$j^* I" HAPPY CHOOL DAY; % HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS * Of. CALIF. LIBRARY, LOb AMBLES Happy School Days BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER AUTHOR OF "WINSOME WOMANHOOD," ETC. CHICAGO FORBES & COMPANY 1912 Copyright, 1909, BY FORBES AND COMPANY FOREWORD TN this book to girls I am going to put some bits of practical advice for all the schoolgirls who make beautiful our streets as they hurry on, to be in their places before nine o'clock in the morning. There are many thousands of you, dear girls, who are the pride and joy of the homes you come from. I like to catch the inspira- tion of your bright looks, to hear your sweet voices, and to watch the lightness of your feet as you flit along over the country roads or village pavements, or the thronged ave- nues of our great towns. You are schoolgirls, and you are told every day by grown people that you are liv- ing your happiest days. There are times when you would very gladly change places with girls who do not go to school, if only you could. For school life has its shadow as well as its sunshine. 2132522 FOREWORD But girls, there is so much more sunshine than shadow that school life should be very satisfying to you. Books are unfolding for you. You are getting hold of new ideas. You are learning the joy of mastery over tough subjects. Nothing is finer than hav- ing a tussle with algebra or Latin or physics, and coming out on the other side, a con- queror. I am not sure that any joy surpasses this. The old concrete problem, the irreg- ular verb, the secret that flies out of your sight like a bird, to catch hold of them, to keep them fast, to know that they are yours forever, to find your mind obeying your will girls, this is triumph, this is glory, this is joy. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. The " Ail-Around " Schoolgirl ... 9 II. Pluck, Perseverance and Punctuality . 15 III. The Unpopular Schoolgirl .... 22 IV. Perplexing Studies 29 V. The Lessons You Don't Like ... 35 VI. Mathematics 43 .VII. How to Write 50 VIII. Examinations 57 IX. The Unpopular Teacher 64 X. The Care of Schoolbooks .... 72 XL The Schoolgirl's Luncheon .... 79 XII. Getting Started in the Morning . . 85 XIII. Home Duties 92 XIV. The Art of Cooking 100 XV. Skillful Hands 109 XVI. Music 116 XVII. The Schoolgirl's Room 123 XVIII. Home Study 129 XIX. Nature Study 135 XX. False Values 142 XXI. The Schoolgirl's Chum 149 XXII. Boy Friends '. . 156 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XXIU. Schoolgirls' Clubs . . . . 164 XXIV. Courage 170 XXV. Repose 177 XXVI. Tact 183 XXVII. A Gracious Manner 191 XXVIII. The Sweet- Voiced Girl 199 XXIX. A Good Memory 207 XXX. Health 214 XXXI. The Care of the Eyes 222 XXXII. Dress 228 XXXIII. Magnifying Troubles 234 XXXIV. Minor Morals 241 XXXV. Promotion 248 XXXVI. The President of Her Class ... 254 XXXVII. Commencement Season 261 XXXVIII. A Schoolgirl's Calendar 266 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS CHAPTER I THE " ALL-AROUND " SCHOOLGIRL TN some ways you girls are very much alike; in some others you are different. But there is not one of you who can afford to pass by my counsel that you shall become an all-around scholar. If I were you I would put the accent, the emphasis, of all my school work on the strong word, endeavor. I would endeavor everywhere and at all times to do my best. It might be that my best would be less brilliant than the best of some other girl, but for that I should not care. We are never required to use other people's talents. We are responsible only for the use we make of our own. Faithful, diligent work done over and over every day, 9 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS in the schoolroom, amounts to a great deal more at the end of the year than an occa- sional spurt in which we make a great ad- vance and after which we fall back into in- dolence and do almost nothing. I have seen a girl, and a very nice girl, too, throw her algebra across a room in a fit of despair, declaring that she never could understand it and that she had decided it wasn't worth while any longer to try. I have seen a girl almost in tears over her com- position, affirming that she had not a thought in her head and would not know how to ex- press it if she had. I have even known girls whose spelling was atrocious, a perfect dis- grace, who calmly stated that correct spelling was beyond them and that their gifts lay In some other direction. Every teacher has names on her roll over which she frowns and sighs, knowing that they stand for pupils who are quite con- tented with second-best or third-best marks, and whose rating is away down at D when it ought to be at A. Such girls simply fall down in a heap before the studies they don't 10 THE "ALL-AROUND" GIRL like or don't enjoy; the studies that for them mean earnest work and perhaps a hard bat- tle, and they are not ashamed merely to escape failure and be pulled through a rather lenient examination at the close of the term. Elizabeth would not do this as a matter of course, nor would Evelyn or Kathleen or Dorothy. I hope, and indeed I know, that you are far above such slip-shod methods of study, but girls with names just as lovely are often enough deficient along these lines. It happens in this way. We do not know the real value of golden talents. Suppose we divide our talents under three heads. We may have golden talents, silver talents and leaden talents. The golden tal- ents are those we most desire, but we do not always get them by nature. A girl with a leaden talent may change it after awhile, if she is faithful and painstaking and plodding, for a talent of silver, and a girl whose talents originally were silver may in the progress of her school years have them transmuted to gold. Rough ore must go through a good many severe processes before it can be II changed into beautiful articles for daily use. One girl in your class has a talent which almost amounts to genius for English litera- ture. She pursues that with ardor and is at the top of the class, but she has no special turn for mathematical study and has to be dragged through it by main force. An- other girl has a passion for figures, finds them absorbing and easy, and without much effort carries off all the honors. As for geography, botany, rhetoric and physics, she is quite resigned to a mediocre standard in them, and, though successful in spots, she, like her friend, is anything but an all-around scholar. The fact is and I want every one of my girls to listen the object of your school life is preparation for to-morrow. The knowledge you gain to-day is by way of a foundation for to-morrow's building. Only a little while from now you girls will be in the doorway of a bright and charming fu- ture, with all sorts of opportunities pressing upon you. Your to-morrow will be bright 12 THE "ALL-AROUND" GIRL and glad, full of duties, full of pleasures and full of responsibility. School life is your time for getting ready so that when you enter on a more inde- pendent season of life, you may rise to its importance. The all-around scholar of the present will one day be the all-around woman in business, in a profession, in society, or, best of all, in the household. Nowhere else can an all-around girl be so useful and so lovable as in her home. I wish that the girls I write for and to whom I am talking might every one be the sweetest home daugh- ters in the wide world. One of the essentials of happy and success- ful womanhood is that women should be interesting. A dull, commonplace, unre- sponsive woman may have a pretty face and a good figure, but notwithstanding her beauty people will soon grow tired of her and seek other company. One cannot be interesting unless she has both sympathy and informa- tion. A girl who has made herself familiar with several fields of learning and who has a well- 13 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS disciplined mind may not always be able to talk brightly, but she will know how to listen intelligently. Better still, she will know when to keep still, an invaluable bit of knowledge for a woman. Old people will find this girl charming and considerate. Busy men will feel rested in her presence, and as for her father and mother, they will be repaid in her sweet, bright and useful girlhood for the sacrifices they made when she was in the schoolroom. Many parents have to deny themselves far more than their children dream that the chil- dren may be educated. They are always re- paid in full by the children who are devel- oped in an all-around fashion. CHAPTER II PLUCK, PERSEVERANCE AND PUNCTUALITY evening last autumn I had the pleas- ure of being a guest in a great school for girls. The school building which is am- ple and beautiful, stands on a hill-top and all around it are acres of garden and meadow, with a lake where the girls row in summer and skate in winter; trees under which they walk and every beautiful condition that can make the surroundings ideal. Within, the accommodations match the fair outside, and I have rarely seen anything more beautiful than the assemblage of those girls in chapel at their vesper service. To me the hour I liked best was one at the close of the day, when I sat in the middle of a crowd of girls, a few seated on chairs and sofas, but most on the floor, a throng of bright faces, eager and responsive, that I shall never forget. 15 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS Looking at these winsome schoolgirls, I seemed to see beyond them a much larger throng. To this great company of girls who shall presently be the young women of the future, I have a little sermon to preach. The old-fashioned way was to divide ser- mons under three heads. I am taking this way, and my first head is PLUCK Unless a girl has pluck, she will find her- self many a time at odds with life. It re- quires pluck of no mean order to sit in a dentist's chair and endure the agony known as treating a tooth. It requires pluck to go with a little sister or brother to this same friendly adjunct of the family, and sit by while the little victim has teeth straightened or a tooth removed. Pluck is far more nec- essary when the difficulty is not merely phys- ical, but is moral and calls for the kind of courage that makes one bear reproof pa- tiently, or speak the truth when to do so may make one unpopular. Without real, genuine pluck few of us can get through the day's 16 PLUCK AND PERSEVERANCE work with credit. Sometimes pluck is need- ful when one has to wear much-mended gloves or a shabby gown, or when one faces the fact that she cannot have the luxuries that are as common as air and water in the experience of her neighbor. Pluck is not given to us at birth. Some of us are naturally great cowards. We shrink from pain and trouble of every variety, and want a cushioned seat for every journey. For- tunately, pluck may be acquired. If we have not very much to begin with we may easily get more by the simple method of cul- tivating what we have. I would have my girls brave and fearless, feeling perfectly sure of their ground, if they are in the right, and dreading nothing except being in the wrong. PERSEVERANCE You all remember the little rhyme that you were taught almost as soon as the alphabet, " If at first you don't succeed, try, try, again." The lesson in this bit of homely verse is one for you and me. Beginnings HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS are easy enough; we start out with a fair wind and a flowing sail, and our boat goes dancing over the waves, but the true test comes when we have to row against wind and tide, or to manage our course when the storms beat and the winds rave. To drop the metaphor, most of us enjoy taking the initiative with a new study or a new enter- prise. Our commencement is with enthu- siasm, but presently we reach irregular verbs, or abstruse problems, and our ardor dampens. Very likely some of you could show, if you chose, beautiful pieces of embroidery and knitting on which you have made a fair start. The place that tires one and tries one's met- tle is in the middle of the road, or the middle of the task. Those who begin well, keep on well, and finish well, gain the laurels and wear them with honor. Perseverance tells on your monthly or quarterly reports as examinations never do. The real test of ability in any line is just here: Is the student easily daunted or does she hold fast with an iron grip until she has accomplished what she undertakes? 18 PLUCK AND PERSEVERANCE As our favorite Longfellow sings: " Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait." The twin sister of perseverance is patience. You remember, do you not, the old fairy stories in which the little princess was set to unravel a terribly tangled skein, and how she made no headway until a fairy named Pa- tience came and helped her straighten out the threads, and lay them side by side? Let your fairy be named Perseverance, and if her sister comes to help her, give a welcome to them both. PUNCTUALITY Of the three p's, punctuality is probably the most important, because, you see, if you are not punctual, you are a thief. It is a dreadful thing to be a thief. Hosts of peo- ple who would not steal diamonds or gold or break into houses or pick pockets, have no hesitation whatever in robbing others of something as precious, namely, time. When 19 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS you fail to keep an engagement at the right moment, when you come dawdling in five or ten minutes late, whether it be a recitation, a committee meeting or any other appoint- ment, you have wasted what did not belong to you the time of other and busy folk. We prove that we can be punctual whenever we catch a train that is scheduled to leave the station at a certain hour. Knowing well that trains do not await the convenience of passengers, or ocean steamers tarry at the wharf a moment after the hour fixed for sail- ing, we are punctual if we are starting on a journey or a voyage; but we are much less apt to be punctual, for instance, about enter- ing church in season, or reaching a friend's home at the moment we were asked. To be late at dinner, as everyone knows, is an unpardonable sin, and when you are old enough to be dinner guests you will discover that you must be punctual then. Try to be punctual now. It is quite as easy to be a little in advance of one's daily engagements as to be a little behind. Never allow your- self to be spoken of as the tardy Miss Emily, 20 PLUCK AND PERSEVERANCE or the late Miss Alice. Pride yourself on being known as one who is as punctual as the sun. May I say a word about the start in the morning? If one dislikes getting up and dressing and being ready for breakfast in good season, and if she yields to her dislike, it is more than probable that she will lose time all day long. One never catches up with that half hour that was wasted in a nap after the rising bell had rung. The morn- ing hour has gold in its mouth. 21 CHAPTER III THE UNPOPULAR SCHOOLGIRL VJT7HEN you tell me that you cannot win your way in school because the teacher is hateful and the girls are horrid and no- body likes you, I cannot help thinking that the fault must somehow lie with you. You tell me with a very mournful look that you are unpopular. Mary is popular, and so is Jane. But you, with every reason that they have for being liked by the class and the teacher, are left out in the cold and have be- gun to feel that you will always have to stay on the edge of things while other girls are in the middle. Naturally some girls get on faster than others in a new environment. There is Margaret who is so magnetic, so sweetly at- tractive that everyone falls in love with her gentleness and grace. There is Stella, whose 22 THE UNPOPULAR GIRL scholarship is so accurate that teachers feel delighted to have her at her desk when they are explaining lessons, or conducting recita- tions. There is Eva, who is never at a loss for the right word, and who never is both- ered with her hands and feet as some girls are with theirs. It is not really worth while to look too long at those fortunate girls, the trouble be- ing, in your case, that you do not belong to that group. May it not be that you are over critical? Occasionally a schoolgirl falls into a habit of saying disagreeable things about other girls, and putting wrong constructions on their motives. We have all seen the girl who is ready to say something mean about her neighbor, and who stoops to the greater meanness of saying uncharitable things about those who are absent. If you do this, you cannot expect that people in general will be very fond of you. I have seen girls who prided themselves so much upon being candid and telling the truth that people were actually afraid of 2 3 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS them. They use the truth as a boy throws stones. One never knew when some hard lit- tle pellet would hit one in the face. For example, a girl may have entirely too good a memory. The girl whose habit is the instant she hears something told, to make a face of surprise and say in a shocked tone, " Why, last week you expressed an en- tirely different opinion," or, who makes a point of telling her friends on all occasions precisely what she thinks of them, may be a very good girl, but she will never be popular. Please observe that we are always to tell the truth if we are obliged to speak, but there are many times when it is much more a duty to be silent than it is to speak. All truth is not always to be told. You need not go out of your way to inform Sally Brown that a green dress does not suit her complexion and makes her look yellow, if she has just bought one, nor is it your place to make Louise Jones uncomfortable by commenting on the unbe- coming style of her new hat, which she must wear all winter. A good rule all through life is to say 24 THE UNPOPULAR GIRL agreeable things whenever one can, and dis- agreeable things only when one must. No girl will ever be popular who has no tact. The tactful girl is more likely to be a favorite than the beautiful, the generous or the clever girl, who lacks this quality. The self-centered girl, too, is likely to be unpopular. She sees things exclusively as they affect herself. She is so occupied with what she wishes to do, with her own plans, ambitions and ends, that there is no room beside her fire for anybody else to sit down. This girl always makes herself comfortable and does not care a fig whether or not others suffer. In a street car, she pounces upon the best vacant seat, and never thinks of offering it to an elderly lady or a woman burdened with a child, or anybody else who looks tired or worn. She sends her brothers and sisters all over the house on her errands, but it does not occur to her to run upstairs for the book her mother is reading, the shawl her grand- mother needs, or the box of toys that may amuse a visiting youngster. She does not mean to be selfish, and she very willingly 25 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS divides a treat with or spends money for her friends, but she thinks, primarily, of number one. Take care of number one is her maxim. Nobody who makes this her life motto will ever have many friends. Another thing that makes a girl unpopular is affectation. This is especially a girl's de- fect. One hardly ever sees it in a boy. Your brother may be a tease, or a torment; he may be rough and clumsy; he may pro- voke you by forgetting his manners, but he is not apt to put on the airs of other people. He will be just himself. But girls sometimes purposely and some- times unconsciously imitate those around them, and in speech and behavior are not quite genuine. Nobody can have very much pa- tience with an affected girl; a girl on whom one cannot count, who poses and acts a part. You would better ask yourself if you are always simple and sincere and willing to be the plain, honest girl that your mother knows and your father loves with such pride, because if you are, the girls will presently begin to love you, too. 26 THE UNPOPULAR GIRL Real people who belong to the realities of life, and who are not trying to masquerade in characters that are not their own, are al- most always sure of gaining esteem, and after esteem comes affection. A pleasing individu- ality wins friends. There is just the possibility that the girl who mourns because she is unpopular cares too much about it, and is too anxious to have the conspicuous places. Your older sister could tell you of a girl in her class in college, who was lovely, provided she could be pushed into a position of leadership. If only everyone would look up to her, ask what she thought, and give her the casting vote, nobody could compare with her in courtesy. But pass her over, ask her next door neigh- bor to walk with you, or take the chair at a committee meeting, and this girl froze and was as cold and distant and hard and unre- sponsive as an ice-bound brook in January. Let her lead, and she was fascinating; omit her from the program and she immediately became a sphynx. A girl who is bound to be foremost at any cost may be admired, but she 27 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS will not be the most dearly loved girl in her class. If I were you, I would not worry any more about this thing that has been causing you to look pensive and have drooping lines about your mouth and wear a grieved and martyr- like expression. Popularity is very well, if it comes unsought, and as the reward of goodness, kindness and unselfishness. But it is not the thing best worth trying for. Sometimes it is a disgrace to be popular. If one becomes popular through courting other people's favor and doing what is called toadying, she has no reason to be proud; she ought rather to blush. A girl who is true and loving and gentle, considerate, thought- ful and ready to do the next thing for the next person, with that politeness which springs from a good heart, need not be afraid that she will ever be the unpopular girl in her circle. 28 CHAPTER IV PERPLEXING STUDIES T^OROTHY and I have had an argu- ment. She declares that it is not worth while to work hard at a thing she can- not understand, and frankly despises. De- spises is a strong word, but I have noticed that Dorothy and other girls in the sunny- land of the early teens are a wee bit given to the use of strong expression. Perhaps they don't intend to exaggerate and perhaps they do feel that they must underscore their words with vigorous emphasis or else their listeners will only laugh. It is a great trial to girls that grown people, people fifteen or twenty years older than they, so generally seem to find them amusing and decline to take them seriously. However, I do take Dorothy seriously, and when she tells me that she despises partial payments and loathes complex fractions, and 29 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS never can find her way through the puzzling labyrinth of compound interest, I feel very much like shaking hands with her. I am not ashamed to tell you that I have had my own troubles over those very things. They are puzzling enough let who may tell us the con- trary. Yet I am reluctant to believe that there is anything in the region of school study that a clever girl cannot understand, cannot conquer, and cannot make her own, if only she sets her will resolutely to the task, and gives it her full and undivided attention. What girls have done, girls may do, and I for one am always sorry when I see a girl ready to confess herself defeated. I once knew a very successful teacher. He was so enthusiastic about teaching, so mag- netic, so full of fiery energy and of contagious fun that to be in one of his classes was a de- light difficult to describe. He compelled every girl to do her best and he left the schoolroom at the end of the day with a con- viction not only that he had done the best he could for his pupils, but that they had will- ingly done their best for him. One day I 30 PERPLEXING STUDIES questioned him. " Professor Blank, which do you prefer, a clever girl or a stupid girl? Where do you work hardest? " He answered with a smile that lit up the dark rugged face. " How can you ask? The clever girls are bound to learn; they do not especially interest me or call forth my efforts. I find my greatest pleasure in teach- ing the girls whom you call stupid, but who simply haven't got hold of their work at the right end. I like to draw them out. I like to show them what they can become. I like to help them up their hills of difficulty. There is twice the reward in teaching a dull pupil that there is in teaching a bright one. You see it is usually the case that the dull ones only need waking up and that when they are awake, they go on famously, while the others acquire with such ease that they are soon satisfied and their efforts flag." I have never been quite sure in my own mind about the professor's conclusions. I my- self enjoy clever, keen-witted, sparkling girls like Dorothy and her sister Elizabeth, but then, too, I am very fond of girls of an oppo- 31 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS site type; girls like Janet and Nellie, who have to work very faithfully for all they get in the schoolroom. I suppose the truth is that girls appeal to me just because they are girls. One thing I know, and that is that if anybody, clever or dull, wishes to attain a high rank in study, she must grind. Let me put it in capitals GRIND ! . Work hard- est where you are least attracted. There is no particular credit to be attached to you if you learn with facility. A veteran editor told me one day that the fatal flaw in the work of nine-tenths of the youthful con- tributors to his magazine was their facility. " They do sketchy things and slovenly things and superficial things," he said, " because they have never learned the value of real work." Girls, a tiny diamond flashing like a dew- drop in the sun, or a single lustrous pearl, or green emerald holding the tints of the deep sea in its flashing heart, is worth a cart- load of rhinestones. A very little bit of gold is worth more than a yard of gold leaf. What you win by resolute effort is yours for- 32 PERPLEXING STUDIES ever. You have not only gained a certain amount of knowledge, you have not only mastered a certain theory, or found out how to state a certain proposition, but you have mastered yourself, you have made your mind obey you, and you have become the readier to undertake the next thing that dares to baffle you. I wouldn't, if I were Dorothy, say quite so broadly that I despised what I did not understand. There is many a mystery that unfolds itself to us in strange beauty, once we have penetrated beyond its gates. There are numbers of things that never reveal to us their secrets simply because we have not learned their alphabet. I cannot believe that any schoolgirl of to- day would unwillingly endure to be classed among the lazy and the heedless and the triv- ial souls, who never see an inch of the way before them. In your last vacation, when you went to the mountains, you started one morning on a long jaunt. You walked and climbed and toiled up a steep and brier- haunted path, scrambling here, slipping there, 33 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS now falling back, now advancing, but always getting a little higher up. After awhile you reached a place far up the mountainside, where there was a grassy plane and there you stopped to rest. You were paid for all your trouble by the magnificent prospect that lay before you. It is always worth while to climb, girls, and there is never disappoint- ment when you have reached the heights, but sometimes there is hard work before you get there. Usually you will find all through life that she is best paid who works hardest at what she does not so very much enjoy for the moment. The time for enjoyment comes when one has gained the victory. 34 CHAPTER V THE LESSONS YOU DON'T LIKE OOME girls dislike all lessons. They would shed no tears if they never again had to memorize or recite; if lessons were left wholly out of their calendar from this time onward. I hope you do not belong to their company, or that, if you do, you will make haste to leave it. There was Molly Sue, a girl I knew when she was sixteen, pretty, soft-mannered, sweet- voiced, but, oh! so lazy! She drifted through successive schools without learning anything, always playing the role of a good- natured, irresponsible shirk. Her kittenish ways and dainty sweetness won her far too many excuses from her teachers, and among her friends the feeling was well expressed by an artist, who said: " Molly Sue does not need to know anything. It is quite enough 35 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS to look at her, as one looks at a perfect flower." But Molly Sue did not stay sixteen. She grew out of girlhood as you will, too, and after awhile people forgot to notice her when she was in the room with those who had brains and ideas. The perfect beauty faded. She became a withered rose. The vacant mind was like a dusty lumber-room full of rubbish. It was all the greater pity, for if somebody had taken Molly Sue by the shoul- ders and shaken her out of her indolence when she was a schoolgirl, she might have grown up an interesting woman. It is your positive duty, dear girl, to so train mind, heart, will and disposition that you shall be neither stupid, silly, insipid nor tedious when you are older. An interesting woman, clever, enthusiastic, keen and respon- sive, is more to be desired than a beautiful woman; and is more attractive in her home. She will more deeply impress society. Of course this girl was an exception. Most girls conquer their inertia and study after a fashion; fortunately most girls have a share 36 LESSONS YOU DON'T LIKE of common sense. Even reluctantly ac- quired knowledge is better than none at all. What I want to urge upon you is to put the emphasis of your efforts on the studies you don't like. We all have studies we love, and it is easy to pursue them. For instance, Dorothy, who enjoys her English work, finds no difficulty in keeping at the head of her class, but when the question is of mathematics she gropes about in the dark. If you will glance over your classmates, you will have no trouble in picking out a half dozen Doro- thys. Some of them come out splendidly in history and are dull in physics; some shine in Latin, and cannot tackle the simplest alge- braic problem. The point for every such girl, don't you think, is to spend strength and time and really hard work on the book, the subject, the situation, that she has no particu- lar aptitude for? The things one likes one acquires without painstaking, but it is pains- taking that rewards one in the end. I don't think there is a pleasure in the world that can be compared with an honest joy in conquering a difficult task. It is by 37 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS hard work over what one does not enjoy that one gains that mastery of the will and facility of the mind that make the true distinction be- tween the educated and the uneducated per- son. Natural cleverness is a good quality. But a better one is downright, sturdy, dogged perseverance, that never lets go, once it has started on any line of work. A schoolgirl should take stock of her own capacity. There is an old story of a pre- ceptress who wrote to the rich parent of a very dull pupil, that his daughter lacked capacity. " Buy her one immediately," tele- graphed the man of affairs. Alas ! gold can- not buy capacity. No outsider can give it you. But you can buy it for yourself. You, Edith, who complain that you can- not remember, that what you learn to-day is forgotten to-morrow, may change all that, if you will give your attention to one thing at a time, and let nobody disturb you. Some girls are scatter-brained. Don't be like them. Fix your mind on a single word, a single sen- tence, a single paragraph, and compel it to understand that, and to remember it. Mem- 38 LESSONS YOU DON'T LIKE ory is a slave to those who know how to com- mand it and make it obey. You, Rosamond, who have no trouble about memorizing, but whose hardship is that you cannot reason, that you do not see into things clearly, must take the same pre- scription. Be contented if you do not make very rapid progress, but concentrate your thoughts on the thing in hand. " Nothing can stand before the day's work," said a great teacher. Each day's work, carefully done, tells wonderfully on the work of a month or a term. This is what happens to you, my dear girl, whoever you are. It has happened to me many a time, so I know whereof I speak. Never mind the locality; a girl in the district school in the woods, a girl in a town, a girl with every appliance, or a girl with few helps may have the same experience. You tug along dauntlessly. It is uphill work. You slip back sometimes, but you plant your feet again firmly, and take a new start. You gain a little ground to-day; a little more to- morrow. Suddenly, you cannot explain how 39 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS or why, the difficulties vanish, the husk of trouble falls away, and out comes the perfect flower, white, fragrant, satisfying. You could not see yesterday, but you see to-day. You had no vocabulary last week, but words crowd on you now. A girl I know was studying a new lan- guage. She kept wailing over and over: " I have no words. I have no words. I have to find out every word I want in the lexicon. It is an endless task. I shall never understand, never catch up." All at once, words began meeting her with friendly faces. They were no longer strangers. She knew their inflections, their cadences ; the vocabulary of another language was her own. Hard work had brought its reward. " Never " is a word to be turned away from one's door. There need be no such word. School honors and prizes are worth striv- ing for. The girl who can win her teacher's approval is always enviable. But, on the whole, the dull girl who wins it with effort is more enviable than the bright one who did 40 LESSONS YOU DON'T LIKE not try hard. And I believe that it is much more pleasant to have the full approval of one's personal conscience, to know that, let happen what may, one has done one's very best, than to carry off marks and medals and certificates. Some of you are handicapped by having too many studies at one and the same time. It is unwise to attempt too much. If the class work includes more lessons than you can assimilate, ask to have some of them dropped. Teachers are willing to aid an earnest pupil who is doing what she can to overcome her own deficiencies. But if you drop something, let it be the thing you are fond of, not the thing you dislike. The study you care for may be taken up at any time in the future. The other must be faced and conquered now, or it will never give you the joy of victory. We can all belong, you know, to THE COMPANY WHO TRY Yes, I love the youthful winner, With the medal and the mark; He has gained the prize he sought for, He is joyous as a lark. 41 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS Every one will haste to praise him ; He is on the honor list. I Ve a tender thought, my darlings, For the one who tried, and missed. One? Ah, me! they count, by thousands, Those who have not gained the race, Though they did their best and fairest, Striving for the winner's place. Only few can reach the laurel ; Many see their chance flit by. I Ve a tender thought, my darlings, For the earnest band who try. 'T is the trying that is noble, If you 're made of sterner stuff Than the laggards who are daunted When the bit of road is rough. All will praise the happy winners ; But when they have hurried by, I Ve a song to cheer, my darlings, The great company who try. 4 2 CHAPTER VI MATHEMATICS T DON'T blame you much, Dorothy, for your great dislike of mathematics. I have never particularly enjoyed studying them for my own part, and I have always looked with respectful wonder and almost awe on other people who have professed to find them delightful. Yet, my dear, the girl next you in the class may approach this subject in a quite different mood from yours. She may fully enjoy the abstract and concrete principles of the science of numbers; may fairly revel in difficult prop- ositions, and may regard the hour for alge- bra, trigonometry or whatever else it may be as the most exhilarating hour of the day. Not infrequently two sisters may be entirely in contrast when the question concerns this abstruse and, on the whole, formidable study ; 43 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS one may love it as much as the other loathes it. You need not expect to receive much help from the people at home when you are puzzling over diagrams, examples and prob- lems in mathematics. Most of us, after our school days, remember enough of what we learned there to enable us to foot up house- hold accounts, and to see that we do not over- run our weekly or monthly income. But we do not retain much more. If we are thoughtless persons, we are apt to regret that we were compelled to spend a lot of time over things we did not like when there were so many other things that would have given us a great deal of pleasure. But stop a moment before you condemn your teachers for insisting on making mathe- matics the test of your scholarship. In the first place, it is good for most of us to do what we don't very much want to do. We are better for being compelled to exercise some self-denial. You and I are bound to meet obstacles of one sort or another all along the road of life. If we are cowards, we shall shiver and shake and turn away and 44 MATHEMATICS look for some little by-path by which we may avoid the issue. If, on the contrary, we are brave, we shall go boldly up to the thing in our path, and see whether it cannot be put aside. In order to get along creditably in this world, every one of us must have a good supply of moral courage and real force of character. These tasks of the schoolroom are chiefly valuable because in them there is hidden the element which turns the raw re- cruit into a soldier, the element called drill. You get an enormous amount of drill for your mind when you study mathematics. You may not find it agreeable, but that does not matter. The fruit will be reaped later on. You need not laugh at me, Dorothy, when I tell you that a girl who has been thoroughly trained and disciplined by struggles with mathematics, that for her hard conquest, will bear herself much more finely than one who has spent her time dawdling over lessons that never taxed Her powers. For instance, it is a shame for a woman to scream when she sees a poor little mouse scuttling as fast as it can HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS out of the closet, or to go into fits when a bat or a spider or some other uncanny creature crosses her field of vision. Women who do this are women who have never had any prac- tical drill in self-control. You may not know it, but there is the greatest peril to women in not being able to keep a good grip on them- selves. I once met a lady approaching middle age, who boasted that she had never restrained an emotion in her life. "If anything goes wrong, I just go to pieces," she said, " and everybody has to fly around and wait on me." She seemed to think this a meritorious thing. In reality, it was disgraceful. The one duty beyond all others for you and me, Dorothy, is to be equal to the occasion when- ever it comes, and to rule our own spirit. How are we ever going to rule anybody else if we do not rule ourselves? Having said this, let me add that I look upon mathematics very much as the builder looks on the foundation of the house. If you are planning to build a beautiful man- sion, with many rooms and corridors, with a 46 MATHEMATICS tower on the top and windows open wide to the sunshine, you must first of all dig deeply into the earth and see that your underpinning will be safe and your foundation stable. The whole of education is built on the alphabet, the multiplication table and the Ten Commandments. On these you may rear whatever beautiful edifice you please. It would be a very one-sided development that a girl would have who knew nothing ex- cept mathematics. Once in awhile this has been shown in the case of some mathematical prodigy who has performed astonishing feats with figures and has done nothing else. At one end of the scale place mathematics for ballast; at the other end give play to imag- ination and then you will have a perfectly balanced character. Do not make the mis- take of thinking that there is no virtue out- side the ledger. Every child who solves a difficult problem should be told a fairy story immediately afterward as a reward. What- ever else you omit, be sure you cultivate your mind in the region of poetry and fancy. A traveler was wending his way over the 47 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS mountains of Kentucky, when he came at nightfall to a cabin in a lonely pass. He asked if he might find shelter for the night, and the hospitality of the mountains was at once extended to him. Food and a bed and asylum for man and beast are always freely given by the dwellers in those hillside homes. Lying at full length on the cabin floor and ciphering by the light of blazing pine knots was a boy who seemed absorbed in his occu- pation. On inquiry, it transpired that this lad of fourteen, who had had very little schooling, was working his own way through algebra, patiently tackling every difficulty as he met it, and thus far he had had almost no help. The traveler discovered that the boy had a genuine love for learning; the sort of love that pushes a student on whether he has teachers or not. He was able to give him some suggestions, and after awhile to put him in the way of going to college. That mountain boy became a distinguished profes- sor in a great university, proving himself not only skillful in mathematics, but able to mas- ter other studies in many fields. 48 MATHEMATICS Dorothy, the real value of mathematics for you will be to convince you that whatever other girls have done, a girl like you may do. Also, it may help you to adopt the motto of the wisest of men, " Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." CHAPTER VII HOW TO WRITE day In the early summer, it was my great fortune to be invited to what was called " A Composition Reading " in a girls' school of high character and wide repu- tation. It was a pretty sight that greeted my eyes. The girls of all ages, from ten to eighteen, were dressed in white, and their sweet faces and lovely manners entitled them to be called, if ever girls deserved the name, winsome schoolgirls. The program of the morning included essays in English composition, written by members of every class in the school, from the lowest to the highest. There was great variety both in subjects and in treatment. Full play was given to originality, and no two compositions were alike. The teacher who had charge of the work told me that so 50 HOW TO WRITE far from disliking to write, the girls loved the exercise, and that her classes were the most popular in the curriculum. I don't know how it may seem to you. You may enjoy writing compositions or you may dread and dislike this part of school duty. It depends a good deal on the way one be- gins, whether one likes or dislikes anything. If one is called upon to write a composition on a topic which does not interest her, and which she knows absolutely nothing about, she cannot expect to find much fun or much interest in so dry a task. The important thing is to have something to say. Composi- tion is the art of having something to say, and saying it agreeably, with due regard to the rules of good English. If one wishes to excel in this branch of ed- ucation, one must first of all be willing to take great pains. If I were teaching a group of girls, I would say: Write your theme at the top of your page, then stop and ask yourself what you know about it. If you are to write the story of a journey, go back in memory to the day you started, and 51 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS tell in an orderly fashion the various steps you took, by what train or boat you traveled, what incidents arrested your attention on the way, and how you were impressed when you arrived at your destination. There are people who go through the world as if they had no eyes. They see little, because they do not look. The one who looks around her will find interesting inci- dents in the shortest walk, or drive, or trip by train. In describing a place or a jaunt there is this to be remembered, that you wish to fix the emphasis on the strongest points, and slide over without mention little details that are simply commonplace. For instance, it is not necessary to say that the conductor came through the train and took up the tickets. As everybody knows, conductors always do this. But if you had an experi- ence that I once had, on a leisurely train, in a southern state, when the conductor signaled the engineer while some of the lady passen- gers went out of the cars and gathered flowers by the roadside, you might tell about 52 HOW TO WRITE it. In other words, tell of the unusual, not of the ordinary. If your composition is to be historical, and its central figure is one of the country's men of renown, as, for instance, George Washing- ton, Robert E. Lee, or some other man whose deeds have passed into history, you would best read what you can find about the man and his period. On no account write your composition with the book you have read before you. As you read make notes, if you choose, so that you may be accurate when you mention a place or a date, but put wholly aside before you begin to write the volume you have been consulting. You wish to write your composition in your own words, not in the words of an author whose volumes are in the library. Do not waste time in a long introduction. Begin at the beginning, tell where your hero was born, where he at- tended school, and what happened about the time that he entered public life. This is not difficult in the case of the Father of His Country, and every American girl should 53 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS be so familiar with his life that she can write a creditable composition on George Washing- ton. Perhaps your teacher will ask you to make an abstract of an interesting book which you have lately read. Here, again, ask yourself what pleased you most in the book or the story, and which of the characters was the most entertaining? Try to tell the story briefly, taking from it the important points and omitting much of the conversation and the minor episodes. One of the most prom- inent American authors, a man whose name is famous wherever English is spoken, puts the entire substance of a long novel into three pages of note paper, before he begins to write his book. If an author can do this in com- posing the framework of a novel, a school- girl writing about the book, when she has read it, may learn how to sketch the story the same way. Doing this gives splendid practice in writing English. Your composition may take for its subject an act in one of Shakespeare's plays, or it may weave itself around a text of Scripture, or a 54 HOW TO WRITE sentiment from poetry. Whatever the sub- ject, sit down before it and gaze at it until it takes shape in your mind, and your thoughts begin to answer it, as the key on the piano responds to the touch of your finger. Every schoolgirl should learn how to write a letter. A business letter should be straightforward and lucid, telling precisely what one wants, in the fewest possible words. A letter written to the home people, when one is absent, should be very much like a pleasant bit of talk. It should not take for granted that the absent know all that is go- ing on; it should tell them every trifle. Above all, it should answer any questions they may have put in letters they have sent. In old times there were pet phrases with which people began their letters, such as : "I take my pen in hand to write a few lines," or " Having a half-hour to spare this afternoon, I thought I could not spend it better than in writing to you," etc. These phrases have quite gone out, and are not at all necessary. Begin your letter as you would your compo- sition, at the beginning. Let your letter 55 . HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS represent you. Use the same words you would if you were sitting face to face with your correspondent. No girl will ever excel in writing composi- tions who is not fond of reading good books. The more one reads, the better one will write. As we read, words and sentences form them- selves into part of the furniture of the mind. A good style is gained, not so much by con- stant writing, as by thoughtful reading. Read the books you like. Read books that have to do with what you are studying. Read Tennyson and Shakespeare, and Long- fellow and Emerson. Time spent over good books will be well spent time for girls who long to write cleverly and forcibly. CHAPTER VIII EXAMINATIONS TfXAMINATIONS loom large in school "^^ life, because they are tests of progress. When the school year is at an end, and you look back over its course, as over a journey from one point to another, the examinations stand out in memory like milestones on the road. In some schools there are weekly tests, in others reviews come monthly, and in nearly every school there are half-yearly examinations which very fairly show the work that has been assigned and demonstrate the faithfulness with which it has been done. A student whose work is fairly well per- formed every day, who never brings half- learned lessons to a recitation, who never shirks a task or accepts help, instead of work- ing out problems for herself, need have no dread of examinations. They will take care 57 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS of themselves. But there are girls who have an easy way of slipping through their tasks, who are not at all thorough, nor diligent, and yet who manage to seem prepared when they are just the reverse. I have known such girls, brilliant and superficial, who glanced over their work at the last moment, and hoped for an easy question, or who looked as if they knew so much that the teacher passed them over, and put her query to a duller girl in the next seat. These sketchy girls when examination time comes are obliged to " cram." They spend frantic hours in making up in a hurry what ought to have been at their fingers' ends throughout the term. They possibly pass a written ex- amination, and send in papers that receive high marks. But in the end they will be dis- tanced by other girls who were faithful all through. Girls who are merely clever are like mer- chants who put all their goods in the shop windows, and have nothing on the shelves. Unless we have plenty to draw from besides what we put in front for the public to see, 58 EXAMINATIONS we shall soon find our working capital ex- hausted, and our resources hopelessly crip- pled. I wonder if you understand precisely what I mean? It is so important that a woman should in these days be equipped at every point, for her home life or her business op- portunities, or her profession, whatever it may be, that no girl at school can afford to waste her opportunities. You have been told over and over until the words seem but an idle tale, that you are in life's morning, that these are your best days, and that if you do not make the most of the present, it will never be in your power to retrieve the loss. Half the time you listen to this sort of preaching with bored resignation, when it comes from parents and teachers. But, dear girl, it is true. The mill will never grind again with water that is passed. What you lose to-day you cannot gain to-morrow. The real value of education to girls, is that it is preparing them to take their places in the world, and to make the world better in days to come. A girl who does not make the 59 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS most of her time in school will not only be sorry later on, but will be surpassed by others less clever than herself, but more conscien- tious. Occasionally one meets a very common- place woman who has few ideas, no con- versation, and very little influence. People pass her by without paying attention to any- thing she says, and express surprise when told that she is a graduate of some conspicu- ous college. How she ever managed to se- cure a diploma, may be asked. Well, there may be more than one ex- planation. She may have done her work mechanically, or she may have had a remark- ably good memory, or she may have studied hard for examinations and used up her strength too lavishly. Unless one is de- veloped systematically in brain and heart and body, she will have to take a back seat in the audience when others are on the plat- form, directing the purposes of the assembly. She will be in the rear, and the procession will finally drop her from its ranks. I want to say something to encourage the 60 EXAMINATIONS dull girls, who have to work tremendously for all they secure. In talking one day with a noted educator, a man under whose eyes hundreds of pupils have passed, and who had made a profound study of the possibilities of young people, I was impressed with some- thing he said. It was this : " I am not very much interested in the clever and brilliant girls who toss off their work as if it were a bagatelle. They may be trusted to achieve some good results, unless they depend too much on their native quickness, or they prove failures. A plodding pupil who has to wage a battle for every inch of ground gained, awakens my enthusiasm and stimulates me to offer all the help that is in me. I love to see the triumph of dogged perseverance when difficulties have thickened in the way." Perhaps the point made here by the teacher was to the effect that what we strive for we prize, and also that steady application, with a given object in view, in the long run, is better than swift spurts, with lapses of idle- ness between them. However, we are not all alike. Some of 61 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS you have one method, some another. What- ever else you leave undone, I beg you never to let a day end until you have finished fully the things that belong to that day. The long vacations which we have ought to be put to good use by schoolgirls, partly in view of next year's work, and partly because it is absurd to drop study wholly for one- fourth or one-sixth of the year. The summer holiday is not in the least too long for the teacher, but it is much too long an interval for girls who wish to make the most of the flying years, to spend in entire idleness. Why not take two hours every day and devote them to some earnest study which will keep the mind facile, and help you along another year? Why not get up examination papers of your own? If you like and if you have no conditions, to occupy you before you pass to a higher grade, a good plan may be to take hold of some study that will keep you much out of doors. The woods and fields are full of flowers. The brook and river wave with flags and rushes. Up the hill slopes climb the wild roses, be- 62 EXAMINATIONS side the fence blaze the tiger lilies, over the stone wall riots the vine, and every tree and bush and shrub is a whole school of natural history. There are birds almost without number, there will be moths, beetles, butter- flies, crickets and katydids, squirrels will frisk among the boughs, and chipmunks play hide and seek among the leaves. Do not lose sight of the interesting things that are all about you out of doors. Whether you pass your examinations in school with credit or not, sit down now at Mother Nature's feet and learn of her. Do not be discouraged if you have been sur- passed by somebody else. Do your best, and leave the rest. If at first you don't suc- ceed, try, try again. CHAPTER IX THE UNPOPULAR TEACHER * I V WO bright heads were bent together over the same book. As they reached the last page Susan looked at Penelope and sighed. " There," she said, " that is ended. We shall recite to-morrow to dear Miss M., and then next week will see us in Miss B.'s class- room, and good-by to good times for six months. Every girl who has ever been with Miss B. fairly hates her, unless she happens to be one of her pets. She has pets and they may do anything, but the rest of the class are always getting demerits and being scolded and made to do extra work. I wish I could be Rip Van Winkle and sleep straight through the next grade. Miss W., who has the class higher than Miss B., is a darling. But one can't reach her without having to 64 THE UNPOPULAR TEACHER undergo the misery of the class below." " Aren't you exaggerating? " asked Penel- ope. " I have seen Miss B. a number of times, and she looks harmless. I cannot un- derstand why she is so unpopular. The teachers appear to find her pleasant." " Oh, she is pleasant enough with them and with visiting parents," exclaimed Sue. " It is only her own girls to whom she is a tyrant. You have not lived here very long, but I have gone through this school, from the kindergarten up, and so have my sisters. Lucy and Mildred and their friends have the same opinion that I have. Everybody dreads Miss B." Penelope's dark eyes grew thoughtful. " Well, Sue," she said, " my father has al- ways taught me to value fair play, and it does not look to me like fair play to begin in a new class with one's mind made up that she is going to dislike the teacher. That creates a false situation at the outset. Why should we blindly accept what other people say without waiting to see for ourselves where the truth of the matter lies? Poor 65 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS Miss B. has a hard road to travel, if the girls do not trust her before they have given her the slightest trial. I, for one, shall do my work in the best way I can, and I shall try to love Miss B. and to make her love me." Susan gave her head a toss. " I predict, Penelope, that you will be a favorite," she said, scornfully. " Not at all, but I have a conscience, and I am going to give my teacher the benefit of a chance. I wish you w y ould join me. Per- haps if you and I take the lead, some of the others will follow, and Miss B. for once may have the pleasure of teaching a class of girls who are not determined to misunderstand her intentions and who are not doing what they can to make her work hard. I believe in making my teacher's task easy, if I can. Mother was a teacher before her marriage, and she has told me a good deal about the trials of a teacher's life." Penelope had in her girlish wisdom caught the thread of a clew that had tangled itself and led far back into the years during which the unpopular teacher had occupied her 66 THE UNPOPULAR TEACHER chair. Miss B. was exceptionally well equipped, a student painstaking and pro- found, the graduate of one college and the successful prize-winner in post-graduate work in another, but she lacked the magnetism which in itself makes some women adorable and adored. In truth, she was more and more afraid of the girls she taught; her native diffidence and shyness made her seem stiff and stern; she encrusted herself as diffi- dent people often do in a chain-armor of re- serve. She recoiled from the unspoken criticism of the girls who sat before her, and though she honestly tried she was seldom able to make them feel that she cared for them personally. They supposed that in her view they were so many pegs in a row or pawns on a chessboard, and they resented the impersonality of her near-sighted gaze. Girls are sometimes very heartless, and in- stead of feeling pitiful when occasionally they saw a quiver of pain cross Miss B.'s countenance, such a token of sensitiveness on her part only made them dislike her the more. In her endeavor to be just and to HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS exact the best work of which the class was capable, she often went too far and marked too severely any failure. If right relations are not existent between teacher and schol- ars it is very difficult for either to accomplish much. If a teacher in the depths of her own soul is aware that she is no disciplinarian, she probably makes efforts in the direction where she is weak, and the result is a continual con- flict between her class and herself. The re- sistance may not be open, but it is always ready to break out like a smouldering fire. Nothing on earth is harder to vanquish than a prejudice, and the less reasonable it be the more stubborn it probably is in maintaining its ground. I wish I could persuade girls to imitate Penelope and be fair to the unpopular teacher in whose interest I am holding a brief. She may not be happy and at ease in her home life. In the background there may be an ailing father or mother whose wel- fare is a matter of deep anxiety to her, and whose care robs her of sleep. For instance, 68 THE UNPOPULAR TEACHER I know a teacher rather unpopular in the class room, who for several years lost half of her night's rest in sitting up with and ministering to an invalid sister. There was no one else to take her place, and in conse- quence she brought with her to school an atmosphere of fatigue which made itself felt without her knowledge. Irritability is often born of weariness. Girls generally worship teachers because of little externals that have not very much to do with the teacher's efficiency. A teacher who has lovely eyes and beautiful hair, and the suspicion of a dimple when she smiles, or who wears pretty things and is very at- tractive as to waists and stocks, has a great advantage over her plainer associate, who is indifferent to dress. On the whole, I sympathize with girls in admiring the teacher who is invariably im- maculate and tidy, and who has about her the bright attractiveness of perfect health and the beauty that is typical of womanly goodness. It is our duty whether we are girls in our teens or women beyond them 69 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS always to look as charming and to behave as amiable as we can. But I put it to every one of you. Is it fair to start new work with a new teacher without being at least willing to give her your confidence? Or if you are already in a class and do not like your teacher, is it never worth while to be honest and candid and inquire if you are not just a little bit to blame for the state of things yourselves? In this world a lot of trouble springs from misunderstandings that might as well never come to the front, and people who should be good friends stand aloof and never get acquainted because they let a trifling and non- essential thing keep them apart. A very thoughtful writer has said that in every human soul there is an innermost room, and that if we could discover it we should learn secrets that we never find out when we are only in the outer courts. This may be too philosophical for you, dear girls, but I want you to believe that there is something very sweet about the most unpopular teacher 70 THE UNPOPULAR TEACHER you have ever had, if you will take pains to search for it. " There 's so much good in the worst of us, And so much bad in the best of us, That it ill behooves any of us To talk about the rest of us." CHAPTER X THE CARE OF SCHOOLBOOKS T AM about to confess to you a little w ness of mine. I cannot endure a t that is covered either with a loose paper tection, or a tightly fitting extra garb of fabric whatever. When a new book cc into my hands the first thing I do, unle expect to lend it, is to throw away the pi outside covering, which in these days lishers put on new books to keep them cl If I think that I shall have occasion to the book after awhile to a friend, or to a neighbor, or perhaps to one of you, to wl I am writing, I take pains to preserve portable cover, and I slip it on before the t leaves my possession. I hope you love your books as I mine, and care for them as I do. I joy the beauty of fair type, fine paper, 72 CARE OF SCHOOLBOOKS choice illustrations, and I have a great regard for a beautiful binding. I never hold a book in hands that are soiled, or leave it face downward and open on a chair or table, or hand it over to a child that it may keep the child quiet. I have lent books before now to very dear friends, and have had them returned in such a condition of loosened leaves, spotted pages, stained bindings and degenerate condition generally, that I have at once thrown them into the fire and bought others. One may really wish to share the pleasure a book gives her with some one she is fond of, and still may hesitate if she is aware that her friend has never learned to treat a book with re- spect for its worth, and regard for its cost. Take your schoolbooks, for instance. They are really charming books. From the mechanical point of view a good many peo- ple have invested time, thought, learning and skill, in their making. In the first place the author spent laborious months and years in mastering the subject of the school text- books, and he toiled over it that he might 73 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS condense a great deal of information into concrete and compact statement, making it so simple, so lucid and so clear, that the be- ginner in science or literature could compre- hend it in a daily task. You may fancy that it is easy to write definitions and formulas and rules. But in reality, nothing in literature is so hard. More brains and more conscience and more labor go into the production of a standard schoolbook than into the writing of an epic poem or a three-volumed novel. I saw Rosamond in a fit of vexation toss her arithmetic across the room, to the detri- ment of the poor book, and I felt a queer little throb of pity for the man who had made that arithmetic. A set of reading books into which have gone specimens of the best English literature, culled from many fields, is a treasure well worth a schoolgirl's nicest care. Cover your book, if you like, if it is the custom of your school and the teachers insist on your doing so, but use the books so well that if they are not covered they may be 74 CARE OF SCHOOLBOOKS passed on to other classes or to younger chil- dren, without having suffered harm. Besides the authors who are the creators, so to speak, of our books, there are the pub- lishers and the printers and the paper-makers and the artists and the people who finally sell the books, all of whom have their separate fingers in the pie, before it is ready to slip into your hands. When a book is your own, where do you keep it? I hope if you have your own room that one portion of its furnishings includes a bookshelf. When you have done with a book, put it in its place. There are girls who never have a place for anything; one of them once paid me a visit, and from the moment she crossed my threshold until the day she kissed me good-by and went merrily away, chaos followed in her track. She left her things all over the house, and kept her room looking as if it had been swept by a cyclone, and as for books, she had not the faintest notion of their dignity. I finally took the precaution of hiding away one or two of these that I most prized, lest Estelle 75 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS should ruin them altogether before she de- parted. I do hope that you have been bet- ter started on the road than had been the fortune of this poor child, who was a dear notwithstanding her heedless ways. Few girls stop to think that they have a gold mine in their school text-books. They know that they must devote time and atten- tion to them, and that they are the stepping stones to culture. A girl would be very stupid who did not appreciate this. Beyond this, too, schoolbooks possess something of the value that other reference books do in a library. After you have left school you may some day be in company with a traveler or an explorer who has seen strange things in the heart of Africa or has ventured into distant regions in another zone. You can converse with him more intelligently and get more profit from his fascinating talk than would otherwise be possible, if you have at your hand a school geography and an atlas. You may be reading the daily paper, and there you may find that war is threatened with a foreign country. You will turn to 76 CARE OF SCHOOLBOOKS your school history and learn in a few mo- ments something about that country, and its relations with the rest of the globe. You will go back to the newspaper with far greater zest. The advantage of the schoolbook over other books is that as I have already said, it is condensed and clear and it omits superfluous comment on the part of its au- thor and confines itself to actual facts. Of course you are interested in the study of nature. You have the latest botany and the latest zoology among your books. You will find them helpful after awhile as side- lights on a large and delightful class of books, that will tempt you in spring and summer excursions out of doors, either to the zoological gardens to inspect strange animals and reptiles, or to the wide fields to gather flowers and woo from Nature herself the story of her exquisite secrets. Be careful of your books. To take ad- mirable care of books, so far as the outside is concerned, is the hall-mark of a lady. To know a good deal about the inside of books, to reverence them as they deserve, and to 77 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS prize them as the finest treasures money can buy, are also hall-marks of those who belong to the best classes in civilization. CHAPTER XI THE SCHOOLGIRL'S LUNCHEON T IFE is about equally composed of poetry and prose, when one is anywhere from thirteen to eighteen. The prose is the foundation, and the poetry is the top-dress- ing. No matter how fond a girl may be of fairy stories and romance, she must have her three meals a day, and bring a good appetite to every one of them, or she will presently pine away and turn into a vanishing heroine in her own person. I am writing for healthy, happy girls, who have bright eyes and a good color, who play basket-ball and tennis, and who have well- developed muscles, as well as clever brains. Don't fancy for a single moment, dear girl, that you can cultivate the mind at the expense of the body, or the body at the ex- pense of the mind, without committing an 79 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS act of folly. Girls who blunder in that way, while they are at school, are sorry in years to come. Your chief duty just now is to store up a good stock of health for future days, and if you are not wholesomely hungry at proper times and seasons, something is very wrong in the conduct of your life. *f Fatal to good appetite and good digestion, sure to invite dyspepsia, is the schoolgirl habit of nibbling biscuits and cakes, of munch- ing nuts and maple sugar, and of stuffing with sweets and candies. The caramels, the fudge, the chocolates, the marshmal- lows, the other bonbons, which look so inviting, and which while away so many dol- lars from the schoolgirl's little purse, in the common course of a twelvemonth, undermine her relish for good roast beef and vegetables, and hinder her from eating food that fur- nishes healthful blood to the system. Can- dies and sweets should be used as dessert, and, if pure, will do no harm, although eaten freely. Nature's craving for sugar cannot be denied to advantage. But let sugar and 80 THE LUNCHEON spice and all that is nice, come after, not be- fore, a solid meal. Breakfast, for a schoolgirl, should con- sist of fruit, cereal, toast or bread, and eggs or beefsteak, if she like either in the morn- ing. Milk is her preferable drink. Coffee and tea are not for girls in their teens. Plenty of cold water at meals and between them is hygienic. Some girls are so fortunate that they can go home at noon, thus securing a walk in the fresh air, and a warm repast at the mother's own table. This is ideal. Perhaps the next best arrangement is made when places are secured for girls at a board- ing-house table near their school. If the school has a luncheon-counter, and girls patronize it, they may have a choice of wholesome, well-prepared food, including a hot soup, which is very desirable. But many girls find the better plan to be that of a dainty luncheon brought from home. Mother or sister should, if possible, pack the pretty box or basket in which Dorothy 81 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS carries her luncheon. Then Dorothy may be surprised when she opens it. Sandwiches, delicately thin, with every particle of crust trimmed away, made of brown bread or white bread, or both, but- tered and pressed together, are very good. They may have as a filling, cream cheese, or minced chicken, or potted ham, or peanut paste, or sardines, or lettuce, or jam or jelly. Different kinds for different days is my rule. Wrap them closely in waxed paper. Olives, a pickle, a new-boiled egg, a wedge of cake, carefully wrapped, a bit of gingerbread, a pear, a peach, a custard browned nicely in its cup, finish an attractive luncheon. Nothing coarse, or messy, or sticky, should be so much as tolerated in a luncheon which a girl is to eat, after a morning's tussle with algebra, physics and English grammar. When our Dorothy becomes indifferent to her luncheon, it is time to ask the doctor if we wouldn't do well to take her out of school. For a schoolgirl ought to care about what she eats. She ought to be hungry. She is 82 THE LUNCHEON growing, and growing creatures require to be fed and nourished. At our foremost women's colleges abund- ant and excellent provision is made in the way of food. A large basket of thin crack- ers, and a great pitcher of milk, in some re- fectories, is always set out for the girl who may happen to feel faint about eleven o'clock. A girl whose breakfast appetite is slender and uncertain may be aware of a vacuum about that hour, and she does better work after recess, if she has had a glass of milk and a biscuit. A girl, if she live, will have plenty of time to finish her school education. But she has only the fast-flying teens in which to build herself up to rich and wholesome and beau- tiful womanhood. It does not matter so much whether she shall be graduated from the high school in February, or in June of this, or of any other year, but it does matter that she shall have vigor and good spirits and poise and gladness, and few aches or pains in the years of a long life. 83 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS Poetry and prose go hand in hand in a girl's days; the poetry of her father's praises and her mother's kisses, of good times with her friends, of happy day-dreams. The prose of three meals a day, of long, restful sleep at night, or long walks in crisp weather, of vigorous, athletic health, must underlie the poetry. Once, long ago, the ideal girl was fragile, and pallid, and had swoons and headaches. It is wicked that a girl should have head- aches. She has no business with them, nor with " malaise " of any sort. She should be well; not half-ill; and if she and her teach- ers and her mother all pull together, she will be well, assuredly. An ill-ventilated schoolroom may destroy a girl's appetite for her luncheon. In all weathers a run outdoors is a good prelim- inary to luncheon. Try it, if you are in- clined to fasting when you should be feasting. 84 CHAPTER XII pENELOPE came in with a frown on her brow. Her pretty face was puckered. Her mouth drooped at the corners, and she had almost the effect of being in a very bad temper. Penelope is one of my greatest favorites, and I was sorry to see that with her the wind was in the east. " What on earth has gone wrong, my dear?" I said, anxiously. ' With whom are you vexed, and why are you out of sorts? Have you lost your purse, or your place in the class, or fallen out with your chum, or are you con- vinced that you never will conquer irregular verbs, or what is the matter? " " The matter," said Penelope, " is my monthly report. I am awfully disturbed about it, and ashamed to show it at home, and I am angry at Miss , who might have 85 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS made it a great deal better if only she had chosen, but I am not one of her pets. I have had good marks in French and in astronomy, in algebra and geometry, some days, any- way, if not every day, and here I am marked B and C and C minus, and I have not a single A in the whole month. My teacher handed me this very reprovingly, and said that such a report was as great a mortifica- tion to her as it could possibly be to me, and she trusted I would do better another month, and not have to take such a record home again. " ' Possibly, Penelope,' she said, ' you are graded too high and would better drop some of your work and fall back into a lower class.' Do you wonder," stormed Penelope, "that I am furious? Who wouldn't be?" " I hardly see, dear child," I answered, " why you should be furious, as you call it, although I think your unfortunate teacher has every right to be indignant. What is the reason that you have done so badly? The work is not too much for you, your health is perfect, and you ought to be at the 86 GETTING STARTED head of your class, bringing home reports sprinkled all over with A's, like stars in the sky or daisies in a meadow in June. You must be shockingly careless, or you would get on in school as well as anyone else. Where is the loose plank? Something is wrong in your way of working. If we could find out just what it is and where it is we might mend it. Don't you think so? " ' You are very cross," said Penelope, " and not a single bit sympathetic, and I wish I hadn't come. But maybe I might get on, as you call it, a little better if it wasn't such hard work to start in the morning. I am so sleepy that I cannot wake up when I am called; then I have to scramble through dressing and breakfast and fairly fly to reach school in time. Very often when there I find that I have forgotten a book that I need, or my pads and pencils, and I am so upset that it takes me almost an hour to feel quiet and composed. My day somehow runs off the track every morning and does not get back until the afternoon." By this time Penelope's scowl had van- 8? HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS ished and she dimpled and blushed and finally laughed,, like the sweet, good-tempered girl she is. 1 You dear," I said. " You have put your finger right on the weak spot. Your whole trouble comes from not beginning the day aright." So many schoolgirls have exactly the same trouble that I wonder very much why it is that their mothers and teachers do not help them out of it, and that their own good sense does not come to the rescue. The truth is that a successful day for a schoolgirl begins at nine o'clock the night be- fore. At that hour she should say good night to everybody and go to bed. If she has had dinner early and feels a bit hungry, it will do her no harm to take a very simple luncheon of bread and milk before she goes to her room. Then without undue delay, she should go to bed and to sleep. It is the wretched habit of sitting up until half- past ten or eleven in a warm room, with the family talking, singing, playing games or the 88 GETTING STARTED piano, or perhaps studying too late, that makes girls drowsy in the morning. Sleeping in an ill-ventilated room helps along. ' Be very sure that you have fresh air to breathe while you are asleep, and protect yourself against cold if necessary, by wear- ing a garment of outing flannel or of some woolen stuff instead of too thin a night dress. If a girl goes early to bed and sleeps soundly all night, she will be able to rise as soon as she is called. Haste in the morning upsets one terribly, and literally pursues one like a fiend all the rest of the day. Rise in time to take a sponge bath from head to foot, to arrange your hair, and to have a few tranquil moments for devotion. Eat your breakfast slowly, gather your books and papers with deliberation and set off to school with a light heart. Hurry and worry devour one's ease of mind and make it im- possible for one to do justice to her own powers. I think I can tell in looking around any group of girls which of them are in the habit 89 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS of beginning the day in this leisurely and sen- sible manner, and which tumble out of bed and into their clothes and lose their wits and their tempers before they have attacked the day's business. An ancient philosopher once said that there was everything in keeping an even mind. Those of us who have a good deal to do in the course of a day or a week, are well aware that we accomplish nothing if we lose our heads and rush where we should instead go slowly. So great a thinker as Francis Bacon, who was a very learned man, said in an essay on dispatch that " above all things order and distribution and singling out of parts is the life of dispatch. For he that doth not di- vide will never enter well into business. To choose time is to save time, and an unseason- able motion is but beating the air. I knew a wise man that had it for a by-word when he saw men hastening to a conclusion, stay a little that we may make an end the sooner." If so great a man as Sir Francis Bacon thought it well to act with deliberation and 90 GETTING STARTED map out his days with forethought, do you not think that schoolgirls like Penelope and her friends may as well do the same? There is great comfort in doing our best and leaving the rest. As Longfellow says, pithily : " Trust no future, howe'er pleasant, Let the dead past bury its dead ; Act, act in the living present, Heart within and God o'erhead." CHAPTER XIII HOME DUTIES A GOOD deal of selfishness, I am sorry to say, is shown by girls who seem to think that going to school excuses them from helping their mothers or in any way lending a hand at home. I quite understand that school life makes a great many demands and that a girl, in order to keep up with her class and maintain a high average, cannot afford very much time for social affairs, as her studies must always come first. Nevertheless, if a girl's mother needs help with the younger children or with the housework, the good daughter will not refrain from giving it and will do so not in the spirit of a martyr nor grudgingly, but with a cheery brightness and a good will that will make her the home sunbeam. Lest some dear girl may fancy that she 92 HOME DUTIES cannot wash dishes and make beds and oc- casionally stir up a pudding and fill lamps and dust living rooms, and still do her class- work creditably, let me tell two little true stories. One is that of a girl who, when a mere little maid of seven was left an orphan. Her home was in a New England village, well up toward the Canada line. Father and mother were dead. She had neither broth- ers nor sisters, and with dismay she heard the relative with whom she lived talking about the necessity of placing her in an asylum. Without a word to anyone, the child walked to the largest mansion in the place, knocked at the door and asked the lady of the house if she might not come and stay with her and work out of school hours. The lady looked in amazement at the enter- prising little applicant and said, doubtfully, "What can you do?" The child replied, without hesitation, " I can do anything that I am told and that I can reach." She held her little head up with confidence and hope. The lady could not say no to the little 93 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS pleader. She was taken into the home and sent to school. She worked her way into the affections of the household by her quickness and affectionate docility; she went steadily on through primary, grammar and high school, and finally paid her way by her own work through one of the finest of our east- ern colleges for women. That little girl is to-day a successful teacher, and a woman of far-reaching influence. Another girl whom I know well is a stu- dent in a college where the standard is ex- ceptionally high and she, having won a schol- arship by brilliant attainments, is paying for her board in a home near the college by the work she does in the mornings and evenings. Mothers are often very ready to save their daughters trouble. No matter how tired the mother may be, she says nothing about it. Her deft hands make the dainty frocks her daughters wear, her willing hands often iron the shirt waists and the stocks, and even mend the gloves and sew buttons on the shoes of the young girls who go out looking so trim and flower-like in their sweetness and their 94 HOME DUTIES beauty. Let me tell you, girls, there may come a day when you will sadly miss all the mother love and the mother petting, when you will wish, perhaps too late, that you had been more considerate and less self-absorbed. A girl has out-of-school duties to her father, as well as her mother. Fathers toil early and late. Some of them get very little good of their homes except on Sunday, that blessed rest-day which comes once a week to give freedom from business and opportunity for loving companionship in the household. When your father comes in at night fagged and weary with the long day, his heart warms and his face lights up with a smile if his daughter is ready to welcome him, to give him the easiest chair and to entertain him with her story of the day. The bond be- tween fathers and daughters is very close and tender, and a father is often chivalrous and lover-like in his devotion to the sweet girl who reminds him of her mother as she was in courting days. Do not be so busy, so anxious about your own friends and your own little concerns, that you have no leisure 95 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS to bestow upon your father. I trust that no little perplexity of your school life ever makes you cross or fretful at home. Per- plexities are bound to come, but the thing to do is to trample them under our feet and meet them with a smile and not with a frown. A girl I knew was very affectionate and even demonstrative in her manner toward her parents. She never failed to say " Good night, mother, dear," or " Good morning, father, dear," at the right moment, and I am sure she was always ready with a kiss and a smile just when these were expected. But she never dreamed of helping to get supper on the day the maid was out. On that afternoon she was usually engaged in writing a composition or drawing a par- ticularly difficult map. She never offered to dress the little sister in the morning, or to amuse the teething baby. If she set her heart upon having a new hat or jacket, or a set of furs, or any somewhat expensive ar- ticle of dress, she teased her father until his pocketbook opened, and he gave her what she asked for. It was nothing to her that 96 HOME DUTIES he should go shabbily attired or wear a threadbare overcoat, so long as she was able to vie in appearance with the richest girl in her class. Girls do not transgress in this way of set purpose. Most of the wrong things they do are done from want of thought. They are so accustomed to being put in the fore- ground and having the way made smooth for them that they accept as their right what is freely showered upon them from the fathom- less love of the parental heart. An out-of-school duty that should not be neglected is to keep your books and your clothing and everything that has to do with school where you can easily find them in the morning. In some houses there is no quiet until Dorothy and Jean are fairly down the street and out of sight. So long as they are on the block there is the probability that they will come flying back, looking in frantic haste for a missing grammar or an exercise or something that they ought to have had in place before they went to bed the night be- fore. A good rule is to be entirely ready for 97 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS the morning before you lay your head upon your pillow. All through your life it will be a good thing for you to keep in advance of your work. Never let your work hurry you, but get it done long enough beforehand to feel that you have a margin of time for any other thing that may arise. You can do this by observing a little system. The person who has system not only has a place for every- thing and has everything in its place, but has a time for everything and does every- thing in its time. If you have undertaken out of school to help another girl with her lessons, or if you are one of those girls to whom people come when they want something done in the line of church work, you will need to guard your promises. There are girls who are always ready to promise anything they are asked, but who are very disappointing indeed when it comes to performing what they have pledged. Remember that for you, next to school duties, just now come home duties, and last of all come the duties that lie out- 98 HOME DUTIES side and beyond the home. If you bear this in mind, you will not get duties tangled up. The truth is they never conflict, if managed aright. 99 CHAPTER XIV THE ART OF COOKING T WONDER if you girls read Ruskin? Of course you know that John Rus- kin was a great critic and essayist, the close friend of several great artists and as well the friend and champion of working men. Be- sides all this Mr. Ruskin wrote books which are models of good and beautiful English, so that no class in English literature can af- ford to neglect a study of his graceful and vigorous style. In one of his books, " Ses- ame and Lilies," Mr. Ruskin devotes a good deal of attention to young girls and gives them in his charming way no little ex- cellent advice. He says among other things that a girl's work, her mission in life, is to please people and to feed them in dainty ways. 100 THE ART OF COOKING You are pretty sure to please people if you set before them the things they like to eat served in a manner that tempts appetite. No young girl can be considered well edu- cated who does not know how to cook. I have been told that cooks are born and not made, but I do not believe a bit of it. Any girl with a clever brain and two hands may learn how to make everything that is needed in an ordinary meal and every girl who attends a cooking class will tell you that the art of cooking includes no end of fun. To cook admirably and to waste no good ma- terial is n, real feminine accomplishment. " That young girl writes a good composi- tion," I once heard a man say, " but does she know how to broil a beef steak? " I could have told him that the girl who could write and speak correctly and who stood highest in her classes was far more likely to be an adept in broiling and baking and preparing a salad or a pudding than her stupid neigh- bor who never set her mind on gaining in- tellectual culture. Whoever cultivates her 101 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS brain most carefully will likewise excel when she tries manual training and will show the best results as an all-around girl. I take it for granted that most young girls would like to know how to cook. A few years ago I would have been sure that all girls desired to know everything they could about this useful and necessary art of woman's work. But I found in connection with classes in social settlements that girls who had been working hard all day in shops and factories did not take much interest in the evening in a chafing dish or a stove or anything connected with the kitchen. They told me that they were too tired to enjoy this sort of work, and that it was a greater rest and refreshment to them to take up studies connected with books, or to do something which would help them in making their clothes. I am writing for schoolgirls, and I feel quite sure that they sometimes enjoy drop- ping their books and taking hold of one of the most practical employments in life. When you think of it, nothing is more prac- 102 THE ART OF COOKING tical than the proper preparation of daily food. What to eat, how to cook it and how to serve it are departments which no woman can afford to neglect. Ill-cooked and ill-chosen food causes indi- gestion, ill-temper and ill-health. A great deal of food in this dear country of ours is ruined in the cooking. With the finest mar- kets in the world, with plenty of everything brought to our doors, we waste and destroy and throw away food which in other coun- tries where people are more economical is used to the best advantage, and then we won- der why we continue poor. We might as well wonder why we are often plain when we might be beautiful and cross when we might be amiable and out of spirits when we should be calm and tranquil. Our foolish extravagance and inexcusable ignorance are at the bottom of most of the mischief. Of course every girl wants to be attrac- tive in appearance, to have bright eyes, a smooth skin, and a look of vitality. No girl will be beautiful or have anything else than a sallow skin, ugly pimples and dull eyes, if 103 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS she habitually eats poorly cooked food. There is, for instance, a widespread preju- dice against hot biscuits and coffee. Soggy biscuits and muddy coffee are enough to poison whoever touches them, but when bis- cuits are light as puffs, and coffee is clear as amber, both are innocuous to people in health. Every girl should learn how to make light biscuits and clear coffee, and this part of her education is just as important as her arith- metic, her grammar, her French, her Ger- man, her geometry or any one of the numer- ous branches in science which now occupy the attention of girls. The best cooking school any girl can have is her mother's kitchen, provided her mother knows how to cook. Nothing else equals the opportunity one has just there. Three meals a day are set upon the table in most houses. The father comes home tired after a day's work, the growing boys are always hungry, and the children may be depended upon to eat their share. It does not seem as if it would take a great deal of skill to make an appetizing plate of toast and a really good 104 THE ART OF COOKING cup of tea for mother when she has a head- ache, yet I know any number of girls whose toast is a scorched, messy looking affair, and whose tea is not fit to drink. A girl at home should take pains about these simple everyday things. She should learn how to broil steak and chops, how to cook potatoes in many delicious ways, how to prepare salads in a variety which is legion. Little by little, if a girl is interested, she may acquire the art of cooking well at home, and especially she should learn how to make a good loaf of bread. Dear girls, believe me that until you have really tried to do this you do not know what an accomplishment it is, and how much care and trouble must be taken before you can know the right quantity of flour and the right quantity of yeast and the length of time to be spent in kneading the bread and in letting it rise, nor have you the least idea about the temperature of the oven. In the south, where bread is made in perfection, I have known the cook to go downstairs in the middle of the night that she might see how 105 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS her bread was coming on. This is not neces- sary, and yet bread will not brook neglect. It must be carefully watched and every step of the process must receive intelligent care. Good cooking demands as much thought as any other good thing in the universe. An artist cannot paint a picture, nor, for that matter, can a house painter decorate a house, without taking pains. As much thought and skill and dexterity go into a loaf of bread as into the molding of a statue or the weaving of tapestry or the writing of poetry. Whatever else may be slighted, bread requires conformity to rule. You have heard old-fashioned housekeepers de- clare that they were independent of rules, that they made things by using their judg- ment, and truly to look at them as they work one would think this so; a pinch of one thing, a sprinkle of another, a handful of a third, a few ingredients airily tossed together, a few magical passes, and out comes the souffle or the pudding or the dumpling light as foam, browned to perfection, with the deli- cate flavor that a chef might envy. But these 1 06 THE ART OF COOKING good cooks, although they do not own it, probably automatically adhere to rules. There is some rule that they observe, and following this they act with a precision which does not need weighing and measuring. Most of us get on better if we keep to the rule. A good cookbook with plain direc- tions, absolutely followed, is a friend worth having in the house. There is fun in studying cooking in a class. A half-dozen girls get more pleasure out of the work than a single girl can when studying by herself. Additional pleasure comes from eating what has been cooked, at the close of the lesson. There is a great deal of pleasure, too, in issuing invitations to honored guests at the end of a season, sur- prising them with a fine dinner or a dainty supper served in a style of which any caterer might be proud. The advantage of cooking schools for girls is largely found in the fact that the girls there learn a good deal of the chemistry of cook- ing. They are told the why and the where- fore. They not only acquire deftness of 107 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS touch, but they learn which dishes may be served together, and how to make the most of small portions. The success of a meal depends on good catering, on serving the right things, in the right order, at the right time. Good housekeeping means a wise and discreet selection of provisions. Each young girl should learn how to market, how to cater and how to cook and then when she grows up she will be her mother's capable helper, and should she marry she will make a good wife, either for a poor man or a rich man, just as it happens. 108 CHAPTER XV SKILLFUL HANDS /^\F all wonderful things on earth the hand is surpassing and superlative in beauty and capability. Look at it. Four fingers and a thumb, an open palm; what other in- strument is there so pliant, so flexible, so obedient to its owner's will? Then, girls, as if one hand were not enough, each of us has two. To tell the truth, w r e do not make half the use we ought of the poor left hand, which is treated like an orphan child whose education is neglected, while everything is lavished on the much prized right hand. The fact is we all ought to be able to use both hands impartially, to be as deft and clever in the use of the left hand as in that of the right. One sign of a good brain is a sure, safe and accurate method of using the hands. 109 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS You may fancy that it is very important for you to learn a good deal of science, ever so much history, and ever so much arithmetic. But, after all, it is just as important that you should know how to do things well, swiftly, thoroughly and easily with the hands. You don't want to be awkward and clumsy in using fingers and thumb. People who are skillful in the use of their hands are very seldom lacking in efficiency in other things. Every girl used to be taught to do plain needlework beautifully by hand. Before the days of sewing machines no young girl would have been considered either well educated or accomplished who did not know how to make her own garments with dainty neatness, who could not darn stockings nicely, and who was unskilled in the art of setting in a patch and making old linen last after it had begun to break here and there in thin places. I think myself that to do plain hand sewing with elegance is a finer accomplishment than to embroider beautifully. Yet to be sure, embroidery is the poetry of the needle. I have seen in some homes no SKILLFUL HANDS pieces of artistic embroidery which are fit to be handed down as heirlooms, or to find a permanent place in some museum of art. They are marvels of exquisite shading and coloring and resemble the most beautiful specimens of work with the brush. I think I hear Dorothy remarking to Gladys that for her part she does not like sewing and never did; that she has heard her mother say there is no economy in making clothes at home, when they may be bought at reasonable rates in the shops, and that she for one does not mean to be coaxed and hum- bugged into sitting down with a needle when she would much rather be doing something else. Very well, Dorothy, you have the privilege of candor, but just listen to me, my dear. If any one of you girls is conscious of a pronounced, decided and strenuous aversion to the manual training which you can get by learning the womanly art of sewing, then I advise you for your own sake to conquer the aversion long enough to learn what you don't like. I have said this before in another con- iii HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS nection. I now repeat that nothing is better for a girl in the line of mental discipline than resolutely to undertake and diligently to carry through some undertaking which does not much appeal to her. Every one of us is stronger if now and then she climbs up some hill of difficulty and seats herself comfortably on the top to view the landscape o'er. Math- ematics or needlework, either will do, if we conquer our laziness. As for other manual training, you girls should learn to handle tools. A well equipped tool chest is as valuable a possession to a girl as to a boy. As things now are, thousands of young women after they grow up will have homes of their own, in which they will live and reign in quite contented spinsterhood. Perhaps you will be stenographers, artists or newspaper women, by and by, living in pleas- ant companionship with other women like yourselves, without even a brother or a cousin to help you along. There are times when a man in the house is a great comfort, but if there should not be a convenient masculine relative within call, a girl who can use a ham- 112 SKILLFUL HANDS mer, a saw and screw driver, who can open boxes that come by express, and nail boxes up, who can mend something that is broken and do her own household tinkering without outside aid, will be a very independent girl. The manual training class is supposed not so much to enable you to do marvelous things in school, as to fit you for taking good care of yourself in practical ways later in life. I am disposed to include under the head of manual training some things that most girls find very pleasant. Why should not a schoolgirl be taught to drive, to ride, to row and to reef a sail? All the outdoor life in which the hands play a part is better carried on by a young woman whose hands have been trained, than by one who has given exclusive attention to her mind and very little to her body. If I were you I would care a good deal about the beauty of the hands. They should be well kept, but not so well kept that their owners do no useful work. For instance, there is washing the dishes a homely task which is seldom properly done except by a HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS lady. Of course, you and I take pride in the possession of beautiful china. In a New England farmhouse that I know there are in- tact, not a piece broken, a cup nicked, a plat- ter chipped, or any damage done anywhere, two sets of ancestral china. The china was brought from England in the early days of the Massachusetts colony, and it has been handed down from mother to daughter in an unbroken line ever since. " How have you managed to keep your dishes from wreckage? " I once asked. ' These dishes," I was told, " have never been trusted to anyone out of the family. They have been uniformly taken care of by gentlewomen." I am not sure that dishwashing ought not to be set in the place of honor in the manual training of girls. Rightly regarded it is feminine work of the finest description. One may perform a great deal of housework and still keep her hands soft and white, if she will be careful not to plunge them into hot water when she may as well use a mop, and if she will protect them by rubber gloves 114 SKILLFUL HANDS when doing tasks which would make them red and rough. One word more, a beautiful hand is not improved by an excessive number of rings. Schoolgirls do not wear much jewelry, nor should they. But as you grow older and leave the schoolroom behind, there may come the desire and perhaps the temptation to wear a good deal of ornament. Do not spoil a pretty hand by too many gems. The taste is barbaric. Take pains with the nails, which are the finishing touches of the fingers, and whatever else you forget never omit that language of the cordial handclasp, which sig- nifies sincerity and a true heart. CHAPTER XVI MUSIC / TT V HE plain truth is that to study music * is not the grind it used to be. Pris- cilla, daughter of Phyllis, approaches the piano by the scientific modern method, and by easy gradations. Phyllis used to be driven to her practicing, and it was the bug- bear of her life. With a watch by her side, or an eye on the clock, she sat on the backless music stool, and pounded away, putting her little foot on the loud pedal, that the noise might be deeper, counting one, two, three, four, five, over and over, till she went on like an automaton, fingers strumming, voice mark- ing time, and loathing it all the while. Very severe teachers thumped little hands if they made mistakes. Very rigid mothers exacted the full tale of half hours and whole hours, and scolded the luckless girl who lingered on 116 MUSIC the way from school and was tardy in her duty to her piano. As for the neighbors, they hated it, too. Nothing was more torturing to sensitive ears than the dreary repetition of five finger exer- cises, to the right, to the left; for every house had its piano, and every family with daugh- ters had several of them drilling at one and the same time. " I would rather study astronomy," said Phyllis, pouting, when her mother told her that her music lessons were to begin " next Monday." " Astronomy," replied the mother, " is a mere amusement. Music is a necessity in education." Phyllis had no taste for it, but that made no difference. We have learned a better way, as well as adopted a better method, and Priscilla of the golden braid is the gainer. Her mother, Phyllis, looks on in pleased appreciation when she finds that before ever she touches the keyboard she is taught the value of dif- ferent notes, is trained to read at sight, 117 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS and is introduced intelligently to the first principles of an exact science, which was for- merly to every beginner a chaos or a laby- rinth without meaning or clue. Twenty lessons or thirty may be given before the keys that answer to the score are sounded by anyone except the teacher. Eye, ear and brain are trained before the training of wrist and fingers is attempted. A good deal of instruction is given about music it- self, and about the masters of music, the great creators and artists, who were inter- preters of the soul that slumbers in the silent instrument and awaits a musician to awaken it. Priscilla's mother was expected to play a piece by the end of the first quarter. Any jingling tune would do, but if the tune were not forthcoming papa shook his head. His money was being wasted. A girl who could not play " Home, Sweet Home," or " Mon- astery Bells," with variations, by the end of the second quarter was pointed out as a dunce. Many girls had only a twelvemonth's les- 118 MUSIC sons allowed them. After that they were expected to go and play pieces galore. Priscilla will probably go on with her les- sons for eight or ten years, and, if fortunate, may study at some great musical center abroad, Stuttgart, Munich, Berlin or Vienna. She will not only play, but will know good playing when she hears it, and will enjoy the best music. A source of unfailing and ex- quisite pleasure will be opened in her life. She need never let her sense of enjoyment wane. She may lose facility in making music for other people, but she need never lose the delight that comes from a thorough under- standing when one listens to an orchestra or a single performer. Organ, violin, piano, bugle, cornet, mandolin, harp, each and all will bestow on her a rare felicity. But Priscilla, my dear, there was one ad- vantage the girl of other days had that you have let slip away. She was ready to play when she was asked. Friends called, and mamma sent for her daughter to help enter- tain them. Papa was tired. He threw him- self back in his big armchair and put his feet 119 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS on the fender, and the lines smoothed out of his forehead, the pucker faded from between his eyes, for Phyllis played her latest piece, and over the heart of the weary man crept a realization of divine comfort; he was at home, the spirit of household peace was there, and Phyllis was the pride of his eyes, and the ful- fillment of his dreams. She played, and father and mother sang, and the hour was a waft from paradise. May I advise you girls who with Priscilla are studying in a class, which is a splendid way to study, that every girl of you should learn to play accompaniments? For this you need precision and accuracy, and sym- pathy and phrasing, for the successful ac- companist sustains the singer, but does not overshadow her. Learn to accompany your brother on the violin. Have concerts at home. Keep in practice, so that you need not always offer the excuse that you are out of it, when an old-fashioned friend asks you for a little music. Cultivate memory. It is a great pity to be in bondage to your notes. Have your fingers so trained that the four- 120 MUSIC and-twenty white slaves, the four-and-twenty black, on the piano shall obey the slightest call those magical fingers make on them. Music does something for us in mental discipline that nothing else, except mathe- matics, can do so thoroughly. It demands and obtains close attention and swift obe- dience. We must be accurate. We must be all there, not half on the playground, or half in Japan, when we are studying. Theory or practice, whatever we attack in music, we must, unless we have exceptional genius, give our whole selves to it. To be an accomplished musician you must work, and you cannot quite avoid the drudgery, but the drudgery will not be a hardship as it used to be to Phyllis. The thorny path, though shorn of much of its ter- ror now, still leads to glory in this field. There is a familiar proverb to the effect that the game is not always worth the candle. You never need be afraid, if the game for you means studying something that obliges you to do a daily task and that suffers if you stop for a day, that it will not be worth a half 121 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS dozen candles. A wise man once said: " Nothing can stand before a day's work." This is true everywhere. It is particularly true in this realm that we have been talking about. 122 CHAPTER XVII THE SCHOOLGIRL'S ROOM 1VTOT long ago I had the pleasure of vis- iting several schools for girls, schools in which the students represented nearly all the states in the Union. They were veri- table rosebud gardens of girls. Seldom have I seen so many pretty maids together as in these institutions where young women in the sweet flush of the dawn, just the place where the brook and river meet, were gathered to be educated. Before the number of subjects with which they were familiar I bowed my head in humility, for girls are far more learned now than they used to be. Yet, learned or not, in every successive year a girl is like the girls who went before her as the daisies of one season are like the daisies of another. A number of girls invited me into their rooms, and entertained me there. 123 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS Now, whether you believe it or not, when a girl lets one look at her room she reveals a good deal of her character. A man's room hardly reflects his preferences and tastes as a girl's does hers. All the rooms I visited left on my mind a general impression of ban- ners, photographs and bric-a-brac. There were cushions as a matter of course, and most rooms had little tables with a tea service and book shelves on the walls in which were the favorites of their owners. If a girl's brother is in Harvard, crimson is the predominating color of her room. If in Yale she is probably a devotee of the blue, and so on. The college colors of brother and cousin are loyally adopted by schoolgirls. As a rule, girls have too many small ob- jects in their rooms which have to be taken care of and which, on the whole, leave the effect of a crazy-quilt on memory. Fancy being ill in a room where photographs are pinned on every available space on the wall, and fancy waking up at night with the moon- beams streaming through the window and lighting the faces of all the kith and kin, the 124 THE SCHOOLGIRL'S ROOM girls one went to school with last year, the cousins in California and the ideal maids and matrons of Shakespeare or Petrarch or the earlier mythology. I give you my word that I have seen speci- mens of every age, from early Phoenecian and Greek art to the most popular New York studio, huddled together in the room of a single college student. Poor child! How could she ever get her ideas in order with so confusing a jumble about her wherever she turned ? As to photographs, so far as the family is concerned I advise limiting the number to the dearest dear. One's mother is one's patron saint. A girl away from home always wants to say good morning to her mother's picture when she begins the day, and to bid that dear mother good night before she lays her head on the pillow. On the wall I would have one Madonna, not more, and that should be the one among Madonnas that I loved best. All the other pictures after those of the im- mediate family circle I would keep in a drawer or a box, taking them out and looking 125 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS at them from time to time, but not allowing them either to distract my attention or to ask from me the care that is needed if they are to be kept from the all-pervading dust. A desk is a necessity for a girl if she has many letters to write or much work to do in preparing essays and theses or other written work. If she be orderly and systematic she keeps her desk with neat precision and can put her hand in the dark on anything she wants. If you happen to be a girl whose desk is usually at sixes and sevens you will tell me that you find occasional clearings up much easier and simpler than continual tidiness, and also that you never have any trouble in finding a paper unless some one else takes upon her the task of arranging your desk for you. I know that you are right. The one individual pos- session which no one should invade or molest without authority from the owner is a desk. Polly may keep hers in exquisite neatness. May, on the contrary, will frequently leave hers in what looks to an outsider a fearful mess. But it is the privilege of both girls 126 THE SCHOOLGIRL'S ROOM to close the lid and to answer no questions. As a matter of choice, I think the neat girl's methods are the better, but, as we all know, there is such a thing as worshiping system to an extent that it defeats its own end. Keep your desk and your bureau drawers, your closet shelves and everything in your room in perfect order if you can, but do not forget that to get the day's work done well and thoroughly one must sometimes sacrifice a little order. When I think of an ideal girl's room, my first dream is of purity. Therefore I like a white room with pale gray paper on the walls, a small bed whitely covered and cur- tained with perhaps a few roses sprinkled here and there, sparsely, on the coverlet, snowy curtains at the windows, looped back with delicate pink, and if possible a tall mir- ror, in which my little maid may see herself from the top of her dainty head to the toes of her well-shod feet. I would have this mirror set in a door so that it should not take up any space. A single good picture would mean more 127 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS than many small photographs, and I would all the year round have something growing, English ivy in vases in winter, a pot of forget- me-nots or a fern in summer. A girl's room should always have a few flowers in it. As for her toilet table its belongings should be simple and immaculate, with very little in the way of essences or cosmetics, which a young girl does not need. Everything should strike the note of an exquisite refinement. A banjo or a violin, if she be musical, gives an added touch, and by all means let the young girl have a few good books, well bound, books that she may read over and over, and which shall become her daily friends. Such a room will be eloquent of a girl's personality. It will be her refuge when she is tired, and in it she may have many a con- fidential chat with the girls for whom she most cares. 128 CHAPTER XVIII HOME STUDY daughter would be much more winsome if she had no home work to do," said a girl's mother to me the other day. The girl herself, throwing down her books with an air of disgust, exclaimed, as if tram- pling on an enemy: "There! I hate you. I wish I need never see you again! School all day, and study all the evening, and where does there come in the time for any fun? " Where indeed! And yet after a young girl leaves the pri- mary grades, after she has rounded the land- mark named Cape Twelve or Cape Thir- teen, she must expect to have a certain amount of home study to be regularly done, if she is to take a high rank in her classes. Every schoolgirl knows this. Now, if you 129 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS are a schoolgirl, you belong to the girl friends I am addressing, and as I want to think of you as sweet, winsome and reasonable, you will let me speak very plainly, will you not? The study periods which alternate with recitations cover some portion of the work outlined for the next day. But they do not and cannot cover the whole of it. You may spend them in studying those lessons in which you are weak, and in which you are most likely to need some help from your teacher. But in order to do full justice to your school, as well as to yourself, in order to maintain the high reputation of your own class, you must bestow the labor of a quiet hour or per- haps of two quiet hours at home on your books. Two hours is quite enough. You should not devote more time than this to your home work. The question is, when shall you take the two hours? It is complicated for some of you in several ways. You may take music lessons, or else you may have to give your mother some aid in the housekeeping, do errands, set tables, make beds and wash 130 HOME STUDY dishes, and either way you have less time for home study than your opposite neighbor, whose mother requires few services, and who has no extra studies. Yet you, not she, must be congratulated. An all-around girl must know how to do housework as well as shine in school. There is everything in system. Never be- gin to study the minute you come in from school. Eat something, a slice of bread and butter, or a little fruit, or drink a glassful of milk, as soon as you take off your hat. Put your books and every thought of school aside for awhile. Go out doors, take a walk, play tennis, drop in upon your chum, or put your room in order; but let there be a real space between school work and home work. In boarding schools, where the girls have a schedule appointed for them, the hours of study are arranged with a view to letting the students have a chance for play as well as for work. Whatever time you select, either an hour in the evening and another in the morning, or two consecutive hours before going to bed, HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS put your whole self into the work. Don't let your brother persuade you to slip off with him to some evening of pleasure, or your cousin induce you to go to her birthday party. Schoolgirls have nothing to do with so- ciety. You cannot go to parties and dances and picnics and take excursions here and there, while you are at school, without fall- ing below your right percentage, and incur- ring an accumulation of neglected work. Your motto must be, " This one thing I do." This school time is your seed time. If you are thorough and diligent in your prepara- tion, you will have ease and joy, and go on with a flowing sail when you are in college, or have entered some field of business, or are a home daughter with social engagements. All this will be later. But school .comes first in a schoolgirl's life. If you have lessons in music, so manage your hours for practice that they dovetail with your other work. So with any other accom- plishment. We all lose a great many precious minutes by dawdling. A girl or a woman who goes 132 HOME STUDY on with her work without wasting time, will keep ahead of her work, will sit in the box and drive it; not let it drive her. Hurry and worry make home work a dreadful task. You must somehow carry your work lightly, as if it were a pleasure, and not a doleful and hated duty. Why do we treat duties as if they must be doleful? Duty should come to us wearing a face like the sunrise. And, girls, do not look down on father and mother because they cannot help you over the hard places. The legitimate helpers for you are your teachers. Note down your difficul- ties and carry them to the class room. If you are a good student, by which I mean one who neglects nothing and does her best, the teacher will not snub you. She will in turn do her best to be illuminating on dark situa- tions and to show you how to cope with new problems. But your parents have left their school days behind them. The methods of study have altered. The sums are footed up, the pars- ing is managed differently ; the words are not pronounced as they used to be. Even though 133 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS your father be a doctor, a lawyer, governor, statesman or successful merchant, he would probably have to go to school again to take a high school examination, and while your mother is a brilliant woman and a personage, she, too, has forgotten a good deal that she took pains to learn. Dear girls, don't look down on us older ones. Your home work is very formidable in our eyes. Don't fancy we underrate it. You have it to do. Take it as your day's work. Never mind about other things. Your dress, your friends, your fun, are all subor- dinate to your day's work; the school work and the home work both. 134 CHAPTER XIX NATURE STUDY T^JATURE study is supposed to be a quite different thing from the study of books. In a way it may be true that the two kinds of study are not very much alike, but in another way they cannot be separated. Nature is around us wherever we turn; above us stretches the sky; we breathe the air; we have, whether we live in town or in the coun- try, the sights and sounds of nature near us all the time. If we have only a little back yard with a small plot of grass and a pot or two of flowers, if our only acquaintance with birds is derived from a canary or a parrot in a cage, we still may study nature, although not with the same degree of interest that will be ours when we make excursions to green fields. I take it for granted that the girls who 135 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS are studying nature are doing so to some pur- pose. Every one of us ought to know by sight and touch the trees in the locality nearest our homes. We should know them by their peculiarities of bark and branch and bud and leaf. We should know the flowers that grow in our countryside, recognizing them by their peculiarities of root, stem and flower, of color and perfume. We should likewise know the birds. Noth- ing is more absorbing than the study of birds. They are fascinating little creatures. Their habits, manners and customs are not so very opposite our own when we really penetrate their secrets. In a single rather small neigh- borhood in New Jersey a bird lover last sum- mer counted no less than fifty-two varieties of birds. Their migrations, their nests, their patience in finding food for their young, the mother's and father's care in showing the young birds how to fly, all these are interest- ing parts of nature study. But it is not so much of this that I am thinking as I write to you, as of the way in which we may help one another in these days. 136 NATURE STUDY Girls who live in the country ought to have a mission to their city cousins, and when spring and summer bring their pleasant days boxes of wild flowers and garden flowers, too, should be sent weekly to the schoolrooms where the pupils have no easy way of getting specimens for themselves. Schools in differ- ent parts of the country should exchange flowers, shells and other interesting proper- ties of the nature study class, and it would not be at all a bad idea if there were a regular system of correspondence between Jean of the little village and Betty of the big city, all about the work each was doing in her study of nature. Another helpful thing that I recommend is the marking of passages in the poetry and prose that you read with an especial look to their bearing on nature. You will find that the poets care a great deal about the winds and the waves, the sky and the earth, and that real poetry is full of beautiful allusions to the phenomena of the world we live in. Tennyson, whom you will study in your classes in English literature, has so much in- 137 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS timate knowledge of nature that his poetry is almost a guide book to the flowers of his native land. Longfellow, Whittier and Emerson have a great deal to say about na- ture. When you read the great masters of fiction you will find that they have whole pages devoted to descriptions of scenery and that some of them paint nature in words as if with the brush of an artist. A good plan is to have a commonplace book and when- ever you find something that you like write it down for future reference. When I was a girl we studied botany out under the trees. There was a particularly charming bit of woodland near our school, and our nature study was always carried on out-of-doors. Our teacher had a seat on a gray rock, covered with a blanket shawl. Maybe you never heard of a blanket shawl, but if you had gone with Miss Jane and had been privileged to carry her Scotch plaid over your arm you would have known what a de- lightful and convenient wrap it was. The girls grouped themselves around on the grass near a brookside and as the lesson 138 NATURE STUDY went on the brook sang and sparkled and the sound of its lullaby and the gleam of its waters made music and sunshine in our souls. We learned a great deal about botany in those enchanted afternoons, and we learned, too, a love of nature that is not gained by those who study her only in dried specimens between whitewashed walls. You may be interested to know that we always carried a luncheon on the expeditions, and it was not the least interesting part of the occasion. Girls who fell below a certain percentage in their studies were not permitted to take up botany in their work. The op- portunity of studying nature was thus made very honorable and precious, and we held it as something worth striving for. The study of astronomy captivates those who have a scientific turn of mind. To learn the names of the constellations and to recog- nize some of the planets when they appear above the horizon is not beyond any ordinary mind, but the study of astronomy is, on the whole, too abstruse to be attractive to very young girls. Definitions and formulas you 139 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS may learn, but to grasp the principles of astronomy you require maturity and insight; for these you must wait. But you need not wait to learn by heart Addison's exquisite lyric that begins : " The spacious firmament on high, And all the blue, ethereal sky, And spangled heavens a shining frame, Their great original proclaim." I knew a wee tot once, a dimpled creature with serious eyes, who did not want to take lessons in music. Lifting her little hand she pointed upward and said : " I would rather study astronomy." Although the child did not know it, astronomy and music and mathe- matics are all somehow akin to one another, and she who is proficient in any one of them may hope to become proficient in them all. One April day as I watched the birds, our little brothers of the air, busy with their housekeeping, I wrote a bit of verse that you may like in any month of the year, since, though it has an April measure, you may read it in May or June, and like it just as well. 140 NATURE STUDY THE BUILDING OF THE NEST They '11 come again to the apple tree Robin and all the rest When the orchard branches are fair to see, In the snow of the blossom drest ; And the prettiest thing in the world will be The building of the nest. Weaving it well, so round and trim. Hollowing it with care, Nothing too far away for him, Nothing for her too fair, Hanging it safe on the topmost limb, Their castle in the air. Ah! mother-bird, you '11 have weary days, When the eggs are under your breast, And shadow may darken the dancing rays When the wee ones leave the nest ; But they '11 find their wings in glad amaze ; And God will see to the rest. So come to the trees with all your train When the apple blossoms grow ; Through the April shimmer of sun and rain, Go flying to and fro ; And sing to our hearts as we watch again Your fairy buildings grow. CHAPTER XX FALSE VALUES T HOPE you won't be frightened or fancy * that it is not of importance to schoolgirls when I ask you to talk with me about a sense of proportion. Very few of us have just that right idea of the real value of things that makes us keep our lives well balanced. Most of us run to extremes. For in- stance, there is Annie who feels that nothing is so needful as to be always tidy and well dressed ; from her head to her feet Annie is so trim and shining that it is a positive delight to look at her. She boasts that she never wears the same white shirt waist two days in succession, that her frocks and her petti- coats are always fresh from the laundry and that she never has so much as a hair ribbon out of place. I hold rather rigid views about neatness 142 FALSE VALUES myself, and I think it inexcusable in a girl to have boots run down at the heels and lacking buttons, or to wear gloves that should be mended, but when I remember that Annie's mother keeps only one maid, and that her father is a clerk on a small salary, and there are four other children in the family, I am driven to the conclusion that the number of shirt waists in the wash every week convicts Annie of extreme selfishness. She purchases her immaculate appearance at too great a cost, since she is far too busy with high school work to do her own washing and ironing. When a girl exalts one good quality at the expense of others, and gratifies her taste through the self-denial of a hard-worked mother, she shows very plainly that she has no sense of proportion. I could tell you of women, not schoolgirls, who having failed to secure a true feeling for harmony when they were young, have made life a burden for everybody belonging to them ever since they grew up. They have made a fetish of system; having determined to have breakfast at a fixed hour, they have HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS been wretched themselves and made every- body else so, if a single person in the family came down a few minutes after the clock had struck seven or eight, as the case might be. Their housework had to be done on cer- tain days, at any cost. There was no free- dom or elasticity in their regime ; they lacked a sense of proportion. System is an excellent servant, but when it is made a master it be- comes the worst of tyrants. I want you to do your work according to method, but occasionally put the method aside if the inter- ruption will tend to the general well-being of the day. In one of Dickens' novels he introduces us to a character whose name is Mrs. Jellyby. This lady is very charitable and spends her time in doing good works. She writes in- numerable letters and sends them to the ends of the earth. She carries on societies that make flannel skirts for children in Africa and send leaflets in an unknown tongue to people who cannot read. Of course, there is extrav- agance in this description, and yet there are women of the Jellyby type in the world. 144 FALSE VALUES Their missionary effort is not practicable, nor sensible. They intrude into homes where they are not wanted, and ask impertinent questions of the poor, and bestow alms where almsgiving is superfluous. Very likely all the time they are neglecting home duties. " Do the next thing," is a good motto for most of us. The Jellyby children were falling down stairs and crying for bread, their father and their eldest sister were at their wits' end, while Mrs. Jellyby remained absorbed in her several schemes of benevo- lence. She was a person who had no sense of proportion. Helen, who used to be my neighbor, so worshipped truth-telling that it was difficult to carry on an ordinary conversation, if she were in the company. She utterly refused to be accurate or definite about anything lest by chance she should say what was not liter- ally true. You could never bring her to a positive statement. She always hedged with " I think," " I fancy " or " It is my impres- sion." And more times than I can tell you, she came back after a call to correct what she H5 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS feared might have been too highly colored. Having no imagination herself, she could not make allowances for it in her friends. The worst of the matter was that Helen's truth- telling laid a burden not on herself alone but on the rest of us. If anyone related an inci- dent in her hearing and varied the telling in some trifling detail, Helen was on the alert to set the narrator right and rectify the mis- take. It was maddening to have her rush in when you mentioned that you had gone to town on Friday at noon, with the correction " It was eleven o'clock, auntie, dear, not twelve, when you took the train." We must tell the truth, girls, according to the highest standards of ethics, and we must never de- liberately stain our souls with falsehood, but a martinet like Helen mistakes the husk for the kernel and is likely to be persona non grata in society to the end of her days. Equally unfortunate is Marcia, who is so resolved on saying nothing unkind about any- body that she at times preserves a silence which can be easily misunderstood, and which 146 FALSE VALUES is much more hurtful to her neighbors than an occasional criticism would be. Our tem- peraments are diverse. Some of us are im- pulsive, emotional and impetuous. Some of us speak before we think; some of us have looked so long at one good thing in life and conduct, that we can see nothing else. Good manners and decorum, savoir faire and the graceful carriage that comes from mingling with high-bred people are very charming. Yet it is possible to set too high a value on these and to overlook real worth in some one who is shy and awkward and who has not had the advantage of much social training. Robert Burns has the true ring in his famous lyric, familiar to every reader of the English tongue, " The rank is but the guinea's stamp, The man 's the gold for a' that." We need a sense of proportion in our friendships. I think I ought to put the em- phasis of this talk just here, for nothing is more harmful to girls than exclusive friend- HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS ship, in which two of them are so absorbed in each other that they have no room for an- other thought in the world. I have seen Amy so devoted to Phyllis that she was wretched when Phyllis went away to school, actually pining and being ill as if she could take no more interest in life. This kind of friendship acts very badly on all con- cerned. The girl who clings as the vine clings to the tree is a parasite. She chokes out the wholesome life of the one to whom she clings, and she gets no good herself. Whatever you do, dear girls, I beg of you to avoid friendships that use up your vitality, make you negligent of duty and prevent you from making the best of life as you go on. A girl may in secret cherish a sort of devotion to somebody she hardly knows, liv- ing a dream life that unfits her for either work or play. In friendship, dear girl, cul- tivate a sense of proportion. 148 CHAPTER XXI THE SCHOOLGIRL'S CHUM It CHOOSING partners" sounds as if ^^ we were going to play a game, and, in fact, that is just what we are doing every day of our lives. Whether we are in school or at home, busy or idle, happy or sorrowful, we are always playing the great game that begins when we are babies and goes on till we are grandmothers. It is very funny, isn't it, to think of ever being a grandmother, when one is only four- teen or fifteen, or maybe younger? But I have been looking at the picture of a girl who is a grandmother, a picture taken when she was a schoolgirl, with dancing eyes and coal- black hair and merry dimples, when she was as gay and light-hearted as any of you. She wore a yellow silk frock, and a black silk apron with pockets and ruffles, a ruffled silk HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS mantilla over her shoulders, and she had a little bonnet tied under her chin. It was a droll way of dressing, but it was the fashion then, and it looked as pretty as your fashions do now. It is always the face that matters most, and fashions have little to do with the looks of sweet girls. This girl has never lost her beauty, nor her trick of smiling with dimples that chase one another over her face, and she is a bewitching grandmother and fairy god- mother to a bevy of young people. Choosing partners was what I thought of when I looked at her, for she was one that everybody wanted to choose. She had her chums, and her comrades, and generally there was one a wee bit dearer than the others. On the day that school opens there may be sixty girls in a class, and they may be total strangers one to another. But very soon they will drift into groups and into circles of threes and fours and finally you will see them walking home together or strolling about the playground or the campus, two and two. Nothing is so unnatural in a schoolgirl as to 150 THE SCHOOLGIRL'S CHUM have no friends. Our friendships mean a great deal to us when we are growing up, a great deal more than older people dream. To share one's desk or one's room with a disagreeable girl, or with a girl who is not in sympathy with one, is a real misery. The next worst thing is to have a chum forced on one against her will. Occasionally a teacher insists on putting together two girls who be- long apart. The result is seldom blissful. Once in awhile a mother makes the mistake of harping on the grace and amiability and the cleverness of Maude or Mabel to Mary and Jane, who very probably wish nothing to do with either of the paragons. There is no surer way of antagonizing a girl and setting her against somebody else than the way of continually praising the somebody, and show- ing off her good qualities at the expense of the other. We have to choose our partners on the road. We do it in the schoolroom, we do it in the playground, we do it everywhere. Our partners and chums are the ones who best suit us. They do not misunderstand us. HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS We do not have to talk with them all the time, or entertain them, or make any par- ticular effort to be pleasing, when in their society. They and we may sit in silence for hours, and yet have a very good time. Our friends are our best helpers. They may not always like the same studies and the same recreations, but there is one thing in which they do not differ from ourselves ; they will have the same standards of honor. A truthful girl cannot make a friend of a hypo- crite, nor an honest girl associate on familiar terms with one who cheats. You will never find two girls united in strong friendship when one is coarse and vulgar and the other modest and refined. In friendship like attracts like. There has to be similarity of principle and motive. You and your partner must both be sincere, both try to do the best of which you are capable, and both combine to help one an- other toward the best things. Unless this is so you may be acquaintances, but you cannot be partners. Without our knowledge we gain or lose 152 THE SCHOOLGIRL'S CHUM through our friendships. There is Janet who is very easily impressed. I can tell at a glance with what girls Janet has been asso- ciating when she comes to see me, after the ab- sence of a week or a month. If she has been very much with Hildah she drops her final g's and says " mornin' " and " evenin' " in- stead of morning and evening. If Sarah has been her chief companion, she has adopted the broad a and uses it unsparingly. If Mil- dred has been her partner for the time, she has long o's and rolling r's in her vocabulary. Very few girls take the color of the last girl they have been with as Janet does. She will do this all through life, for Janet's soul is an instrument that responds as the keys on the piano do to every touch. Her cousin is in contrast to this and be- longs to an entirely different type. She is an up and down sort of girl, who stands on her own feet, and receives comparatively little from other people. The teachers say that Janet is a more receptive pupil than Marjorie and much more easily taught. Marjorie's own mother often wishes that she were more 153 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS flexible and less self-centered. She needs a partner with a personality stronger than hers, and a nature open to outside influences, but it will not be easy for her to find and choose a mate. Do not let anybody laugh at you because you are enthusiastic in friendship. Do not let anyone make a jest of the happiest and best thing that comes into your youthful lives. The friendships of the schoolgirl may last always, or may be forgotten a few years hence. What becomes of them hereafter is of no moment at this time, the important thing is that you shall have friends with whom you can talk and study, who will share your ambitions and guard your innocent se- crets and help you play the game to advan- tage, where you are now. Do not let anyone come between you and your dearest friend. Avoid envy and jealousy, and if your friend is better than you and gains more prizes and reaches a higher mark in the class, take pride in what she does and be above anything mean or petty on your own account. Your part- ner's triumphs are your own. 154 THE SCHOOLGIRL'S CHUM I am glad to note that schoolgirls are dem- ocratic. They never choose a partner be- cause her father is rich, or her uncle is fa- mous, or decide against one because they never heard of her people. They care noth- ing whatever about her dress, but they do care about her manners and her ways. Per- sonality counts for much with schoolgirls. They are careless about social distinctions, but they choose for friends those they love best. 155 CHAPTER XXII BOY FRIENDS A GIRL who has brothers is never at a loss for comrades if her brothers have the right bringing up. There are brothers and brothers, however. I heard of one not long ago who was ashamed to be seen walk- ing to school with his sister, and who refused to carry her books or her umbrella on a rainy day. That boy may one of these days be very attentive to somebody else's sister, but he will not prove a good friend for all that. He has missed the home training which lies at the foundation of all friendship. Boys and girls in the same family and under the same roof should be good friends. Neigh- bors who attend school together should equally be friends. The boy next door and the girl next door ought not to be strangers, and in every street the young people who are BOY FRIENDS growing up together should have good times, and realize what it means to be friendly. This does not mean that boys and girls should be foolishly sentimental. Nor do I think they often are. You cannot be senti- mental about a boy who is in the same class with you, who helps you with your algebra, and it may be is glad of your help in his Latin translation. So long as boys and girls enjoy outdoor games and indoor pleasures together, there is nothing to be criticised in their friendship. It is only when they begin to be mysterious and furtive about it that their mothers need to take alarm. For instance, when Willie hangs about the door in the dusk and does not come in, but waits for Mary to steal out and meet him at the gate, there is room for complaint. Mothers have told me that their daughters from fourteen to sixteen have been deter- mined to walk up and down in the evening with boys of their own age, whom the moth- ers did not know. Here is where the line should be drawn. A schoolgirl simply cannot have friends who 157 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS are not welcome in her father's house, and of whom her mother does not approve. She may not write letters to boy friends or re- ceive letters from them without taking her mother into her confidence. If there are pic- nics, merry-makings, evening walks, drives or sails by moonlight, it is all right if a group of boys and girls are accompanied by an older friend. A mother, aunt or married lady who is a trusted acquaintance must take charge of such a party. Above all, a girl must have her life and conduct an open book for her family to read. She cannot have se- crets and reserves from her mother. This is more important in the realm of her friend- ship than anywhere else in the whole of life's intercourse. A question worth considering for each of us is, what do I mean to my friends? For what do I stand? Girls do not always remember that it is their privilege to exert a good influence over the boys they know. A girl who uses slang and permits herself to be rude and dis- 158 BOY FRIENDS courteous in her behavior to boys, who does not exact from them by her sweet behavior something that is like homage paid to an ideal, misses her opportunity. I do not mean that a girl should be self-conscious or a prig, but she should not forget that she is in a way a little princess, and is to be treated ac- cordingly. Ethel should not ask Theodore to come and see her. If he wishes the pleasure of a call he should ask and she should grant, and her mother should be present at least during part of the evening. The pleasant and natural way for very young people is to visit in the family, and have every one coming and going while they are there. A good deal of pleasure is added to an ordinary call if, before it is over, there is something to eat. Lemonade and cake do not come amiss, and there is no end of satis- faction in an old-fashioned candy pull if a half-dozen boys and girls take part in it. I have yet to see the boy who does not like to call at the house where the girls invite him 159 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS to help them make fudge. There is the more fun if the boys help to clear away after the feast. We shall never do our friends good un- less we are ourselves right-minded, sincere and unselfish. There is not the least use in pretending to be what one is not. Unless we have real principles and care about living up to them, we shall never know the golden value of true friendship. Girls, don't for- get that convictions lived up to make strong characters. A friend is not afraid to tell the truth, though now and then it may wound another. Still, it is not necessary to be officious. If in your presence one of your schoolmates, boy or girl, should say something unkind about the absent, it would be an easy thing for you to show your displeasure. You would not need say a word; a look would be enough. Sometimes the refusal to smile at a jest which takes a liberty with something you respect, or a grave look if there is profanity in your presence, will put an end to it. I am per- suaded that the habit of cigarette smoking, 1 60 BOY FRIENDS which we all deplore in boys, would vanish from the face of the earth if the girls would only show by look and word that they dis- approved of it, and would not have cigarette smokers numbered among their boy friends. There are a great many things which boys and girls may do together. In the depart- ment of nature study this is peculiarly true. Excursions to study birds or find flowers, in- volving tramps through the fields, or moun- tain climbing, are doubly pleasant if a party of young people go in company. To add zest to such study every one must be enthusiastic. There is no room for the lad who is bored or the girl who lags be- hind and takes little interest. Girls are as able to endure fatigue and take whatever comes in the way of hardship as boys, if they are properly dressed for their expeditions. Only a silly girl sets out for a mountain climb or walk across country dressed in or- gandie or lawn, with floating ribbons, with a picture hat and tight shoes. The girl who is a good comrade wears loose, easy fitting costumes for out-of-doors, has no floating 161 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS tags or ends, has a cap or a sailor hat, and wears shoes with broad soles and low heels properly adjusted to her feet. Tennis, basket ball and golf are games that boys and girls may play, with no odds on either side, but with no end of fun. For the rougher games, such as football and baseball girls are content to assume the role of spec- tators. They know the points of the game, and their sympathy cheers the players, while they are proud to wear the colors of those whom they favor. I wish I could make you see friendship as it looks to me. It is not a mere pleasure of the moment. It is not enjoyment only. It is a chance to help somebody who needs help, a chance to make this old world a brighter place. We get from it what we give. If we are selfish and unwilling to make a sacri- fice, we shall never be friends in the best sense. Perhaps I can illustrate what I mean. You have just seated yourself with a book that you have been trying to read, and for which you have had no leisure. You have reached the most exciting part of the story. 162 BOY FRIENDS In comes your brother with a request that you will mend a rip in his glove, or in walks a neighbor who is a rather dull and stupid boy. It is a test of your amiability and al- truism, whether you care more for your own pleasure, or for the brother and the broth- er's friend. These little things, mere trifles apparently, show character. Throughout life there are chances for a thousand petty self-denials. Some of them make the dif- ference between being friendly and being selfish. Friendship never thrives in the soil of selfishness. 163 CHAPTER XXIII SCHOOLGIRLS' CLUBS VT'OUR mothers and sisters and all your grown up friends are members of clubs. The lady who has never belonged to a club, never attended a club function, and never known anything about the pleasure incidental to study and work in a literary, or social club, is so exceptional that we have to look for her with a microscope. Every town and village has its " Mother's Club," or its " Four o'Clock Club," or its " Monday Afternoon Club," or its club with the name of one of the muses, or its association of dames and daugh- ters, so unless the girls have their clubs, too, they will really be rather out of date. You may if you like, have a club just as the elders have and for much the same pur- pose. We will suppose that your club has for its object nature study. The birds, the 164 SCHOOLGIRLS' CLUBS flowers, the trees, the rocks and stones, and everything that has to do with outdoor life afford interesting subjects for those who study nature. If, in your class work, you have taken up zoology and botany, a club for nature study will help along by way of supplementary in- formation and will be greatly approved by your instructors. You will have certain days for meetings and certain other days for long and pleasant walks, for visiting nature in her own haunts, watching the birds, the butterflies and the bees, and seeking the wild flowers where they grow. When you think of it, it is a shame that we should live in a beautiful world with so much that is fascinat- ing to engage our powers, and yet shut our- selves up within the bounds of four walls and know so little as we do about nature's won- derful works and ways. Your club may be organized to study Eng- lish literature. In this case you will meet periodically, arrange a course of reading, and very likely write papers on topics assigned to different members. I am not sure that HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS you will find it so popular a club as one that has outdoor life for its motive. Many girls think they have done their whole duty to themselves and each other when their school work is finished. Yet a literature club would not be a bad idea, and in it there would be room for a good deal of what might be called side reading. Your knowledge of books and authors would be increased in pleasant readings that should be voluntary and not prescribed by professors and teachers. I do not see myself any objection to school- girls forming a club purely for purposes of fun and recreation. You have so much hard work in school and at home that you are entitled very fairly to such amusements as you like and such pleasure as you can take in company with one another. You might have a Saturday evening club, composed of a circle of congenial girls who do not live too far apart from one another to make meetings early on Saturday evenings prac- ticable. Sometimes you might assemble at five o'clock and have supper together at six, finishing an hour or two afterward with 166 SCHOOLGIRLS' CLUBS games, music and story-telling. Or you might meet at seven and separate at nine. Have a program arranged beforehand and conclude with refreshments. You might oc- casionally have a candy pull or make fudge, and once a month your brothers might be admitted to share in the entertainment of the occasion. On the whole I recommend this idea as worth carrying out provided you can gain the consent and approval of your mothers and any other powers that be. A correspondence club affords a good deal of suggestion and satisfaction to its members. I knew such a club some years ago. It was composed of seven girls not one of whom had ever seen any of the others. They made acquaintance through me because I was then writing some stories for girls which inter- ested each of these widely separated cor- respondents. One wrote from Brazil, one from Syria, another from Bombay, still an- other from Berlin, and the remaining three from different parts of the United States. The seven sent me their letters and I for- warded them in a sort of round robin style, 167 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS until everyone had read what the others wrote. You have little idea of the amount of information and of fascinating interest such a club can convey. A girl's club does not require much red tape. You will need a treasurer if you have anything for which money will be required. If, for example, your club does any work for the poor or engages at all in charity, you must have small weekly or monthly dues, and these you should take out of your own per- sonal allowance, not asking your parents for them. The treasurer must keep an exact ac- count of what she receives and what she ex- pends, and must from time to time make a report to her club. A president and a sec- retary are the only other necessary officers. As for the club's name it may be whatever you choose. A Latin name is often pre- ferred because it sounds learned, and every- body is not supposed to know what it means. An alphabetical name is attractive because you do not have to reveal to the outside pub- lic what the A. B. C.'s or the X. Y. Z.'s stand for. If you choose you may take the 168 SCHOOLGIRLS' CLUBS name of a flower and be known by that. The pansy, the iris, the mignonette, the cosmos, the violet, are appropriate flowers for the christening of a club. When you select a motto let it be something inspiring and brief, some line of poetry or apt quotation, some bit of wisdom from Shakespeare or Emer- son, that will be a sort of marching order and help you on in the day's work. Do not belong to a club at all unless you are willing to do your duty as a member. If you undertake any obligation in this world fulfill it with conscience and punctuality. It is a great pity for any of us to grow up shirking responsibility. We have each a duty to all the others, and how to fulfill this duty is one of the things we learn in club life. We learn, too, to yield our own wishes and work agreeably and smoothly with other people. No better lesson does a club teach than just this. 169 CHAPTER XXIV COURAGE TT7HAT was that you said, Dorothy? Am I sure that I heard you aright? Are you really afraid of a little gray mouse that you could hold in your hand, that scut- tles away from you in terror and that, meas- ured by inches, is less formidable than a rab- bit or a squirrel? Yes, you own it without a blush. You really are afraid of a mouse. So are Frances, Jane and ever so many others of your friends. A marked aversion to the entire family of rodents is a pronounced feature of most women whether they are little or large. The little woman of ten screams at the sight of a mouse and so does her older sister, and very likely her mother and her grandmother are equally as alarmed at the appearance of 170 COURAGE this small monster which is indeed a beast of prey, but such a wee bit of a beast, not in the least like a lion or a tiger, a panther or a wolf. Probably the dislike to mice is natural with most of us for the very good reason that a mouse in the pantry makes dis- agreeable depredations, and apart from the toll he takes is anything but clean; that a mouse in the bureau drawer nibbles gloves and eats buttons if they are covered with silk, and that a mouse in the bedroom any- way is not just the companion one would choose at the midnight hour. Mice are pretty little things with their gray coats and their bead-like eyes, but they be- long to the class of creatures which for our own preservation we must fight. I am not asking my girls to like them, but for pity's sake, Dorothy, do overcome your terror at their mention. A mouse has never yet been known to devour a schoolgirl. I wish I could persuade you not to be afraid of anything, great or small. We must take certain precautions. To walk up as some fearless girls do to a strange dog, 171 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS patting him on the head and trying to be friends with him without being sure that their acquaintance is desired, is sometimes danger- ous and always a risk. Dogs are the dear- est friends we have in the brute creation. They are loyal to their masters and they sometimes seem endowed with almost human intelligence. But they are very much like men and women. They prefer to choose their friends, and they may resent approaches from people who have not been properly in- troduced. Never feel or show apprehension when you meet a dog that is quietly going about its own affairs, but do not be familiar with dog or cat or other domestic animal until you have a right to be so because you have entered the circle of its friends. A girl who is afraid of any animal, from a cow in the pasture to a mouse in the wall carries about with her a needless handicap. We should go about the world bravely and fearlessly. I have seen a lady in a drawing- room make a spectacle of herself in the pres- ence of a group of very brilliant and distin- guished people because she was afraid of a 172 COURAGE cat. In walked Muff, the splendid angora, that was the pet of the hostess, and up on a sofa with a shriek and a scream and a clutching and gathering of her skirts, jumped a lady who should have known better than to behave in that fashion under the roof of a friend. One rule we may as well as not lay down for ourselves, girls, and that is a rule of self- control. One may be a little frightened in- side, but she does not need to proclaim it. Because we happen to dislike bats, beetles, June bugs, dragon flies, or any other mem- bers of the w r orld of creeping and flying things that scurry out of space to disturb us, we need not communicate our feeling to others. If we choose we may control all expression of dislike, dismay or dread. We may sometimes feel afraid, but we may keep ourselves from showing it. All through our lives we should try not to be in bondage to any form of fear. Some girls cannot bear pain. They distress them- selves more in the thought of what they may have to suffer from a slight operation or an HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS injury, than the pain itself would amount to. In other words, they suffer more from fright than from reality. Once in awhile one meets a girl almost grown up who is afraid of the dark. The fear of the dark is a tyranny which assails children who have been wickedly alarmed by nurses or unscrupu- lous persons and who fancy that dangers of every kind lurk behind the friendly curtain of the night. But our Heavenly Father sends this kind darkness so that we may sleep and rest and there is nothing in it to give anyone the slightest fear. The stars are its lamps and the moon at the full floods it with a glory as great as that of the sun. While we sleep our God watches above us and His angels are our guards. Another thing almost as foolish as the fear of the mouse is the fear some people have of taking different diseases. In case of an epidemic such as diphtheria, typhoid fever or cholera, too many precautions cannot be taken, and if one's duty is not on the scene of action it is well to go to a safer place. But no one should be a coward. If COURAGE diseases are about there is no reason to sup- pose that you who are in good health will necessarily take them. To be constantly dis- tressed lest one day or another you or I shall be menaced by scarlet fever, or smallpox, is very needless and quite unfits us for doing our daily work. This courage that I have been talking about thus far is purely physical. I would not like any girl for whom I cared to be afraid to cross the continent or the ocean be- cause something might happen on the rail or on the sea. The ship is the captain's busi- ness and the railway train is in charge of the conductor and engineer. You may be reason- ably sure that the average man will fulfill the requirements of his position and you as a passenger have nothing to do except to en- joy yourself. This, too, belongs largely to the realm of physical courage. Now I want to speak about a higher kind of courage. There are brave people who never shrink from danger that menaces the body, but who are moral cowards. They are afraid to speak the truth if the truth will 175 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS injure themselves. They arc afraid to en- dure anxiety about their loved ones. They hide from their own eyes things they do not want to see. Whatever else one may be, one should try very hard to be morally brave. At any cost, be true and noble. Let me quote for you Charles Kingsley's stanza which every girl should know by heart : " Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever, Do noble things, not dream them all day long. And so make life, love and the great forever One grand, sweet song." 176 CHAPTER XXV REPOSE T DOUBT very much whether girls be- * tween thirteen and sixteen ever appre- ciate the importance of knowing how to sit still. This is one of the lessons we learn at school, and it is fully as valuable as any lesson in science or literature, or any other department in which we are instructed. Girls are often fidgety, jumping up and rush- ing about when there is no need for restless activity, and changing their posture until looking at them is fatiguing to other people. Unless we learn how to sit still when we are young, we seldom master the art successfully when we are older. I can think of a famous man whose name is honored wherever it is heard. He has one fault of manner that he has never overcome; he cannot sit still. In a drawing-room he 177 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS wriggles and fidgets and actually when ex- cited bounces up and down like a ball, and wise hostesses invariably take the precaution to seat him in their strongest chairs. In church he slips down in front of the pew, leans his head on the railing, contorts him- self in queer fashion, and furnishes enter- tainment for his neighbors and annoyance to the minister. All this could have been al- tered had anybody taken pains to teach the man how to sit still in his boyhood. One of the most charming things in girl- hood is serenity. It would pay a father should he spend much money in having his pretty daughter taught outward repose. "How can I be calm and placid?" asks Josephine, " when I am bubbling up and effervescent inside? How can I look tran- quil when I am angry and disturbed? " The questions are well put, although they touch opposite aspects of the case. It is natural that girls should be bubbling up with gaiety and high spirits. A dull, stupid girl, who has no fun in her and who does not care about good times is so exceptional that we 178 REPOSE are sure she is ill and, if we are sensible, send for the doctor to look her over and tell us what to do. But one may be bright and cheerful, may laugh and be merry, and yet be so self-restrained that she will not let her fun break in upon the quiet of her friends, or so far forget herself as to force it upon them, if they are in a different mood. A girl who has learned to sit still controls her fun just as she does every other act and state of body and mind. As to being angry and disturbed, I must say plainly that such tempers in girlhood are very unwholesome. Anger in most circum- stances is a foe to health and happiness, and is like a snake in the grass or an enemy within the gates in its effect upon character. Very few people can afford to indulge anger. It is the most poisonous and upsetting of pas- sions, and leads to no end of misery. Neither should a girl let herself be disturbed when things go a little wrong. They are bound to go wrong now and then, and when they do we must be philosophical and make the best of it. You remember Charles Dickens 179 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS and his " Five-and-Twenty Tattycorum." The absurd name belonged to a charity child, who lived in the house of a philosopher, and when she threw herself into a fit of frenzy, as she sometimes did, the good man told her to count five and twenty before she said a single word. Some of us would have to count five and twenty several times before we had quite conquered our vexation, espe- cially if we had never learned how to wait and be patient. The wise man said in the Proverbs, " Better is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city," and no truer word was ever spoken. One advantage given to boys who are taught military tactics is found in the con- trol they gain over their muscles, and the flexibility and poise that comes through movement in harmony with rhythm and law. An equal advantage would be gained should girls and boys -practice sitting still. As, how- ever, we hardly expect so much repose in the brothers as in the sisters, the latter must try to set the finer examples. In the art of sitting still may be compre- 180 REPOSE hended the low tone that is so delightful a thing in speech, and the gentle courtesy that robs life of friction. I am constantly hear- ing people say that they are too busy to do this or the other thing, that they are so hur- ried that they cannot get through the day's tasks, and that they are tired before the day begins with the mere thinking of what they have to do. Hurry has intruded into the air we breathe, and we go whirling through the world as if we were horses on a race track. When a ferryboat is about to arrive at the dock, or a train approaches the station, the pas- sengers spring to their feet and hasten out pellmell, as if life depended on their crowd- ing out together and not losing an instant's time. As a nation we are all marching on the double-quick. It is fortunate for school- girls that they are obliged to enter and leave class rooms with order and moderation. The good habit thus formed may stand them in stead by-and-by. A good deal of illness, headache, and nervousness would be saved if only we could take our time, wait a little, 181 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS be considerate and win what a clever author has called " power through repose." When I was a schoolgirl I had two inti- mate friends, one of whom was very beauti- ful and very mercurial, with as many changes in her face as an April sky. Every passing emotion brought its corresponding facial gesture. She was never the same for two minutes. When she was talking her whole face seemed alive with movement. The other girl was quiet and dignified, not so re- sponsive to every breeze as her companion. Yet, nevertheless, she was sympathetic and charming. She was a rather plain girl. No one thought of her as having any claim to beauty. Twenty years after we had all left school the first girl had grown thin, angular and homely; her brow had lines that ought not to have been there, and her eager eyes flamed in a hollow face. The other was by this time beautiful. She had gained some- thing lovely from every year that had gone over her head. She had known how to sit still and let the repose of her spirit illuminate her countenance. 182 CHAPTER XXVI TACT 5 OUISE, who is a girl neighbor, came into my living-room the other day look- ing very forlorn. She flung herself into a chair, the corners of her mouth drooped and I saw that tears were not very far from her honest brown eyes. Louise has those big brown eyes that show a soul so true and loyal that it has in it not the faintest possibility for deceit. " What is the matter? " I said. " Have you found out that your doll is stuffed with sawdust, or has your dearest friend picked up her playthings and gone home ? You ap- pear to have met with some provoking dis- appointment. Did you not get on the pro- motion list after all your work? Come, dear, pour out your trouble. Tell me what 183 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS has happened. Perhaps I can help you. I have been in hard places myself." Louise managed to smile a little as she answered: ' The trouble isn't one that you can cure. It is just that I am such an idiot of a girl, always saying the wrong thing and making mistakes and setting people against me. I have done it three times to-day; I have three times said the wrong thing, and I am completely discouraged. " In the first place I met Mena Carson on her way to school this morning. She was in very good spirits and told me that she was sure she would have a perfect recitation in geometry as she had worked out every proposition correctly last evening. I had nothing better to answer than : ' That will be a change for you. I know that your Cousin Tom is visiting your house, and I suppose he helped you.' " Now, that was the worst and most in- sulting remark I could have made, for Mena is very dull in mathematics, and, as every- body knows, her people at home are not par- ticularly well educated. I called attention in 184 TACT a breath to her own stupidity and to the fact that she could not have made her prepa- ration unless Tom Winthrop had been there to help her. She left me abruptly, and she has not spoken to me since. Anyway, I was sincere." " Yes, Louise," I assured her, " you were sincere, but you were not tactful. I fear that you did hurt your friend's feelings quite needlessly. Go on, dear. Let me hear the rest." " At recess," said Louise, " Marjorie Dean asked me if I liked the fashion of her new frock. Without stopping to think, I told her frankly that the fashion was pretty enough for some people. It would suit a tall, slender girl like Nancy Kent, but it made Marjorie look too dumpy and short. It was the truth, but Marjorie flushed up and said : ' You do say such horrid things, Louise. One never knows what you will tell her when she asks you a civil question.' Then she walked off, and I know she does not like her frock so well as she did before. " As if this were not sufficient," Louise 185 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS proceeded, " I blundered again. Miss Til- son, our teacher, asked me whether I would have to go out of my way to post a letter for her, when I went home to luncheon. The post office is three blocks .from our house in an opposite direction from the school, so I could not oblige my teacher with- out taking some extra steps. I hesitated a moment before I answered : ' I shall have to go a little out of the way, but I can hurry, and I will be happy to post your letter.' * Never mind,' said Miss Tilson, ' here comes Rose Elliot, I think she can oblige me with- out any inconvenience.' " You should have seen Rose. She just beamed. She seized upon that letter and bore it off in triumph, and Miss Tilson looked after her as much as to say: ' There goes a young girl who takes delight in doing favors for people.' ' Louise sighed and was silent. " The error you make, Louise," I said, after a pause, " is a common one with young people. They lack a sense of proportion. You are naturally candid and open, and you 186 TACT have formed an excellent habit of always telling the truth. I like your sincerity. I even like your bluntness, and yet I must tell you very plainly that sincerity without tact is often cruel and brutal, and sometimes un- pardonable. Tact means touch. " The tactful girl is very quick to under- stand a situation. She knows how people feel without having their sentiments explained. She never goes out of her way to show a schoolmate as you did Mena, that you have noticed how frequently she is deficient. In no circumstances does she venture to in- form an acquaintance that her hat or dress is unbecoming, when the dress and hat have been bought and paid for. And she under- stands how to undertake a commission with- out actually saying that it will put her to some inconvenience. This morning you had only to say to Mena, when she told you about the geometry: ' Dear Mena, how glad I am,' and you might have stopped your com- ment on Marjorie's frock at the point of admiration for the fashion. As for Miss Tilson you had merely to say: 'Why of 187 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS course; it will be a pleasure to post your letter.' " One of our greatest perils is in this direc- tion. We exalt one virtue at the expense of another. I had a schoolmate who not only never made friends, but really made enemies through her determination never to say the least thing that was not altogether true. She carried her truth-telling so far that she con- stantly involved other people in trouble by doing what has been regarded by school peo- ple as shocking from the days of the Romans until now. She was a sort of tale-bearer, not because she wanted to be so, but because her conscience obliged her to reveal every- thing she knew, whether it was her own af- fair or that of another." At this Louise sat up very straight. " That girl," she said, " was a goose. Everybody knows that telling tales is per- fectly abominable." " I agree with you in that, but Caroline unfortunately never learned that simple thing; in consequence she was shunned as a girl and disliked when she grew older. 1*8 TACT " A very important study for girls, as im- portant, I think, as Latin, algebra or Ger- man, is to learn how to be both tactful and sincere. We must never knowingly violate the truth, but there are times when we may be silent and commit no sin. A lie may be told by one who is a hypocrite, without her opening her lips. There are times when de- ception is carried on by looks. One must speak truth if she speaks at all, and one must not be a coward. A sincere nature reveals itself in tones and glances, as well as in speech, but one who is tactful will learn delicacy. She will be careful not to wound anyone's feelings. She will refrain from putting herself forward and will be quick to do and say agreeable things. " For instance, your friend Marjorie has a beautiful complexion. You might have said ' that color suits your hair and eyes,' without calling attention to her figure. Al- though Mena is not quick at mathematics, she writes good compositions, and I don't be- lieve you have ever complimented her on that talent. As for Miss Tilson, whom you 189 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS adore, you can make it all right with her by being on the watch to accommodate her next time. Does she not let the girls sometimes make her a cup of tea at the noon hour? And do you not sometimes carry your lunch- eon with you to school? The tactful per- son looks out for opportunities to be helpful, without ever being obtrusive. '* Cheer up, Louise, you have done noth- ing very dreadful after all. Nine-tenths of the difficulty is in finding out where our weak points lie. Once they are discovered, it is very easy to guard against them. I expect to see you as tactful as your sister Genevieve by the time you are twenty." 190 CHAPTER XXVII A GRACIOUS MANNER T WONDER if you girls have ever thought how much depends in this world on a good manner. I am not exactly talking about manners, for I can think of several people whose manners are not at all rude or boorish, who are quite punctilious about be- ing polite, and who yet are often at a dis- advantage. Their whole effect is spoiled by something hard to define. In the first place, one's manner is really one's self. It should fit like a glove, or like a dress that is made by somebody who knows just how to give the best cut and the most graceful style. Secondly, note that manner is personality, and personality makes the difference between grace and clumsiness, between sincerity and affectation. Far more than you may think, 191 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS your success in life, your ability to carry out what you undertake, depend on your possess- ing an attractive manner. The best man- ner springs from the best and truest heart. A manner that sets others at their ease and keeps them from feeling awkward and out of place is sure to be good. A manner that for a single instant and for any cause what- ever makes another person uncomfortable is sure to be a bad manner. You cannot put on a manner and take it off, as you put on and take off a party frock. Your manner is you, and whatever else you do you can never get away from being yourself. A person who has had kind thoughts and unselfish ways all her life, who has never been proud and conceited, or haughty and vain, who has never looked down on anybody or fancied that somebody else was not fit to be noticed, will be very likely to have a good manner, and good manners, too. Now that I have said this, I want to speak of a few points. One concerns your be- havior in public places. There is no par- ticular harm in giggling and laughing im- 192 A GRACIOUS MANNER moderately when a group of girls are by themselves, and see something funny that quite upsets them. But a car in which you are coming home from school, or the street on which you are walking with other people, or the ferryboat, is not the place for boister- ous mirth. Really well-bred girls are rather quiet in such places, and remember that they are not the only people on the road, and are very careful not to do or say anything which will make them conspicuous. This is point number one. If you go to a matinee and there are peo- ple around you who wish to enjoy the opera or the play, it is to the last degree improper for girls to whisper and chat and carry on conversations of their own to the annoyance of those about them. Equally, no matter how dainty and becoming your picture hat may be, good manners will lead you to re- move it and hold it in your lap, if in a place of amusement it interfere with the view of somebody behind you. I once heard a lady ask a young girl to remove her hat. The girl turned with a frown, which very much 193 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS disfigured a pretty face, and said firmly : " I shall keep my hat on." This leads me to still another point. Thoughtless girls sometimes pride them- selves on being very candid. They tell you, with quite an air as if they were saying some- thing fine: " I never hesitate to speak out and say exactly what I mean. I don't care to whom I am talking. I just tell the whole truth." None of us are excusable for tell- ing what is not true. But there are times when silence is better than speech, and when we have no business whatever to tell either the whole truth or even a little bit of it. Sometimes we may have reserves. And a lie may be told by a cowardly silence. All depends on the occasion. If your Aunt Mary has just bought an expensive green cloth for her next season's gown it is not your duty to inform her that green does not suit her complexion, or that it is less fashion- able than blue. Let her enjoy her purchase. You were not asked for advice, and it is the worst thing in the world, so far as manners 194 A GRACIOUS MANNER are involved, to go about giving advice to people who do not seek it. Deference to those who are older than yourself is another little point in manners t which cannot be overlooked. No matter how unreasonable, trying or disagreeable an old lady or an old gentleman may be, just because of the burden of years which he or she is carrying, remember to be patient, courteous and not contradictory. Never brusquely contradict anybody; above all any- body who is old. If you live long enough you, too, will be old. It seems impossible that dancing feet should ever totter or brown hair ever turn white or rounded cheeks grow hol- low, but Time is a thief, and he steals away youth and substitutes age before we know it. So please, whatever else you do, be po- lite and considerate to those who are old. Girls with very sweet manners always rise when older people enter a room. I don't in- sist upon this, but I just whisper that a girl who does it shows extremely good training. One, of course, knows that a boy will rise 195 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS when a lady enters a room, but it is just as pretty a rule for a girl. About borrowing books and umbrellas and fans and any other thing you happen to want, from a schoolmate, observe that good man- ners require you to return them promptly. Should you be obliged to ask the loan of a little change for car fare or a church col- lection, or some unexpected emergency, do not delay payment, but take trouble to re- turn the amount on the first opportunity. In the family two persons should not be reading the same book at the same time. If Belle has the prior claim on the book that has come from the library let her finish it before Clara begins. In some houses certain chairs, certain corners of the room and certain seats at the table, by a kind of unwritten law, are the property of this or the other person. Do not seat yourself complacently in that corner of the sofa where your grandfather has read his morning paper for the last twenty years. Respect the rights of everybody. By no 196 A GRACIOUS MANNER means look over the paper that your neigh- bor is reading in a street car. Do not in- terrupt conversation, and if a friend hesitates for a word wait with patience until she finds it. The word will come to her, never fear, if you do not hurry to supply it. Try to remember people's names. A habit of courteous attention when meeting strangers will serve you well all your life. Be ready with little services to those about you, but do not be intrusive. The golden virtue in manners is tact, and tact simply means being in touch and in sympathy with others, and not being absorbed in one's self. It is never worth while to be too exact with reference to other people's stories. Some girls never fail to set their mothers right when the latter are relating a little do- mestic occurrence. Unless there is a good reason for stating the fact that Uncle John stopped on Thursday, do not set your mother right if you hear her tell a neighbor that he called on Friday. If you wish to correct any story that anybody tells, watch for a 197 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS chance and do it in private. On the whole, as I said when I began, a good manner springs from a good heart, and fine manners are the outcome of unselfish kindness. 198 CHAPTER XXVIII THE SWEET-VOICED GIRL /"\NE of the prettiest sights in the world is V^ that of the young people on their way to school between eight and nine in the morn- ing. I like to see the girls as they go arm in arm, each with her pile of books in her hands, chatting gayly or talking confiden- tially, their day before them and not a cloud to dim their sky.^ " What a sweet voice that girl has," I heard some one say as Elizabeth ran across the street to meet Emily, calling out her cheery good morning. It was indeed a sweet voice and had carrying power, clear as a bell or a bird note, yet it was not loud. Voices are as different as faces. We pay a great deal of attention in this country to training the singing voice, and we are willing to pay teachers large prices to develop the fine so- 199 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS prano or the rich contralto that everyone ad- mires. But far too little trouble is taken with the speaking voice, and it is a pity, for we sing only occasionally, and most of us talk from morning till night. If you hear a group of girls talking on the campus or in a street car, you are often pained by the lack of melody in their voices. Some are harsh and rough, others are nasal; some are muffled and croaking; a few are pure and silvery. Shakespeare, who was an acute observer, in speaking of one of his hero- ines, said: " Her voice was ever soft, gentle and low; an excellent thing in woman." First and last you find a good many allusions to voices in Shakespeare. There are families in which each seems to try whether or not he or she can be heard by speaking so loudly as to drown the rest. This is always a mark of very ill-breeding. No well-bred person screams or shouts in the family or anywhere else. A low voice may be heard quite as effectively as one that is loud and shrill, if its possessor has learned the art of managing it properly. Even in a large building a per- 200 THE SWEET-VOICED GIRL son who speaks slowly, giving every word its full value, and throwing the voice from the chest instead of from the head, will be heard distinctly. In order to have a full, agreeable voice, a girl should practice deep breathing several times a day in the open air. The voice is the expression of health, strength, character and personality. The lips, the teeth, the roof of the mouth, the palate, the vocal cords and the lungs are all involved in this voice of ours, which is our peculiar endow- ment, and lifts us up to the highest plane in creation. I will suppose that some girl for whom I am writing has contracted a slovenly way of talking, that her voice is not pleasant, and that her enunciation is indistinct. How shall she break herself of these bad habits? Just as she would break herself of a bad habit in any other direction, she must set herself to work about this and be in downright earnest if she is to accomplish anything worth while. She must remind herself constantly if she is accustomed to shriek, that people around her 20 1 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS are not deaf, and that if they were they would hear her as easily if she spoke low as if she spoke loudly. Every time she begins speak- ing as if she were a soldier on the warpath, let her call a halt, and drop her voice a tone or two. If she has the heedless method of omitting the final g and saying " mornin' ' for morning and " evenin' " for evening, let her remedy that. If she run her words to- gether, as too many of us do under the im- pression that there is no time to spare, and that words must tumble over each other as water tumbles over rocks, let her pause and go more slowly. Two girls the other day were discussing a third who was a student in a New England college, but was a native of India; a high caste girl who had been taught English in her babyhood. " You should hear her per- fect English," one said to the other. " She speaks more slowly than we do, and her voice is like music. She is never the least in a hurry and there is the prettiest little accent like a fragrance." We often notice this crystalline perfection in foreigners who have 202 THE SWEET-VOICED GIRL acquired English and speak it less recklessly and with more precision than we who are to the manner born. Dear girls, take your time. There is plenty of it. Neither rush nor shout, nor cackle, nor make a shrill clamor when you are talking, but remember Shakespeare's low and gentle voice, which is an excellent thing in woman. Of course, no girl who respects herself ever fumes, frets or scolds. There is a scolding voice and there is a fretting voice, and both are most repellent. Fancy coming suddenly into the presence of a girl whom you have always thought lovely and attrac- tive, and finding her storming and using in- vectives, and finding fault in a coarse, hateful way; that would show you that her char- acter had a very seamy side. You could never have the same opinion of such a girl again. It would be as if under the fair out- side you had seen a glimpse of something dark and repulsive within. Probably few girls offend by passionate vehemence of this kind, yet now and then one who has not learned self-control may be betrayed by her 203 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS temper and her voice may reveal a state of things that those who love her must deplore. Not only should you be careful about your voice in private, but do not overlook the fact that in public places a girl's voice should not be so raised as to make her conspicuous. For instance, if you go to a matinee or a concert, have in mind the people about you who have bought tickets and wish to listen to the performers, and do not let your own conversation go on at a time when attention should be focused on the stage. If you are in a car make it a rule neither to discuss your friends nor mention absent persons by name. This is a little world, and you never know but somebody may be near you who knows all about yourself and the persons about whom you are talking. A girl may live in New York, Philadelphia, or Louisville, and she may be talking in San Francisco or Cal- cutta or Bombay with a friend about another friend whose home is in Columbus or Talla- hassee, and some unknown passer or person standing or sitting near, may hear secrets not meant for outsiders and may know perfectly 204 THE SWEET-VOICED GIRL well the people who are mentioned. As you grow older you will more and more be amazed to discover what a little world this is, and how likely people are to have met other people all around the globe. Refinement and intelligence are shown by the voice as quickly as by the face. Illiterate people sometimes have sweet voices, espe- cially in some countries, but in ours with our harsh climate, keen winds and frequent changes of weather, we shall not have the velvet voices of our English cousins unless we make it our ambition to obtain them. Climate, of course, has a marked effect upon the voice. The dweller in the mountain and the dweller by the sea speak in different cadences, but you girls, wherever you are, may have sweet voices if you want them. You will not have them, it may be, without an effort and without taking pains, but the effort is worth making. Don't be affected. If you are taught to use the broad a in school and if you have been accustomed to it at home, you are fortunate, for it is correct and pleasing, but it is rather funny to hear a girl 205 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS attempt the broad a if she merely pins it on her speech like a bow on a dress, uses it some- times and sometimes forgets it. Above all things be natural. Affectation is a badge of insincerity and shows a shallow character. Be yourself, but make yourself in everything as delightful as you can. 206 CHAPTER XXIX A GOOD MEMORY T^\OROTHY tells me that she has a very ^~^ poor memory. Shaking her head as if the calamity were something never to be remedied, she insists that she cannot get her lessons or fix anything useful in her mind be- cause things roll off it as water runs down- hill. I must admit that I have met people whose minds were like sieves, and whose memories were pockets with holes, and other people there are whose power of remembering seems limited to whatever is not worth while. But I have always been quite sure that we may have good memories if we choose to take the trouble to cultivate them. Memory is a useful servant and if treated like a servant and held responsible, it will not disappoint its employer. 207 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS There are exceptional cases where an ill- ness or a blow on the head destroy memory for a time. If you have concussion of the brain you will very likely have to pick up your memory of the past little by little till the fragments are pieced into a whole. Fortunately, few school girls have concus- sion of the brain. Most of you may remem- ber whatever you choose, if you have two ex- cellent qualities, concentration and attention. A good rule is to think only of one thing at a time and think of that with all your might. If the object of the moment is a lesson in geography or a date in history or a proposition in geometry, think of that and think of nothing else till you have mastered it. Never mind about Virginia's hat or Blanche's new dress or the fetching way in which Evangeline is doing up her hair. The thing you have to do is to get hold of that date, that boundary or that proposition. If you are taking music lessons, cultivate a musical memory. This, too, depends al- most entirely on concentration and attention. It depends somewhat, but not wholly, upon 208 A GOOD MEMORY the ear, but if a girl chooses she may learn by heart some of the pieces she can play and then when a tired father asks to be enter- tained in the evening, or she goes to visit her Aunt Fanny, she is not obliged to carry her music with her; it should be in her brain and at her finger tips. A good memory for faces and names will make you very popular in society when you are older. Memory of this kind is cultivated by princes and royal folk in general. It is always a compliment to be remembered, and there is something very like a dash of cold water in the face when one expects to be re- membered and finds herself forgotten. Now that I have said this, let me advise girls to discriminate between what their mem- ories should carry by sheer force of deter- mination and what they may safely trust to a memorandum. It is not at all needful that you bear in your memory the streets and num- bers, the townships and counties of all your acquaintances. Commit these particulars to an address book. A pad and pencil may very properly assist you in keeping the record of 209 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS the day's or the week's engagements. When once you have written a thing down and know that you can put your hand on it at a moment's notice, you need not try to remem- ber it as well. The memorandum is suffi- cient. There are girls who never seem able to remember their lessons, or to remember ap- pointments they ought to keep, who still have what I call the wrong kind of memory. If anybody has ever treated them meanly or done something unkind or said something they did not like, they are sure to remember that. I have heard people boast that they never forgot an injury. Let me remind you, girls, that there is nothing noble in cherish- ing a grudge. The thing to do when any- one has wronged us is, as soon as we can, to forgive and forget. We do not forgive un- less we forget, and the more complete is our forgiveness the better we are and the more allied to the Divine. If Dorothy, conscious of a treacherous memory, is in downright earnest, she may without much difficulty change it for a good 210 A GOOD MEMORY one. The way to do is to be very firm and stern with your memory, compelling it to obey you. I do not believe very much in tricks and rhymes and systems for strength- ening memory. You may, if you choose, try what you can do by association. For in- stance, fix a date in your mind by remember- ing something about the room in which you were studying, or the teacher to whom you recited, or the color of a flower upon your desk. Certain dates in my mind are asso- ciated with red and others with yellow. You may connect an occurrence and a place in the same way. If your memory is not retentive as to rules and phrases, learn a cer- tain number of them by heart every day. If you had been a girl when I was, you would have fastened in your memory as nails are fastened in a sure place, all the rules and notes and exceptions in the grammar of one learned Goold Brown, whose very name is dear to me to this day. How many sum- mer hours, and winter ones, too, I spent over Mr. Brown's leather-covered volume. We girls were obliged to repeat all the rules in 211 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS grammar and arithmetic precisely as they were put down in the book, and we did it. The dullest girl did it and so did the bright- est. Absolute accuracy in repeating the text was required of everyone. Then we recited long passages from Cow- per's "Task," Pope's "Essay on Man," and Milton's " Paradise Lost." We learned pages and pages of history, reciting exactly the words of the book. Very few of us had oc- casion to complain of poor memories, because our memories were very much like soldiers on drill or day laborers digging ditches. We had a certain amount to do, and our memories were there to help us. I recommend as a good exercise for you some study of current events. Each morn- ing read the daily paper. See what is hap- pening in Europe, in Asia and in America. After you have finished reading the paper, take a blank book and write down in order and in your own words the gist of what you have read. This will aid not your verbal memory, but what I may call your picture memory. Do this every day for three hun- 212 A GOOD MEMORY dred and sixty-five days, and you will dis- cover that your memory is quite as trust- worthy as that of anybody else in the circle of your friends. Another thing that you may do is in an- other line. Memorize poetry. For Cowper substitute Longfellow, and for Pope take Kipling. Choose anything that you like, but get by heart each day from four to eight lines of verse. Gradually you will find your memory a storehouse of treasures from which you may draw whenever you please. 213 CHAPTER XXX HEALTH TF you ever, in the house of some old- A fashioned friend, pick up one of those elegant gift books which were in vogue in the '50*8, you will remember the steel engrav- ing that showed the ideal girl of yesterday. She was a willowy creature, with a delicate face, long silken ringlets shading her cheek, a very small waist, and long graceful hands. She had been taught to do embroidery and other fine needle work. She excelled in the piano playing of her day, and she was refined and reposeful. But there was something a little depressing in her charm. A dirgelike hymn, familiar to your mothers, epitomizes that girl as she used to be. " Sister, thou wast mild and lovely, Gentle as a summer breeze, Pleasant as the air of evening, When it stirred among the trees." 2I 4 HEALTH I have attended the funeral of more than one such exquisite girl, and have helped to sing that very hymn beside the silent sleeper. With the knowledge of hygiene, which is universal in the twentieth century, we are learning that the girls who used to be sacrificed on the altar of a mistaken ideal need not have died so soon. Very early in life they were taught not to run or jump, or do anything unfit for a little lady, and as they grew older they wore tight stays, abridging their breathing power; they slept in unven- tilated rooms, being afraid of the night air, and if by any fatal chance they came near a case of tuberculosis, they fell victims to it along the line of least resistance. It may have been twenty years ago or more that the reaction against this style of feminine languor reached its height. Then, the athletic girl was greatly in evidence. So far from caring at all about her looks, she was intensely proud of a sun-bronzed and wind-tanned complexion, of red hands and arms, and of a sort of rude robustness that eliminated the touch of daintiness to which 215 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS every girl should aspire. We have reached a saner day, and our girls have learned that they may live an outdoor life, have perfect health and lose no jot of attractiveness. I well remember in my girlhood hearing a young man comment unfavorably on the thick- ness of my walking shoes. He said, sotto voce: " How can that girl's mother let her wear those clumsy, thick-soled shoes ? " Be- ing well acquainted with the youth, I ventured to tell him that the shoes were adapted to the climate and the weather and enabled me to take long walks without discomfort. He re- plied : " No elegant young woman ever takes long walks, or wears anything except thin- soled shoes." I suppose few girls who have grown up under the excellent regime which teaches us to dress properly for the weather, can believe that this critic voiced a general opinion. I have had reason all my life to be grateful for the independence and wisdom of a very sensible mother, who thought it a duty of her daughters to be well. Not merely a privilege a positive, religious duty. Without health, one's pleasure is inter- 216 HEALTH fered with on every turn. This would be a small matter if one's chances to be useful were not also greatly diminished by fragile and uncertain health. People who are mor- bid and blue, and easily discouraged, who make mountains out of molehills and see lions in the way where others walk safely, are usually the prey of their nerves and have not reserve force enough to carry them through what they undertake. Schoolgirls, and those at college, too, sometimes break down through overwork, although I am inclined to think that this is seldom the case unless in addition to their legitimate work they attempt some- thing else. Unless a girl is very strong, she should not try to pay her way through school or college by her own work. Some girls do this suc- cessfully, but they are exceptional. Still more dangerous is the effort to combine study and society. The girl at high school, liv- ing at home and trying to go to parties and concerts and other evening amusements, can- not maintain her proper rank in the class room. 217 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS Briefly stated, unbroken health is within the reach of most of us. We are fortunate if we have inherited vigorous bodies from pa- rents and grandparents. Yet if we have be- gun life with tendencies to delicate health, we may overcome them by resolute will, care- ful dieting and generally hygienic living. An abundance of good, plain, nutritious food is essential to health. Thousands of schoolgirls owe their dull eyes, sallow complexions, pimples and fre- quent headaches to constant surfeiting on rich food and to eating too many sweets. A habit of eating between meals, nibbling chocolates and bonbons is fatal to digestion and good looks. x A girl who is half sick most of her time will lose her comeliness, and as beauty is the birthright of schoolgirls, which they should not sell for the modern mess of pot- tage in the confectioner's window, one cannot but regret the spendthrift folly. Equally fatal to health is the habit of tak- ing drugs. The girl who never gets far from the pill box will not have the high spir- its and gay good humor which should be her 218 HEALTH portion. I seldom see a group of girls stand- ing around a soda fountain without wishing that they knew the advantages of drinking plain cold water, only that and plenty of it, and letting sweetened syrups alone. Fruit should take the place of pastry, and it is bet- ter for growing girls wholly to omit coffee and tea from their bill of fare. Bread at least a day old is a better choice for a beauti- ful girl than hot biscuits, and fried food should not be chosen if anything else can be had. Another secret of health for the schoolgirl is plenty of sleep. The beauty sleep must be taken before midnight. Go early to bed if you would be strong and equal to whatever you have to do. The temptation to sit up late because others do so is always great, but it should be resisted. The schoolgirls who read this talk may be thankful they are not situated as one girl was to whom a settlement worker in New York said one evening: " Mabel, you are looking ill and fagged. You sit up too late at night after your long hours in the factory." 219 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS " Yes," said Mabel, " I know it, but there are eleven of us to sleep in two rooms, and my bed is not pulled down from the pile of mattresses until nearly midnight. I have to sit up. I have no room of my own." The poor girl was not responsible for her short nights of rest. To sleep long hours in a vitiated atmosphere is to breathe poison, so a girl who does not want to be tired and languid must have fresh air in her room all night. Nor must she neglect the daily bath. The best complexion cosmetic that anyone can use is water, cold or tepid, as preferred. Every day of one's life, preferably in the morning, one should bathe from head to foot, after- ward rubbing hard with a coarse towel, so that the skin may be in a healthful glow. These directions may seem very primitive, but there are always those who need them. Health is largely a matter of the will and of minding simple rules every day. We may be well if we will but take the trouble. I wish I could persuade every girl in the land to revere the house in which she lives. 220 HEALTH The body is the soul's house. Body and soul are strangely united. If we abuse the body we suffer pain, if we treat it with fairness and give it freedom, if we feel for it the rever- ence we should, we go through life cheerfully equal to the day's work. The foundation for a heathful, happy life is laid in youth. You are building for to-morrow. In many cases a headache is more than a blunder; it is a sin. There are no doubt times when this language is too strong to fit the occasion, but taking the great host of schoolgirls as they are, they have no need to be nervous, irritable or in any way depressed by any physical dis- tress whatever. If they will obey the laws of health they will be well. 221 CHAPTER XXXI THE CARE OF THE EYES /CONSIDERING that your eyes are not ^^^ only given you for ornament, but for use, and that as they have to last you during your whole life, you ought to take great care of them. What color are they hazel, gray, blue, brown or black? Whatever their color may be it is the one that best suits your face, and whether you know it or not, your friends are of the opinion that you have the prettiest eyes in the world. A great deal of expression is in the eye. Eyes that are wide-open and straightforward, that look others fully in the face, that have nothing to hide, are very beautiful eyes, who- ever has them. Of course they are set off by the long fringing lashes and the well- defined eyebrows that, so to speak, constitute their frame. No girl can be regarded as 222 THE CARE OF THE EYES plain or unattractive who has good, clear eyes, with the silken lashes and delicately pen- ciled brows that artists and poets rave about. What troubles me is to notice the liberties many young girls take with their eyes. They sit reading at that hour of the day when the light is waning, and the effort to discern what is on the page is continuous. If it is hard for you to see, your eyes are being un- duly taxed. There is a popular impression that young people strain their eyes by gazing at distant objects. They much oftener strain them badly by fixing them too closely on ob- jects near at hand. Thus, the near-sighted person or the person whose eyes do not see equally, is always subject to a strain which is wearing on the eyes and is the obscure cause of many headaches. If you find in the schoolroom that you do not easily read lines or figures on the black- board, or if you have trouble in looking out places on the map, or hunting up words and definitions in the dictionary, you may be very sure that your eyes need attention. Very likely an oculist would help you at once by fitting 223 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS you with the right lens, and you would real- ize what you had not known before, that you had been doing your work with a handicap that put you at a disadvantage. No one can do her best if she feels fretted, irritated and harassed. A girl who is nervous cannot stand well in her classes. Not long ago, a girl friend of mine who had devoted many hours of every week to music for some years, found the notes blur- ring before her, and suffered a good deal of torture and pain when she attempted to read the pages that had been hitherto as plain as print. The specialist whom she consulted told her that she had so recklessly used her eyesight that although a mere girl, she had the eyes of an old woman. I should be very sorry to think that any girl who reads this would make such a mistake as this, for it liter- ally would shadow the rest of her life. In reading, let the light fall over the left shoulder, and sit so that it will do so rather than facing it if you can. Do not attempt to study with an insufficient light. A stu- 224 THE CARE OF THE EYES dent's lamp that burns steadily is a good in- vestment. Frequent bathing with cold water strength- ens the eyes. It is a good plan to fill a tum- bler to the brim with pure water and then wink the eyes in it so that a drop or two will sift under the lids. A physician has said " when you get any- thing in the eye in order to get it out the lower lid should be pulled down, the eye should look down toward the floor and slightly toward the nose. If nothing is found in this part then the upper lid can be turned back and search made there." One cannot very well do this for herself, and the friend who does it must have a steady hand and a very deft touch. Remember while working, to sit as erect as you can. Do not stoop. Do not read in a train or carriage, where the constant move- ment of the book obliges a continual change of focus. Very fine needlework is trying to the eyes. A well-known oculist has said that the ideal book has good type, well spaced, on unglazed 225 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS paper. A book should be held nearly on a level with the eyes and if very heavy, should be supported by a rest. Do not read or study when lying down. I wonder if I may say something here that has not so much to do with the eye itself as with the brain behind it. There are people who are much too quick to see faults and defects in others. They are critical and cen- sorious, and you may be sure if there is a flaw anywhere they will pounce upon it without mercy. Look for the blemishes in your own conduct and character, if you choose. But take good care not to search for them in the behavior of your neighbors. The eyes that are quick to discover when somebody needs help, that are ready to thread a needle for somebody who no longer does it easily for herself, that are willing to help the blind or to amuse children are the eyes one loves best. More than any other feature, the eyes re- veal the soul. A furtive, downcast, shifty eye is the sign of deceit and hypocrisy. I do not think I have ever seen a sweet young girl 226 THE CARE OF THE EYES with such an eye or with the expression that comes from conscious wrongdoing. Eyes that have nothing to fear, that are brave and true, and that have never had behind them a cowardly or impure thought, are the eyes we love in our daughters. 227 CHAPTER XXXII DRESS 4t T ESSIE has reached the age when she ^ fusses and fidgets about her dress, looks at herself in the glass, worries because her cloak or her hat or her jacket or some- thing else is last year's style, and altogether behaves like a vain and silly girl," exclaimed Jessie's aunt, who had no patience with such frivolous conduct. " If Jessie had been the fourth daughter in a large family," said Mary Elizabeth, looking up with a smile, " she would have learned to be thankful for small favors. Until I had passed my thirteenth birthday I never once went out of the house with a cos- tume every bit of which had been made for me. I usually wore Susan's last year's frocks and Mildred's last year's hats, retrimmed and freshened up, and when I had a jacket 228 DRESS it had been worn before me by Ethel. Mother always bought good things that would last and they lasted until several chil- dren wore them out. I was cured of fussi- ness before so much as a wee leaf of it cropped up in my character. Generally speak- ing I had new shoes and that was a comfort." Jessie had listened to both speakers with an air of serious attention. " I love pretty things," said she, " and I hate ugly ones. Why shall sister Louise, who is a young lady, wear a corset that gives her a good figure while I who have no figure at all am obliged to wear a corded waist and button my skirts to it? " By this time I was so stirred up that I was compelled to intrude my views on the girls. " What on earth can you be thinking of, Jessie? A schoolgirl's first duty to herself is to wear healthful dress and although cor- sets are excellent and suitable in their place for grown up young women, they are not parts of hygienic dress for you. I hope that you spend a good many hours every day out of doors, and that your director of physical 229 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS culture superintends your calisthenics and your exercises in the gymnasium. The gym is as much an educational place for you as the Latin class or the recitation room where you study and present any other abstruse sub- ject in the school. For daily use a schoolgirl needs well-made loosely fitting blouses and skirts, and the weight of her clothing should hang not from the hips but from the shoulder. " Deep breathing is your great necessity; your lungs should be filled daily and often with the purest air and your chest have abun- dant room to expand. As for shoes, you must have common-sense lasts broad enough in the sole and low enough in the heel to en- able you to walk with ease and grace. A schoolgirl must not wear a tight shoe nor a high heel. You are too young and too pretty to require much ornament in your dress, and there is no sense in your fussing over shirt waists and simple stocks, hair rib- bons and belts. " Once your wardrobe is supplied with what is comfortable and you have equipped yourself with a golf cape, a rain coat and a DRESS sailor hat, you are ready for every occasion." " For receptions and commencements and Sunday evenings at home?" queried Jessie, her dimples playing hide and seek as she archly glanced at me. " I beg your pardon," I answered. " A girl does need one or two dainty frocks for evening wear and they should preferably be white. The simpler they are the more suit- able they are sure to be. A great many tucks, puffs, ruffles and lace insertions are misplaced in a girl's dress while she is yet in her teens. There may be, of course, some unobtrusive decorations, but not very much is needed, for she herself sets off her gown. " I like to think, too, that a girl who is growing up takes a little time now and then to bestow attention on the laundress who has to wash and iron the dainty muslins that are so elaborate and so beautifully finished with lace edges and delicate embroideries. A girl who has once or twice done her own laundry work, washed and ironed a white muslin gown, or a duck skirt, will know by experience that it is far from easy work, 231 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS and she will be somewhat more careful about frequently sending it to the tub, than her friend who has had no such personal knowl- edge of the labor involved." No young girl has the slightest occasion to worry about her figure if she only has a dress that fits her comfortably, if she stands up straight, throwing back her shoulders and holding up her head. The figure will take care of itself. Health is the great beautifier and sensible dress is for young people its best ally. Fortunately for young girls, there is no question about the length of their skirts. For everyday wear frocks that reach the ankle, are comfortable and insure ease in walking, and immunity from contact with mud and dirt. For functions such as Jessie referred to in her nai've question about recep- tions and Sunday evenings, a girl's best gown while she is in her teens may be instep length. Girls never wear trailing skirts in these days. An excellent adjunct to cleanliness, comfort and health is a whisk-broom or a clothes- brush scrupulously used every time a dress is 232 DRESS taken off. If we would carefully brush our clothes and shake them out of an open win- dow before hanging them in closets or ward- robes, we should rid ourselves of the danger of germs that may have lurked in outside dust. Girls should be grateful that their lot is cast in the twentieth century. An eighteenth century girl, or one born in the early nine- teenth, wore a short-waisted frock with the skirt beginning under the arm-pits. It was of clinging stuff and swept the floor as she walked. Her shoes were thin slippers with- out heels held on by strings crossed over the instep and around the ankles. On her head she often wore a construction of muslin and wire that was half turban and half cap. Her sleeves were short and her dresses half low at the neck, as a rule. Do you not think that you are much better dressed than she was, both for health and beauty? 233 CHAPTER XXXIII MAGNIFYING TROUBLES in a while we fail, do we not, girls? There is something on which we have set our hearts, some perfectly right and desirable thing, but we cannot get it. We have tried faithfully to the best of our ability. But we are disappointed. We feel very much as we would if we saw somebody else climbing, without the least trouble, to the top of a mountain, while we kept sliding back to the bottom. Everybody cannot be equally successful, and a friend of a classmate often seems to gain without much effort whatever she wants, while we lose. It is so in many departments of life outside of the schoolroom. It is not only that another girl wins the gold medal for proficiency, while we have not even a mention on the honor list; that another al- 234 MAGNIFYING TROUBLES ways has reports enriched with a double A, while we have only a B or C, but there are other failures that try our hearts quite as much. Another girl makes a friendship where we have only a slight acquaintance, or goes off on a splendid trip to Europe, while we stay at home without change of scene. The fact is, if we choose to disturb ourselves about them, the small disappointments of life are endless. The great ones, too, occur now and then. It is a test of character to meet discouragements bravely, and to refuse to be downcast and blue, when we fail in an attempt through no fault of our own. As I write I am thinking of a girl friend who has had an experience which will show her mettle and disclose in its later effect the sort of girl she is. Elizabeth is a quick and clever girl, who learns without taking much trouble, and who has a reputation in her family circle for extraordinary genius. She has always been expected to carry off all the prizes in sight. Her father amuses his friends by the unconscious vanity which 235 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS prompts him to boast of Elizabeth's spright- liness, and he is continually repeating her witty speeches and telling any listener whom he can buttonhole the story of her latest tri- umphs. Her mother has less to say, and is more tactful, but in her quiet, unobtrusive fashion, she is just as proud of her daughter and just as convinced of her superior talents as her good husband is. Both these people, without meaning it, have puffed up Eliza- beth from her cradle, with the result that she has come to depend entirely too much on her quickness and has omitted the hard study which at certain points is indispensable. You may imagine the family consternation and chagrin when Elizabeth failed to pass her senior examinations, and was told that she would have to take her last year over if she is finally to be graduated. A year does not look very long to your father and mother, because as people grow older the years seem fairly to rush along like waves in a mill-race, but it seems a tremen- dous thing to a girl of seventeen. It looks to her like a long, level stretch of eternity. If 236 MAGNIFYING TROUBLES we fail in anything when we are young we are tempted to fancy that we never can make up our loss. That is one reason why young people are blue when they ought to see everything in rose-color. Once we allow ourselves to be discouraged, we are handi- capped. We are very apt in such moods to discourage others. If a girl in Elizabeth's position happens to be preparing to teach, or has in mind a determination to be an artist, or a journalist, she says to herself, " I may as well give it up. There is no use in keep- ing on. I shall never attain what I wish." " Never " is a word one hears on the lips of schoolgirls much oftener than one ought. Looking over a closet one day in which a middle-aged woman had packed away many treasures of her girlhood, I came upon a lot of old schoolbooks. In one of them I found written in very black letters, underscored, too, on the margin of several pages the word " Despair." " Have you any idea," I said to the owner of the books, " why or when you wrote this word on these pages? " " Oh," she said, with a laugh, " When I 237 TAPPY SCHOOL DAYS was fou^een I had moods. I often used to think that I had almost reached the jumping- off place of the world, and if I failed in a les- son I felt as if the disgrace were inscribed upon me in letters so large that everybody could see them. I suppose I scribbled that one day when I was blue." A woman who has been widely known as a successful writer told me that her first work during the first year of her struggle to enter the profession was invariably returned. " Stories, poems, essays," she said, " all came hurrying back, declined with thanks, and I used literally many a time to wet my pillow with tears. Yet the oftener I failed the more determined I became not to fail. I would just pull myself together and work harder the next time." In the case of a student who, either through illness or lack of painstaking or in- ability to do her work, misses a year, the delay may be a blessing in disguise. It need not be an irretrievable loss. One thing you and I should guard against is caring too much 238 MAGNIFYING TROUBLES about what people say. A hurt to vanity wounds like the thrust of a knife. We are often so mortified because our friends think us slow and compare us as we imagine with others who have done better than we, that we cease our endeavors or let ourselves be sidetracked entirely too long. Occasionally it becomes necessary wholly to change the plans for one's life. A girl may be compelled by loss of health or finan- cial trouble in the family to do something quite different from that which she had an- ticipated. If this is duty, be brave and ac- cept it without making a fuss and com- plaining. This is such a bright and cheery world in which we live, and there are so many reasons for being happy, that it is a positive sin for anybody ever to be blue. When a girl lets herself drift into a habit of self-pity she be- comes morbid and miserable, makes herself wretched and perhaps loses the power of controlling her nerves. She wants to scream. I wish you and I could understand as we 239 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS ought that, however we may feel inside, we never have a right to show our friends any- thing except brightness and sympathy. To let ourselves huddle up in tearful heaps, to be damp, moist and unpleasant, and have hysterics over anything whatever, is absurd and shameful. The worst failure anyone can have is a failure to rule one's own spirit and behavior. In the " Life of Burne-Jones," a book that is full of glorious courage, there are con- tinual proofs of the great artist's heroism. When you see his lovely pictures I want you to remember that the loveliest thing about him was his refusal ever to be discouraged. He made his friends stronger by his habit of constant cheerfulness. We ought to make stepping-stones of our failures. If we hap- pen not to succeed to-day, let us start right over and succeed to-morrow. One learns more by failing than by gaining easy honors in the early struggles of this strenuous time. The one who fails and .tries again will win at last. 240 CHAPTER XXXIV MINOR MORALS TV/TINOR morals? What on earth do you mean by that phrase? I seem to hear the query from a dozen girls, who look at me with reproachful eyes. Have we not been taught, they say, that right is right, and wrong is wrong, and there is no middle path? What are the minor morals? The girls wish to know. Let me explain. Let me slip into the class room where a recitation is going on. Did I see Prudence hesitate for a brief second when a question was asked her, and almost imperceptibly did Agnes move her lips and give her classmate the clew? I wonder. In old days, when Agnes and Prudence had grandmothers who went to a little district school on the edge of a prairie or on the slope of a mountain, there was often more than this fleeting look. 241 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS There was low whispering from one girl to another, or maybe a penciled slip was fur- tively passed under cover of books or slates. The clever girl with the well-prepared lesson assisted her friend who had not studied, and a preoccupied teacher was none the wiser, but the teacher had been deceived, the un- faithful pupil had really suffered wrong still worse, the ideal of honor which should float before a girl's mind had been flawed through a false notion of friendship. Evil had en- tered the class room, and the minor morals were violated. Human nature does not change very much with the passing years. The schoolrooms that are closed at night when you have gone home could tell many a tale if they chose. Would you not like to feel that there is noth- ing invisible written on the walls and the desks and the blackboards that would em- barrass you if suddenly the record should be- come plain in the eyes of your little world ? There are girls who never appear to be properly fitted out with their own school fur- niture. They are compelled to borrow pen- 242 MINOR MORALS cils and pads and paste and crayons, and all sorts of things, and they do this with so charming a grace that their companions dis- like to say no, and to seem disagreeable by refusing to oblige them. But after awhile when it is discovered that Gertrude invaria- bly forgets to return what she has borrowed, that a book passing through the hands of Grace comes back far the worse for wear, and that, in short, neither girl understands the distinction between mine and thine, Mary and Elizabeth, who are usually very well sup- plied with school apparatus, grow tired of being accommodating. Other girls there are who borrow small sums of money, and immediately let the transaction slip out of their memory. Their memories are treacherous, and drop financial obligations as water drops through a sieve. This is certainly worse than a violation of a minor morality. It is a good deal more like the breaking of the eighth commandment. Good manners, let me tell you, are good morals. Bad manners, such as loud talking in public places, pushing and shoving in cars 243 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS and on the ferry, omitting thanks for cour- tesies received, and interrupting conversa- tion, belong distinctly to the category of minor immoralities. It may easily be that a schoolgirl is the soul of honor, that she would scorn to accept help in any indirect way from a schoolmate or a book, and that you could trust her with untold gold, but she may have rude and boorish manners all the same. V-I am always pained when I hear a young girl using slang/ Girls pick up expressions from their brothers which are bad enough on boyish lips, but are still more out of place when indulged in by girls. We have a right to expect purity and sweetness from a girl, and refinement in speech and manner. I hardly dare mention such vulgar prac- tices as the chewing of gum, eating peanuts in public or sitting in a car and partaking of oranges and bananas when strangers are about. Every one of these practices may have something to say for itself, though I for one would draw the line at the chewing of gum, but all nibbling, munching and cat- 244 MINOR MORALS ing in public out of season is simply vulgar, and vulgarity in a schoolgirl is abhorrent. Another thing that I beg your pardon for so much as alluding to, is flirting. Have your boy friends as openly as you choose, just as you have your girl friends, but don't notice boys whom you do not know any more than you notice girls; encourage no familiarity from passers on the street, and do not form acquaintances of whom you would be ashamed should you introduce them to your father and mother. Anything whatever which has to be kept a secret and hidden away from mothers and teachers has in it some- thing forbidden, and therefore wholly repre- hensible. Avoid it as you would avoid the touch of poison ivy. It shatters that code of morality which we must observe and obey whatever our age may be. Among the minor moralities most fre- quently invaded by young girls is deference to older people. You do not dream how beautiful it is, and how well-bred and attrac- tive it makes a girl appear to pay courteous attention to her elders when they are talking, HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS to listen to their stories, even though one has heard them before, and to hasten to the help of those who, by reason of years, have some infirmity. A girl never seems so lovable as when she puts aside her own wishes that she may give pleasure to some one who is ill, fee- ble or encumbered with age or sorrow. When Dorothy rises to give a seat to a lady with gray hair, or quietly threads a needle so that it may be ready for the aunt or cousin whose eyes are a little dim, or lis- tens respectfully to a story that she has heard before, yet makes no sign of boredom, I know at once that I am in the presence of a girl whose thinking of others makes us think of her. Politeness and grace should be automatic. If we have to stop and think about our man- ners, they will probably be clumsy. If we are in the habit of doing small, dishonest things, or telling what people call fibs, eva- sions and the like, we shall one day be sur- prised by some great act of dishonor or find ourselves involved in the tangled meshes of some shameful deceit. It is well worth 246 MINOR MORALS while, girls, to look carefully out for the minor morals. Let us hold our standards high. If we are fastidious in little things, great things will never give us a moment's uneasiness. 247 CHAPTER XXXV PROMOTION PROMOTION days, whether they oc- * cur in midwinter or in late spring, are red-letter days. Everybody is pleased when we are promoted, ourselves most of all. It is impossible to avoid a feeling of satisfaction and delight, when at the end of some weeks or months we discover that we have not been working in vain, and that we have actually gone one round higher upon the ladder. A schoolgirl is just as much pleased when she leaves Division B for Division A or advances a grade, and has as good a right to be pleased about it as the lieutenant when he becomes a captain, the captain when he gains the rank of major, and the major when the people salute him as colonel, and so on. Promotion is a sign to everyone in our world that we are favorites of fortune, and 248 PROMOTION good soldiers as well. In the battles of life it is a right and proper thing to strive for promotion. Occasionally when a girl has done her very best and been faithful to every duty and fulfilled every task throughout a term, she fails of promotion. The powers that be, looking over her work, decide that it will be for her advantage in the end to wait awhile and not too early push forward in to a region where difficulties beyond her strength must be encountered. Their deci- sion is sure to be a disappointment to the girl, particularly if she belong to the set of girls who are naturally conscientious and diligent. She will feel mortified that her companions are to be ahead of her and that she must re- main in line with younger girls or with those who have been below her. She feels as if everyone was staring at her, and as if dull- ness were written upon her forehead. " There goes Ethel," she fancies people saying. " Poor girl, she was not pro- moted." If she have a foolish mother she may be persuaded to let her daughter leave the school and start afresh in another, always 249 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS a very unwise thing to do, if the only reason for the change be that the pupil must stay where she is long enough to lay broad and deep foundations. A year is a long stretch of time when a girl is in her early teens. It will not look so very long in years to come. Twelve months flit by very rapidly. I have known a pupil who did not make a promotion in a certain year to overtake her friends by and by and surpass them even to the skipping a class. She had gained the ability to progress very rapidly in the end, because she had been ex- tremely thorough with the work that an- swered to the cornerstone of the building in her education. When we are promoted we accept new responsibilities with our honors. More is expected from us to-day than was exacted yes- terday. We are to set good examples to those who look up to us, and there is not any- thing much harder in this world than to be obliged to set a good example. Think of it, girls! You are not to be irritable or fault- finding, to be unpunctual or careless, to be 250 PROMOTION sketchy instead of thorough, or untidy in- stead of neat. Those who belong to the upper classes are to be patterns for lower classes to imitate. In some schools there is a system of self-government prevalent through the school and the girls of the senior and sub-senior departments are its ar- biters and managers, and they form its courts of appeal, if any mooted point arises. I need not enlarge upon this, for if I am not mistaken a girl never feels much older than when she is in the senior class in her school. Perhaps I ought to tell you not to carry too many burdens or take life too seri- ously, since after all girlhood should be a care-free and very happy time. Generally speaking, faithful work done day by day results in promotion, at least while we are in school. Illness may inter- vene, or we may be kept back by some trou- ble with the eyes, or ears, that causes inatten- tion and makes us lose the thread of what is being taught. Few girls are so clever that they can learn without close attention. Sometimes a girl has too many conflicting 251 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS engagements, as for instance, when she ven- tures on the borderland of society. A school- girl has no business with evening companies, theatres, concerts, or social entertainments of any kind whatever. Her round of duties is clasped by two words, home and school. Lessons cannot all be studied to advantage in the schoolroom, and a portion of school work must be taken home and done there. Health is of the utmost importance, and to keep it at the highest point, a girl must have plenty of exercise out of doors, or in the gymnasium, and must not forget that the best hours for recreation are those that directly follow the afternoon closing of school. Evening hours should be devoted to prep- aration for another day, and for a school- girl the old rule of " early to bed and early to rise " has no exceptions. If we would be promoted we must take time to sleep that the brain may be rested and ready to do its work. The conclusion of the matter is this: Don't be unduly elated when you succeed, and don't be altogether crushed when you fail. The people in this world who gain 252 PROMOTION what they want in the end are those who can- not be rebuffed or disheartened when things go wrong. If they slip down they scramble up, and try again. They are like the man in Mother Goose who jumped into a bramble bush, and scratched out both his eyes. " And when he found his eyes were out, With all his might and main, He jumped into another bush And scratched them in again." If we do our best we deserve reward whether we receive it or not, and there is a rich reward in an approving conscience. 253 CHAPTER XXXVI THE PRESIDENT OF HER CLASS A MY is president of her class ! Amy is not the oldest girl in it, nor the pret- tiest, nor the best dressed, nor even the one of best scholarship. Ruth has higher marks, Edith has finer clothes, Florence is the class beauty, and Phebe is probably the girl with the largest number of birthdays. While we are young we esteem it a cause for congrat- ulation, that we are nearer twenty than some- body who is only fifteen. If we are eighteen we are proud of the distinction. Only as time, the thief of so many happy things, steals away our pride in our years, do we try to hide them. You girls at school are all beautifully and blissfully young, bless your dear hearts, and you need not try to conceal the fact. A girl I knew once happened by chance to 254 PRESIDENT OF HER CLASS see a sentence about her, in a letter not meant for her eyes. The letter said : " Theodora is very young, and her appearance indicates it." Though Theodora had apple-brown in her cheeks, and eyes like stars, and a mass of chestnut hair with glints of sunshine thread- ing it, she cried when she found that people thought she looked young. She wanted to look old ! Poor little Theodora. Why is a girl chosen as class president, why Amy rather than Sue, or Rachel ? Well, girls, probably for two or three reasons. A girl who is thus honored by the suffrages of her mates, is a popular person. She has not gone around with a chip on her shoulder. She has never made enemies by unlucky speeches. She does not make fun of her friends, nor indulge in wit at their ex- pense. This is on the negative side of the question. On the affirmative side the popular girl has lost no opportunity to do little kindnesses at the right moment. She speaks cordially of the absent. She performs graceful serv- ices graciously. She is in the public eye, 255 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS more or less, and people know where they can find her. If asked to do anything oblig- ing, she does it without a fuss. The popular girl has a troop of friends, because she is friendly. Every one can de- pend on her not to make a stupid mistake, and to say the proper word in the proper place. She possesses tact. To the average girl, tact is a better gift than good looks, or great learning. It makes a girl quick to un- derstand people, and it makes them like her. A girl who has tact always helps other people to be at their best, and that is much finer than to be brilliant and showy in one's own char- acter. The president of a class generally is a girl with charm. Amy has had charm from her cradle. What is it? How shall it be ex- plained? Dear girl, it is impossible to define charm in set terms. It is the perfume of a flower, it is the sweetness of the violin, it is the soft shimmer of the moon, it is the sigh of the surf when last it breaks upon the shore. A girl who has charm steals into one's heart. She may be a gentle mouse of a girl, demure 256 PRESIDENT OF HER CLASS and quiet, or a merry breeze-like girl, coming indoors with the swing of the wind, but her charm, if genuine, will belong to her person- ality and be a part of her. City girls have this endowment and so have country girls. A good deal of it de- pends on being free from self-absorption. No girl who is thinking much about herself ever has charm. Homely girls often have it and pretty girls miss it, so you see it does not need to go with a roseleaf skin and dim- ples. But Amy would not be chosen as class- president if the other girls had not been im- pressed by her charm. Still another excellent quality, and one that a leader always has, is force. Without force nobody can hope to lead. Most of us are followers. Only here and there springs up the girl who leads. It is never by bluster or vehemence, by over emphasis and self-as- sertion, or by any display of arrogance and bad manners, that a girl becomes a leader. Force of character is a flame within the soul, that shines out in daily conduct. A weak girl takes the color of the last per- 257 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS son who talks with her. Why, you may often tell with whom a girl has been asso- ciating by her inflections, her tones, and her pet phrases. As for opinions, the weak per- son may think she has them, but in reality she has only prejudices, which are very dif- ferent. But should you ask me what attribute in a girl will help her to be most successfully presi- dent of her class, I think I will pick out this beyond every other. She must have what we call initiative. That is, she must be able to suggest new lines, to strike out in new paths, and to convince the other girls that her ideas are good. A girl who is a slave to system, who cares principally how things look, and is in terror about what people will say, is not a girl with initiative. She must not be a coward, either. Not long ago a school play was to be presented. The rehearsals were over, the evening had arrived, and the spectators were there. But one girl who had an important part in the first act, at the last moment refused to go on the stage because her gloves were too short. 258 PRESIDENT OF HER CLASS She sulked and pouted. Her gloves did not reach the elbow. Another girl, infected by her behavior, discovered that her shoes had not the right buckles. There was dismay be- hind the scenes. Katherine and Elinor stood there in rebellion. And the class-president was sent for. " Katherine," she said, not elegantly, but positively, " shut up ! " " El- inor, go on with your lines. They are wait- ing for you ! " Both girls obeyed at once. They recognized the accent of authority. Girls, whoever else fails or succeeds, she who takes a front rank and is conspicuous must do the latter. She cannot fail. She must succeed. The president of her class must win the favor and confidence of her teachers, and must not be afraid to take a firm stand when occasion requires and so to act that her classmates are proud of her. She must learn a little bit of parliamentary law, so that in the meetings she shall take the chair with ease and grace. This will help her to engineer a meeting well, and she must not have private ends when she does this, but must endeavor to be perfectly fair 259 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS and to do what is best for the good of the whole. Unless she docs not shrink from extra work and from taking pains, a girl would much better decline this honor. If she does accept it she must pay the price. 260 CHAPTER XXXVII COMMENCEMENT SEASON "Vf OU ought to have good times at com- mencements, girls. You have had plenty of hard study and really strenuous work during the school year, and when com- mencement comes it is a good deal more to you than just an opportunity to receive your diplomas. The diplomas are testimonials of your merit, and they have value for that reason. A girl carrying home her diploma with its signatures of teachers and examiners has a right to be proud and happy. If she care enough about this certificate of progress to have it framed and hung in her own room, it will always be a souvenir of the brightest period of her life. Unless it is framed, it may be lost to view. You may have jolly and genial days later on, but never any will 261 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS be more thoroughly delightful than those you have passed in the schoolroom in your early teens. The diploma is a milestone that marks red-letter days. Clustering around commencement are a number of functions that, each and all, are extremely pleasant to girls who have kept pace together, day by day, week by week, for ten months of the twelve. In some schools there is a ceremony of tree-planting or ivy- planting at commencement, and as each class brings its spade and trowel, selects a spot for its vine or tree, and sings its song of joy, older people looking on have a vision of the future. Ten or twenty years hence, where shall this merry company be and what changes will have taken place in this cheery circle of gay young girls? Who knows? One thing is certain; the girls who plant the ivy will never forget their school, and now and then they will return to it to renew the old associations. Very likely in days to come girls like you will bring casts and pictures to adorn the walls of the recitation rooms and 262 COMMENCEMENT SEASON assembly rooms that have meant so much in the beginning of their careers. Class day, with its informality and fun, is one of the most agreeable features of the commencement season. In order to have it successful those who take part in the exer- cises should be carefully chosen. In a spirit of good-humored banter, the girls who write the class history and the class prophecy must hit off points in the character of their friends. No one in the class is exempt from the merry comment, not in the least malicious, but al- ways mirth-provoking, that describes each girl in turn. Even the teachers, if popular and beloved, are not exempt from the gay raillery of class day. Last year a girl neighbor of mine gave me a peep beforehand into the class histories and prophecies which had been evolved from the clever brains of the class committee. I did not wonder that when these facetious crit- icisms were given in the presence of the class the laughter was immoderate. Never is laughter so untrammeled and so free, never are jests so well received as on class day, in 263 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS a school where the girls know one another intimately and understand all one another's little ways. Little vanities, little tricks of gesture, little oddities of manner, have their appropriate niche in the class history. But when class prophecies are attempted, there are often flashes of silence in the mid- dle of the mirth. No matter how high runs the tide of fun, nobody can forget that after commencement there will be separations and good-bys, that girls who have shared the same seat may go one to the east and one to the west, and that the everyday compan- ionship will be at an end. Some time during commencement, if prac- ticable, there should be a feast. Let the table be decorated with flowers in the class colors, and let the toast mistress do her part. She must not leave anything to the moment. Some days previous to the feast the toast mistress must make a list of sentiments appro- priate to the time and place and arrange with certain girls so that they will be ready to re- spond. A break in the speeches may be pleas- antly made by the singing of class songs, and 264 COMMENCEMENT SEASON if there are one or two musical girls who can play the violin, or mandolin, or the banjo, let them contribute something to the program. You will find it a good plan whenever you have a social function of any kind ahead of you to provide carefully for every detail. Nothing should be left to accident. When commencement days are over and you start your preparations for something new, whether it be a vacation journey or a little practical housekeeping, a visit to grand- parents or country cousins, or some special work that will fit you for a higher institution of learning, do not let go your hold of the old friends. Those who live in the same town will naturally meet often. Those who reside in places apart will find their interest growing less, and as this is a great pity and a sort of waste it is well to keep the fire of friendship alight by means of correspond- ence. Believe me, girls, on the road of life you and I will find few things more worth while than comradeship. 265 CHAPTER XXXVIII A SCHOOLGIRL'S CALENDAR T WONDER if you ever think, dear girls, * what story the calendar is telling for you. Perhaps you have a tiny pocket calendar tucked into your purse that you may consult it if you happen, as careless people some- times do, to forget the date; not that I fancy you belong to that set or that you do not keep tally of the days of the month. A good plan for us all is to remember just where we are, so that we never have to pause and ask somebody to tell us whether it is the eighth or the ninth, the tenth or the twelfth day of the month. You may keep a calendar on your dressing bureau, tearing off a leaf every day, or it may hang suspended from a nail by a ribbon or a chain, or be fastened on the wall. Whatever sort 266 A SCHOOLGIRL'S CALENDAR of calendar you have it is simply a device to remind you that time is flying and that it is well to make the most of it and of its opportunities before it is gone out of sight. Just one day at a time is yours and mine, and according as we use or abuse the single day, we shall get the good that is waiting for us and earn the reward that comes to faithful workers. I am very fond of all sorts and condi- tions of girls, but there is one variety with which I have no patience; the girl who dawdles, who sits around talking about what she means to do and never accomplishing anything, is not the girl who commends her- self to me. She is not only idle herself, but she sets a bad example to every one else and commits the mistake of throwing away the most valuable asset she will ever have. A day when one is young and strong and light- hearted as girls are or should be, is worth ten times as much as a day will be when the same girls are older and know more about care and trouble. Is your story of the caien- 267 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS dar a story of work well-done and of play undertaken with all your heart? Whatever you do, never dawdle. There is something else to think about in the story of the calendar. It is n't the thing you do, dear, It 's the thing you leave undone, That gives you a bit of a heartache At the setting of the sun. The tender word forgotten ; The letter you did not write ; The flower you did not send, dear, Are your haunting ghosts at night. The stone you might have lifted Out of a brother's way ; The bit of heartsome counsel You were hurried too much to say; The loving touch of the hand, dear, And the gentle, winning tone, That you had no time or thought for With troubles enough of your own. Those little acts of kindness So easily out of mind, Those chances to be angels Which we poor mortals find, They come in night and silence, Each sad, reproachful wraith, 268 A SCHOOLGIRL'S CALENDAR When hope is faint and flagging And a chill has fallen on faith. For life is all too short, dear, And sorrow is all too great, To suffer our slow compassion That tarries until too late; And it is n't the things you do, dear, It 's the thing you leave undone That gives you a bit of a heartache At the setting of the sun. I do not want the girls I care for to go about with the weight of the world on their shoulders, or would I like to see them al- ways bothering about the impression they are making or the number of things they were accomplishing from Monday until Saturday. It is quite possible to make such a fuss over one's duty that one tires all one's friends and succeeds in frightening the average person out of one's neighborhood. But our sins of omission foot up a long account against us. Let us look candidly at any day we choose. Perhaps for conven- ience, we will take to-day. When we came downstairs this morning, had we a pleasant word for every one ; did we bring our smiles 269 HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS to the breakfast table; did we go to the door with father or pin a flower in his button- hole; did we watch for a chance to help mother and were we nice and kind in our manner to the maid in the kitchen? The story of the calendar for you, too, must be a story of health or illness. God gives us plenty of bright sunshine and clear bracing air, but some of us seem to prefer to shut ourselves up in close, stuffy rooms and to live in the dark. If we do that every day we may expect to be pale and sallow, to have headaches and backaches and aches too nu- merous to mention. Although you seldom think of it, the story of the calendar is writing itself on your face. Every day that you live is either making you beautiful or making you plain. If you never pout or frown or screw your forehead into a tangle or draw down the corners of your mouth into a sullen droop, you will gain a sweet, sunny expression that will make peo- ple glad when they look at you. I can think of two or three young people whose faces seem to glow as if from an inward light. 270 A SCHOOLGIRL'S CALENDAR If every day you have pure thoughts and never indulge in one that is unwholesome, your face will have in it something as fresh and innocent as the soul behind it. Not so much beautiful features as a beautiful soul can make a beautiful face. To be kind in your judgments, interested in your friends, simple and sincere in all you do, every day of your life, will give you an attractiveness that cannot be described. On the porch of the house where I live there is a crimson rambler rose. You never saw anything grow so fast as this rose. It climbs higher and higher, flings out its wreaths of bloom and is a perfect joy. Girls should be like this, growing, reaching up- ward, filling their little world with bloom and fragrance, and living day by day in the air and in the sun. You are in God's world, my dears, see that day by day you make the most of it. THE END 271 A f\ """iiiiiiiill/lll