flashes of lightning blinded for the moment one daring enough to face
the storm, the little village church bell rang the dread alarm of fire.
The apparatus for firefighting was of the type most city people have
forgotten. Men rushed to the fire company's quarters and dragged the
engine forth. From one of the highest hilltops flames lighted the sky.
The men seizing the rope dragged the apparatus up the steep slope. Just
before reaching the top it stuck. Suddenly a sharp appealing voice rang
out into the darkness. It did more than request, it commanded and
demanded. "Everybody take hold" it shouted, and under the power of it
people sprang to obey and the engine reached the hilltop.
Those who look with sympathy and love at girlhood today, cannot help
wishing that some Voice of power would ring out through every place
where girls are found saying--"Everybody take hold!" If everybody would
respond to the task as that night in the fire and the storm, the girl,
in body, mind and spirit might easily be saved. Everybody may not
respond now--but how about _you_, the girl herself?
XIII
THOU SHALT NOT
In our effort to get away from the harsh negative teaching of the past
which made young people feel that life meant "don't," we have made the
mistake of failing to teach with power the fact that there are things to
which God's law and man's law say _thou shall not_. "I did not know it
would do any harm," is oftentimes a truthful statement and the girl has
the right to be carefully, wisely and sanely taught the things to which
she must say no. A girl's religion must have not only the _constraining_
power which sends her out to do the kindly deed, say the word of comfort
and cheer, give of her time and her talent to help make life easier for
those who find it hard, but it must have the restraining power which
shall keep her from self-indulgence and sin.
Whenever the _thou shalt not_ side of religion is mentioned the girls
themselves and those responsible for their training immediately think
of the question of amusements, which is after all only a part of the
greater question of how much leisure a girl should have and what she
should do with it. Preachers, teachers and Christians generally, differ
so widely on the matter of disputed amusement questions that _thou shalt
not_ loses its force. It is the parents' right to decide the girl's
amusements and determine her social life and when one sees the length to
which parents permit and even encourage their daughters to go, he knows
that the _thou shalt not_ might well be said to _them_. When parents do
not care what their girls do, or are too careless and ignorant to
realize danger, when the girls are without friends and unprotected, then
the teacher of religion must without hesitation, forcefully and with the
arguments of _fact_, teach them to say "no" to the things which she
believes can bring only harm, which weaken the power to resist other
evils and which are unhealthy for the growing girl. One may teach with
feeling and power the "_thou shalt not_" in which she believes without
uttering bitter words of condemnation of those who differ with her.
Religion and the law together have the right to say to the unprotected
girl, lacking wisdom, without discretion, eager for fun and adventure,
ignorant of danger, _thou shall not_. The words should be written over
every unchaperoned or inadequately chaperoned high school dance, over
the public dance hall, over the cabaret, over the vaudeville where the
vulgar hides behind a mask, over every place which by its very nature
opens doors of temptation and lowers powers of resistance. The teachers
of religion, and all agencies for moral training and uplift, _because_
of the comparative helplessness of girlhood, have the right to teach by
every means at their command _thou shalt not_.
Some one must teach the growing girl that extravagance is sin; some one
must say _thou shalt not_ to her common faults of promising without
thought of the cost of keeping the promise, of exaggeration and
untruthfulness. Some one must help her see the utter folly of
snobbishness and false pride. In some way she must be taught the cruelty
and meanness of gossip, the results of a sharp tongue and a critical
spirit. She must be shown the sin of ingratitude and the curse of
jealousy and envy. In fact the old ten commandments are needed by the
girlhood of today as truly as they were needed by that great army of
people in the days of the youth of a race, when their great law giver
and leader strove to save them from the results of their own ignorance
and newly acquired liberty.
Who teaches _thou shalt not_ to the girl of today? Indirectly, a great
many people. Directly, clearly, definitely so that she understands and
is impressed, very few. The Sunday-school in a half-hour a week attempts
to do it, but the Sunday-school reaches a very small part of the
girlhood of our land, and its work with those whom it has reached is
often ineffective. It is at present engaged in a serious effort to make
its teachings more effective and far reaching. The public school is not
directly teaching the _thou shalt not_, for teaching it does not mean
saying it, in the form of a command. It does much indirect moral
teaching, which is invaluable. It is experimenting with direct moral
teaching and many of the experiments have shown highly gratifying
results, which lead us to hope that the day is not far distant when
direct teaching of the common laws of moral living shall find a place
in every school. We shall have to find some new definition first, for
such words as success, wealth, honesty, courage, honor and the long list
in the vocabularies which the pupils in every school make for
themselves.
In reacting against the thundering negatives of the past, the church
has, in the decade or more that lies behind us, been teaching an
unbalanced religion. "Thou shalt," and "thou shalt not" must be taught
together if the best results are to be reached. In individual instances
so great success has been won by the teacher of religion that his method
is worth one's earnest study.
One morning there came into Sunday-school class a very ordinary looking
little girl of ten years. Her father was a truck driver, her mother had
been a domestic. There were four children in the home, the little girl
being next to the youngest. The parents had no relation to any church.
The two older children had turned out great disappointments to them and
when a neighbor invited the ten-year-old to go to Sunday-school the
mother gave her consent, saying that perhaps the church could keep her
from following her brother and sister. It did.
In that home there was no moral instruction, no moral suasion. When the
children had told a lie directly to the mother they were punished
severely. When they told a lie to a teacher or neighbor the mother was
their defender and they escaped punishment. They heard their mother lie
to her husband, to her neighbors, to the rent collector and the grocer.
They learned not to fear a _lie_ but to fear being discovered in it.
They became clever liars and the little girl at ten was an adept. For
disobedience, cheating, taking food and pennies they were alternately
turned over to their father for punishment or shielded from his wrath
according to the mother's temper at the time of the offense. They were
not taught or helped to hate sin or to see it in its hideous aspect.
_Thou shalt not_ was a matter of convenience, not of principle.
The teacher into whose class the little girl came was a woman of
experience who before her marriage had been a teacher in the public
school. She called in the home, she learned the standing of the girl in
the day school, in less than a month she _knew_ her. What she found out
made her determine to help the child hate falsehood and cheating in
every form. By story and incidents she showed Sunday after Sunday, side
by side, the cowardice and unhappiness of the liar, the distrust of his
fellowmen, the misery which he must suffer and the courage, happiness
and freedom of the truth-loving and truth-telling child. Every lesson
said "don't lie" and "speak and act the truth." One day the little girl
was invited to her teacher's home to look at pictures and choose some
books to read, for the teacher had discovered her love for pictures and
books. After a very happy hour, while saying good-by in the hall, the
child suddenly seized her teacher's hand and stammered, "How can you
help telling lies?" The teacher says, "As I looked into her plain little
face with its quivering lips, I loved her. I determined to fight for her
and with her." It was a fight, for habit was strong and environment did
not change. For over five years that teacher faithfully presented the
"_thou shall not_" and "_thou shall_" which shaped the girl's ideals and
helped her reach them. She taught her to pray; she inspired her with a
genuine love for God the Helper, who would "see her through," she opened
doors of service for her. At twenty she is a truthful and truth-loving
girl, she has been able to say "no" to the things which proved the
downfall of brother and sister; she is a useful, self-supporting,
thoroughly respectable member of society and an earnest Christian. She
has been able to lead her younger brother safely past the dangerous
places and is helping him through school. What the church, through its
religious instruction, has been able to do for this girl and many others
it might do in far larger measure were it equipped with a regular
teaching force adequate to its need, if its preachers could come into
real contact with the children and youth of the community and present to
them with power the _thou shalt not_ which shall give them at least an
opportunity to strive to obey.
If the girl herself is reading this chapter I know she will agree with
me when I say that a girl respects and honors in her heart the teacher
who presents to her, fearlessly and honestly, the things which she
believes a girl cannot do with safety, which lead into dangerous places
and which make it hard for her to keep pure, true, unselfish in thought
and deed; and she respects even more highly the teacher who can give
her broad sane reasons for finding substitutes for these things. She
may, as she grows older, come to the conclusion that her teacher was
mistaken but she respects her for her honest effort to help.
In every girl's creed there must be some negative. The _law_ says you
must and you must not. As she reads this page perhaps some girl will
stop for a moment and write out the things to which she believes a girl
should say "no." Here is such a list, written in the form of a creed by
a girl when a sophomore at college.
"I believe that a girl should not indulge in amusements which make her
nervous and excited, give her a headache, make it hard for her to study,
cost her a good deal of money and crowd out all thoughts of duty and
which make her feel envious and jealous of those who are more popular or
fortunate than she, and sometimes make her think things she hates to
remember.
I believe that a girl should _never_ repeat what she has heard about
another person if it could in any way injure that person's character.
I believe that she should not lie even by looks or by silence. I
believe that she should never deceive another, never make fun of the
weaknesses or misfortunes of other people and never treat another girl
as she would not herself want to be treated."
This is a negative creed. It does not say _do_, it says _don't_, but
there are times when every girl needs _Don't_. Put _don't_ into your own
creed, you girls who are thinking over these things.
When you are tempted to lose your head and plunge into things you have
been taught are wrong, just because "_everybody_" that mysterious
mischief maker, is doing these things, keep steady and _Don't_.
When you are tempted to make things more comfortable, more interesting,
more exciting by exaggeration--Don't.
When you are tempted to escape by a lie the consequences of what you
have said or done--_Don't_.
When you are tempted to let envy or jealousy find expression in words or
acts of meanness and unkindness--_Don't_.
When you are tempted to repeat a story or say a daring thing you would
not say in the presence of the one whose respect you desire--_Don't_.
When you are tired of the struggle to be true and do right, tired of the
effort to seek always the best things and are tempted to give
up--_Don't_.
When you are tempted to repay injustice with revenge, unkindness with
cruelty, jealousy with malice, to do to others as they do to
you--_Don't_.
Learn the power of control, of _restraint_ and though it be only the
negative side of religion, it will help to make you strong.
When the instructor in religion opens his eyes and sees the peril which
lies in wait for the girl wage earner, the society girl and even the
schoolgirl, what he is forced to see makes him say with a passionate cry
from his soul, as he thinks of the individual girls whom he knows and
loves, "_Thou shall not_."
XIV
THOU SHALT
A thought which slumbers in the mind has within it the germ of life. At
any moment when the right stimuli have been given, it may spring into
conscious being and find expression in action that will color the entire
life. While it slumbers today, tomorrow may bring the waking moment and
so it must be reckoned with in the formation of character. Still it
lacks the positive element. It is limited.
It becomes the work of those interested in the welfare of the girl to
cause the awakening and constant stimulation of those thoughts which
shall lead to action along right lines. The repeated impression upon the
mind of deeds of heroism, of unselfish daily living, of great action on
the part of ordinary people in a common-place environment has an
unmistakable effect upon the forming character.
But if the thoughts engendered by the deeds of heroism and achievement
be called into action by the opportunity in the girl's life to reproduce
them, then the effect upon the character is made definite and intense.
It is not until the girl has done a kindred thing, until the impression
has found its way out in action, that the full result upon the forming
character is seen. All the complex life about her is busy through the
eye and ear, through numberless sensations and instinctive reactions
leaving impressions. Their imprint upon her life may be seen by any
close observer when the girl herself is unconscious of it. But it is the
special set of impressions which _habitually_ find _expression_ that
determine character.
This is most encouraging, for it means that if the girl can be lead to
express the right impression and leave the others to fade away into the
recesses of consciousness where it will be hard to awaken them, the
determination of her character will be a possible task. It means that in
the years of habit formation and character making those who share the
task of the girl's training have the opportunity to lead her to
repeatedly express in positive action the high ideal, the noble
self-sacrifice, the great deed or ambition, the generous impulse
slumbering in her thoughts and appearing in her day dreams. The material
which is furnished her for thought creates her day dreams, what she sees
in her day dream _effects_ character, what she _does makes_ it.
It is for this reason that parents and teachers who are seriously
concerned with the problem of making a girl's religion a real and vital
thing seek ways and means by which she may be led to express both in
words and actions the thoughts and desires which their teaching has
awakened.
A successful teacher had been studying with her class for some weeks the
lessons founded upon "Unto the least of these, my brethren"--"A cup of
cold water even," "Ye have done it unto me," and kindred texts. She
taught well and the girls were thinking. Some attempted as individuals
to express what they thought. In the minds of most, the stories,
illustrations and facts slumbered. One Saturday three of the more
thoughtless girls were asked to accompany the teacher on a visit to a
children's hospital. They were much impressed by what they saw. The
convalescent ward proved of great interest and the babies fighting
for their lives against pneumonia brought tears to their eyes. On their
way home they expressed the wish that the class might make some of the
bonnets and gowns which the sweet-faced young nurse had said the
hospital needed so much for its baby patients. "Perhaps the other girls
will not be interested," said the teacher. Immediately the most
thoughtless girl in the class replied, "Oh, Miss D----, they cannot help
it. We will _tell_ them what we saw! We have been studying long enough
about what we ought to do. We haven't done a thing! At least--I
haven't--" she added.
[Illustration: HER HEART IS FILLED WITH A DEEP DESIRE TO SERVE]
Two dozen bonnets and gowns, well made after the pattern furnished by
the hospital, were the result of the interest of that class. While the
girls sewed they talked. They discussed in simple girlish fashion the
problems of poverty and illness and the duty of one part of society to
the other. In this sort of informal discussion they expressed themselves
far more freely than in their Sunday-school class or their classroom at
school. By the expression of high and generous thoughts they
strengthened their own ideals and placed themselves in the presence of
their friends and companions on the side of Christ-like living.
About a week after the last bonnet and gown made by the class had been
sent to the hospital the teacher was surprised by a visit from Arline, a
heedless and hitherto disinterested member of the class. It was a bitter
cold day, the sunless air penetrating even the warmest garments.
"I brought you this box of things to give away," the girl said as the
teacher tried to conceal her surprise. "There must be a good many babies
in the river district who need warmer clothing these cold days. I had
some time for sewing and my aunts helped."
The teacher found three bonnets and gowns carefully made, three tiny
flannel petticoats, six pairs of warm stockings and three small hot
water bottles.
"I bought the things with my own money," said the girl. "It is the first
time I ever did anything like this. I enjoyed it."
The church visitor found a needy place for each thing and told Arline
most heartily how grateful she was for the help she had been able to
pass on. The simple deed by which Arline expressed in the positive
terms of action what she had been thinking seemed to make a definite
change in her character and about three months from the time she had
made her gift, in a simple and natural way she came into the church. As
the girls were given more and more definite opportunity to express
themselves in thoughtful acts and kindly words, the teacher found
sympathetic, interested listeners to the lessons she tried to make
inspiring and practical in their appeal, and one by one the girls
decided for themselves to come into the church and help it do its work
in the world. The definite stand of such a group of interesting girls,
easily leaders in school and the social life, made a decided difference
in the standards of the young people of that community. The community as
a whole, and the parents of the girls especially, owe to that teacher a
very real debt for her part in the character building of those girls,
who before they came in contact with her had had only vague and hazy
ideas of a girl's duties and privileges. She furnished them with
material for thought and with opportunity for translating that thought
into action which is rapidly determining their characters.
A class of girls in another community made up of "freshmen" and
"sophomores" in the high school who were accused by other girls, and
with reason, of being "snobbish," "proud," and of forming "cliques," had
been studying with a most interesting teacher a course on Christian life
and conduct. They had been urged to show in their own lives, in school,
in their social relations, the characteristics they learned each Sunday
should belong, not only to every Christian but to every girl. Then their
teacher began to make the suggestions definite, getting as many as she
could from the girls themselves. They were asked to increase the
membership of their club, attend and take part in young peoples' socials
from which their "set" had held aloof, join in the work of the Girls'
Guild, to which they had given a little money but nothing else. These
things were hard for some of them. At first they were not able to do
them naturally and easily and they found the friendship and confidence
of the other girls hard to gain. But they had come to the conclusion in
class that these things were right and the enthusiasm and approval of
their teacher over the attempts they were making spurred them on. Then
they began to make discoveries. They found out what interesting girls
there were outside their "set." They found they had exaggerated their
own importance. They began to enjoy the good times of the young people
in the church societies and to want a real part in them. The change in
the spirit and life of that class, even in a year, was wonderful. At the
end of the second year with that teacher the spirit of the young people
in that cosmopolitan church had entirely changed. Those girls had
wrought the change because they had themselves been transformed. They
had been expressing, day after day, in positive action the things they
learned, and the impressions which before had slumbered in the mind
burst into life through the daily deed. They studied Christ's rules for
living, they traced the results of obedience to those rules in the lives
of those who truly followed Him and _they_ tried to _do_ in their own
every day lives, until _doing_ brought _power_ to do and character was
being made.
In the religion of every girl there must be the positive side; whether
she works in a factory or attends a fashionable boarding school her
character will be made and her religious life formed through the
impressions which constantly find expression in words and actions.
A girl's religion, especially in the early teens, must be active not
passive. She must be made to feel--_and be given the right outlet for
the feelings aroused within_ her, to dream--_and be helped to find a way
to work out her dreams_. She must be given knowledge and _be shown the
way in which to use it._
It is in this way that the girl, every girl, may hope to find a sane and
natural religion which shall be a real help in the real world where she
must live. Christ was a doer of deeds. The gospel record of His life has
somewhat to say of the things He did _not_ do but its pages are filled
with the things that He did. Lame, blind, lepers, insane, poor, lonely
and sorrowful as well as "sinners," His friends and His disciples bear
witness to the things that He _did_. Christianity is a religion of deeds
and whether it be through a factory-club, a neighborhood house, Camp
Fire Girls, Christian Associations, the summer camp, girls' conferences,
the Sunday-school or the home, the girl must be impressed with the fact
that religion and life go hand in hand and must be shown the way to
give that impression opportunity to express itself, until repeated
expression shall have marked out the trend of _character_.
If the girl herself is reading this chapter she will realize that while
in a girl's religion there must of necessity be the simple definite
"thou shalt not," the most important part of that religion is Thou
Shalt. The girl herself should be so busy doing the things that ought to
be done that there is no time for the undesirable and forbidden things.
It is much to the girl's credit that she loves a religion that does
things. The world needs, every church, every community, every school and
every home needs, girls who have found their religion and put it into
practise. Find yours, then put it to work, _helping_, helping
_everywhere_.
XV
A MATTER OF CULTIVATION