whom parents and relatives said as they looked at her, "What will she
ever amount to?" Their faces betrayed their own conviction that she
would amount to nothing. She tried piano but concluded that the training
necessary to make her a teacher would take too long and took up
stenography. After a few weeks she decided that she was unfitted for the
work and would rather be a nurse. Some weeks were spent at home just
thinking about it, then she began her training. At the end of the period
of probation she left--she knew she could never be a nurse. She spent
the days reading, sewing a little, taking pictures in the woods and
along the shore near her home and tinting them. She drifted through the
months, through a year. One day she posed a group of children, watched
her chance and caught them all unconscious and natural, interested in
their pails and shovels and the tunnel she had helped to dig. The
mothers of the children saw the picture. Beautifully tinted it seemed
alive and they were enthusiastic. The next week she chanced to see a
nine year old fishing with a child's faith. The perfect stillness of
the usually active little body, the expectant look on the small face
charmed her and in a moment, her camera had them. Every one who saw the
picture exclaimed at its naturalness and life and a friend who believed
she saw a future for the girl took it to the best photographer in the
city. That night the photographer's call anchored the drifting girl. He
made her feel that he had discovered an artist for which the city and
many outside of it had been waiting. He fired her imagination and
awakened her ambition. She felt that she had a real mission in
reproducing all the sweet simplicity and naturalness of the child. She
worked hard, the artistic temperament became trained and both fame and
money came to the girl who would probably still have been drifting had
not some one helped her find her work.
To criticize the drifting girl, even though she sorely tempts one to
criticism of her, is not enough. To preach to her on the evil of
drifting along without aim or purpose, just letting the days slip past,
is not enough. The friends of the drifting girl must help her find her
work and her mission and inspire her with the belief that she has both.
And there are the girls who drift because strong, capable, efficient
mothers cannot conceive of them as anything but "little girls," cannot
realize that they have grown up and continue to plan for them, to make
all their decisions and choices as they did when their daughters, now
twenty, were children of ten. This sort of girl needs sympathy and help,
for in the years when her own powers should be developing they sleep.
Her mother, though with the best motives and intentions in the world, is
compelling her to drift through the years that should be filled with
experience and effort and when the time comes that she must be left to
herself and depend upon her own resources, her state is pitiful. The
girl in the later teens and early twenties needs direction, advice and
counsel but if she is to be saved from drifting she must learn to think
for herself.
There is another girl who drifts, not aimlessly about, but downstream.
She has lost her ideals. She has ignored the still small voice that
tried to save her, until now it seldom speaks. One and another of her
friends have been with her in the current but have left her and made
their way to safety. Only those from whom at first she shrank are with
her now. She has reached the place where the current is strong and rapid
and escape is doubtful. Her mother still believes her good, her father
still trusts her, but before long they will have to know. She began by
saying not "I meant to," but "I didn't mean to, I didn't think it was
wrong," not "I will do it tomorrow," but "I will never do it again." But
she did it again and yet again. She let go of the help that the church
offered and gave and went to the pleasure parks on Sunday. She let go of
a good friend who held her to the truth, and made a companion of the
girl who helped her invent the things she told her mother when she came
home very late. She let go of the good books little by little and read
the foolish stories that were exciting and absolutely impossible. She
let go of the little courtesies and one by one of the laws that good
society demands that its girls shall obey. She let go of modesty and in
dress and speech allowed herself to drift into the current where it is
swift and black.
If only parents had watched more closely, if girl friends had been
stronger, and older friends wiser, it would have been so easy when the
current just touched her and she was still near to all that is pure and
good. But she is drifting--drifting more and more rapidly farther and
farther downstream. Now and then she looks back, remembers all the
ideals she once dreamed to reach and makes a feeble struggle to resist
but the current bears her on. Only some mighty Power can save her.
To the girl who "means to," and "intends," to the girl who dreams and
waits and dreams again, to the girl who has let go and is in the current
this chapter throws out the challenge--_Act now._ You can! There is
help. Take it.
IX
THE GIRL WITH HIGH IDEALS
Ideals make men and women and the process of ideal making begins in
childhood. A great deal has been written and said about the value of the
early ideals born in the home, but too much cannot be said, and the
value of the influence of good homes and parents whose ideals are high
cannot be overestimated. The girl whose home life during the first seven
years has not brought to her the high ideal must struggle all her later
life to build up and intrench in her mind what might have been hers
without conscious effort. Very early in her life the little girl reveals
in her play, in her conversation, in her countless imitative acts, the
ideals which are being formed.
One day a little four year old told a lie in my presence. Her mother
looking the child straight in the eyes, said, "Did Esther tell true?"
For a moment the child wavered then nodded her head and said, "Yes,
Esther tell true." The mother simply said, "Very well" in the coldest
of tones. After a moment the little girl turned to her dolls. She took
them to a party, brought them safely back and carefully tucked them into
bed. Then she sat quietly looking at them. Finally she took one from the
group, placed it in the little chair, very straight and said "Look at
me! Did 'oo tell true? 'Oo _didn't_ tell true. Naughty girl." A sigh
followed. Then slowly Esther came over to her mother, ignoring my
presence. Her lips quivered and smoothing her mother's hand she said
sadly, "Esther didn't tell true. Naughty, naughty girl." The little girl
at four years of age had her ideal of a good girl and she acted
according to its dictation. She must "tell true." At fourteen she is a
remarkably truthful girl and very accurate in her statements. Through
fear, that mother as a child had become untruthful and in later years
had a bitter struggle with the temptation to sacrifice the truth to save
herself any annoyance. She determined to give to her own little daughter
an ideal of the beauty of truth which should save her, and she
succeeded.
Many a little ten-year-old girl has fine ideals of truth, unselfishness
and honor and they steady her through the teen years when temptations
press hard.
The twelve-year-old girl on the edge of the African jungle arranges her
hair in "mop" fashion because that headdress represents her ideal of
beauty. Rings in the nose, wonderful decorations of ankles and toes,
represent ideals of fashion and beauty. The girl in Japan, China or the
Philippines thinks she has made herself beautiful when she has arrayed
herself in accordance with her ideals. We often term her "awful" and
"ridiculous," shrinking even from her picture and she makes sarcastic
remarks, laughs heartily and never fails to express her curiosity
regarding us and our strange fancies and fashions.
It is our _ideals_ which act as a great commander-in-chief and we follow
in obedience to their commands. Our country needs today more than ever
before, the girl with high ideals, for it is when ideals are lowered
that character is weakened and sin and evil have their opportunity.
There are many things in the life and surroundings of the girls of today
that tend to lower and dim their ideals which did not enter at all into
the lives of the girls in our grandmother's and great grandmother's
time, and the girls of today must be stronger if they are able to resist
them. Our great-grandmothers lived in the home and did not enter into
business life. It is hard for the wide awake business girl of today to
imagine how that girl of long ago managed to enjoy life. But monotonous
as her life often was, she was spared many things. She never rode alone
in trains and trolleys nor learned to jostle and push through crowds.
She was not compelled to return home late at night without proper escort
as countless girls are today. She never spent the evening on the
streets, nor was she obliged to join the great army of girls who today
live alone in boarding houses in great cities, suffering from
discomforts and desperate loneliness. Her parents were more careful than
the majority of parents today and she knew what _protection_ meant.
It is because these things are so that one feels like giving added
praise to the girls who today _are_ girls of high ideals, who refuse to
let the carelessness of the times in which they live gain entrance to
their hearts to tarnish those ideals.
A short distance up the shore as I write I can hear the roar of the tide
as it rushes into the very center of a great rock of granite. The
geologist can find in that mass of rock the tiny crevice where the water
first gained entrance. It has split it asunder because it was able to
gain entrance through a little crack and each day sent in its drops of
water where now with that roar rushes the tide. Farther along the shore
is a solid block of granite. Its face is polished smooth by the dashing
waves. There is not a crack in it, not a tiny crevice. It presents its
splendid, shining surface to the great sea but offers it no opportunity
for entrance.
One cannot help wishing with all his soul that we may have more and more
girls who are like that bit of solid granite, strongly resisting those
things that seek a tiny crevice by which to enter. For we have so many
who through some weak spot have let the tide of evil in and slowly it
has done its work until now the once strong and fine ideals lie broken
and beaten by the waves.
The strong girls of high ideals are with us and it is a comfort and a
joy to look into their young faces so full of promise and of courage.
We find them among the very rich and among the very poor as well as
among the girls who live in comfort with neither riches nor poverty to
make things exceedingly hard.
Irene is one of the girls who amidst poverty and sin has been able to
keep her ideals high. Her home is poor because her father, a mechanic,
who _can_ earn good wages is a hard drinker. Her mother, an honest,
clean, hard working woman, is nervous and fretful, worn out by the hard
things she has had to meet. It is a quarrelsome household and when the
father comes home intoxicated the law is obliged often to interfere. One
of the boys was expelled from school because his language is so
dreadful. Amid this environment the girl lives. She studies her lessons
in school and at the library. Her mother constantly urges her to give up
school and go to work but an uncle who furnishes her meager supply of
dresses, shoes, coats and hats, says it would only make her father feel
that he could give still less to the family's support and so she
continues to attend. Every evening she helps her mother and on Saturday
works hard for a neighbor with only a pittance for pay.
The school and the Sunday-school have furnished all her ideals and she
is holding on to them while her father taunts her with being a "saint,"
and the girls of the neighborhood tempt her to join with them in the
things she knows are wrong. The hour on Sunday is a great help and on
Monday she loses herself in her lessons and enjoys her school friends.
She is only sixteen and she cannot help hoping that things will be
better soon. But Wednesday there is another dreadful quarrel, bitter
words and her father's drunken threats. When late at night all is quiet
and she creeps into bed beside her little sister, her ideals seem far,
far away, out of her reach, but she says, "I _must_ reach them, I
_must_, I _will_." And so day after day she presents to all the waves of
discouragement and evil the strong, granite-like determination that will
not let the tide come in.
Strong as she is she does not excel another girl surrounded by
extravagant wealth, praised, flattered and pampered, trained to think of
one thing supremely, and that _herself_. But she is a girl of high
ideals. When a little child her old nurse told her the stories and
taught her the prayers that she never forgets and helped her feel a
deep sympathy for all who suffer and have need. A fine young uncle who
has used his wealth to comfort the old and save the sick, told her many
a tale that stirred her soul, and her admiration for the young man of
millions who worked as hard every day as any man in his office but never
for himself, helped in forming her own ideals. And so she reads and
studies, dreams and plans the good she will do some day, meanwhile
helping in every way open to her and standing firmly for the things she
knows are right, resisting with granite-like determination the onslaught
of the waves of self-indulgence and the tides of wild extravagance and
display.
The girl of high ideals is everywhere. Every school can claim her.
Despite teasing, sneers and laughter, she remains true to her ideals.
She is not a book-worm but she studies, she is not prudish but she is
high minded and pure, she has fun but it is wholesome and clean and
kind.
She is found in every shop, every department store is aware of her
presence. Honest, attentive, true, interested in her work, following
amidst many insidious temptations her own high ideals.
Every college knows her. She resists the petty sins of college life. She
banishes jealousy and self-assertion. Snobbishness she will not
tolerate. She seeks no honors save those fairly won. Keen, alert, pure
and true, capable of sacrifice and hard tasks, sympathetic with all
need, a lover of true sport and real fun she represents the college girl
of high ideals.
Every factory has her among its operatives. A good worker doing honest
work, refusing to allow the stain of coarse jests to touch her, or the
temptations which come with low wages and great fatigue to enter her
life. Again and again she has revealed her ideals in moments of disaster
and death. It is hard to find words to express one's admiration for the
factory girl as she holds to her high ideals.
Many a kitchen knows her. Neat, clean, honest, capable, happy in her
work, resisting all the temptations that come through loneliness and
deadly routine, she clings to her ideals with courage.
Every set in society knows her; turning her back upon temptations to
excess, vanity, pride, scorning all forms of gossip, neither listening
to, nor repeating the words that "they" say, she keeps her mind and
heart fixed upon the undimmed ideals she has set for herself.
Many a schoolroom and office know her, the girl who does her best work
though no one sees and none commend, refusing to lower her ideals in
obedience to subtile suggestions or definite temptations; a girl who
does what is expected of her and more, who puts her heart into her work
and glorifies it.
The girl, whatever her station in life, whatever her occupation, who has
kept her ideals high has the right to be happy. She can afford to be
light-hearted, to enjoy fun and frolic and to get the most out of
everything, for she need not spend days in regret, nor wet her pillow
with tears of remorse. Nothing in the world can make up for the loss of
a pure and high ideal. If girls could see the sad faces and know the
suffering hearts of the women who in girlhood forsook their ideals, they
would understand.
If a girl of high ideals is thinking about them now and knows that she
has of late been tempted to lower them a little, let me ask her to look
at them very earnestly before she consents to tarnish them _even a
little_. Perhaps it is only to wear upon the street the sort of dress
which attracts attention and causes remarks to fall from the lips of
loafers as she passes, perhaps to accept invitations from those who do
not measure up to the standard, perhaps to engage in a dance in which
the ideal could not join, to repeat gossip which is interesting but may
not be true or to be mean and unkind. Let me beg of every girl to cling
with all her might to the highest ideal of her mind and heart. Never let
it go. Pay the cost of keeping it whatever that cost may be.
X
THE AVERAGE GIRL
The average girl does not want to be average. She wants to stand for
something, to _excel_, to be beautiful, to do great good in the world,
to sing, to play, to be a social leader, to dress well, to be very
popular, to be _something_, so that people will single her out and say,
"That is Charlotte Gray; she is the prettiest girl in town," or "That is
Charlotte Gray; she has a most wonderful voice," or "She is the most
popular girl in the office," or "She is the finest girl athlete in the
city." In her day dreams she pictures herself the center, but in real
life she does not find herself there--she is just plain Charlotte Gray.
The average girl has all the elemental powers of the race; there are
always undeveloped resources in her, always the possibility that she may
bless the world by new ministries, enrich it by the discovery of the art
of living nobly amid the common-place, that she may be the mother of
the great.
The average girl has some handicaps and some privileges, in some things
she is easily led, she is often misunderstood, she has periods of being
indifferent, she spends too much time following the dictates of fashion
and too much strength endeavoring to have a good time, she means to do
things that never get done, she has times of drifting, she has some high
ideals to which she clings with more or less tenacity--she is a
combination girl.
The average girl is in many ways the most important member of society,
for what the average girl is, that society is. Society cannot be more
generous-hearted, pure, altruistic, content and happy than its average
girl.
I am thinking of two towns whose inhabitants number between three and
four thousand. In one, the girls are careless in dress, vulgar in
speech, spend their evenings in the two dance halls and the cheap
picture shows. While still young girls they marry men who drink and
gamble, start homes with practically no money, are poor cooks and
housekeepers and know nothing about the care and training of their
children when they come.
There are beautiful homes in that town and sweet, fine girls with the
highest ideals. There are wretched hovels in that town with wicked and
criminal inmates. But neither the girl with the highest ideals, nor the
girl with the lowest, can stamp that town; neither the sweet, refined,
cultured girl, nor the immoral and vicious one can stamp that town. The
_average_ girl determines the character of it.
In the other town the girls impress every stranger with their
cleanliness in dress and in speech; the streets are clean, the homes are
simple and neat. The girls spend the evenings in their own homes, in
"The Center," a house dedicated by one of the churches to the young
people of the town for their enjoyment, in the one excellent moving
picture establishment. They have a debating society, a dramatic club,
and do fine work in the gymnasium. They marry young men of simple tastes
like themselves, start their homes with at least the necessities, they
know how to keep house and they make good mothers.
There are some girls of culture, some of wealth and fashion in the
town, but they do not stamp it. There are some immoral and degenerate
girls in that town but they do not stamp it. It is the average girl who
leaves her imprint upon it. Neither of these towns can get away from the
impress of the _average girl_.
The first town has the licensed saloon and the factory owners have not
the breadth of mental vision to see what good houses, fair wages and
common sense treatment can do to build the character of the average
girl. The second town has never had a saloon, the owners of its
factories and business houses live in the town and they have the keen
vision which sees the value of good houses in which to live, fair pay,
and opportunity for real recreation. They have been able to raise the
standard of the average girl, therefore the enviable record and
character of the town.
It is the average girl in college who determines the character and
reputation of that college. It is not the brilliant girl, it is not the
girl whose earnest plodding barely carries her through, it is not the
failure, it is the average girl. If the average girl should leave her
college a good athlete, interested in everything athletic, that fact
would determine the general character of the college. If the average
girl leaves her college with broadened sympathies, good scholarship,
intense interest in the affairs of the day, real joy in living and
helping; these things determine the reputation and character of the
college. If the average girl leaves her college with social ambitions
and plunges into the social whirl, giving her time and strength to the
race for social prominence and notoriety, these things determine the
character and decide the reputation of that college.
The usefulness and character of every church is determined not by the
few people who do all that a church member should do, nor by the few who
utterly fail to fulfil the mission of the church, but by the attitude,
work and conduct of the average member of it.
The average girl in any occupation determines its standing and
character. The average girl in the employ of any concern determines not
only its value as a public servant but its success.
The average girl holds the key to all situations touching the life of
girls. As the average girl becomes more efficient, finer in character,
broader in thought, more sound in body, mind and spirit, she raises
society with her; as she loses in efficiency, in power of thought and in
character, grows weaker in body, mind and spirit, she drags society down
with her.
What should she be like, this all-important average girl? What is she in
the ideal? I have asked scores of girls the question and the following
paragraph is their answer as well as my own.
The _ideal average_ girl is strong in body, is intelligent, believes in
God and strives to obey His laws. She is not afraid to work and she has
courage to meet hardships and loneliness if they come. She is interested
in pretty clothes, she wants them for herself, she has what she can
honestly afford and she spends time and takes pains to get the very best
she can for the money she has. She refuses to be extreme in style or to
make herself ridiculous or conspicuous. She likes fun, she enjoys
amusements and good times. She will not indulge in things of which her
parents heartily disapprove or which unfit her for work or study, and
which her own conscience tells her are doubtful. She loves friends and
companions and has as many as she can. She chooses carefully her
friends among the boys and men and lets neither word nor act lower in
the least degree their respect for her. She looks forward to the day
when she shall have a home of her own and fits herself to care for it
with intelligence and skill. She is honest, and faithful to the present
tasks. She is kindly, generous, helpful, cheerful, _just the sort of
girl one would like to live with every day_.
It is a high average, yes, it is _ideal_. But the fact that so many
girls are seeking that ideal, that so many against fearful odds are
pressing toward it, and that so many little by little are achieving it
fills one with hope. The fact that so many men and women who but a few
years ago were not concerned with either the needs or rights of a girl
are bending every energy to the task of setting her free from the things
that burden her, hold her back and make her suffer, fills one with
anticipation, for the things which touch the average girl are the things
which concern all who have great hopes and dreams for the future of our
land.
This chapter and all the chapters preceding are an appeal to the average
girl and those who love her to summon all their strength and raise the
standard of the average.
Let the average girl be the highest possible average, realizing the
important place she holds in the working out of all problems of right,
justice and public welfare and knowing that God must have had great
faith in the power and possibility of the average girl else He would not
have trusted so much to her keeping.
The world is grateful for the brilliant girl, for the gifted, the
talented, the beautiful; but without the average girl it could not live.
God bless her and give us more and better.
PART II
_Her Religion_
XI
THE GIRL AND THE UNIVERSE