“Well, what do you think of the girls by this time?” The kindly old
president looked hard at Miss Swallow, who had just finished her second
month as a teacher in a girls’ private school.
“I think they are lovely girls, and I like to work with them,” she
replied. “With one exception, they could hardly be better.”
“With one exception? And what is that?”
[Sidenote: Time for Bible]
“The matter of piety. This is a church school, and yet I feel a real
lack of a spirit of devotion among the girls. When I visit their rooms,
I see all sorts of books in evidence except the Bible. When I attend the
Y. W. C. A. meetings, it seems to me that most of the girls give
evidence of a very superficial sort of religious experience.”
“What you say is true. I have often thought of it myself. But what can
we do? I urge the girls not to neglect their spiritual interests, in
chapel. And every Lent we have special meetings.”
“I’ll study the situation a little and tell you what I think about it,
Dr. Dayton.”
“Do, please. I am anxious to better things if I can.”
In a few days Miss Swallow was back in the president’s office.
“I think I’ve found the reason for the trouble,” she said, “and the
remedy is simple. We expect our girls to grow strong here, and so
provide them a gymnasium and a tennis court, and give them time for
exercise. We expect them to eat, and provide a meal time; we expect them
to sleep, and make them put out their lights and go to bed. But we
expect them to cultivate the spiritual life without providing any
special time for it. There is not even a five-minute period for
devotions and quiet during the day.”
“But girls say their prayers and read their Bibles at night, don’t
they?”
“Yes, if they do it at all. They do it when they are tired with the long
day’s work and play, and their attention is not particularly drawn to it
by any stipulated time set aside for devotions. I think we should
emphasize our idea of the importance of devotions by giving it time
during the day.” She outlined a plan, and they agreed to try it in the
winter term.
They provided a fifteen-minute “quiet time” just before breakfast, which
every girl was expected to use in meditation and prayer. After a time
they changed it to fifteen minutes after breakfast, before classes
began; this worked much better. Girls who had never given any time to
devotions now found a time provided, and a lack of distractions which
suggested a compliance with the expectation. Girls who had always wanted
to, but could never find time, now began systematically to study the
_New Testament_ or the “_Imitation_.” There was no compulsion about it,
but the suggestion of the definite provision for the cultivation of the
inner life bore abundant fruit in lives made gracious by its growth.