhood means many things, but always +three--dreaming, longing, loving. All three have come to her, and +though unconscious of their meaning, she feels their power. Edith has +seen herself, is interested in herself, has become self-conscious, and +for the next few years self will be the center and every act will be +weighed and measured in relation to this new self. Fifty other girls, +her friends and companions all just entering their teens, share the +same feelings, and manifest development along the same general lines. +More than one of those fifty mothers looks at her daughter growing so +rapidly and awkwardly tall, and says, "I don't know what to do with +her, she has changed so." And more than one teacher summons all her +powers to active service as she realizes that for the next two years +she is to instruct one of the most difficult of pupils, the girl who +is neither child nor woman. + +But the awkward years of early adolescence, filled with the struggle +to get adjusted to the new order of things, with dreams, with ardent +worship of ideals embodied in teachers, parents, older girls, +imaginary characters, quickly pass. + +If they have been years of careful training, if the eager, impetuous +day-dreamer and castle-builder has been guarded and shielded, if she +has been instructed by mother, teacher, or some wise sympathetic woman +in all the knowledge that will help keep her safe and pure and fine, +then she is ready for the wealth of emotion, the increase of the +intellectual and spiritual power to be developed within her these next +few years. + +But if not--if the earliest years have been filled with questions for +which no satisfactory answers were given, if great mysteries that +puzzle are solved for her only by what schoolmates, patent medicine +advertisements, and imagination can teach, then she does not have a +fair chance. She is not well equipped for life, and if in some moment +of trial which we fondly dream will never, never come to _her_, to +others perhaps, but not to _her_, she is overwhelmed, then we who have +left her unguarded are to blame. + +If at thirteen she was awkward and sometimes disagreeable, at sixteen +we forget all about it, for now she is charming. The floodtide of life +is upon her,--it is June, and all the world is her lover. To be alive +is glorious; she shows it in all that she says and does. She laughs at +everything and at nothing, and she dearly loves "a good time." She +makes use of all the adjectives in her mother tongue, and yet they are +not enough to express all that she feels. Superlatives abound, and a +simple pronoun, third person, singular number, masculine gender, is +introduced so often into her conversation with her girl friends that +it reveals at least one prominent "line of interest." + +But she is a dreamer still of new, deeper dreams in which self plays a +large part, but a different and more altruistic one; and the longings +that dawned on her soul with adolescence have grown in power. She not +only longs for the concrete hats and gowns and beautiful things, to +sing and play, to be admired, to be popular, but she longs to be good +and to do good. Now, when all her powers have awakened, obeying +instincts of her womanhood, she is ready to give herself in loving +service to some great cause, to serve the _world_. + +All teachers of English composition can testify to the desire to serve +which stands out so clearly in the essay work of girls at this period. +Hazel is a type of hundreds. She attended a lecture a while ago and +saw pictures of the tenements; the crowded conditions, wretched +poverty and suffering children stirred her soul. Every composition +since has been a record of her dreams and longings. In every written +sketch or story a wretched child of the tenements appears. A girl of +means, "about sixteen years of age," with plenty of spending money, +seeks out the child, often crippled or blind, gives it food, clothing, +a wheel chair, or takes it to a great physician who makes it well. +Sometimes the heroine finds work for father and mother, and they move +to a cottage in the country and are happy. Always in the story misery +is relieved and hearts are made glad. Always the heroine is +self-sacrificing and those helped are touched with deepest gratitude. +In the last story, "Little Elsie sat comfortably back in her wheel +chair too happy even to move it about. Her mother tried to find words +to express her gratitude, but could only murmur her thanks. The child +looked up into the face of her kind friend with a celestial smile that +paid for all the sacrifice." + +This desire to give all in altruistic service, this longing to make +the whole world happy, this worship of the _Good_ reveals itself too +in the girl's effort "to find her Lord and worship Him." The religious +sense, so strong in the heart of the race that man must bow down and +worship something, some one, be it fire, the moon, the stars, the +river, ancestors, idols of wood or stone, is strong in the heart of +the girl in her teens. And if rightly taught and presented, the Christ +unfailingly becomes her great ideal. All the qualities she most +admires she finds in him. Bravery, courage, purity and strength, +patience and sympathy, all are there and she worships him. For him she +can perform deeds of quiet heroism of which no one dreams,--struggle +desperately to overcome her faults, and sacrifice many a pleasure +willingly. Her prayers are ardent and sincere, and must rise to heaven +as an acceptable offering. I saw such a girl bow her head in prayer in +the crowded church on Easter morning. Her face was good to see. Death +and the grave meant nothing to her, but oh, _LIFE_--it was so good. +Sixteen found her hard at work in the cotton factory. But looking at +her in her new suit and hat and gloves, and at the one bright yellow +jonquil she wore so proudly, you would never have guessed that a week +of toil lay behind her and another awaited her. That night she sang a +brief solo in the chorus choir, and did it well; one of the boys in +the church walked home with her, they talked a few moments, and Easter +was over. At five-thirty next morning she rose, ate her hasty, meager +breakfast, and went to work in the rain. A week later, when we were +talking after Sunday-school, she said, "I don't know as I ever had +such a happy Easter. It was such a beautiful day." And then +hesitatingly, "I made up my mind I ought to be better than I have +been, and I'm not going to let my sister go to work in the mill, no +matter what it costs me. I'm going to send her to high school next +year instead of taking singing lessons. I decided Easter night." + +I could see her sitting in her bare, hopeless little room, with the +memory of the sunshine, the new suit and the jonquil, the solo, and +the Risen Lord filling her soul as she made her sacrifice, letting the +cherished plan of singing lessons go. + +"What made you want to do it?" I asked. + +"I don't know," she said, "I felt that I ought to, and Easter makes +you think of those things. I think Christians ought to be more like +Christ, as Dr. ---- said in his sermon." + +That was the explanation. She was following, the best she knew how, +the pathway of the Christ--her ideal. God bless her,--the sacrifice will +pay. + +Failing to find the Christ, the religious sense satisfies itself with +lower ideals. Intensified longings, dissatisfaction, and a +restlessness not found in the girl who truly gives her allegiance to +the Christ and feels his steadying power, are very evident in the girl +who has not yet found the one whom she can call Master and Lord. + +Keeping pace with the deepening and broadening of the religious sense +and the physical growth and development, the intellectual powers have +been busy grasping new truths, eagerly seizing new facts that relate +to life, comparing, rejecting, reasoning, indeed for the first time +_independently_ thinking. + +Before her friends realize it, the years have hurried past and the +time has come when only one more "teen" remains. She is eighteen. +Eighteen may find her plunged into life as a wage-earner, one of the +procession of thousands of girls facing realities that are hard. It +may find her already in the whirl of social life, struggling to meet +its demands, or in college facing its problems. Wherever it finds her, +two things are true of her. She thinks for herself,--and she is +critical. + +Many of the theories of life and religion which she accepted +unquestioningly she questions now. Doubts assail her, and she is +perplexed by the evidence of wrong and evil resulting not only from +weakness, but from deliberate planning. If all her ideals fail her, if +the men and women she has trusted disappoint her, she grows cynical, +and tells you that "no one is what he seems." + +Now, more than at any time in her life, she needs to meet fine men and +women, that they may overbalance those whom she thinks have failed. +She needs to know definitely the good being done everywhere in the +world, to study great sociological movements, to see the efforts being +made to meet the special needs of the day, the problems of the cities, +and the salvation of the individual. Biography is good for her, and +sketches of real men and women living and working for and with their +fellows strengthen her faith and steady her. + +Now is the time when she so easily develops into a gossip, and she +needs anything and everything that will help her despise it, and +provide her with something to talk about beside her neighbors and +associates. + +She is keenly critical, because she is comparing theories and +life--because her ideals are high and her requirements match her +ideals. She is scornful, because she has not lived long enough to +realize how easy it is to fail, and she has not learned to let mercy +temper justice. She doubts because she is not able to adjust things +which seem to conflict, and experience has not yet helped her find +harmony in seeming discord. + +She still loves a good time, and has it. Her ability as leader, +manager, or organizer reveals itself quickly if opportunity is given. +Her tendency toward introspection and self analysis often makes her +unhappy, dissatisfied and restless. She longs unspeakably to find her +work, to be sure she is in the right place in the great world. She +needs patience, real sympathy, and understanding from those with whom +she lives; to be led, not driven, by those who control her; positive +teaching on the part of all who instruct her, concrete interests, +social opportunities, and some one to love. + +"What does the girl in her teens need?" has been asked these past few +years, by fathers, mothers, and teachers of girls, with increasing +desire to find a real answer. As yet, not enough thoughtful people +have even attempted to meet the question to make us sure that we have +a safe and universal answer. Yet we may be reasonably sure of a few +things. + +She needs love. But, comes the reply, we do love her. From the time +when she "lengthens" her dresses and "does up" her hair, to twenty +when we greet her as an equal and consult her about all things, we +_love_ her. Who could help it? + +But she needs _intelligent_ love, which is really sympathetic +understanding and keen appreciation wisely expressed. And she needs, +from thirteen to twenty, to be taught two things: to _work_ and to +_play_. The girl in her teens needs to be helped to realize her dreams +in action. + +_She_ has the dreams, the hopes, desires and longings. _We_ must +furnish the opportunity to work them out into reality. Real, +healthful, natural enthusiasms for all phases of life, she can furnish +if she be a normally developed girl. The opportunity to express that +enthusiastic abundance of life _legitimately_ is ours to supply. + +It sometimes seems as if Shakespeare must have been thinking of the +adolescent period of life when he said: + + "There is a tide in the affairs of men, + Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune, + Omitted, all the voyage of their life + Is bound in shallows and in miseries." + +The teen age is the period where the battle for an honest, clean, +pure, righteous type of manhood and womanhood must be waged and won. +Having realized this, it now remains for us to bend all our energies +and summon all our skill to meet the task. + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE PHYSICAL SIDE + + +That mankind has a spiritual, mental and _physical_ side to his nature +has been acknowledged for many centuries. That they are of equal +importance has been accepted but for a comparatively short time. Time +was when the spiritual nature was developed, the mental side +cultivated, and the physical scorned and abused. The pale face and +emaciated form were indications of the pure heart. The starved body +meant the well nourished soul. When men were most deeply concerned +with the future beyond the grave, and this life was but a penance, a +period to be endured, a terrible battle to win, having little joy, and +almost no pleasure not labeled _wicked_, it was natural that they +should treat with a measure of scorn or ignore altogether the physical +body in which dwelt so much of evil. But when man realized that +eternity begins here and now, he turned his thoughts to the present +welfare of his fellows, and the physical side assumed a new +importance. + +In some cases the importance attached to physical welfare is out of +proportion. It is always difficult to keep a sense of proportion when +new light on any line of truth bursts upon men's minds. But in the +main the place of the physical side is not exaggerated. Every teacher +in the public school realizes it as she sees what a tremendous +difference has been made in the spiritual and intellectual development +of a child who after years of ineffectual struggle to _see_ has been +given glasses that make it possible for him to do the same work as his +classmates. She realizes it as with astonishment she sees a boy +transformed before her eyes, changed into an entirely different child +as the weeks and months pass, because the troublesome and deadening +adenoids have been removed. She realizes it as she sees a poor, weak +little girl, undersized and underfed, changed into a new being under +treatment, with plenty of nourishing food and fresh air. The +experience of the past ten years alone, in the public schools, will +convince one of the value of the physical. + +Certain it is that the physical side exists, and is to be reckoned +with in the development of human life to the highest possible point. +The more we know about the physical side, the more we stand in awe of +ourselves, and the more we appreciate the wonderful machine with which +we are to do our work in the world. + +I saw recently two locomotives that taught me again what it all means. +One had been in a wreck and lay pitched over on its side, its splendid +power gone. Its size and its powerful strength made its ruin more +pitiful, and its utter helplessness appealed strongly to all who +looked at it. Near it on the second track, all hot and panting, ready +and waiting to pull its heavy load up the steep grade, was a fellow +engine, in full possession of its powers: how strong, how complete, +how perfectly able to perform its task it seemed as it stood there on +the track beside its helpless brother. For days I could not forget the +picture, and when I looked into the faces of my girls in their teens +all it suggested impressed me anew. + +How I should like to have them fully equipped physically to meet the +demands which life will bring to them! The girl in her teens has a +physical side of tremendous significance and importance, for it is +during these years that she develops her powers or wrecks them. It is +her time of rapid growth, of severe tax upon every part of her +physical being. It is during these years she meets her crises. + +We have seen that early in her teens a girl begins to care "how she +looks." + +She should be encouraged to look well. She should dress carefully, +which does not mean expenditure of much money, but does mean thought. +She should be taught that dress means much, and physical condition +even more. + +But all this, some teachers may say, belongs in the home. It is the +duty of the home to look after these things. Yes, it is true. And it +is a cause for thanksgiving that in so many homes, sweet, patient, +wise mothers watch over their girls and give them what they need. But +every Sunday-school teacher of girls in their teens has at least one +girl whose mother does not or can not help at the time when help is +most needed. Some have had no training themselves and do not see the +need; some are crushed by the multitude of burdens, some are careless, +and some have no knowledge as to how to cope with the wilfulness of +girls which sometimes appears in the years of adolescence. "The whole +need not a physician, but they that are sick," the great Teacher said +once, and it is true to-day. Both the public school and the +Sunday-school exist to cultivate all of good that appears in the +girl's life, and develop what she lacks. + +Here is a group of girls in a certain Sunday-school class, most of +them well taken care of physically, but with very little of direct +teaching and development morally. They are selfish, self-centered, and +vain. The teacher's task is clear. Here is another class in a nearby +church, suffering not only from moral and intellectual neglect, but +from physical as well. Again the teacher's task is plain. + +We have seen that buried deep in the heart of every adolescent girl is +the desire to be attractive, to be popular, to have people "like" her. +This desire prompts her often to little acts of courtesy and kindness +and efforts to be agreeable; more often it prompts her to make herself +physically attractive. Take a walk through any park, along the +boulevards, up the main street of small manufacturing towns, or watch +any high school group at the hour of dismissal: if your eyes are open +you will be conscious of the struggle to be attractive,--to look well. +It is registered in hair and hats, bows and chains and pins. Sometimes +it appears in fads in dress,--low shoes and silk stockings in winter, +or the strange combination of no hat, a very thin coat, and a huge +muff. These are the things that make the people of common sense ask +the very pertinent question, "What are these girls' mothers thinking +of?" It is a hard question to answer satisfactorily. Often the mothers +have helplessly yielded under the power of that insistent phrase, "All +the girls do." + +If once these girls can be made to see the attractiveness of absolute +cleanliness, of the charm of simple but spotless clothing, of teeth, +hair, hands and skin that show _care_, a great deal will have been +done toward helping their general physical condition. + +Anything which has to do with personal appearance must be handled with +great tact, for the adolescent girl is sensitive and she resents +direct criticism. But on the other hand she accepts eagerly anything +which promises to help her look well. If a teacher does not feel equal +to the task of assisting the girl to make the best of her physical +side she can find some one to help her. I know of one class of girls +in their teens who will never forget the talk given by a bright, +attractive, clever woman at the monthly social, on "Tales Told by +Belts," and not a girl in the Girls' Club, I know, ever forgot the +talk on "Sometimes the _Head_ Rules and Sometimes the _Feet_." More +girls than usual wore rubbers the next rainy day, and some high heels +disappeared. + +Perhaps one of the most helpful of the little incidental ways by which +the Sunday-school teachers may help is through praise. I have in mind +now a girl of sixteen who usually selected her own clothes, and seemed +to have a talent for putting together the wrong colors. One spring, +she, in some way, was persuaded by another girl to have her coat, +dress and hat all in browns that harmonized. One can hardly imagine +the change it made in the girl. She realized it. That Sunday in the +hall, I told her very quietly that she looked "dear," that she must +never wear anything except soft colors that harmonized; that I loved +to look at her. She showed her pleasure. The next January she asked me +one night if I thought dark blue would be all right for her new suit +if she got "everything to match." + +No one can associate sympathetically with the girl in her teens week +after week and not be concerned about her physical welfare. There are +so many pale, anemic, tired girls that move one's heart. Some work too +hard. Many live under unhygienic conditions. Many can not stand the +pressure and rush of school and social life. Great numbers suffer from +improper food, and many more because they do not get enough sleep. +Almost every Sunday I hear some girl say she "went somewhere every +night last week." This mania for "going" seizes so many of our girls +just when they need rest and natural pleasures, the great +out-of-doors, and early hours of retiring. + +So many of our girls are "nervous." A bright, interesting eighth grade +teacher told me recently that she had fifty girls in her class and +that according to their mothers forty-one were "very nervous." It +seemed to her a large proportion even for girls in their early teens, +and she began a quiet study of some of them. One of the "very nervous" +girls who, her mother thought, must be taken out of school for a +while, takes both piano and violin lessons, attends dancing school, +goes to parties now and then, and rarely retires before ten o'clock. +Another "very nervous" girl takes piano lessons, goes to the moving +picture shows once or twice a week, hates milk, can't eat eggs, +doesn't care much for fruit, and is extremely fond of candy. In each +case investigated there seemed to be much outside of school work which +could explain the "nervousness." + +It is most interesting to note the gain, physically, made by almost +every girl in her teens who enters a good boarding-school, where +plenty of exercise, a cheerful atmosphere, regular hours and wholesome +food is the rule. + +Just how much the Sunday-school teacher who is a real friend of the +girl in her teens can help is a question, but I know of enough cases +where an earnest interview with the father or mother has resulted in +better care of the growing girl, with more attention paid to her food +and rest, to make me sure that it pays to attempt to help. If it only +means that the girl in her teens shall not go to school or to work +without breakfast, it pays. + +I can almost hear some troubled teacher ask, "Where in the +Sunday-school hour is there time for this?" It can not be done in a +Sunday-school hour except incidentally. But those who are at work with +girls in their teens must teach more than a lesson on Sunday. They are +teaching _girls_ to _live_, if they have entered whole-heartedly into +the work. + +Every girl in her teens is interested in her physical self. The ways +in which she strives to satisfy her curiosity and desire for knowledge +are often pitiful, often to be deplored. + +From my experience I am convinced that anything which tends to center +her interest upon the physical is unwise. For this reason I very much +doubt the advisability of class instruction, except in general matters +of hygiene. What the whole class is interested in they will discuss. +It will be the main topic of conversation among "chums" as they +separate after class, and the effect I am convinced is bad, simply +because it centers thought upon a subject which to the girl in her +teens should not be the chief interest. Then, too, the individuals in +a class vary so much that the instruction to be given needs special +wisdom, tact and comprehensive knowledge of girls which not every +teacher possesses. + +That instruction should be given, and that questions must be answered, +is true. A girl's mother is the natural and best agency through which +knowledge should come to her, and the Sunday-school teacher may very +easily enlist the mother's sympathy, urge her to be true to her +daughter's need, and show her how necessary it is that she faithfully +instruct her child in the things she needs to know. If the mother +says, as is often the case, that she _can't_, that she does not know +how, etc., then the teacher may offer to help with suggestions, with +books, or, if the mother asks her to do so, may talk with the girl +herself. Such a conversation on the part of the teacher should never +be forced, but introduced naturally and easily in some opportune +moment. Sometimes, if there is real confidence and sympathy between +pupil and teacher, the girl herself will open the way. + +In a hundred ways, both in teaching and in conversation with the +girls, the Sunday-school teacher may show her own respect for the +physical side of life, the marvel of it all, and the need on the part +of every woman to obey its unchanging laws, from which, if broken, +there is no escape. In scores of ways she will frankly and naturally +reveal to her girls her sympathy with womanhood everywhere, in every +walk of life, and especially her respect for mothers, and her love for +helpless childhood. + +Girls learn so much more, and the impressions made are far deeper, +through this almost unconscious influence of the teacher than through +the "lecture" or "lesson." I shall not soon forget the impression made +upon a class of girls of eighteen years of age by the preparation of a +complete outfit to be presented to a poor woman whose child was to +come into the world in a tiny third-story room amidst deepest poverty. +As one of the girls said, "It will be a lucky baby, after all, with +eight of us to look after it." Both teacher and girls felt new bonds +of sympathy long before the last tiny garments were finished, and the +girls had learned much. + +It is not good for girls in their teens, especially in the latter part +of the period, to be closely associated with women who are cynical, +who have forgotten the tenderness of their own girlhood dreams, or who +are out of sympathy with the great fundamentals of life. + +The teacher may so easily reveal, too, her respect for the +conventionalities of life. In her escape from the narrowing influences +of the conventionalities of older countries, the American girl has +gone so far into liberty that she does not realize the protection that +lies behind simple conventionality. While it is perfectly true that a +girl may travel alone from one end of this country to the other with +safety, it is not true that it is wise for her to do so. Fathers are +beginning to realize it, and daughters though not "in society" are +enjoying the assurance that, if obliged for social or business reasons +to be out late, their fathers will call for them. It will mean an +effort on the part of the father, but it brings a reward, for his +daughter, feeling herself guarded and protected, develops into a finer +type of woman. + +The girl in her teens is interested always in the influence of the +passions and emotions upon the physical nature, and knowledge given in +a simple direct way is good for her. + +"Why do some people get very pale and others very red, when they are +angry?" asked a fourteen-year-old girl one day. + +"Sometimes you tremble when you are angry," said another; "and you +usually talk very fast," added a third. The discussion which followed +was interesting and helpful. They were astonished at the reports made +by physicians and students of the effect upon digestion of angry +words, or sullen silence, during dinner. They learned in a new way the +value of the temper controlled, and of self-mastery in all lines. They +were interested enough to bring into class instances of self-control +under trying circumstances, and of calamities following complete loss +of control for only a few minutes. I think they realized in a new way +the majesty of the perfect self-control of Christ in the most trying +moments of his life. We talked over with profit the effect upon the +physical life, of hurry, of fear, of worry and useless anxiety, and +have tried to find why the Christ was free from them all. The +conclusions reached by the girls themselves have been helpful in every +instance. + +As long as we live, the physical will be with us; it is not to be +despised, but respected; not to be ignored, but developed; not to be +abused, but used. It demands obedience, and exacts penalty when its +laws are broken. It is so complicated that no one can understand it. +We may study and analyze, but how much of the physical is mental, and +how much of the spiritual is physical, no one to-day is able to say. +Of this we may be sure,--the physical side of the girl in her teens is +a tremendous force that must be reckoned with, and demands for its +fullest development and her future well being all the sympathy, +patience, and wisdom that parents and teachers can supply. + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE MENTAL SIDE + + +The girl in her teens does think. She has been called careless, +thoughtless, inattentive and a day-dreamer. Though these things are +often true of her, she is on the whole a thinker. Her day-dreams are +thoughtful. In building her air castles she uses memory and +imagination, and sometimes one wonders if these factors to which we +owe so much do not get as valuable training from "dreams" as from +algebra. Certain it is that many women who have helped make the world +a more comfortable place in which to live laid plans for their future +work on sweet spring days, or long autumn afternoons when Latin +grammar faded away in the distance, and things vital, near, and real +came to take its place. + +When Lucy Larcom stood by the noisy loom in the rush and whirl of the +big factory, day-dreaming while her busy hands fulfilled their task, +memory and imagination were being trained, and one morning the world +read the day-dream. At first it was a picture of flowers and fields +and cloudless skies, then it came back to the tenements on the narrow +streets and said: + + "If I were a sunbeam, + I know where I'd go, + Into lowliest hovels, + Dark with want and woe. + Till sad hearts looked upward, + I would shine and shine. + Then they'd think of heaven, + Their sweet home and mine." + +This and many another gem the imagination of the factory girl wrought +out beside the loom. + +The day-dreams, the "castles" reared by the imagination of girlhood, +must find expression, and they do--in diaries, "literary productions" +and poems at which we sometimes smile. + +But who shall say that the mental side of the girl in her teens does +not get as much valuable training through the closely written journal +pages, or the carefully wrought poem which perhaps no one may ever +see, as through the "daily theme" or the essay written according to an +elaborate outline, carefully criticized by the teacher. The ambitions +of the adolescent girl along literary lines often receive a rude shock +when her essay is returned with red lines drawn through what, to her, +are the most effective adjectives and most beautiful descriptions. + +Many a literary genius has been destroyed by the red lines of an +unimaginative instructor. But there are some wise enough to allow the +girl to express herself in true adolescent fashion, criticizing only +when errors in punctuation, sentence formation or spelling occur, and +letting her gradually outgrow the glaring wealth of imagery that is +the right of every girl in her teens. + +But the adolescent girl does not think in "dreams" alone. She thinks +in the hard terms of the practical and the every day. Her mental life, +expanding and enlarging, is stirred to unusual activity, as is her +physical nature, and she makes so many discoveries absolutely new to +her that she thinks them new to all. She gives information of all +sorts to her family and expects respectful attention. She knows more +than her mother, criticizes her father, gives advice to her +grandmother, and is willing to decide all questions for the younger +members of the family. She has a new idea of her own importance, and +sees herself magnified. + +It seems but yesterday since she was just a little girl, willing to be +guided, directed, ruled by her elders. Now she resents the direct +command, persists in asking "why," and is not satisfied with "because +I think best." She chafes under strict discipline, rebels openly, +sulks, or yields with an air of desperate resignation when her dearest +desires are denied. She thinks she knows best. That is her chief +trouble. The things she wants to do seem best to her,--she thinks they +will mean her real happiness, therefore she chooses them. That were +she allowed to follow her own choice, ten years from now she would +sadly regret it does not influence her much, for the now is so near +and so desirable. + +I was calling one evening in the home of a friend who has a +sixteen-year-old daughter. A few moments after I was seated she came +into the room wearing a simple evening gown of pale blue silk, her +hair arranged in the latest fashion, and her eyes dancing with +excitement and anticipation. I could easily pardon the look of +satisfied pride upon the faces of both her father and mother. After +greeting me cordially she said, "Mother, I may do it just this time, +mayn't I? Please, mother!" "Do what?" said the mother. "You know, the +carriage. Harry's father gave him the money, and it's so much nicer +than the crowded car." + +"I told you this afternoon what I thought about it," said the mother, +"but you may ask your father." + +She referred the matter to him. "Harry" wanted to have a carriage and +drive home after the party, his father was willing and had given him +the money. And now mother objected! All the nicest girls were going to +do it, but mother preferred a crowded street-car! Supreme disgust and +a sense of injustice showed in voice and manner. Her father smiled, as +he said, "Well, I think your mother is about right." Still the girl +persisted until her father said sternly, "Mildred, you may do as we +wish or remain at home." Sullen silence followed, while she made +preparations to go. As her mother helped her on with her wrap, she +said kindly, "I'm so sorry, Mildred. It is hard for us to deny you, +but a few years from now you will understand and be grateful." + +The daughter's answer came quickly: "That is what you always say, but +I know I'm missing all the pleasures the other girls have." + +The mother was discouraged. "I don't know what to do with Mildred," +she said, after her daughter had gone, "she seems to have lost all +confidence in us." + +"No," I said, "she hasn't. She has supreme confidence in herself. If +you had frankly told her your reason for refusing her request, or +simply said that it was not the proper thing, since you could not +furnish her with a chaperon, it might have helped. But if you treat +her as patiently for the next few years as you have done to-night, she +will come out all right." + +I am sure she will. The rapid development of her mental life is +showing through her will. The years are coming when she will _need_ to +choose for _herself_. The power to choose is being developed now. +Inexperience leads her to make unwise choices, and so the experience +of older and wiser people must guide her, and if necessary decide for +her. But wherever it is possible for her to choose for herself, +whenever the issue at stake is not too great, the wise parent and +teacher will allow her to choose, yes, even require her to do so, that +the power of choice may be developed and the mental forces +strengthened. And when she has chosen they will help her carry out her +choice, that she may see the result and judge of its wisdom, thus +helping her in the struggle to develop both will and judgment. + +The time when parents attempted to break the will is passing. The wise +parent and teacher of the girl in her teens knows that she needs, if +her future is to be useful and happy, not a broken will but a trained +will. Training is a slow and steady process and requires unlimited +patience. + +The aim of every one in any way responsible for the education of the +girl in her teens is to help her to see the right and desire it. If +that can be done for her, she has at least been started on the road +that leads to safety. This is the time when those who teach her may +help her to see the value of promptness, absolute accuracy, and +dependableness. When she promises to do a thing it is the duty of all +who teach her to help her keep that promise. But she must always see +the value of the thing taught. The mind must be satisfied; she must +know why. The girl in her teens is developing the individual moral +sense, and if the years are to bring strength of character every open +avenue to the mind must be used to help in constantly raising +standards and impressing truth. + +The awakening of the girl in her teens to new phases of mental +activity reveals itself in her passion for reading. It is true that +some girls before twelve read eagerly all sorts of books, but most +girls develop a genuine love for reading with adolescence. They then +become omnivorous readers. When one looks over lists of "Books I Have +Read" prepared by high-school girls he is astonished by the number and +variety. + +It is most interesting to note the books designated in personal +conversation as "the dearest story," "just great," "dandy," "perfectly +fine," "elegant," "beautiful," and "the best book I have ever read." +That these books have a tremendous influence on the mental life in +forming a "taste" for literature, and furnishing motives for action, +ideals, and information, no one can doubt. + +Who helps these girls to satisfy their hunger for a "good book to +read?" Many have no help,--they read what they will. Sometimes the +parent acts as guide, often the book lists gotten out by the city +librarian, or graded lists of books prepared by teachers in the public +school, although many times at just the period when most reading is +being done the "lists" disappear from the schoolroom. Seldom does the +Sunday-school teacher guide her girls in their choice of books, yet +this is one of the most valuable and helpful things a woman can do for +a girl. + +One often wishes there were more books of the right sort for the girl +in her teens. With the exception of the old standards that remain +helpful to succeeding generations there are comparatively few books +for girls that are interesting, fascinating, wholesome, and free from +those "problems" on which few women and no girls can dwell with +profit. Modern writers have given us a few fine, inspiring stories for +girls, and the teacher who seeks them out, reads them, and then passes +them on to her girls is helping in a real and definite way to deepen +and broaden character. All teachers of girls are hoping that, now so +many good books for boys have been written, our writers will turn +their attention to girls and their needs. + +Girls in their teens need biography and enjoy it. They need to know +fine women who have actually lived. If the lives of such women could +be written for girls they would find eager readers. The author of the +life of Alice Freeman Palmer has presented an inspiring and helpful +gift to the girls of all time, and its influence can never be +estimated. We need more such books. + +No one of us would return for a moment to the stories of heroines so +good that in the last chapter they died and went to heaven, but we do +need books in which girls and women are sane, reasonable, and good, +yet live, and enjoy living to the full. The world is full of +wholesome, true, womanly women, and our girls need to know about them +in fact and fiction. + +The mental activity of the girl in her teens reveals itself also in +her great desire to know. During the period of her teens the girl so +often appears superior to the boy mentally. Sometimes she is, but more +often the seeming superiority can be explained in two ways: the hunger +for knowledge and longing to understand life come to her earlier than +to the boy; she desires to excel, and feels more keenly the disgrace +of low rank and unsatisfactory progress in her studies, which leads +her to devote more time and conscientious effort to master them. While +her brother is buried deep in athletics, she is buried in dreams, +romances and facts. She wants things explained. After sixteen, there +dawns the period when she demands that her teacher shall know. She +must have knowledge. Some teachers of girls in the later teens hold +their interest through a charming personality, a knowledge of the +heart of a girl, and a clever presentation of lessons. Still, such +teachers are unable oftentimes to help the girl in her struggle to +straighten out tangles of what she calls "faith" and "knowledge." + +She asks with a new earnestness, "Are the miracles true?" "Is the +Bible different from other books?" Only last week a girl of eighteen, +suffering with her dearest friend, whose brother had been sentenced to +a term in prison for gross intoxication, said to me: "That man prays +often when he is sober to be kept from drinking, how can God let him +do it when it is just killing his mother and all the family? I don't +see how it can be true that God loves men when he lets them be so +wicked, and when people suffer so, and starve and die in wrecks and +fires and--it's terrible. I know you will think I'm awful, but +sometimes I don't believe in God at all." Her voice trembled, and I +knew the hurried sentences represented months of thinking. I did not +consider her "awful." God help her--she has looked the old, old problem +of evil squarely in the face for the first time, and is staggered by +it. How to help her in this crisis we shall consider in our discussion +of the "Spiritual Side." + +She needs now more than ever a teacher who can understand her, who has +thought things out for herself, who can teach positively, who is too +near life to worship creed, and too large to be dogmatic. One so often +wishes, when looking into the face of some thoughtful girl, with mind +keen, alert, active, but perplexed and confused by knowledge that +seems to contradict itself, for some miracle by which for a moment the +Great Teacher might come and speak to her the words that made his +doubting pupil say, "My Lord and my God." + +The mental activity of the girl of to-day reveals itself in the later +teens by a keen and deep interest in social questions, in the great +problems that concern women. But a few weeks since I looked into the +faces of scores of earnest college girls, many in their later teens, +who were discussing at a week-end conference, "The Individual and the +Social Crisis." It was not a mere discussion. These girls had plans, +they had facts, they were looking at the question on all sides. Within +the month I met another group in conference. They were a "Welfare +Committee" for an organization of working girls. They knew what they +were talking about, they had plans, and were seeking solutions for +problems that needed to be solved. + +The girl in her teens is a dreamer at thirteen, seeking to realize her +dreams in real life at nineteen. + +During those six wonderful years of repeated crises, the mental life +of the girl is being shaped and determined by environment. To some +extent the teacher may influence that environment, and become a real +part of it. It is her privilege to furnish the imagination, through +prose and poetry, with fields in which to wander afar, broaden the +vision through books of travel and information which she may put in +the girl's way, increase her love of music and pictures through +occasional concerts and visits to the art galleries, and in scores of +little ways open new doors to the greater realms of knowledge which, +if unaided, she would have passed by. + +It is a great thing to be able to help another mind to think for +itself. That, the wise teacher is always striving to do. She +challenges her girls to think. This is the reason why she wants the +girl in her teens to know something of the history of the church; to +be acquainted with the young men and women on the mission field, and +know what they are doing; to know what the cities are trying or +refusing to do for the housing of the poor, and for the protection of +women and girls; to know the laws of home hygiene, and to use her +mental faculties to help answer the question of the relation of the +church and the individual under existing conditions in her own +community and in the world. The girl in her teens is interested most +in the very thing in which the Great Teacher was himself +interested--life, the life of his own day, and he so instructed his +disciples that the eyes of their understanding were opened and they +began to think for themselves and of their fellow-men. + +We have to-day, in the girl in her teens, who in large numbers is +still in our Sunday-schools, a tremendous mental force. Were it +awakened and developed, helped to see and interpret life according to +the principles of Jesus, in fifty years the church would find most of +its present problems solved. For hard to realize as it is when looking +into the faces and training the minds of the girls in their teens of +to-day, still it is true that we are looking at and training the women +of to-morrow, yes, those who a few years hence holding their children +in their arms, shall decide all unknowing what the next generation of +men and women shall be and do. + +To encourage the girl in her teens to use her mental powers to the +utmost, to help her gain knowledge and self-control, to guide her in +her thinking, is the task of every parent and teacher, and it is a +task tremendously worth while. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--THE SPIRITUAL SIDE + + +All civilization begins in sensation and feeling. The most abstruse +and abstract thought of to-day is possible because ages and ages ago +men living in caves were hungry and sought food, were cold and sought +warmth, felt fear and sought protection. They conquered in battle with +fierce animals and neighboring tribes, and felt the joy of victory and +the satisfaction of possession. The "self" sensations and feelings are +at the foot of the ladder of civilization by which man, with almost +infinite patience has climbed thus far. But self is not all. As the +ages passed, man's pleasure of protection included his neighbor in his +feeling and thought. Misfortune evoked pity, and suffering called +forth sympathy, the desire for fair play for self grew until it became +a sense of justice which included the other man, and the moral sense +developed and was strengthened by experience through the succeeding +ages. + +From the beginning "the _spirit_ of man sought ever to speak." At +first he would propitiate the spirits of air and fire, the rulers of +earth and sea, the harvest and the battle,--please them and buy their +favor that he might be happy. In weird chants and dances, in feast +days and fast days, by sacrifice and penance, he endeavored to appease +the spirits of his gods and insure happiness for himself. Great +multitudes of the human race have gone no farther. After all the +progress of thought their prayers are still intense appeals for +blessing upon self and self-interests, and they still keep the feasts +and fasts, and bring offerings with hope of personal reward. But every +century brings an increasing number so filled with the sense of +another's need that in some measure at least they forget self. Their +prayers are petitions for others,--their gifts are poured out without +thought of recompense; the spiritual nature within them, awakened and +developed, triumphs and manifests itself in a thousand varying deeds +that bless mankind. + +This spiritual nature, which from the beginning has sought after its +Creator that it might worship him, is not a thing apart, living in a +separate "house," but rather a phase of man's complexity. It depends +for its growth upon both the physical and mental sides of man's +nature, and cannot be divorced from them. + +At the foot of the path that reaches to the very height of spiritual +life, we find feeling as sensation and emotion. The myriad sensations +which express themselves in bodily consciousness through the physical, +and the emotions which find expression through mental consciousness, +can not escape their share of responsibility for the development of +the spiritual side. As year after year he sees successive classes of +children repeat the development of their predecessors, one stands in +awe and reverence before the presence of laws which seem universal in +the development of child life. He notes the days when life means food +and clothing furnished by another. He notes the strong development of +the self interests to the exclusion of others. He sees the gradual +development of the sense of justice, of pity, of sympathy. He watches +the development of altruism in adolescence. He sees the rapid change +of body, mind, and spirit, and witnesses the struggle for control, +sometimes on the part of one, sometimes the other, until at last +physical, mental or spiritual emerges in control of a life. Or in the +rarer cases, where a more perfect development has come, all three work +together in the effort to make a perfectly balanced man. + +We saw in our brief study of the physical side that a girl in her +teens can feel. Her whole being is sensitized, ready at a moment's +notice to respond. In our study of the mental side we saw that she can +and does think, is capable of the heights and depths of emotion, and +is able in a limited way to make comparisons and reach sane +conclusions. + +As the physical side of her nature is awake and the mental side keen, +curious and eager, so the spiritual side feels the thrill of new life +and opens to all the wealth of impression. She is close to the great +mysteries of life, and "whence came I, what am I here for, where am I +going," press her for answer. In her early teens she accepts gladly +the theories and creeds of those who teach her. There are +comparatively few "unbelievers" from thirteen to sixteen. The average +girl at this period is religious in the truest sense of the word. Her +moral sense is keen, her conscience is alive,--she longs unspeakably to +be good; to overcome jealousy and envy; to be truthful, thoughtful of +others; and a score of minor virtues she longs to possess. Yet in +strange perversity she is often none of these things. She finds it +easy to pray, and a song, a picture, a story filled with deeds of +deepest self-sacrifice, awakens immediate response. She can be +appealed to through her emotions, and her deepest religious sense +touched and developed. The awakening of her spiritual nature thus +through the emotions is perfectly legitimate. The appeal should never +be sensational, and never under any circumstances awaken an hysterical +response. Not tears but unbounded joy should be the result of her +response to an appeal to all that is best in her. + +If the Sunday-school were equipped with just the right teachers, and +able to so influence parents and home conditions that the girl in her +early teens were regular in attendance, very few would reach the age +of sixteen without having determined to love and obey God and to live +in the world as Christ lived. Almost all would unite with the church, +which is the visible expression of the religious life,--and be ready to +throw themselves into its work. + +In all my experience with Sunday-school girls of this period regular +in attendance and interested in the work I have found when talking +with them that they invariably say, "I think I _am_ a Christian," "I +am trying hard to be good and to be a Christian," "I am willing to +sign the card, I have been trying to be a Christian for a long time," +etc., etc. Then, having so expressed themselves, if later I talk over +with them the matter of uniting with the church, I find only a few +objections repeated year after year by successive classes. "My father +and mother think I am too young," "My father says I would better wait +until I know what I am doing," "I am afraid I am not good enough," and +the one most reluctantly expressed, "If I join the church I am afraid +I'll have to----," then follow the things which perhaps must be given +up. I have yet to find the girl from thirteen to sixteen who has been +a regular attendant at Sunday-school since primary age who has no +desire to call herself a Christian. The splendid devotion to duty, the +sympathy, the service to the world, the marvelous love and compassion, +the supreme sacrifice of our Lord, makes the strongest possible appeal +to the spiritual nature of the girl. We may confidently expect her to +respond, and she does. + +But if the girl has been irregular in attendance, has lost interest in +class or teacher, is permitted to enjoy the stimulus of social life +while too young, comes to church only on special occasions, has little +or no definite moral instruction at home, and does not come into close +touch with rich spiritual life, she will drift through the years of +adolescence with her spiritual nature undeveloped and expressing +itself only in vague longings unsatisfied. The chances are that such a +girl will never have anything but a superficial interest either in her +own development or the vital life of the church expressed in its +various agencies. + +Two years ago, at a conference, a girl of sixteen from a fashionable +boarding-school, coming from a home where fads and fashions rule, said +to me, "I never knew Christ was so wonderful, but then I have never +thought much about it, though I go to morning service in the winter. I +have never met women and girls like those I have seen this week; they +are so interesting,--they are doing so many things to help people,--they +seem to love to live. I don't want to live a mean, selfish kind of +life. I am going back to school for my last year. What can I do? How +can I help?" I have met many girls of whom she is the type. Little is +being done for the spiritual side of their natures. The Sunday-school +at present does not reach them to any great extent. One of the +greatest problems facing the fashionable church is how to reach in any +way girls in their teens who are members of its congregation. Such +girls with their abundance of life have at least a right to those +things offered in the Sunday-school which will mean the awakening and +developing of the spirit. They need teachers especially equipped in +every way to meet them and help them. To find such teachers is one of +the problems that must be met within the next few years. Perhaps we +may look confidently for help before long to the girls of culture and +refinement now in our colleges hard at work upon every kind of problem +dealing with the development of a better life for girls and women. For +these girls are beginning to look at the Sunday-school seriously as +the means of bringing moral and religious education to girls of all +classes, and are asking how they may best equip themselves for service +in its various departments. + +The problem of the other girl is just as great. She works all the +week, and when on Sunday morning she is tired, the family sympathize. +She gradually drops out of Sunday-school, is not able because of her +long hours to enter into the work of the church, does not come into +contact with any vitalizing spiritual force, and slowly this part of +her nature, lacking food and stimulus, begins to die. She spends +Sunday afternoon and evening socially, and enters upon the new week's +work with no uplift of soul and spirit to help her when temptations +come. + +She needs a real teacher, sympathetic and appreciative, to hold her +during the first years of her working life. One who can make the class +a social factor, and by her effort and personality make the +Sunday-school hour interesting enough to insure attendance. Then the +teacher has an opportunity at least to bring the girl into contact +with Christ, and through instruction to feed and develop her spiritual +nature until it is ready through exercise to develop itself. + +The spiritual nature needs food as does the physical. If the physical +life is poorly nourished in this time of the most rapid development, a +loss of vitality and power is the inevitable result. The same is true +of the mental life. There must be healthful, attractive, abundant food +for interesting, enjoyable thought. And just as surely the spiritual +life, unless the emotions and moral sense are nourished, will yield to +slow paralysis or run into wrong and wasteful channels. + +But there comes a time in the spiritual experience of the girl, +usually about sixteen, when she wants to do something to express the +longing to give herself which is growing more intense each year. If +the Sunday-school and church are together able to provide her with +work she is fairly safe for the next few years. The work will mean +definite interest, will call for some sacrifice, and will bring the +satisfaction of accomplishment. The spiritual side of her nature will +find in this way opportunity for immediate expression, and we must +never let the fact escape us that without opportunity for expression +abundant life is impossible. + +Sooner or later there is bound to come to the average girl in her +teens a period of doubting, anxious questioning. Most often it appears +at the very end of the period. The outcome of this longer or shorter +period of turmoil in thought may be a much broader, deeper faith in +the Christian ideals and the realities of life, or it may be a +drifting away from the church and the loss of definite faith in +anything. + +There are in the world many more people who will not _do_ than who +will not _believe_, but a large and growing number of young women are +questioning, doubting, and finally deciding that we can not know, and +that the faith of our childhood is without reasonable foundation. Some +of these will seek satisfaction for the spiritual nature in later +years in all sorts of "isms," "ists," and cults; some will drop all +definite terms of faith and find a measure of satisfaction in +educational work among the poor. Some will grow hard and cynical, lose +all interest in any visible form of religion, and give themselves over +to a good time. The doubters and questioners are often thoughtful, +sincere young people, with mental ability of the best sort and high +moral sense, and every Sunday-school teacher who has any influence +with them must put forth every possible effort to save them, for their +own sake and that of the world. For the world can ill afford to lose +its women of faith. + +Occasionally, the girl who asks questions is not sincere in her desire +to find answers; she just wants to argue. Argument with such a girl is +not helpful. As a rule, doubts expressed grow stronger. In talking +with a girl who wants to tell all that she doubts, I have found it +helpful to lead her to make positive statements as to what she +believes, and urge her if she feels that she must part with her old +faith to start a new one with what she _does believe_. To treat her as +"wicked," or to be "shocked" by her expression of unbelief is +exceedingly unwise. Positive teaching, free from dogmatism, along the +line where her doubts seem to lead will help to strengthen her, and +work with actual problems of a social and altruistic nature will act +as a good balance. Those who are at work with actual life problems +have invariably the strongest and broadest faith because they come +close to humanity and see its worth as well as its weakness, and in +the long run can not explain what they see without the presence of God +in the world, nor help the deep needs they realize without the aid of +Christ. + +If the girl who questions is sincere, and is troubled and unhappy +because she can not believe, she deserves and should have the deepest +sympathy. The teacher to whom she comes for help is to be envied, for +she has the great privilege of an opportunity to help her _see_. + +Oftentimes it is such a little thing that hides from her the whole +great range of Christian thought. I shall remember always the little +hill that hid my view of the White Mountains I had made such a +sacrifice to see. I had reached my stopping-place late at night, in +the rain, and when morning came with a flood of sunshine I went +eagerly forth to catch a first glimpse of the mountains. They were +nowhere in sight. A quiet country road, shaded by tall trees, and a +long, low range of hills was all I saw. Deep disappointment filled my +soul. I determined to go back. Before noon my companion climbed the +hill opposite the house and beckoned eagerly for me to follow. I shall +never forget what I saw! There they were, clear, blue, reaching up to +the bluer sky. How I loved them that summer,--touched with fire at +sunset, purple and gold in the deepening twilight, soft and far away +in the early morning mist; and when clouds shut them in, hid them from +sight, I knew they were there, calm, still, immovable! I had seen +them. Yet for a whole morning a little hill shut them from my vision, +and I had concluded that some one had deceived me, that from the +little town they could not be seen. + +The greatest power of the teacher is that of beckoning to the pupil +that he may follow, helping him to climb the little hills, that he may +open his eyes and _see_. The mental questions must be answered as far +as possible. The difficulty in the way must be surmounted. The hill +must be climbed. If the teacher feels that she can not meet the task +herself, friends and books may help. The girl usually doubts the +miracles; doubts the deity of Christ, thinks the Bible is not +different from other books, asks the old, old question, "If a man die, +how can he live again?" She questions the existence of a God of power +in a world where so much evil and misery abound; says the foundation +of everything is gone, and that she is wretched and unhappy. + +It seems to me a most helpful thing to make her feel that all +thoughtful men and women have at some time in their experience asked +these questions. Both the teacher and the girl must accept the fact of +mystery,--that there is much that we cannot hope to know, many laws of +mind and matter of which we know just a little, and many more of which +we know nothing. Mystery is a fact. That the spiritual sense can reach +into a realm where the mental faculties cannot follow, and that the +spirit of man can perceive what the mind alone cannot comprehend, we +have a right to believe. + +When so much has been acknowledged the teacher may tell her pupil what +she personally believes about the disputed questions, and what the +scholars of the world believe on both sides of the question. The +teacher's belief is often the strongest argument, especially if she +has met the questions, found an answer, and her own faith is positive, +sane and strong. But if the teacher meets the troubled, anxious mental +state of the girl with dogmatic argument, insisting upon the definite +phraseology of some creed, she will most certainly fail to help. What +we want to do is not to inculcate a creed, but to help a girl to come +into living, vital touch with her Maker, that she may live with +confidence and be a help in the world. + +In time she will find the creed that expresses for her in the most +satisfactory way what she has come to believe. + +One of the most keen and interesting girls I have ever met, a junior +in college at nineteen, said to me after stating all that she could +not believe and why,--"Can't I believe that Christ was the finest man +that ever lived, and try to live and work in the world as he did? I +can't believe anything else." "Yes," I said, "that is true, believe +that. I think he was _more_, but start there. Do all you have planned +to help the needy, but don't forget to read again and again what he +said about himself and what those who have served the world most +fearlessly and faithfully say of him." + +Two years later at the conference she told me she had come to the +conclusion that "what he did and said and his present influence in the +world can't be explained unless he was in a sense different from +ourselves, divine." This was _her conclusion_, reached by thought and +study. It was worth much more than any insistence two years before +that she believe as I did. + +The way to help most effectually the girl who doubts, so far as my +experience has gone, is to help her to see that she can start, +standing firmly on what she believes, and then to help her faith grow +by giving her work to do and by putting in her way books that give +constructive teachings. Then one may supply her with stories of those +who have lived what they believe, and if possible bring her into +contact with fine, sane men and women of strong faith who love and +enjoy life. + +Sometimes all the doubts and questionings come because life is so hard +and seems so unfair and unjust. Then the troubled girl needs to know +just one thing--"God _is_ love"; and only the teacher who loves can +help her,--she will know how. + +Nothing can so stimulate the teacher's own faith as to be brought, +year after year, face to face with world-wide questions hurled at her +from the lips of girls in their later teens. She learns at last to +anticipate the time when doubts will trouble by giving during the +early teens definite constructive teaching that will strengthen faith +and deepen the spiritual sense. + +The girl in her teens is a worshiper of the ideal, and the teacher's +business is to furnish her with ideals so beautiful, so strong and so +desirable that with irresistible power they woo her until she is ready +to leave all and follow. If she is possessed by a great ideal nothing +is too difficult for her to do, no price is too high to pay in the +effort to realize it. Ideals are the things in life most real, for +they determine action. + +In impressing high ideals upon mind and spirit the teacher of girls in +their teens has advantages over those of any other period. All nature +is ready to help, the wealth of emotion waits to be stirred to action, +the spirit waits to be led. + +If the spirit of the teacher is to lead, it must itself be led. It +must be dominated by great ideals. + +The girl in her teens needs a teacher whose deepest longings are not +all satisfied--then she understands. She needs a teacher who is not +afraid to let her emotions speak--who knows that the greatest deeds +possible to man have their birth in the emotions. She needs a teacher +who sees amid all the joys and real pleasures of the world, as well as +amid the petty cares and dark and puzzling problems which are our +common lot, the Spirit of her Creator working out in man for ultimate +good the great plan of which she is a part. + +Such a teacher can open the eyes of her girls and help them to see the +Father for whom the human spirit is ever seeking--and will not be +satisfied until it finds. + + + + +CHAPTER V--THE SOCIAL SIDE + + +I have been spending the day with adolescence, surrounded by boys and +girls in their teens and young men and women just outside. It is now +the evening of Memorial Day, and I have spent most of the day at the +popular pleasure resort just outside the city. My companion, a young +woman just out of her teens, had taken her holiday to come to the +normal school to arrange for entrance in the fall. She has worked hard +for two years, saved her money, and now plans to take a full course at +the school to fit herself to become an expert teacher in China. She +wanted to spend the rest of the day with me and talk about it, and I +took her to W. ----, that we might enjoy the out-of-doors. We sat in a +secluded corner of the big open dining-room, and during dinner she +talked of China's need, of the great opportunity,--hurled facts about +the darkness of China at me until I gazed at the animated encyclopaedia +in astonishment. Her face glowed with enthusiasm; it is a sweet face, +girlish and eager, and I could but wonder as I looked at her how +China's need had gotten such a hold upon her. + +While she seemed for a few moments lost in thought, my eyes wandered +over the room crowded with youth. All sorts and conditions were there, +but all young. It was Memorial Day, but they had not waited to see the +short procession of those who still remain to us of the hundreds who +went out with their lives in their hands at the country's bidding. The +procession and all it signifies meant little to them. They were jolly, +happy, light-hearted, rough and very crude, and yet--they were just the +ones who, if the country should call again, would answer; the boys +promptly, willingly, offering their lives, the girls laying their +hearts on the altar of their country's need. But to-day was just a +holiday. At the table near us was a group of four, none over +seventeen. The discussion and final ordering of the dinner was most +interesting. They talked over prices, too, with great frankness, +"That's too much," and "we don't need coffee, that will take ten cents +off for each of us." I have seldom seen four people enjoy a dinner as +they did. The girls' dresses manifested the effort to attain "the +latest thing," and the boys were not behind. When they left the +dining-room and walked down toward the boat-house they tried to look +so unconcerned! How they had saved for this day! This one little day! +At every table were groups just as interesting. The grounds were +crowded with other groups, laughing and shouting and joking. The jokes +no one save themselves could appreciate. The skating rink was +crowded--the dancing pavilion--the open air theater--every incoming +trolley brought more intent upon having "a good time." I forgot China +until a direct question brought me back. Here she was,--my eager, +intense, enthusiastic girl,--looking forward with joy to China with its +crushing weight of ignorance, its impossible language and its +almond-eyed people neither asking nor desiring to be helped! What has +made the difference between her and those all about me? Before I could +answer her question or my own, three automobiles passed, filled with +laughing girls and boys, all in their teens. Their faces were +different from those in the grove,--their laughter more musical,--the +automobiles bore their country's flag, the girls wore flowers. I knew +some of the faces--it was a "house party," and they were off for a +"good time." + +Suddenly it surged over me that this was but one little spot in the +great country--and the rush of the other thousands, the shop girls, +clerks, the office girls, the students, all in search of a good time +oppressed me, and before my mind hurried back to a Chinese +kindergarten, my heart cried, "Oh, Lord, how shall the world _play_ +with real pleasure and profit?" Is _this_ the way? I heard no answer. +The problem is too big for me, yet I cannot let it alone, for the +world must play, and always the most eager players are young,--and +always the girl in her teens is the center of the game. + +Man is social. He must have companionships and pleasures in common +with his kind. Only when physically deficient, mentally deformed, +abnormal, does he become anti-social. This is true all through life +and especially true in adolescence when nature is most keenly +conscious of elemental powers and passions. + +It is true that the girl in her teens is often alone. Alone she dreams +her day-dreams, writes her poems, floods her imagination with all the +things that are to be. In common with all humanity she meets her +deepest experiences alone. Yesterday a girl of nineteen tried to tell +me of the happiness her engagement to a fine, strong man had brought +to her. She said, "all that it means _can't_ be said." Last week a +girl of eighteen tried to tell out all the loneliness and crushing +disappointment her mother's death had brought, but she ended her +appeal for help with the old cry, "no one can really help, I've just +got to bear it." Before the teens have passed so many girls learn that +great joy and great sorrow must be met alone. + +But for the common life of the every day, man lives with others. He +can neither work alone nor play alone, and with adolescence comes the +realization of it sweeping into the life. "The gang," "our crowd," +"our set," work and play together. + +The girl who loves and seeks solitude continually is ill mentally, +physically, or spiritually, and needs watchful, sympathetic care, +which shall discover the cause of her morbidness and help her to +escape from it. + +Environment fixes largely the companions of the girl, and her place in +the social scale predetermines to some extent how she shall play. If +she is in a home where the family is closely related to the church in +all departments of its active work and life, the church becomes her +natural social center. Its entertainments, suppers, young people's +socials, etc., furnish the means for her amusement and the place where +she may form friendships. If she is a working girl boarding in a +strange city or living in a home in no way connected with the church, +unless the Y. W. C. A. through the gymnasium or other classes reaches +her, where shall she find her social center where she may enjoy the +society of other young people, form friendships and have a good time? +In summer the public parks answer that question. In winter, the +skating rink, "the dancing party," the moving picture show. + +If the girl lives in a happy home surrounded by wealth, together with +culture and refinement, her social life will be guided and guarded +during her teens and she will be helped to have a good time. If she be +that happiest of all girls, the one whose own home is the social +center, where music, games and fun abound, and where friends are +always welcome, she is safe. Such homes might solve the whole problem, +but there are not enough. + +When the teacher looks seriously at the social side of her girls in +their teens and realizes the craving of the whole nature for +companionship, laughter and fun, she finds it hard to say "Don't" even +to the things of which she does not personally approve, because she +must meet the question clear and frank, "What _can_ I do then?" That +question has been answered, so far as the church is concerned, only +here and there. Some splendid and successful attempts have been made +that give us hope for the future. + +Most Sunday-school teachers of girls in their teens have awakened +recently to the fact that unless the demands of the social side be +satisfied in a sane, healthful way, the girl's spiritual nature +suffers, and the mental and physical as well. + +When once the teacher really sees it she can no longer be content to +meet the interested members of her class just an hour on Sunday, to +discuss the lesson of the day. The crowded parks, the trolleys, the +"parties," the call of the great demanding whirl of amusements from +Sunday to Sunday, presses upon her soul. She learns how her girls +spend the week end and the evenings and then she throws herself, her +knowledge, her skill, her time, into the scales, hoping where she +finds girls in the danger zone to turn the balance in favor of clean, +safe, sane pleasure. + +Any teacher willing to make a little investigation will be surprised +to learn how many of the girls enjoying the kind of amusements which +do not make for sound moral health, were at ten or twelve regular +members of the Sunday-school, and how many still come occasionally. + +My observation the past few years of the social side of the girl in +her teens, and especially the girl who has left school, has made me +feel that if the opportunity to choose came to me as to Solomon, I +would rather have the knowledge and power to give the young people of +to-day sane, safe amusement than anything else I know. + +The social side of the girl reveals itself not only in the desire to +have a good time, but in the deep and ardent friendships formed during +the teen period. + +While she enjoys to the full the society of the group, the girl in her +teens invariably has a "dearest friend," who shares her joys, sorrows +and confidences. This tendency becomes especially evident at sixteen +and becomes more marked at the latter part of the period. + +These friendships may be the source of greatest blessings or may mean +the lowering of the whole tone of moral life. Both mother and teacher +need to observe carefully the formation of friendships and be sure to +encourage only the helpful ones. Public school teachers of experience +can all testify to the rapid changes in girls which so often follow +the development of a deep friendship. + +I remember a girl of sixteen, dreamy, imaginative, and so much +interested in her boy companions that lessons, home interests, and +everything else were sacrificed. What to do with her, and what +interests to substitute, were questions that both mother and teacher +failed to solve. At a most opportune time a "new girl" moved into the +neighborhood and entered school. She was practical, attractive, a good +scholar, greatly interested in outdoor athletics. Because they were +neighbors, the two girls were thrown much together. The companionship +deepened into friendship. Soon the dreamy sixteen-year-old was playing +tennis on summer afternoons, and reading aloud in the hammock +afterward to rest. When winter came she suddenly decided that school +and study were worth while, brought up all her averages, and made up +her mind to try for college. Skating and the gymnasium made her a new +girl. And all this transformation, fortunately for her good, came +naturally and very rapidly through the influence of her companion. It +comes almost as quickly in the other direction. Nothing can be more +helpful to the shy, timid, self-conscious girl than the companionship +of one who will encourage her and help her take her place with others +in the social life of which she is a part. + +Some of the bitterest suffering known to girls in their teens comes +because they are "left out" and must go "alone." The misery of being +left to oneself is registered in that familiar sentence, "Oh, I don't +want to go alone!" The girl in her teens needs a "chum," a "best +friend," a companion, and anything that the teacher can do to aid in +the formation of helpful friendships is worth while, for the friends +loyal and true through the teen age are the ones who in later years, +when the need is deeper and friendships are tested, stand by. That +there should be some way and place in which, surrounded by a Christian +environment that makes for righteousness, girls in their late teens +and just outside, who have no homes, or homes only in name, can meet +and learn to know young men of the right sort is evident to all who +have even considered the matter. + +When the Great Teacher was here no need escaped his notice. All that +he taught and did was in response to _need_. Many of the teachers of +to-day are earnestly asking how far they can follow him in this great +principle of his life. + +When as teachers, interested in what we call the deepest things in the +girl's life, we are sometimes impatient with her light-heartedness, +with the giggles and boisterous fun and "silliness" of the early +teens, and the social tactics and sophistries of the later period, let +us remember that the natural, healthy girl is "whole." She is body, +mind and spirit, and all three together make her a social being. All +three speak in the passion to enjoy,--to seek pleasure. And the teacher +of girls in their teens is as truly in the service of the living God +when she boards the trolley car and accompanies her girls to the lake +for a picnic supper after a day of hard work or study as when teaching +them on Sunday the splendid principles that governed Paul's life. She +just as truly serves, some cold, rainy, February afternoon as, with +two of the girls she wants to know better, she cuts out red hearts to +decorate the room for the valentine social to which the members of her +class have each invited a girl not specially interested in the +Sunday-school as when she talks over on Sunday, "Serve the Lord with +gladness," for on Sunday she is telling them how to serve and on +Tuesday she is showing them how through her own action. And they +understand and are more willing to listen as she strives to impress +upon mind and heart the facts and ideals that shall keep them steady, +pure and true amidst all the distractions and temptations of the +world's good time. + +If the teacher once catches a glimpse of the significant fact that a +girl can not play wrong and pray right, a new realization of the +importance of the social side will stir her to action and send her out +to seek help from all who are willing to aid in the solution of the +world problem, of how to satisfy the social nature in ways that make +for character. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--HER RELATION TO THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL + + +That the Sunday-school has no relation whatever to vast numbers of +girls in their teens is a fact apparent to any one interested in the +girlhood of that period. And it is a fact of tremendous significance. +It means that at the time when the religious sense is keenly +responsive, when the mental faculties are alert, when the physical is +asserting itself with all its power for good or evil, the girl in +large numbers is not getting definite, systematic instruction from the +best book of ethics, morals and religion that the world has known. She +is not being brought face to face each week with questions that have +to do with her own welfare, and that of the world, nor is she being +led to think definitely of her personal relation to the church and its +work for mankind. Unless she is in some way led to think along these +lines all the myriad little interests that call to her from the +outside world slowly crowd out the more real and uplifting thoughts +and influences. + +Every one, even in mature life, needs to come regularly into contact +with influences that tend to lift him up and woo him away from the +domination of the petty and material, and even more is it needed +during the years when character is taking definite form. + +No girl can afford to lower her ideals or even to allow them to become +tarnished. Life apart from contact with religion in some form seems to +do that. Men in later years seem often to recover the ideals lost +during their teens; women seldom do. + +So even a glance at the problem shows one that the first thing for the +Sunday-school to do is to establish a relationship between itself and +the multitudes of girls in their teens. + +The best way to do this, as any teacher knows, is to keep a strong +hold on the girls who have been regular in attendance up to twelve +years of age. With these girls as a nucleus, it is easier to make +definite effort to gain new members and to make the class so +attractive that they will stay. + +When the teacher has resolved to make the effort to reach out for the +girl who is leaving the Sunday-school in large numbers, the clear and +challenging question, "What makes a class attractive to the girl in +her teens?" immediately presents itself. + +In the first place, the Sunday-school as a whole makes a great +difference to the girl in her teens. She likes enthusiasm, the +impression that the school is popular with its students, that +indefinite atmosphere which makes her know that pupils and teachers +alike enjoy the hour and come because they want to. A superintendent +who is popular with young people, who is thoroughly likable, is almost +indispensable in the teen age. The Sunday-school choir with +fortnightly rehearsals, if impossible to meet oftener, is a great +help, and after a year or two of training will do splendid work. I +have in mind a school where the organized choir meets only once a +month. The music for the next few Sundays is practised; those who are +to be soloists or those to sing the duets are chosen; light +refreshments are served by the committee from the choir, and a most +enjoyable evening spent. The regular attendance of the choir at +Sunday-school has been remarkable, and a number of new members gained. +The same methods can be used with a Sunday-school orchestra when there +are enough members who play the various instruments. + +The girl in her teens enjoys and responds to the well-arranged program +when the prayers, the responses and the whole order of service are +dignified and impressive. Just watch the college girl and her younger +sister in the preparatory school at chapel and you can read her +response in her face. She enjoys variety, too, and the program which +remains in use so long that after three years' absence she can come +back and go through it exactly as it was when she left, is not the +kind likely to appeal to her. + +We have seen in our previous studies that the girl in her teens is in +love with real life. She likes people, and the Sunday-school lesson +must discuss real people and present problems if it is to deeply +interest her. + +I was present recently in a class of twelve girls about sixteen years +old. Nine members of the class were supposed to be "heathen" and three +girls were to tell any one of the parables as if for the first time to +these people, anxious and curious to learn of the Christian faith. The +interest was very real. After the telling of each parable the class +discussed it and what it would mean to a people hearing it for the +first time. "The Sowing of the Seed," "The Good Samaritan," and "The +Ten Talents" were told. At the close the teacher told very vividly of +an experience of a dear friend of hers who sat one day in the great +plaza of a Mexican city, and told the story of the lost coin to a +Mexican woman who wore a bracelet of old and curious coins. The +account of the response of this Mexican who heard the story for the +first time made a great impression upon me, as upon every member of +the class. The teacher then appointed three girls for the next week to +tell any one of the experiences of Jesus on his preaching tours as +they would tell it to a group of factory girls who had neglected +church for years and almost forgotten how to pray. Several protested +that such girls would not listen, and the discussion as to their +needs, what they had to help them live pure, true lives, what had made +them careless and indifferent, was brought to a close by the quiet +question of the teacher, "Do these girls need Christ or his teaching?" +They said, "yes," with conviction, and in answer she said, "Then there +must be a way to tell what he said and thought so that they will +listen; perhaps next Sunday one of our girls will find the way, and I +have a most interesting story to tell of a splendid factory girl who +herself found a way." + +That lesson did so many things for that class of girls. It made them +think. First they had to be able to tell the stories Christ told. The +class in discussion had to think of the adaptability of the story to +the people who needed to hear it, and of all it could mean to them. +They felt the joy of the one who had the privilege of telling it to +the Mexican for the first time. They said themselves that the great +army of girls in our factories need Christ. They were to think for a +week on how his words might be brought to them. The lesson was left +with anticipation for next week's story. It was a type of what every +lesson should be. It connected the past and present; it touched life +in their immediate surroundings and in the uttermost parts of the +world; it gave opportunity for original expression and it led to +discussion. It reached some conclusions. It appealed to the +imagination and emotions and closed with a desire on the part of the +pupils to talk more, and know more, and think more. + +Perhaps in years to come we shall have good courses of lessons, six or +eight weeks in length, which will help the teacher to do just these +things. Courses which shall deal with church history for six or eight +weeks, then with missions, with charities, with the history of the +Bible, with the definite teachings of the New Testament and their +relation to society to-day, dealing always with _life_ and always with +Christ as the great helper and redeemer of man in his struggles to +live aright. While we wait for such courses the individual teacher +must attempt, with the material she has, to make real and vital +connections with life, broaden the pupil's horizon and increase her +desire for knowledge. New courses and better lesson material, either +in public school or Sunday-school, never come through folding one's +arms and spending one's time criticizing the material at hand, but by +using it, changing it, adapting and experimenting with it until +something is found which more nearly meets the need. Any teacher now +reading this chapter may be the one to discover through her own +experience just the material for which teachers of the girl in her +teens are waiting. That is the reason every one may teach with courage +and joy. + +It makes little difference where one starts in the discussion of +public-school or Sunday-school problems, he always comes back to the +teacher. After all has been said, the teacher is the greatest force in +establishing and maintaining a close relationship between the girl in +her teens and the Sunday-school. "Ways and means" are necessary and to +critics of the so-called "machinery" of the Sunday-school, I have only +one answer--unless I can get a pupil to come, I can't teach him. Absent +and irregular pupils receive no benefit even from the finest of +teachers, and any legitimate "means" by which a pupil may be induced +to come, and a regularity of attendance be established, we have a +right to welcome and use. But after the pupil has entered and become +regularly enrolled it is the teacher who is the stimulating, guiding +and holding power. To analyze the charm of personality which attracts +and holds the girl in her teens is impossible, but there are certain +things which the teacher must do that we may discuss. + +She must remember that the girl in her teens has "grown up," and that +she is very conscious of it. One must be more her friend than teacher. +In the earlier years every Sunday-school teacher really interested in +her pupils calls freely in the home. When the girl reaches the teen +age, the teacher must ask permission to call. "May I call on your +mother?" often opens the way for a special invitation, or at least +gives the girl an opportunity to make the invitation cordial or to let +it be known that for some reason she prefers not to have her teacher +call. I remember one girl of seventeen who never gave me any +encouragement when I suggested calling, and I respected her wishes. +One day when she was very ill, the mother asked me to come. The girl +had always dressed well, was intelligent and refined, and would have +been supposed to come from a family of comfortable means. I found it +to be a home of real poverty, where the father, a nervous wreck +struggling with diabetes, was unable to work regularly, and the mother +was obliged to assist. Even with the seventeen-year-old girl giving +every cent she could spare, it was a hard struggle. The girl was proud +and reticent; she had not wanted me to know, and I was glad I had not +come until she was willing. That day when she was ill and discouraged +she was willing--she really needed me. + +There are many times when for reasons akin to this or others entirely +different but equally good, a girl prefers to have her teacher see and +know her apart from her home. Every woman who understands girlhood in +the later teens respects such a wish. + +The teacher's home should, if possible, be always open to the girls +and they should feel free to come. Sometimes it is not possible and +then the cosiest corner in the smallest church parlor should be +available. + +As the girl approaches the later teens the Sunday-school class should +become more and more a place of training for service. It has been my +experience that after seventeen many girls prefer to work in +Sunday-school rather than to remain as pupils. If the girls express +such a desire, or show particular willingness to act as substitutes, +to help in the music of the elementary departments, or to tell stories +to the beginners, such a desire should be recognized and an +opportunity given a girl to test herself under supervision. The +Sunday-school should be constantly preparing assistant +superintendents, directors of music, secretaries and teachers. +Material for the teachers' training-class is found in classes in the +later teens. + +Some of the most loyal, responsive and successful teachers of pupils +from nine to twelve, I have found in the boys and girls of the later +teens. While they lack mature judgment and discretion, they have +enthusiasm and desire to succeed in any undertaking. If the +Sunday-school is constantly training such helpers as assistants, and +testing them as substitutes, then the changes that are bound to come +in the teaching force of any Sunday-school are not so disastrous, for +some one will be ready to supply the need. + +As has been hinted in previous studies, the Sunday-school should lend +valuable assistance in making the church a social center for the young +people who need it. To be of real vital interest to the girl, the +Sunday-school must touch her everyday life. It does that through the +social side of its work. The organized class giving socials, +entertainments, enjoying lectures and music, picnics, trolley parties, +skating or camping has a decided influence for good on all the +members. I know of one such organized class of girls eighteen and +nineteen years old which met three times a month for an entire year. +They met one week "for fun," the next to "go somewhere," or "to hear a +talk," or "to sew and read, and talk if we want to," and the third for +a "sing" to which they invited members of the boys' classes. All these +meetings were popular, well attended, and have meant a strong united +class with a splendid spirit. + +The girl in her teens needs the Sunday-school because of the help and +uplift which its teachings are bound to bring to her. Even if she +belongs to a class in its early teens which is given over to the +giggles, to wandering thoughts, to all sorts of asides in more or less +noticeable whispers, to the continual admixtures of the Bible lessons +and the events of the week just passed or to come,--even though as is +often the case with the American girl, she is thoughtless enough to +forget to be either reverent or courteous, still it pays for her to +come. She gets something,--often more than we think. + +And the Sunday-school needs the girl in her teens. It needs her +devotion, her enthusiasm and eagerness, her close touch with both the +real and ideal in life, that it may keep its balance, stay in the real +world of need, and not walk far afield by paths of theory. The +Sunday-school has awakened to its need of the girl, and now at its +door lies the task of making her feel more and more her need of it. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--HER RELATION TO THE CHURCH + + +The girl in her teens, in common with all humanity, needs the upward +pull. Fresh air, suitable clothing, nourishing food, so desirable in +all stages of her development, become, we have seen, an absolute +necessity during her teens. If not supplied, her whole future is +doomed to pay the penalty; and unless during the period of the +awakening and strengthening of ideals, a steady, uplifting, +spiritualizing force has a definite influence upon the rapidly +changing and developing forces of her nature, the chances are that her +whole future will pay the price neglect always demands. The steady, +upward pull is a necessity. + +There are so many things in life that furnish the downward pull. Even +the more fortunate girl, who lives in her own home and spends the +greater part of each day in the enlarging atmosphere of a good public +school, feels the downward pull. In the most carefully selected of +select schools, the girl, though guarded every moment, feels the +downward pull of the petty, selfish and mean. The girl in her teens +hard at work among the world's toilers is painfully conscious of it in +one or more of its many forms. + +In the struggle between the higher and the lower--the upward and the +downward pull--humanity finds its growth and development. If there is +no struggle there is no strength. The girl in her teens does not know +all this--her teacher does, and puts forth all her effort to strengthen +the upward pull. + +As we study and observe the girl in her development one question +persistently follows us. To what shall we look for this upward pull? +There are many answers: the home, the school, friends, good +environment, the church. With the last we are especially concerned. + +Even the most open and avowed enemy of the church of to-day would not +hesitate to place it definitely on the side of the upward pull. Its +history, teachings and ideals, like its spires, point upward. It says +reverently and steadily to a world of busy men so much engaged in the +rush for mere things that they find it easy to forget all else, two +simple, tremendously significant words--GOD IS. It says persistently, +above the struggle for power through possessions,--"Truth, +Righteousness, Justice, Love, these alone mean happiness," and at some +time during his progress from childhood to old age man stops to +listen. The most natural and effective time to stop is during the +early teens. + +Of course the church, being made up of humanity, has its weaknesses. +As an upward pulling force it is not perfect. Nothing is. Its most +loyal friends are the ones most conscious of its faults and failures. +Its members feel its weakness more keenly than the outside world +possibly can, just as the members of a family feel more deeply than +the outside world the weakness and failures of its members in any +particular. + +But in spite of its errors of creed, its lack, in many cases, of +authority and initiative, and its temptation to shun real problems, +yet the members do feel the power of its upward pull, and the +community in general is conscious of it. + +To place the girl in her teens where she will feel most strongly the +lifting power of the church is the business of her parents and +teachers. + +In the average community the girl has been more or less in contact +with the church from her earliest years. Her estimation of its value, +its purpose and power, has been built up through the years by what she +has heard parents, companions and teachers say of it. It is a refuge +for the weak, a company of people who think themselves better than +others, a respectable moral organization through which men climb to +higher social planes, a necessary guardian of good in the community; +or, the visible expression of the religion of Jesus Christ, the +highest and most potent force in the world to-day for the conversion +and uplifting of mankind. Her opinion is in accordance with the +general opinion of those in her immediate environment. + +As she approaches her teens, if her parents are not church people, +through the influence of the Sunday-school of which she is a member +she usually becomes a more or less regular attendant upon the services +of the church. If her teacher is wise she does all in her power to +establish the habit of church attendance. If the pastor has a thought +and a word for the younger members of his congregation the girl, +interested and helped, responds according to her temperament. + +About the time she enters her teens, if she is a Sunday-school girl, +she has had, through Decision Day or in answer to the direct question +of her pastor or teacher, the opportunity of saying, "I choose to be a +Christian." If her teaching has been careful and wise she will know +what being a Christian should mean to a girl of thirteen, and she will +make the choice gladly and of her own free will. Before she is sixteen +she will have met the question of her direct relation to the church. +Shall she join it in its work in the world? If "joining the church" is +made the simple, sincere matter that it really is, the average girl +responds easily and earnestly. Only those who year after year have +helped girls from fourteen to sixteen decide to take the step can know +the genuine, loving, devoted spirit in which they come to their +decisions. + +Through the weeks of instruction that follow the decision, when the +girl learns, under her pastor's or teacher's direction, the history of +the church, the development of her own denomination, and the +statements of its creed, the work the church has done, and is actually +doing for the poor and outcast, the rich and careless, her admiration +for it deepens, and all the love and devotion of her girl heart goes +out to Him whose wonderful life and sacrifice have inspired ordinary +men and women to live in the world as real Christians. + +After such instruction, when the Sunday comes on which she is to +publicly unite with the church she _knows what she is doing_ and +_why_. She knows as fully as any one can _what she believes_, for +belief is a growth, and life and experience always modify it. The +mystery of the communion service is to her as clear as it is to any of +us, and she prays as truly and sincerely as the oldest and wisest. + +How much of uplift to her whole life her act has been can be known +only to those who year after year have walked home with her after the +service, received her notes so full of joy, and watched her effort to +live aright in the weeks that follow. + +So far in the relation of the church to the religious and spiritual +development of the girl the steps have been successive, natural, and +easy, but now the hard part comes. + +She is on Monday, after uniting with the church, the same girl that +she was on Saturday before doing so. If she had a bad temper, she has +it still; if she was easily tempted to be insincere, selfish, +sarcastic, careless, unkind, the characteristics are with her still. +She has simply placed herself on the side of the upward pull, and +every one of us who comes in contact with her should watch the +struggle against the downward pull never with condemnation and +criticism, but always with sympathy and assistance. + +Here is where the church so often fails. Having joined the church she +is ever after expected to be good. "The girl has joined the church, +all is done," is a false and fatal conclusion. + +I have been watching with real interest a young girl who, after a most +happy engagement, a beautiful wedding, a delightful continental trip, +is learning to live in the prosaic every day. She had forgotten that +it is always there waiting for us. In her great uplift and happiness +little things had not made her as angry as before. But she found out +what could happen when "Harry" forgot to order the cream for the +dinner party at which all her friends were present for the first time +in her new home. After her outburst of anger she was so discouraged +that she was tempted to think the whole thing was a mistake, that she +could not have loved him, and she could never be happy again. She had +not reckoned with herself. The plain details of everyday living reveal +one to himself. He finds he cannot live in the clouds, and that the +art of living harmoniously and finely in the valley must be learned, +and it takes time. + +The girl in her teens after uniting with the church and experiencing +the uplift and stimulus must come back to the every day. Like my young +friend, she so often thinks that she will "never feel angry again." +She does, and with the failure to control herself or the quick +yielding to her special temptation comes the feeling of utter +discouragement. She is not good enough to be a member of the church, +and it was a mistake. She needs help--her mother or teacher--to make her +see that even a deep love can not in a moment overcome a quick temper, +nor uniting with the church overcome the habit of the unkind word and +selfish act. It will give her comfort and courage to know that one +becomes a real Christian by successive steps, and it will take all her +life to accomplish the task. + +The first thing a young member of the church needs to help her become +what we want her to be, a sane, natural, happy girl, interested in, +enjoying and loving all the things that belong to the normal girl in +her teens, is work. + +She must have something to do, for unless the emotions are given a +sane, legitimate outlet, she may come to the fatal conclusion that +religion is a thing apart from life, or there may follow a lowering of +ideals, or the morbid introspection common to girls in their teens, +but which the Christian should escape. + +So we must direct her thoughts from herself to her companions. It is +she who can establish a bond of interest between the other girl and +the church. She can bring the other girl under its influence, and help +her see what it stands for in the world. + +"No," said a girl to me at a conference, "it isn't any of the +speakers, or the books, or sermons that have interested me; it is just +Edith and Alice. They are such splendid girls and they just love the +church and all the work they are doing. They are having such good +times and are truly happy. I want to understand it. Whatever it is I +want it." I have heard scores of girls say it in varying phraseology. +One girl influences another more than we can, so we may set her at +work with her companions. + +But that is not work enough--and it is too indefinite. She must have a +part in the mission work, the social work, be interested in the sick +and unfortunate, and learn now that the business of the church is to +care about the lonely women, the toiling women and their children, the +little, narrow, self-centered women, and those who find it hard to be +good, just as its Lord and Master cared. Nothing is more encouraging +to those who love the church than a large number of bright, +attractive, natural girls, on whose hearts and lives this great truth +is beginning to make an impression which must find expression. + +The second thing necessary to the right development of the girl in her +teens is ideal Christian women in the church of which she is a member. +The women of the church, from those a little older than herself up to +those who for many years have been its support, must show to her what +it means to be a Christian woman in the church, community and home. +Alas for those girls who see that it means only attendance upon the +services of the church when perfectly convenient, and when minister +and choir are entirely satisfactory! Alas for those girls who see that +it means little more than a comfortable sense of respectability and +social opportunity! + +Fortunate are those girls who in their early teens see among the +church members scores of sane, true, large-hearted women interested in +every need, anxious to help, and willing to serve in every way that +time and means will permit. + +The church of whose women the girl in her teens, watching with her +keen eye, can say, in her ardent way, "I'd rather be like Mrs. ----, +than any one I know--she is perfectly lovely," is of real value as an +uplifting, vitalizing force in the world. + +The girl in her teens needs the church to furnish the upward pull and +there is need of greater effort in every line and by every member to +bring her into contact with it. + +The church needs the girl in her teens with all the intensity of her +power of devotion and genuineness of her love; with all the strength +of her emotions so easily turned under right conditions toward the +best things in life. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--HER RELATION TO THE BIBLE + + +One beautiful June Sunday I stood waiting for my car at the transfer +corner, thinking about the Sunday problem and watching the crowd +hurrying away to the parks and the lakes, when a most interesting +group of girls passed. There were six or eight of them about sixteen +years old, and in their light dresses, their fresh, sweet faces half +hidden by hats that were "too dear for anything," they made a picture +good to see. + +They were evidently returning from Sunday-school, for most of them +carried Bibles, and, as I watched them out of sight, I was plunged +into a wilderness of questions as to what that wonderful old Book, +written in the dim, hazy past under foreign skies, in languages almost +forgotten, could possibly have to do with gay, happy, laughing +girlhood--in the midst of the things of to-day. And I knew that to the +majority of girls in their teens it means little. Most of them own it, +respect it, and feel a certain reverence for what it says, but it +plays little part in their everyday lives. + +The average girl in her teens uses it more or less in the preparation +of her Sunday-school lesson. She hears certain portions of it read +without comment in opening exercises in school; in a comparatively few +instances it is read in the morning or evening at home. That is +practically all that most girls have to do with the Book whose +teachings have so largely made possible the wealth of happiness of the +girlhood of to-day. + +How to bring the girl in her teens into touch with this Book of books +so that it shall exert upon her individual life its wonderful power of +transforming, purifying, and strengthening character is a problem. + +But those who have been trying hard to meet it have learned some +things. They have found out that the girl in her teens knows little of +the history of the Book, and that when she is told the story of how we +got our Bible she is intensely interested. Its wonderful history, from +the time before it lay in parchment rolls on monastery shelves and on +through the centuries until it reached the hands of ordinary men and +women, and the period of their struggle to learn to read that they +might know what it said, stirs the imagination and awakens a host of +questions that lead to knowledge. + +When she begins to understand what it has cost to preserve the book, +how not only men and women, but boys and girls, have loved it and died +rather than betray it or disobey its commands, it becomes to her a new +book, worthy of her study. + +But the history of the Book, although it is necessary and does deeply +interest the girl and increase her respect for it, is by no means all +we want her to have. + +The fragmentary knowledge of Abraham and David, Esther, Ruth and Paul +which she has gained in her childhood must be supplemented now by the +knowledge of great periods and what the world learned through them. +She needs to be shown what the Psalms and some of the chapters of +Isaiah and the other prophets have meant to the literature, music and +art of the world. + +I remember with pleasure the class of girls sixteen and seventeen +years old who studied the books of Job and Jonah with me one year. The +dramatic element held us, and Job and his friends, Jonah and his +struggle, became very real to us. Two years afterward one of the +girls, in talking about references to the Bible in literature, said to +me, "Well, when they refer to Jonah or Job I'm safe, for those two +books I shall never forget." She can grasp a book as a whole, remember +it and enjoy it. + +But the study of the Bible under guidance and with every means used to +make it interesting and helpful is not all that we want for our girl. +She must be led to find in the Bible personal inspiration and help. + +Experience so far has taught me that unless the girl in her teens is a +member of a Christian Endeavor Society or kindred organization, or a +member of the church, she is not likely to read the Bible for herself, +nor is it easy to interest her to do so. She may enjoy poetry and +really good literature, and be an omnivorous reader, yet never read +the Bible. She has often told me frankly that she really does not like +to read it because it is not interesting and she does not understand +it. + +We understand her feeling perfectly. The phraseology is unfamiliar, +and her knowledge is not broad enough to help her with the context; +and to do anything voluntarily with regularity, unless it is +absolutely necessary, is not easy for the average girl in her teens. +But every one interested in the future development of the girl's +personal religious life is anxious to establish now, in her early +teens, the habit of reading every day the words that have brought new +life and salvation to the world. + +It needs no argument to show that any girl is safer, finer, and less +easily led into dangerous byways of thought and action if in beginning +the day, or when it closes, she takes time to read "Blessed are the +pure in heart: for they shall see God," "Do unto others as ye would +that they should do unto you," or the story of the Good Samaritan, the +healing of the blind, the parables, the thirteenth of First +Corinthians, or, "If any man thinketh himself to be religious, while +he bridleth not his tongue but deceiveth his heart, this man's +religion is vain," or the next verse, with its clear-cut definition so +plain that any girl can understand. + +Through these and the other words of the New Testament she is coming +daily into touch with the deepest, most fundamental truths to which +men have ever listened. More than that, she is coming through these +words into touch with Christ. No girl can read day after day the words +he spoke or the record of his works of compassion and love, the story +of his patient, brave endurance of the cross, his faith that the +disciples he loved would carry on his mission, without becoming a +finer type of girl. And if after reading she bows her head for a +moment only, and sincerely prays for strength to do right all through +the day, or when the day is over, asks for pardon for what she has +done amiss, then we need not fear that she will go far wrong on her +way through life. One may be insincere under many circumstances, but +one is rarely insincere when, alone, at the beginning or close of the +day he reads the words of that Book, and prays. So we, who long for +the best for our girl in her teens, are willing to do anything in our +power to help her establish the habit of sincere reading of the +teachings of Christ, and of genuine prayer for strength to live them +out every day of her life. + +Oftentimes such little things help in forming the habit. I know of one +teacher successful in reaching the secret recesses of girls' hearts, +who, with three of her fourteen-year-old girls, read every night for a +year the same Bible chapters, she assigning them one week in advance. +After they read the short selections they prayed for one another and +the members of the class not Christians. Just how the prayers of those +girls for their friends could or did affect their lives none of us can +understand, but that they did have a definite moulding influence on +the lives of the girls themselves and their relation to other girls +was plainly evident. + +I know of one impulsive, imaginative, sixteen-year-old girl who formed +the habit of reading, while retiring, a chapter or more from the weak, +sentimental, but nevertheless fascinating, love stories which just +then were her delight. She found it hard to go to sleep, and often lay +for hours in a highly excited emotional state, going over and over the +words of the hero and heroine. + +At Christmas, an older girl whom she greatly admired gave her a Year +Book having a Bible verse at the top of each page, followed by +quotations or forceful words of explanation. She asked her young +friend to read it the very last thing every night, and underline with +pencil anything she thought especially fine or true, and put a +question mark beside anything she did not understand, and every few +weeks they would look it over together. The sixteen-year-old decided +to learn the Bible verses. Often she looked up the reference in the +Bible. She faithfully underlined, questioned, and went to bed with +some of the finest thoughts in literature filling her mind. Any one +who heard her testimony, while in college, as to what that year's +reading meant to her might be almost tempted to present year books to +all girls in their teens. + +Another very earnest young teacher, in love with girls, purchased for +her class cheap New Testaments and small unruled blank books. She +assigned a topic for a month's reading, such as faith, love, courage, +justice, and asked the girls to cut from the Testament all verses on +that subject, and paste them under the proper headings. The result was +a group of girls reading every night on the assigned topic, and at the +end of the month able to read from their blank books all that Christ +and the apostles had to say on that subject. Many of the girls added +quotations and poems referring to the special subject, thus enlarging +their own conception of it. + +The girls valued their blank books highly, and exhibited them with +satisfaction. The teacher did not seem especially proud of the books, +but exceedingly pleased that the class had grown familiar with so many +of the verses. She had a right to feel gratified with her work, for +she was helping them to become acquainted with the Book, just as I +help my girls in their teens in school to become familiar with the +encyclopaedia--by sending them to it repeatedly, until they form the +habit of consulting it. + +That many girls in their teens are steadied and helped through hard +experiences by the words of comfort and encouragement which they find +in the Bible any teacher of experience in Sunday-school work knows. + +I am looking now at the picture of the sweet, strong face of a girl of +seventeen. She is hard at work helping support the family. The father +has tried many times to reform and let drink alone, and as many times +failed. The girl can hardly endure the life at home, yet for the sake +of the younger children she must stay. Recently, when I told her how +much I admired her, she said, "It has seemed this year as if I +couldn't keep on. I can't tell you how much two verses on my calendar +have helped me. I keep saying them over and over, 'I will never leave +thee, nor forsake thee,' and 'Fear not, I will help thee.'" + +Another girl, struggling to overcome the habit of exaggeration which +has been a characteristic of her family for generations, said to me +one day, "I think so often of that verse, 'With God all things are +possible.' If it weren't for that I would give up, for just as I think +I am improving I fail again, and it seems as if I never could tell +things as they are." + +I have found many girls in their teens lonely, discouraged, +misunderstood, or in the presence of great sorrow, turning to the +words of the Book, and really finding help and comfort. + +If, then, the girl in her teens can be taught something of the history +of the Bible,--the languages in which it has been written, the methods +by which it was compiled and translated, and finally printed,--so that +she will not half believe that in some mysterious way it dropped down +from heaven, or else never even ask where it came from; if she can be +taught that its men and women were real and lived under real +conditions in a real world; if she can know something of their +struggles, defeats and victories, and learn to love their psalms and +poems; if she can be led to see something of their growth and +development as they waited for the Christ to come, then the Bible will +be to her a real book, not a fetish to be worshiped afar off. + +And if she can be led to seek in the Gospels and letters of the New +Testament help and inspiration to live honestly and sincerely, then +the Bible will become a tremendous force for righteousness in her +daily life. + +When she meets the hard things of life or the temptations of leisure a +girl so taught and trained will have something to help her; and such a +girl, as she enters college and takes up critical study of the Book, +will have nothing to fear. + +The secret of the marvelous influence of the Old Testament on human +life lies in three short words,--"And God said," and the secret of the +marvelous transforming power of the New Testament lies in one word, +"Christ"--"Christ"--"Christ." When the girl in her teens opens daily to +read for herself what that Book has to say of the leadings of Jehovah +and the teachings of Christ, she is on the road to safety,--therefore +the work of every teacher is to help her to open it. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--HER RELATION TO THE EVERYDAY + + +The girl in her teens, although she is able now and then through her +imagination to transfer herself to a land of day-dreams, where all she +desires is hers, for the most part is obliged to live in the everyday, +and often she finds it hard. + +But she is young--and one may always hope when in her teens. If she is +ill, health may come in a few weeks, a month, a year at most. If she +works hard, she may always hope for a "better place with more money," +or by and by, just in the future a little way, a happy home of her own +where she will have everything she wants. + +If she is struggling for an education, the joy of what she will be +able to do some day sustains her. If she is a care-free girl with no +burdens, one whose parents give her every advantage and strive to make +her girlhood happy, life is one great joy and the future an even more +wonderful dream. + +But these girls, every one of them is obliged to live in the ordinary +world, and we who realize it must so train them that when they meet it +in reality they will be able to live happily. + +One reason why there is so much misery and unhappiness in home life +to-day is because the girl in her teens is not trained to live. Even +those who love her most say, "Oh, she's young yet, there's time +enough." Meantime habits are formed and when the "time" comes +effective training is not possible. In spite of hopes, castles, +day-dreams, most girls are destined to live amid the commonplaces of +life, and unless we prepare them, many will fail to learn that + + "The trivial round, the common task + Will furnish all we ought to ask; + Room to deny ourselves, a road + To bring us daily nearer God," + +and so insure our happiness. + +The Sunday-school is limited of course in what it can do to guide the +girl in the everyday, so many other agencies enter into her training, +and yet we have seen that what we teach on Sunday must influence her +on Wednesday as she settles some question, or we have not really +helped her. + +As we try to plan how we may best help her to live, we ourselves meet +the question, "What, after all, do we want her to be in this world of +the everyday?" + +It is a little hard to answer, we want so much for her, and yet it can +all be summed up in one sentence, "We want her to be comfortable to +live with." + +When we stop to think of what a flood of blessing would come to this +old world if all the girls now in their teens were comfortable to live +with, and will be as they develop into full womanhood, we know no +effort should be spared to make them so. + +If the girl in her teens is comfortable to live with she will be +content in the place where she is. She will have that sane +satisfaction which is not apathy but which makes the best of what it +has till something better can be found. + +Very early in her teens the girl begins to pencil upon her face the +first tiny lines which in later years, grown deep and heavy, will mark +her discontent. There are so few faces that show their owners have +learned to be content. + +A sixteen-year-old girl friend of mine the other day said in a +discouraged way, "Well, I wish Frances' mother felt differently about +their home. Her mother is such a lovely cook, and their house is neat +and pretty, too, but she will never let Frances have any of the girls +to dinner because they haven't a maid. She wouldn't let even _me_ go +upstairs to Frances' room, and I know it must be so pretty by the way +she describes it. It is too bad; we just love her, and we could have +such good times. She can't accept our invitations very often because +her mother won't let her entertain us. It is just too bad." + +The girl was right. It was "too bad" to deprive Frances of the society +of these girls, who, though they came from homes where more money was +expended, would have so enjoyed her simple hospitality. + +Although not meaning to do it, her mother is teaching Frances to place +wrong values upon things, and her life will be narrowed and made more +and more unhappy because the living-room is small, and the floor not +of hard wood, but painted around the outside of the rug, and she will +come to believe that happiness consists of possessions. When she +marries, like thousands of other girls she will be unhappy unless her +own new home is perfect in equipment from the start, she will want the +new, "up-to-date" things faster than her husband's salary can supply +them, and the long line of misery that follows may easily be hers. + +If, instead, her mother could demonstrate that a neat, clean, and +therefore attractive home is a fit place in which to entertain any +friend by welcoming her daughter's friends for a good time, how +quickly for that girl things would assume their right places in the +scale of importance. We can help her to be happy and content by +showing her in what very simple ways good times may be had. + +If the girl in her teens grown to womanhood is to be comfortable to +live with she must be trained to be kind. Kindness is born in +unselfishness, and if we expect her to be unselfish, the days of her +teens must be her training days. She must be carefully guarded from +daily association with women who speak cynically of life, and shielded +from close contact with those whose conversation is invariably the +criticism of their neighbors. She must be led to let her heart +speak--the heart is rarely unjust and seldom unkind. Her thoughts must +be continually turned, as were those of Frances Willard and Alice +Freeman Palmer, toward her neighbors in need, until a world-sympathy +is born in her, and the joy of helping makes her keen to help. The +girl to whose lips almost involuntarily spring the words "Let me help +you" will not find it so easy to utter the cutting word or the phrase +that leaves a sting. A real interest in "the other girl" will tend to +make her unselfish. + +If she is comfortable to live with she must be thoughtful. +Thoughtfulness also has its birth in unselfishness. The girl wrapped +up in thoughts of herself has little time to be concerned with others, +and demands invariably that she be the center of the circle. She does +not make others comfortable and is not good to live with. + +The girl who is good to live with in the world of the everyday, shares +her joys and pleasures with the family. How many times I have seen a +tired mother forget her cares listening to the recital of her +daughter's "good times"! Her petty little annoyances, her +disappointments, she keeps to herself. + +After all, when we sum up the qualities of the girl in her teens which +endear her to every one, and make her good to live with, we can put +them under the one word unselfish. If she is this, then she will apply +herself to her studies; she will remember her mother's burdens and not +add to them; she will think of all she owes to her father and show her +gratitude to him; she will be a helpful friend to the boys and girls +with whom she associates, and she will have a good time, as the +unselfish girl invariably does. By frequent illustrations taken from +life, the Sunday-school teacher may hope to make her see how true +these things are. An absolutely unselfish girl may be, as those in +their teens say she is, "impossible," but the impossible can be made +wonderfully attractive by the teacher who can picture the girl in her +teens at her best. + +In her life in the everyday, no matter what her circumstances may be, +the girl is constantly tempted to live below her best. The temptation +to be disagreeable about the household tasks that fall to her, to +forget the errand she is asked to do, to be careless about her room, +to leave things for her mother to look after and put away, to be +impatient with younger brothers and sisters--all these things are so +easy. Not to yield to them requires constant watchfulness and +struggle, and the word of warning on the part of the teacher, through +story and illustration each Sunday, helps the girl see these faults in +all their miserable littleness. + +In her school life she meets the temptation to neglect her studies, +and to spend too much time on the social side. Many girls are tempted +to yield to petty deceptions; some are tempted to copy or exchange +work; many are discourteous, and many more do nothing to make school +life happy for any except those in their own "set." Some whose parents +are so unwise as to leave them without knowledge or protection fall +into temptations from which they never escape. + +The high-school girl needs from the earnest lips of a woman she +admires the weekly word of warning, and the oft-repeated plea to keep +herself pure and fine. + +If the girl in her teens is in business she meets daily the temptation +to let her own interests interfere with her employer's, to waste time, +to give excuses, to indulge in pleasures that do not uplift, but mean +late hours, little sleep, and physical unfitness for work. She needs +every Sunday the practical words of warning and inspiration straight +from the heart of a woman who understands her temptations and can help +her to overcome them. + +Wherever the girl in her teens finds herself she needs some one to +make her want to be her best amidst all the things which tend to pull +her down. She needs strong words that will show her to herself in all +her weakness making her ashamed if she has yielded, and at the same +time arousing in her the determination not to yield again. + +When the teacher understands the girl in her teens and lives close +enough to her to become her confidante, she knows how hard the fight +to be good and fine and strong in the everyday is, and she realizes +more and more as her experience broadens that while the girl's love +for her parents is a great incentive toward right living, and desire +to please those whom she greatly admires is a help, and while +unhappiness and other consequences of evil-doing act as deterring +agents, yet no one of these things, nor all of them together, will +prove strong enough to keep her pure and honest and make her +unselfish. + +What will? Nothing will make her absolutely perfect. Only one thing, +so far as I know, will keep her safe and strong in the life of the +everyday. That thing is the consciousness that she lives in the +presence of God, accepting Jesus Christ as her example and her +_Helper_ in her effort to live aright. + +A girl conscious that she lives out each day under the pure, kind eye +of an infinite personality, interested in her efforts toward +righteousness, and that she need not be afraid to ask for strength or +for pardon, finds it easier to do right and harder to do wrong than +the other girl who leaves him out of the struggle. + +In all the hundreds of girls and women I have met, the most +thoughtful, generous and unselfish, the purest in heart and mind, +those richest in the finer traits of humanity, have been conscious of +the presence of God in the world of the everyday. + +They live as in the presence of a perfect father, and live aright, not +because men see, but because he sees, and they are able to live as +they do because they ask for help and receive it. If we are to be of +real help to the girl in her teens, this consciousness of the +_reality_ of God we must give to her. + +I have so often seen it help in the lives of individual girls. I am +thinking now of Vivian, whose parents had given her up in despair. She +was careless, rude, and untruthful. In school her teachers considered +her "a bad girl." The Sunday-school teacher who took her class when +she was fifteen was one to whom the Christ was very real. She talked +about him reverently, as if he were a real friend and a great help in +everyday life. She interested Vivian. At Christmas she gave her +Hoffman's "Christ." Vivian put it on her bureau, dusted the picture +every day, and thought about it often. The teacher loaned her books of +the sort which made Christ seem a real friend. She began to think of +him as such and to pray that he would help her overcome the things +that everybody despised. She read "What would Jesus do?" several +times. She began to feel that God saw and cared, and as she worded it, +"I felt that in all these hard things Christ would help me, and I +asked him many times every day to make me do as he would." + +Her room showed that something had come to Vivian. A quietness came +into her conversation. She treated her mother with a gentleness that +was so different that her mother cried when she told the teacher about +it. The girls saw the difference. Twice when she had been untruthful +she went to her teachers and confessed it. She made a desperate +struggle to speak accurately. Her father called her a changed girl, +and his face showed his joy over the change. She is to-day one of the +sweetest, strongest young women I know, prominent in her college and +trusted and loved by scores of girls. + +She is one of many whose lives I have seen changed, and as the years +pass, and I see the power of the Christ still working miracles in +girls' lives, I long for more teachers like that one who opened +Vivian's eyes. + +The greatest thing which the teacher can do for the girl in her teens +is to open her eyes to a real Christ, for then all the incentives for +pure, unselfish _living_ in the commonplaces of life's "everyday" will +be hers. + + + + +CHAPTER X--HER TEACHER + + +When for a moment one remembers the girl in her teens, the long line +that lives in the memory from those just thirteen up through the +sweetest and prettiest at sixteen, to the beautiful, graceful, and +dignified ones just twenty, it makes a picture hard to equal. + +There is such evident joy in just living! When one catches a glimpse +of the groups in their light dresses, with hair ribbons of every size +and color according to the wearer's interpretation of the latest +fashion, wending their way to the high school, he feels that life is +indeed a glorious summer morning. Though sighs and complaints may be +heard over lessons too long and too difficult, they are not very deep, +and are soon forgotten; though low marks do make very serious students +with minds concentrated on work for a few days after report cards are +out, yet with the majority the depression is short-lived, and life is +sunshine once more. + +When as whistles blow and factory gates swing wide, one catches a +glimpse in the early morning of the girl in her teens going to work, +he hears snatches of happy laughter and jesting. No matter how hard +the work, it cannot crush out the laughter in the heart of the girl in +her teens; the good times after work is over or at the week end when +she puts on her ribbons and gay attire make easier the crash of +machinery and less painful the aching muscles. + +The girl in her teens is glad she is alive, and her evident and keen +enjoyment of a world which some of her elders have found hard and a +little disappointing does more to cheer and brighten the dull gray of +the commonplace than she knows, or than we stop to remember. + +As we think of this long procession of the girl in her teens which +memory can so easily recall, and then see in imagination the host of +those who call themselves her teachers, we are tempted to cry, "Her +teachers! What manner of beings are they who pretend to instruct, +enlighten and guide all this energy, this fascinating line of +possibility and promise!" + +It is easy to write or speak of the "ideal" teacher for all this fresh +young life, filled with inexpressible longings for success and +happiness. But the study of the very human and very real teacher, +ideal only in the highest sense, in that she is struggling after +perfection, will be much more practical and helpful to us. + +Should the teacher of girlhood in the years of the teens ever be a +man? + +Yes, there have been many fine, successful teachers whose strength and +manly qualities, whose sincere devotion to Christ and his teachings, +have had a lasting influence for good upon the girl in her teens. + +It is a good thing for the girl to see the world and its relation to +moral and religious life through the eyes of a far-seeing man. It is a +help to her to get his mental grasp of situations as from week to week +they follow together the life of Christ and his teachings or seek to +understand the characters of Old Testament days. + +A fine man's frankness, sincerity, and general freedom from the +annoyance of little things prove a stimulus and a help to the girl. It +is almost unnecessary to say that he must be the right sort of man, +large-hearted, strong, and free from all suggestion of the +"goody-goody." + +However, it has been my experience that while a man makes a most +efficient teacher for the class during the hour of the Sunday-school +session, he cannot guide and influence a girl's life in the everyday +as can the right sort of woman. Unless he has a home and a wife +thoroughly interested in his work, or herself active in the work of +the Church, he can do little in a social way during the week. If he is +a successful, hard-working man he has little time to think of the +girls or their needs except on Sunday, and unless he is a man of wide +experience or has daughters of his own he does not understand girls, +and must perforce deal in generalities. + +In this matter, as everywhere in life, there are exceptions and no +hard and fast law can be laid down, but my experience thus far has +been that, all things considered, a womanly woman is best fitted to +meet the many needs of the girl in her teens. + +She must be a womanly woman, else she will have forgotten her own +girlhood days and cannot come near enough to the girl in her teens to +appreciate her need, nor will she have the personality that wins her +confidence and love. The cold, hard, mechanical sort of woman one +occasionally finds in charge of a class of girls is not the one whose +influence will be felt in the years to come. + +We have seen again and again in previous chapters that the teacher of +the girl in her teens must be in love with life. If she has found it +hard, she must not let that embitter her. The fact that she has met +hardships and conquered them, has met sorrow and it has only deepened +her sympathy and broadened her outlook on life, makes her a real +inspiration to the girls who meet her each week. + +I am thinking now of such a woman, into whose life one heavy sorrow +after another has come. At thirty she is alone in the world, having +lost in ten years parents, husband and two children. Yet there is no +bitterness in her life. She is not in any sense a cynic. More than +twenty girls, from sixteen to nineteen years of age, who make up her +class, leave the presence of that sweet, strong woman with her tender, +sympathetic spirit, and her calm, steady faith, able all the week to +live better, more wholesome lives because they have been with her for +one hour. She never speaks of herself, but often of courage, of hope, +of making the best of things, of giving all one can in service to the +world, of unselfish, cheerful living, and the girls listen and believe +that all she says is true and possible. + +The teacher must be an optimist. She is not self-deceived, she sees +the faults of the girl in her teens. She is conscious of the +thoughtlessness, the utter lack of courtesy, the love of the extreme +in everything, and the greater faults of insincerity and pretense that +characterize to so great an extent the girlhood of to-day. But while +she is pained she is not dismayed. She is a good diagnostician. She +examines her individual patients, finds the weak places, discovers the +cause of the disease, and then goes to work systematically to +eradicate it, trusting to the normal, unaffected organs and tissues to +aid in restoring perfect health. She believes in and uses preventive +measures and they pay. + +The teacher must herself be an example in thoughtfulness and courtesy, +respectful to those higher in office, and willing to co-operate with, +instead of criticizing, those who have plans by which they hope to add +to the efficiency of the school as a whole. + +None of these things are lost upon the keen-eyed girl in her teens; +indeed, the teacher's dress, even the condition of her gloves, makes +an impression and has an influence. + +It has become a truism that to be successful in teaching one must know +the pupil; yet only last week I met a teacher anxious for a new course +of study which would interest her class of girls sixteen and seventeen +years of age, who revealed in conversation the fact that she knew +practically nothing of the girl's homes. She did not even know the +section of the city in which many of them lived, had made no calls and +could tell the occupation of only two of the fathers. She did not know +for what the girls were preparing themselves, nor any of their hopes +or desires, and she had taught the class for two years. She said the +girls were not interested, and did not prepare assigned work. + +This type of teacher is fast disappearing, but wherever she exists the +fact that the class seems to be "not interested" indicates very +clearly that those who insist that _the teacher must know the girl_ +are right. + +In the series of studies of the girl in her teens an article appeared +in _The Sunday School Times_[1] giving the opinions of several hundred +girls as to what constitutes "a lovely teacher," and according to the +statements of these girls, a lovely teacher is, "pleasant," "fair to +everybody," "treats every one alike," and "is interested in what you +are doing." "She writes notes to you when you are ill," "calls on +you," "is kind and patient," "makes the lesson interesting," "explains +what you don't understand," and "knows a great deal." + +Upon these as necessary qualifications of "a lovely teacher," the girl +in her teens from all sorts of homes and from various parts of our +country is agreed, and as we think about it we feel inclined to trust +her analysis. + +When the average teacher tests herself by these standards, she finds +deficiencies, but they are not discouraging ones, because every +characteristic named by the girls is possible to every teacher. + +She can make things interesting if she is interested and takes time to +prepare her lesson material. It is a never-failing source of surprise +to discover what interesting material,--anecdotes, illustrations, +pictures and information,--can be found upon every subject when one is +looking for it. + +It is perfectly possible for the average teacher to be "pleasant"--to +carry about with her the atmosphere in which work becomes a pleasure +and difficult problems are just things to be conquered. This +atmosphere of cheerful hopefulness makes everything easy. For many +teachers it is the natural attitude toward life and work, which comes +from constant association with eager, buoyant youth. If it is not +natural it may be cultivated. + +"Notes" and "calls"--acts of thoughtful kindness on the part of the +teacher when illness or trouble enters a home, may be small things in +themselves, but they mean much to the adolescent girl, and they bring +their own reward. They also are possible to every teacher. + +The confidence of a girl is more easily gained if one, to use her own +phrase, "really likes" her. If a teacher knows her pupil, that is, +sees her as an individual, learns her ambitions, longings, hopes and +fears, she does "like" her. It is almost impossible not to like the +average girl when one knows her. Every teacher can learn to teach +individuals, not classes, and girls, not subjects alone. + +The wise men of the past have told us, and experience and observation +have proved, that we grow to resemble that which we admire. Admiration +means imitation, therefore the necessity that those who are striving +to awaken the best in the girl in her teens be those she can and does +admire, and have traits of character she ought to imitate. + +There never was a time in the history of religion when so many tools +and such fine equipment for service were ready for those who want to +be skilled workmen, and the teachers who desire the skill to make +their work on Sunday really count in life every day in the week, have +but to begin just where they are and progress as fast as possible. +Bible classes for those who want and need to know more of the Book +they teach are easy of access to many, and courses of study are open +to all. The training class, where the characteristics of the various +ages, and the needs of pupils, and how to meet them, may be +intelligently considered, is possible in any community, and good +correspondence courses are now available. + +If one desires to do so it is perfectly possible for him to become a +better teacher for the sake of those whom he instructs. For it is in +desire, after all, that action is born, and that which one greatly +desires he will seek after. To help the girl in her teens see the best +in life and desire it, we have said, is the business of her teacher. +Through the physical, mental, and spiritual sides of her nature, the +teacher is to lift the girl to the place where she can see for +herself. + +There are so many girls all over our country, and in the farthest +corners of the earth, to-day rendering splendid service to the world, +sometimes in the shelter of their own homes caring for their children, +sometimes in great hospitals, or lonely outposts as nurses, sometimes +as teachers or missionaries, often as servants of every sort, who are +living with a broad outlook and deep, sympathetic insight, because +somewhere, back in the teens, by the patient effort of teachers they +were lifted out of their narrow selves to the place where they were +able to catch a glimpse of the real meaning of life. + +Finding it impossible one day to make my way through the crowds on the +street waiting for a procession to pass, I stopped, and standing back +a little from the curb watched the eager faces gazing up the street. +Right in front of me stood a group of men in their working clothes, +and in their midst a tall, broad-shouldered expressman, explaining the +reason for the "parade." In a moment the sound of brass instruments +burst upon us, a line of policemen swung into sight, the crowd of +small boys following close beside the uniformed men, their eyes on the +flying banners, and keeping step as only boys can. + +Suddenly above the noises of the street, above the commands of the +officers and the music of the band, I heard a little, thin, shrill +voice from the crowded corner where the men stood, cry out, "Lift me +up so I can see!" It was a street child, a little girl, whose dress +and face showed that neither money, time, nor thought had been +expended upon her. She looked so tiny as she stood there trying to +peer through the crowd at the procession in the street. But she was +not afraid. Again it came, "Lift me up, I say, so I can see!" Eager, +insistent, filled with desire, the voice attracted the attention of +the men. There was a moment's hesitation, and then with that look one +loves to see upon the face of a strong man, the expressman stooped and +picked her up. As he held her there, high above the heads of the +others, one little arm went round his neck, and she "held on tight" +while the other hand pointed at horses, banners and men, and she +called out again and again in her joy and delight, "Now I can see, I +can see everything!" + +The procession passed. He placed her on the sidewalk, and as the crowd +scattered she hurried away, satisfaction written upon her small face. +But as I walked slowly back toward the great school buildings on the +hill, her voice rang in my ears, "Lift me up so I can see!" And I knew +that that is the unconscious cry of the childhood of the world to the +teachers of the world; that those words are the plea, often +unexpressed, of the girlhood of to-day--"Lift me up--so I can see!" And +I know that those who answer must themselves have eyes opened by the +Christ, to see, and hearts quickened by his power, to lift. + +----- +[1] "A Lovely Teacher," March 5, 1910. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Girl in Her Teens, by Margaret Slattery + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL IN HER TEENS *** + +***** This file should be named 35949.txt or 35949.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/9/4/35949/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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