I have been spending the day with adolescence, surrounded by boys and
girls in their teens and young men and women just outside. It is now
the evening of Memorial Day, and I have spent most of the day at the
popular pleasure resort just outside the city. My companion, a young
woman just out of her teens, had taken her holiday to come to the
normal school to arrange for entrance in the fall. She has worked hard
for two years, saved her money, and now plans to take a full course at
the school to fit herself to become an expert teacher in China. She
wanted to spend the rest of the day with me and talk about it, and I
took her to W. ----, that we might enjoy the out-of-doors. We sat in a
secluded corner of the big open dining-room, and during dinner she
talked of China's need, of the great opportunity,--hurled facts about
the darkness of China at me until I gazed at the animated encyclopædia
in astonishment. Her face glowed with enthusiasm; it is a sweet face,
girlish and eager, and I could but wonder as I looked at her how
China's need had gotten such a hold upon her.
While she seemed for a few moments lost in thought, my eyes wandered
over the room crowded with youth. All sorts and conditions were there,
but all young. It was Memorial Day, but they had not waited to see the
short procession of those who still remain to us of the hundreds who
went out with their lives in their hands at the country's bidding. The
procession and all it signifies meant little to them. They were jolly,
happy, light-hearted, rough and very crude, and yet--they were just the
ones who, if the country should call again, would answer; the boys
promptly, willingly, offering their lives, the girls laying their
hearts on the altar of their country's need. But to-day was just a
holiday. At the table near us was a group of four, none over
seventeen. The discussion and final ordering of the dinner was most
interesting. They talked over prices, too, with great frankness,
"That's too much," and "we don't need coffee, that will take ten cents
off for each of us." I have seldom seen four people enjoy a dinner as
they did. The girls' dresses manifested the effort to attain "the
latest thing," and the boys were not behind. When they left the
dining-room and walked down toward the boat-house they tried to look
so unconcerned! How they had saved for this day! This one little day!
At every table were groups just as interesting. The grounds were
crowded with other groups, laughing and shouting and joking. The jokes
no one save themselves could appreciate. The skating rink was
crowded--the dancing pavilion--the open air theater--every incoming
trolley brought more intent upon having "a good time." I forgot China
until a direct question brought me back. Here she was,--my eager,
intense, enthusiastic girl,--looking forward with joy to China with its
crushing weight of ignorance, its impossible language and its
almond-eyed people neither asking nor desiring to be helped! What has
made the difference between her and those all about me? Before I could
answer her question or my own, three automobiles passed, filled with
laughing girls and boys, all in their teens. Their faces were
different from those in the grove,--their laughter more musical,--the
automobiles bore their country's flag, the girls wore flowers. I knew
some of the faces--it was a "house party," and they were off for a
"good time."
Suddenly it surged over me that this was but one little spot in the
great country--and the rush of the other thousands, the shop girls,
clerks, the office girls, the students, all in search of a good time
oppressed me, and before my mind hurried back to a Chinese
kindergarten, my heart cried, "Oh, Lord, how shall the world _play_
with real pleasure and profit?" Is _this_ the way? I heard no answer.
The problem is too big for me, yet I cannot let it alone, for the
world must play, and always the most eager players are young,--and
always the girl in her teens is the center of the game.
Man is social. He must have companionships and pleasures in common
with his kind. Only when physically deficient, mentally deformed,
abnormal, does he become anti-social. This is true all through life
and especially true in adolescence when nature is most keenly
conscious of elemental powers and passions.
It is true that the girl in her teens is often alone. Alone she dreams
her day-dreams, writes her poems, floods her imagination with all the
things that are to be. In common with all humanity she meets her
deepest experiences alone. Yesterday a girl of nineteen tried to tell
me of the happiness her engagement to a fine, strong man had brought
to her. She said, "all that it means _can't_ be said." Last week a
girl of eighteen tried to tell out all the loneliness and crushing
disappointment her mother's death had brought, but she ended her
appeal for help with the old cry, "no one can really help, I've just
got to bear it." Before the teens have passed so many girls learn that
great joy and great sorrow must be met alone.
But for the common life of the every day, man lives with others. He
can neither work alone nor play alone, and with adolescence comes the
realization of it sweeping into the life. "The gang," "our crowd,"
"our set," work and play together.
The girl who loves and seeks solitude continually is ill mentally,
physically, or spiritually, and needs watchful, sympathetic care,
which shall discover the cause of her morbidness and help her to
escape from it.
Environment fixes largely the companions of the girl, and her place in
the social scale predetermines to some extent how she shall play. If
she is in a home where the family is closely related to the church in
all departments of its active work and life, the church becomes her
natural social center. Its entertainments, suppers, young people's
socials, etc., furnish the means for her amusement and the place where
she may form friendships. If she is a working girl boarding in a
strange city or living in a home in no way connected with the church,
unless the Y. W. C. A. through the gymnasium or other classes reaches
her, where shall she find her social center where she may enjoy the
society of other young people, form friendships and have a good time?
In summer the public parks answer that question. In winter, the
skating rink, "the dancing party," the moving picture show.
If the girl lives in a happy home surrounded by wealth, together with
culture and refinement, her social life will be guided and guarded
during her teens and she will be helped to have a good time. If she be
that happiest of all girls, the one whose own home is the social
center, where music, games and fun abound, and where friends are
always welcome, she is safe. Such homes might solve the whole problem,
but there are not enough.
When the teacher looks seriously at the social side of her girls in
their teens and realizes the craving of the whole nature for
companionship, laughter and fun, she finds it hard to say "Don't" even
to the things of which she does not personally approve, because she
must meet the question clear and frank, "What _can_ I do then?" That
question has been answered, so far as the church is concerned, only
here and there. Some splendid and successful attempts have been made
that give us hope for the future.
Most Sunday-school teachers of girls in their teens have awakened
recently to the fact that unless the demands of the social side be
satisfied in a sane, healthful way, the girl's spiritual nature
suffers, and the mental and physical as well.
When once the teacher really sees it she can no longer be content to
meet the interested members of her class just an hour on Sunday, to
discuss the lesson of the day. The crowded parks, the trolleys, the
"parties," the call of the great demanding whirl of amusements from
Sunday to Sunday, presses upon her soul. She learns how her girls
spend the week end and the evenings and then she throws herself, her
knowledge, her skill, her time, into the scales, hoping where she
finds girls in the danger zone to turn the balance in favor of clean,
safe, sane pleasure.
Any teacher willing to make a little investigation will be surprised
to learn how many of the girls enjoying the kind of amusements which
do not make for sound moral health, were at ten or twelve regular
members of the Sunday-school, and how many still come occasionally.
My observation the past few years of the social side of the girl in
her teens, and especially the girl who has left school, has made me
feel that if the opportunity to choose came to me as to Solomon, I
would rather have the knowledge and power to give the young people of
to-day sane, safe amusement than anything else I know.
The social side of the girl reveals itself not only in the desire to
have a good time, but in the deep and ardent friendships formed during
the teen period.
While she enjoys to the full the society of the group, the girl in her
teens invariably has a "dearest friend," who shares her joys, sorrows
and confidences. This tendency becomes especially evident at sixteen
and becomes more marked at the latter part of the period.
These friendships may be the source of greatest blessings or may mean
the lowering of the whole tone of moral life. Both mother and teacher
need to observe carefully the formation of friendships and be sure to
encourage only the helpful ones. Public school teachers of experience
can all testify to the rapid changes in girls which so often follow
the development of a deep friendship.
I remember a girl of sixteen, dreamy, imaginative, and so much
interested in her boy companions that lessons, home interests, and
everything else were sacrificed. What to do with her, and what
interests to substitute, were questions that both mother and teacher
failed to solve. At a most opportune time a "new girl" moved into the
neighborhood and entered school. She was practical, attractive, a good
scholar, greatly interested in outdoor athletics. Because they were
neighbors, the two girls were thrown much together. The companionship
deepened into friendship. Soon the dreamy sixteen-year-old was playing
tennis on summer afternoons, and reading aloud in the hammock
afterward to rest. When winter came she suddenly decided that school
and study were worth while, brought up all her averages, and made up
her mind to try for college. Skating and the gymnasium made her a new
girl. And all this transformation, fortunately for her good, came
naturally and very rapidly through the influence of her companion. It
comes almost as quickly in the other direction. Nothing can be more
helpful to the shy, timid, self-conscious girl than the companionship
of one who will encourage her and help her take her place with others
in the social life of which she is a part.
Some of the bitterest suffering known to girls in their teens comes
because they are "left out" and must go "alone." The misery of being
left to oneself is registered in that familiar sentence, "Oh, I don't
want to go alone!" The girl in her teens needs a "chum," a "best
friend," a companion, and anything that the teacher can do to aid in
the formation of helpful friendships is worth while, for the friends
loyal and true through the teen age are the ones who in later years,
when the need is deeper and friendships are tested, stand by. That
there should be some way and place in which, surrounded by a Christian
environment that makes for righteousness, girls in their late teens
and just outside, who have no homes, or homes only in name, can meet
and learn to know young men of the right sort is evident to all who
have even considered the matter.
When the Great Teacher was here no need escaped his notice. All that
he taught and did was in response to _need_. Many of the teachers of
to-day are earnestly asking how far they can follow him in this great
principle of his life.
When as teachers, interested in what we call the deepest things in the
girl's life, we are sometimes impatient with her light-heartedness,
with the giggles and boisterous fun and "silliness" of the early
teens, and the social tactics and sophistries of the later period, let
us remember that the natural, healthy girl is "whole." She is body,
mind and spirit, and all three together make her a social being. All
three speak in the passion to enjoy,--to seek pleasure. And the teacher
of girls in their teens is as truly in the service of the living God
when she boards the trolley car and accompanies her girls to the lake
for a picnic supper after a day of hard work or study as when teaching
them on Sunday the splendid principles that governed Paul's life. She
just as truly serves, some cold, rainy, February afternoon as, with
two of the girls she wants to know better, she cuts out red hearts to
decorate the room for the valentine social to which the members of her
class have each invited a girl not specially interested in the
Sunday-school as when she talks over on Sunday, "Serve the Lord with
gladness," for on Sunday she is telling them how to serve and on
Tuesday she is showing them how through her own action. And they
understand and are more willing to listen as she strives to impress
upon mind and heart the facts and ideals that shall keep them steady,
pure and true amidst all the distractions and temptations of the
world's good time.
If the teacher once catches a glimpse of the significant fact that a
girl can not play wrong and pray right, a new realization of the
importance of the social side will stir her to action and send her out
to seek help from all who are willing to aid in the solution of the
world problem, of how to satisfy the social nature in ways that make
for character.