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.