The girl in her teens does think. She has been called careless,
thoughtless, inattentive and a day-dreamer. Though these things are
often true of her, she is on the whole a thinker. Her day-dreams are
thoughtful. In building her air castles she uses memory and
imagination, and sometimes one wonders if these factors to which we
owe so much do not get as valuable training from "dreams" as from
algebra. Certain it is that many women who have helped make the world
a more comfortable place in which to live laid plans for their future
work on sweet spring days, or long autumn afternoons when Latin
grammar faded away in the distance, and things vital, near, and real
came to take its place.
When Lucy Larcom stood by the noisy loom in the rush and whirl of the
big factory, day-dreaming while her busy hands fulfilled their task,
memory and imagination were being trained, and one morning the world
read the day-dream. At first it was a picture of flowers and fields
and cloudless skies, then it came back to the tenements on the narrow
streets and said:
"If I were a sunbeam,
I know where I'd go,
Into lowliest hovels,
Dark with want and woe.
Till sad hearts looked upward,
I would shine and shine.
Then they'd think of heaven,
Their sweet home and mine."
This and many another gem the imagination of the factory girl wrought
out beside the loom.
The day-dreams, the "castles" reared by the imagination of girlhood,
must find expression, and they do--in diaries, "literary productions"
and poems at which we sometimes smile.
But who shall say that the mental side of the girl in her teens does
not get as much valuable training through the closely written journal
pages, or the carefully wrought poem which perhaps no one may ever
see, as through the "daily theme" or the essay written according to an
elaborate outline, carefully criticized by the teacher. The ambitions
of the adolescent girl along literary lines often receive a rude shock
when her essay is returned with red lines drawn through what, to her,
are the most effective adjectives and most beautiful descriptions.
Many a literary genius has been destroyed by the red lines of an
unimaginative instructor. But there are some wise enough to allow the
girl to express herself in true adolescent fashion, criticizing only
when errors in punctuation, sentence formation or spelling occur, and
letting her gradually outgrow the glaring wealth of imagery that is
the right of every girl in her teens.
But the adolescent girl does not think in "dreams" alone. She thinks
in the hard terms of the practical and the every day. Her mental life,
expanding and enlarging, is stirred to unusual activity, as is her
physical nature, and she makes so many discoveries absolutely new to
her that she thinks them new to all. She gives information of all
sorts to her family and expects respectful attention. She knows more
than her mother, criticizes her father, gives advice to her
grandmother, and is willing to decide all questions for the younger
members of the family. She has a new idea of her own importance, and
sees herself magnified.
It seems but yesterday since she was just a little girl, willing to be
guided, directed, ruled by her elders. Now she resents the direct
command, persists in asking "why," and is not satisfied with "because
I think best." She chafes under strict discipline, rebels openly,
sulks, or yields with an air of desperate resignation when her dearest
desires are denied. She thinks she knows best. That is her chief
trouble. The things she wants to do seem best to her,--she thinks they
will mean her real happiness, therefore she chooses them. That were
she allowed to follow her own choice, ten years from now she would
sadly regret it does not influence her much, for the now is so near
and so desirable.
I was calling one evening in the home of a friend who has a
sixteen-year-old daughter. A few moments after I was seated she came
into the room wearing a simple evening gown of pale blue silk, her
hair arranged in the latest fashion, and her eyes dancing with
excitement and anticipation. I could easily pardon the look of
satisfied pride upon the faces of both her father and mother. After
greeting me cordially she said, "Mother, I may do it just this time,
mayn't I? Please, mother!" "Do what?" said the mother. "You know, the
carriage. Harry's father gave him the money, and it's so much nicer
than the crowded car."
"I told you this afternoon what I thought about it," said the mother,
"but you may ask your father."
She referred the matter to him. "Harry" wanted to have a carriage and
drive home after the party, his father was willing and had given him
the money. And now mother objected! All the nicest girls were going to
do it, but mother preferred a crowded street-car! Supreme disgust and
a sense of injustice showed in voice and manner. Her father smiled, as
he said, "Well, I think your mother is about right." Still the girl
persisted until her father said sternly, "Mildred, you may do as we
wish or remain at home." Sullen silence followed, while she made
preparations to go. As her mother helped her on with her wrap, she
said kindly, "I'm so sorry, Mildred. It is hard for us to deny you,
but a few years from now you will understand and be grateful."
The daughter's answer came quickly: "That is what you always say, but
I know I'm missing all the pleasures the other girls have."
The mother was discouraged. "I don't know what to do with Mildred,"
she said, after her daughter had gone, "she seems to have lost all
confidence in us."
"No," I said, "she hasn't. She has supreme confidence in herself. If
you had frankly told her your reason for refusing her request, or
simply said that it was not the proper thing, since you could not
furnish her with a chaperon, it might have helped. But if you treat
her as patiently for the next few years as you have done to-night, she
will come out all right."
I am sure she will. The rapid development of her mental life is
showing through her will. The years are coming when she will _need_ to
choose for _herself_. The power to choose is being developed now.
Inexperience leads her to make unwise choices, and so the experience
of older and wiser people must guide her, and if necessary decide for
her. But wherever it is possible for her to choose for herself,
whenever the issue at stake is not too great, the wise parent and
teacher will allow her to choose, yes, even require her to do so, that
the power of choice may be developed and the mental forces
strengthened. And when she has chosen they will help her carry out her
choice, that she may see the result and judge of its wisdom, thus
helping her in the struggle to develop both will and judgment.
The time when parents attempted to break the will is passing. The wise
parent and teacher of the girl in her teens knows that she needs, if
her future is to be useful and happy, not a broken will but a trained
will. Training is a slow and steady process and requires unlimited
patience.
The aim of every one in any way responsible for the education of the
girl in her teens is to help her to see the right and desire it. If
that can be done for her, she has at least been started on the road
that leads to safety. This is the time when those who teach her may
help her to see the value of promptness, absolute accuracy, and
dependableness. When she promises to do a thing it is the duty of all
who teach her to help her keep that promise. But she must always see
the value of the thing taught. The mind must be satisfied; she must
know why. The girl in her teens is developing the individual moral
sense, and if the years are to bring strength of character every open
avenue to the mind must be used to help in constantly raising
standards and impressing truth.
The awakening of the girl in her teens to new phases of mental
activity reveals itself in her passion for reading. It is true that
some girls before twelve read eagerly all sorts of books, but most
girls develop a genuine love for reading with adolescence. They then
become omnivorous readers. When one looks over lists of "Books I Have
Read" prepared by high-school girls he is astonished by the number and
variety.
It is most interesting to note the books designated in personal
conversation as "the dearest story," "just great," "dandy," "perfectly
fine," "elegant," "beautiful," and "the best book I have ever read."
That these books have a tremendous influence on the mental life in
forming a "taste" for literature, and furnishing motives for action,
ideals, and information, no one can doubt.
Who helps these girls to satisfy their hunger for a "good book to
read?" Many have no help,--they read what they will. Sometimes the
parent acts as guide, often the book lists gotten out by the city
librarian, or graded lists of books prepared by teachers in the public
school, although many times at just the period when most reading is
being done the "lists" disappear from the schoolroom. Seldom does the
Sunday-school teacher guide her girls in their choice of books, yet
this is one of the most valuable and helpful things a woman can do for
a girl.
One often wishes there were more books of the right sort for the girl
in her teens. With the exception of the old standards that remain
helpful to succeeding generations there are comparatively few books
for girls that are interesting, fascinating, wholesome, and free from
those "problems" on which few women and no girls can dwell with
profit. Modern writers have given us a few fine, inspiring stories for
girls, and the teacher who seeks them out, reads them, and then passes
them on to her girls is helping in a real and definite way to deepen
and broaden character. All teachers of girls are hoping that, now so
many good books for boys have been written, our writers will turn
their attention to girls and their needs.
Girls in their teens need biography and enjoy it. They need to know
fine women who have actually lived. If the lives of such women could
be written for girls they would find eager readers. The author of the
life of Alice Freeman Palmer has presented an inspiring and helpful
gift to the girls of all time, and its influence can never be
estimated. We need more such books.
No one of us would return for a moment to the stories of heroines so
good that in the last chapter they died and went to heaven, but we do
need books in which girls and women are sane, reasonable, and good,
yet live, and enjoy living to the full. The world is full of
wholesome, true, womanly women, and our girls need to know about them
in fact and fiction.
The mental activity of the girl in her teens reveals itself also in
her great desire to know. During the period of her teens the girl so
often appears superior to the boy mentally. Sometimes she is, but more
often the seeming superiority can be explained in two ways: the hunger
for knowledge and longing to understand life come to her earlier than
to the boy; she desires to excel, and feels more keenly the disgrace
of low rank and unsatisfactory progress in her studies, which leads
her to devote more time and conscientious effort to master them. While
her brother is buried deep in athletics, she is buried in dreams,
romances and facts. She wants things explained. After sixteen, there
dawns the period when she demands that her teacher shall know. She
must have knowledge. Some teachers of girls in the later teens hold
their interest through a charming personality, a knowledge of the
heart of a girl, and a clever presentation of lessons. Still, such
teachers are unable oftentimes to help the girl in her struggle to
straighten out tangles of what she calls "faith" and "knowledge."
She asks with a new earnestness, "Are the miracles true?" "Is the
Bible different from other books?" Only last week a girl of eighteen,
suffering with her dearest friend, whose brother had been sentenced to
a term in prison for gross intoxication, said to me: "That man prays
often when he is sober to be kept from drinking, how can God let him
do it when it is just killing his mother and all the family? I don't
see how it can be true that God loves men when he lets them be so
wicked, and when people suffer so, and starve and die in wrecks and
fires and--it's terrible. I know you will think I'm awful, but
sometimes I don't believe in God at all." Her voice trembled, and I
knew the hurried sentences represented months of thinking. I did not
consider her "awful." God help her--she has looked the old, old problem
of evil squarely in the face for the first time, and is staggered by
it. How to help her in this crisis we shall consider in our discussion
of the "Spiritual Side."
She needs now more than ever a teacher who can understand her, who has
thought things out for herself, who can teach positively, who is too
near life to worship creed, and too large to be dogmatic. One so often
wishes, when looking into the face of some thoughtful girl, with mind
keen, alert, active, but perplexed and confused by knowledge that
seems to contradict itself, for some miracle by which for a moment the
Great Teacher might come and speak to her the words that made his
doubting pupil say, "My Lord and my God."
The mental activity of the girl of to-day reveals itself in the later
teens by a keen and deep interest in social questions, in the great
problems that concern women. But a few weeks since I looked into the
faces of scores of earnest college girls, many in their later teens,
who were discussing at a week-end conference, "The Individual and the
Social Crisis." It was not a mere discussion. These girls had plans,
they had facts, they were looking at the question on all sides. Within
the month I met another group in conference. They were a "Welfare
Committee" for an organization of working girls. They knew what they
were talking about, they had plans, and were seeking solutions for
problems that needed to be solved.
The girl in her teens is a dreamer at thirteen, seeking to realize her
dreams in real life at nineteen.
During those six wonderful years of repeated crises, the mental life
of the girl is being shaped and determined by environment. To some
extent the teacher may influence that environment, and become a real
part of it. It is her privilege to furnish the imagination, through
prose and poetry, with fields in which to wander afar, broaden the
vision through books of travel and information which she may put in
the girl's way, increase her love of music and pictures through
occasional concerts and visits to the art galleries, and in scores of
little ways open new doors to the greater realms of knowledge which,
if unaided, she would have passed by.
It is a great thing to be able to help another mind to think for
itself. That, the wise teacher is always striving to do. She
challenges her girls to think. This is the reason why she wants the
girl in her teens to know something of the history of the church; to
be acquainted with the young men and women on the mission field, and
know what they are doing; to know what the cities are trying or
refusing to do for the housing of the poor, and for the protection of
women and girls; to know the laws of home hygiene, and to use her
mental faculties to help answer the question of the relation of the
church and the individual under existing conditions in her own
community and in the world. The girl in her teens is interested most
in the very thing in which the Great Teacher was himself
interested--life, the life of his own day, and he so instructed his
disciples that the eyes of their understanding were opened and they
began to think for themselves and of their fellow-men.
We have to-day, in the girl in her teens, who in large numbers is
still in our Sunday-schools, a tremendous mental force. Were it
awakened and developed, helped to see and interpret life according to
the principles of Jesus, in fifty years the church would find most of
its present problems solved. For hard to realize as it is when looking
into the faces and training the minds of the girls in their teens of
to-day, still it is true that we are looking at and training the women
of to-morrow, yes, those who a few years hence holding their children
in their arms, shall decide all unknowing what the next generation of
men and women shall be and do.
To encourage the girl in her teens to use her mental powers to the
utmost, to help her gain knowledge and self-control, to guide her in
her thinking, is the task of every parent and teacher, and it is a
task tremendously worth while.