Part 10 (2/2)
Many a girl forms her standard and her ideal from what her teacher wears. Teachers must accept their responsibility and make good use of the opportunities it gives them.
It is approximately at the time of her awakening to the beautifying instinct that the girl begins to take a special interest in social matters. Here again she needs wise guidance, and usually more _guidance_ and less _direction_ than most girls get. The American mother is p.r.o.ne in social questions to trust her daughter too much, or not enough, and to train her very little.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright by Underwood & Underwood Skating offers fine opportunity for healthful social intercourse]
In many cases adolescent society centers about the school. There are the everyday walks and talks of the boys and girls, the games and meets and contests, with their attendant social features, the literary societies and debating clubs, the school parties and dances. The school thus comes to a.s.sume a considerable part in the boy's and girl's social training, much more than was the case twenty or even ten years ago; and the whole trend of educational movement in this matter is toward doing more even than it now does.
In some cases schools have merely drifted into this social work, without definite aims and without conspicuously good results, just as some parents have drifted into acceptance of the situation, with little oversight and a comfortable s.h.i.+fting of responsibility.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Games form an important part of the adolescent girl's life]
When this sort of school and this sort of parent happen to be the joint guardians of a girl's social training, it usually happens that the girl discovers some things by a painful if not heartbreaking trial-and-error method, and other things she quite fails to discover at all. Most of all, she needs her mother at this time--a wise, interested, companionable mother, who knows much about what goes on at school parties and at school generally, but who never forces confidences and, indeed, who never needs to; an elder sister sort of mother, who helps. And she needs also teachers who supervise and chaperon social affairs with a full realization that social training is in progress and that lives are being made or marred.
There are schools and there are mothers who look upon every phase of school life as contributing to the educative process, and these find in the social affairs of the school their opportunities to teach some vital lessons. Some schools are lengthening the free time between periods, merely for the purpose of adding to the informal social intercourse between pupils.
Wise teachers as well as wise mothers will see that the social phase of school life, especially in the evening, is not overdone. Not only health but future usefulness and happiness suffer if the girl ”goes out” so much that going out becomes the rule and staying at home the exception. It is not usually, however, the social affairs of the school alone which cause the girl to develop the habit of too many evenings away from home. It is the school party plus the church social, plus the moving pictures, plus the girls' club, plus the theater, plus choir practice, plus the informal evening at her chum's, plus a dozen other dissipations, that in the course of a few years change a quiet, home-loving little schoolgirl into a gadding, overwrought, uneasy woman.
Unless one has tried it, it is perhaps hard to realize how difficult it is for an individual mother to regulate social custom in her community even for her own daughter without causing the girl unhappiness and possibly destroying her delight in her home. No girl enjoys leaving the party at ten when ”the other girls” stay until twelve. Nor does she enjoy declining invitations when the other girls all go. But what the individual mother finds difficult, community sentiment can easily accomplish. The woman's club or the mothers' club or the parent-teacher a.s.sociation, or better yet all three, may profitably discuss the question, and may set about the creation of the sentiment required.
Quite as important as ”How often shall she go?” is the question ”With whom is she going?” There are two ways of approaching the problem here involved. One requires more knowledge for the girl herself, that she may better judge what const.i.tutes a worthy companion. The other is reached by the better training of boys, that more of them may develop into the sort of young men with whom we may trust our daughters.
Parents who take the time and trouble to acquaint themselves with the boys in their daughter's social circle will find themselves better able to aid the girl in her choice of friends. The very best place for this getting acquainted is the girl's own home, to which, therefore, young people should often be informally invited. Nor should parents neglect occasional opportunities to observe their daughter's friends in other environment--at the church social or supper, at entertainments, at school, or on the street. Fortunately the revolt against a dual standard of purity for men and women holds promise of a larger proportion of clean, controlled, trustworthy boys.
It will never be quite safe, however, to trust either our boys or our girls to resist instincts implanted by nature and restrained only by the artificial barriers of society, unless we keep their imaginations busy, and unless we implant ideals of conduct high enough to make them desire self-control for ends which seem beautiful and good to themselves. The adolescent period is especially favorable for the formation of ideals, and a high conception of love and marriage will probably prove the truest safeguard our boys and girls can have.
The reading of the period is of special importance. At no other time of life will altruism, self-sacrifice, high ideals of honor and of love, make so strong an appeal as now. Adolescent reading must make the most of this fact. Some of the great love stories of literature and biography should be read, especially one or two which involve the putting aside of desire at the call of a higher motive. At least one story involving the world-old theme of the betrayed woman--_The Scarlet Letter_, perhaps, or _Adam Bede_--should be ”required reading”
for every adolescent girl, and should after reading be the subject of thoughtful and loving discussion by the girl and her mother in one of the confidential chats which should be frequent between them.
Girls must learn from their mothers and teachers to distrust the boy who shows any inclination to take liberties, and they must also learn that girls, consciously or more often otherwise, daily put temptation in the way of boys who desire to do right, and invite liberties from the other sort. Restraint, in dress, in carriage, in manners, and in conversation, _must be made to seem right and desirable to the girl_, for her own sake and no less for the good of the other s.e.x. This of course means that teachers must set fine examples before the girl in their own dress and deportment.
To counteract the dangerous tendencies which have become intensified by the wholesale breaking of social customs during the war, it is necessary that parents and teachers give very careful attention to the dress of girls and to the demeanor of boys and girls of the adolescent period. Many teachers are improperly dressed and setting the wrong example. Many parents are dressing carelessly and sending their girls to high school improperly dressed. The boys are tempted--yes, are forced--to observe the bodies of their girl cla.s.smates, in study-rooms, halls, laboratories, and on playgrounds. These girls who are immodestly dressed are not only exposing themselves to danger and inviting familiarities, but are tempting the boys to go wrong. Many of the tragedies in our schools can be traced to this source.
To handle this very serious and very difficult problem it is necessary that all mothers of high-school boys and girls organize and cooperate with princ.i.p.als and teachers. The task is gigantic, for the customs and suggestions which are responsible for present-day conditions are many and permeate our magazines, books, moving pictures, dances, and nearly all social gatherings.
Many superintendents, teachers, and parents have been very seriously studying these social and moral problems and making plans to start reforms at once in the public schools. The most practical method thus far presented appears to be the requirement of uniform dress for all girls in the upper grades and in high school. This custom is already established in some of our best private schools. Uniform dress has a very democratic training which commends it. It is less expensive than the present varied styles. It is practical, for it avoids discrimination which would lead to many private difficulties.
The girl has now reached the time when her bits of knowledge of s.e.x matters, gained gradually since the first stirrings of curiosity in her little girlhood, should be gathered, summarized, and given practical application to the mature life she will soon enter upon.
Thoughtful investigation does not lead to the conclusion that girls need especially a detailed physiological presentation of the subject so much as a study of the psychological aspects of the s.e.x life.
Personal purity is primarily a matter of mind.
Girls who all their lives have been familiar with the mystery of birth, who at p.u.b.erty have been instructed in the delicacy of the s.e.xual organs and processes and in the care they must exercise to bring them to normal development, are now ready to be taught the vital necessity of subordinating the animal to the spiritual in the s.e.x life.
It may seem unwise and unnecessary to put before young girls so dark and distressing a subject as the social evil. Yet I know of no way to combat this evil without teaching all girls what must be avoided. When girls realize that the social evil
1. Rests upon a foundation of purely unrestrained animal instinct;
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