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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.