Stray Thoughts for Girls Part 8

Let your time-table be a secret hair shirt, and not a red rag flaunted in your family's face. But never give up reading and thinking, the keeping in touch with abstract ideas. As long as you are young you can get on without this, but, when the charm of youth deserts you, you will find life (and others will find _you_) a blessing or a curse, according as you have developed or starved your powers of mind. It may be that you find little pleasure in your steady reading, and see no immediate results from it; never mind, read on, lest you become in middle life one of those amiable, empty-headed women who can give neither help, nor comfort, nor advice, worth the taking. How many old maids, and young maids too, tied by home duties, allowed their minds to get thin and empty: when, at last, they were set free they were silly and inconsequent; no work requiring thought and insight could be entrusted to them.

The second difficulty which is felt by many comes from the new lights of the day. At school, girls come in contact with varied ideals and inspirations,--they drink new wine, and they go home to find that old bottles are still used there. Very often this difficulty is greater in proportion as a girl has rightly profited by school--in proportion as she has been teachable and ready to a.s.similate good; she goes home with new aspirations to be met by old prejudices--prejudices intensified by half-loving jealousy of the alien influences of school. Are you to shut your eyes to the new lights, and be as though you had never known them?

No, but do not keep one Commandment by breaking another. The First Commandment is supreme, Thou shall have none other G.o.ds but Him Who is the Truth; Truth must be obeyed at all costs, but if your truth-seeking breaks the Fifth Commandment, it probably breaks the Second also, and the principle you are obeying will turn out to be a graven image of G.o.d, and not the voice of G.o.d Himself. Very grave doubt rests on any form of goodness which is in opposition to your mother; it may be good for others, but can scarcely be so for you. I know of a girl who got under High Church influence at school, and who, in pursuit of spiritual good, gets surrept.i.tious High Church books and newspapers, under cover to a friend.

Another got under Low Church influence, and refuses to please her mother by dressing prettily or going out. It seems to me that both girls read their lesson backwards and neglect the weightier matters of the law, truth, and obedience,--while they seek what is good in itself but not good for them. Others persist in going to a church their mother disapproves of,--they say they can get good at a musical church, and only irritation and harm by going with her. I feel heartily for the trial of going to a church they dislike, but surely conquering self or pleasing a mother is good in itself, quite apart from the help given by the service; while, as to the good derived from the musical church under those circ.u.mstances, I doubt much if it comes down from the Father Who gave us the Fifth Commandment.

I should say, mistrust new lights which are a hindrance to old duties, "For meek obedience too is Light." It is more likely that we should be mistaken, than that a duty should cease to be binding. Let us take to heart Cromwell's appeal to his Parliament, "I beseech you, my beloved brethren, I beseech you by the mercies of Christ, to believe that you may be mistaken."

The third difficulty is that girls often fail to see that home life is one of the "Home Arts," which requires training and practice as much as music does. How much of our home life is set to music? How much of it sets all harmony and rhythm at defiance? A true woman is

"Like the keystone to an arch That consummates all beauty: She's like the music to a march That sheds a joy on duty."

Do you make your father forget his bothers when he comes in from his business? Do you give your mother a share in your interests? Does your brother look forward to his time at home, instead of thinking it a bore?

No one has such power over your brothers as you have: you can do more than any one to give them high ideals: how many a brother, who has fallen to the stable-yard level of company, might have been held up if his sister had used her wits and tact to make herself as agreeable to him as she does to other people!

Sometimes it is not selfishness which makes home life a failure, but the not having

"among least things, An undersense of greatest."

A girl tries to live n.o.bly at home and fails: she is not enough wanted, her mother is not blind, and does not want to be deposed from housekeeping; her father is not paralytic, and only wants her to play to him in the evening; life seems choked by tiny interruptions, such as doing the flowers, or writing notes, and she sinks into a placid or unplacid drudge--the aspirations with which she left school have died out.

Need this be? If she went into a sisterhood or a hospital, the tiny details would all be glorified by the halo which surrounds a vocation; it would all be part of a saintly life. Why is home not felt to be a vocation? Why cannot a girl welcome some tiresome commission or fidgeting rule of her mother's, as much as if it were imposed by some Mother Superior? Ought not the trifling duties to be fuel to her burning desire for her n.o.bleness of life, instead of dust to choke it? You can make them which you will.

Girls often say, "I have nothing to do, worth doing, at home; I want to go and do some real work;" and they sometimes have the face to say this, while they are still as full of faults as when they left school, and when every hour of the day, at home, brings with it an opportunity of conquering some fault.

Are you ready for real work? Can you take criticism or contradiction with a perfectly unruffled face and voice? Do you overcome your hindrances to usefulness at home, _e.g._ do you improve your handwriting so that your mother need not be ashamed to let you write for her? Do you help her tactfully and consentingly--the only help which rests people--or do you argue each point, so that it is far less trouble to do the thing twice over than to ask you? Are you prompt and alert in your movements, or do you indulge in that exasperating slowness, which some girls seem to consider quite a charm? Do you wait till the last minute, and then leisurely put on your things, with serene unconsciousness of the fret it is to every one's temper? If you want to see how unthoroughbred such a habit looks, read "Shirley," and study the character of Mr. Donne, the curate, who flatters himself that he enhances his importance by keeping the others waiting while he complacently finishes his tea.

Do you lay down the law. Do you allow yourself the tone of positive, almost dictatorial, a.s.sertion, which, coming from a girl, so sets an old-fashioned person's teeth on edge; or do you try to speak in the tentative, suggestive, inquiring tone, which is not only required by good manners, but is also a real help to humility of mind?

Do not say that these things are too simple and obvious to bear on your future work for the Relief of Man's Estate,--on Work with a big W. They are of the very essence of the formation of character, and your Work for others stands or falls by that.

The sanctifying influence of home-life lies mainly in its necessity, its obviousness,--in the fact of our remaining unprofitable servants after we have done our best. It is the school in which we are placed by G.o.d; we are _bound_ to learn its lessons, and do its duties: there is no halo of self-sacrifice around it--the position rightly viewed gives us no choice.

"I must,"--_there_ is the sting, the irksomeness to us. We can submit cheerfully to our self-chosen Pope, and seem most sweet-tempered in bearing criticism and in doing tiresome duties,--the "I must" is not there. This wilful obedience is worth just nothing as discipline of character, compared with obedience to our lawful authorities; "Ay, there's the rub!"

Is not this very necessity in home life--this "I must"--just the thing which makes it akin to our Lord's life? Is there not in that Holiest Life a continual undercurrent of "I must"? His earthly life was a course of obedience, not a succession of self-willed efforts; its keynote was, "Wist ye not that I _must_ be about My Father's business?"

Esprit de Corps.

While I was away, I was present at a discussion on _Esprit de Corps_, and whether it was a good thing in girls' schools. What is _esprit de corps_?--The feeling that we are one of a large body of which we are proud. A soldier has it when he is proud of his regiment and is proud of belonging to it.

Now, is it good or bad for girls to have a strong feeling of this kind for their school? Many opinions were expressed at the meeting. My opinion is that it is a good thing--a necessary thing. But every virtue has its defect--if you overdo it, you fall into some fault; if you are too amiable, you may fall into being untruthful; and so with _esprit de corps_. I want you to have it, but I want you to be on your guard against some faults connected with it. I want our School to be full of it, but I want it to be of the best kind.

One fault very common in members of any large body is conceit. The feeling of belonging to a fine inst.i.tution swallows up personal humility. You may be more occupied with the importance and dignity of your position, than ready to take home the idea that you yourself are a very faulty member!

Margaret Fuller, a clever American friend of Emerson's, said, "There are so many things in the universe more interesting than my individual faults, that I really cannot stay to dwell on them." There is one form of conceit--or rather of self-satisfaction--to which schoolgirls are liable: they know they are living up to the average standard imposed by public opinion and _esprit de corps_, and they are satisfied with this, instead of trying to live up to their own best self. It is quite possible for any straightforward, honourable girl to live up to the average standard, and it is very comfortable to feel satisfied. But if you are trying to live up to the highest standard you know, you will not be comfortable--you will be always profoundly discontented with yourself, but it will be the Divine discontent Plato speaks of. You will be always failing, but it will be failing n.o.bly--the failure of one who loves the highest, and is content to follow the highest, even though it be afar off. In King Arthur's court, the n.o.blest knights went in search of the Sangreal--scarcely one could succeed in his quest, but it was n.o.bler to aim high and fail than to be content with "low successes." We, too, ought each to follow the quest of the Sangreal, that is, to seek to be perfect, and then there is no room for self-satisfaction, far less conceit.

Sometimes _esprit de corps_ not only makes us think a great deal of our own merits, but it also makes us blind to the merits of others. We need only put this into words, to see its smallness, but it often happens. Some people's patriotism seems to consist in despising the French and Germans.

No one values true patriotism more than I do, but I detest "insularity"--that insufferable feeling of superiority of which English people are so often guilty. We ought to love our own school, or hall, or college; but it is a poor, low kind of love if it means despising other schools, or halls, or colleges, picking holes in them, refusing to learn from them, and being mere partisans. A soldier would be proud of his own regiment, and think it the finest there was, but he would admire the splendid history that other regiments could boast, and he would be glad and proud of the fact that there were so many fine ones. All good schools belong to a splendid brotherhood--a grand army--and they should be proud of each other. We can be just as true and loyal to our own, and yet have wide feelings. _Esprit de corps_--loyalty to our body--is a very splendid thing, and we degrade it when we turn it into mere clannishness; it ought to bring out our love for all that is good, just as love for home ought to make us love outsiders better.

I have spoken of the faults of _esprit de corps_--do not think that means I do not value it. No; a thousand times, no! If we had no _esprit de corps_ we should not be a living body, but a dead, stagnant ma.s.s, only fit to be swept away. What is true _esprit de corps_? My idea of it is, being content to sink all personal interests--being content to be as he that doth serve--being glad and proud to fill the smallest post, if so be that, by filling that post in the most perfect way, you can help on the perfection of the school to which you belong. I was talking to some one the other day about the community to which she belongs, and where she holds a leading place. "Of course, I would black the shoes," said she, "if it would help the work in the very least, and so would any one who was worth their salt." I quite agree with her, and I would not give much for any work in which that was not the feeling of the workers, from the highest to the lowest: that is the only true _esprit de corps_.

Some say women are incapable of such a masculine virtue--that women cannot put their private feelings in their pocket and act in subordination to the good of the whole--that they cannot sink their self-importance and their petty jealousies--that they cannot suppress themselves for a cause.

Schools like ours have done a great deal for the mental education of women. I think they will do something more valuable still if they show that through their public education women can learn true public spirit, that school teaches true _esprit de corps_--that it teaches them to seek the beauty of being second, instead of the glory of being first.

In acting or recitations, could you be glad to take a minor part to help on the whole, or would you be huffy and cross-grained because your powers were not brought to the front? In the Wagner music at Baireuth, the singers take the good parts in turn, and the best prima donna, as Kundry in "Parzival," in one whole act has only one word. Think of the self-suppression needed for one who has such talent, to be content to act in such a piece and to put her full power into the dumb by-play, which is all that she has to do.

_Esprit de corps_ is _the_ virtue above all others which we, as members of this school, should seek to attain, and, in the very nature of things, nothing so entirely kills it as any self-seeking; while if you wish to be worth anything as an individual, remember that nothing is so smallening, so alien to any true greatness--to the most far-off touch of greatness--as the wish to be Number One.

_Esprit de corps_, to my mind, means that we all stand shoulder to shoulder, loving our school, helping each other; doing our duty in home and school, and in after-life, more perfectly, because we are proud of our school and mean to be worthy members, so far as in us lies; helping others because "our advantages are trusts for the good of others." Remember our school motto, "Ad Lucem," and, because you have been brought nearer to the light, help to be sunshine in all shady places. And while you are at school, have the _esprit de corps_ which will make you do everything you can, for the good and credit of the school.

For one thing, be careful to get it a good name outside. "Manners are not idle"--people are quite right when they judge a school, as they largely do, by its manners. If girls are really growing as they should in gentleness, courtesy, reverence for age, and all that makes true womanhood, it must tell on their manners, and if they are not doing so, their school is not doing for them what it should. If you have real _esprit de corps,_ you will not give people who are prejudiced against us, any reason to think ill of our School in this respect.

Another point of true _esprit de corps_ concerns those who have power--whether as prefect, or VI. form, or head of a form, or through being popular. Power was given you that you might do more work for others--you are made a chief in order that you may be as he that serveth; privilege means responsibility--not enjoyment. There is nothing so mean as to take the loaves and fishes of any post, and not to do its duties; to order others about, and to be lax with yourselves. A ruler is contemptible who does not rule himself. Whether we are teacher, or prefect, or head of a form, or a leader in any way, it ought to make us hot, and sore, and ashamed, in exercising our rightful rule over others, whenever we are conscious (as we must all be at times) that we have failed in ruling ourselves--failed in temper,--failed in carrying out minutely, every law, great or small, that we help to enforce on others. _Esprit de corps_ will make us use our power for the good of the school and not for our own pleasure.

_Esprit de corps_ means being ready to give time and trouble to all school interests--without any thought of whether you will have a leading part given you, or of whether it is very amusing to do it. You would be unworthy members of the school if you simply came to do your lessons, and took no part in the little things which make corporate life go with a swing. You might as well think you were worthy members of your home because you ate and slept there. Membership in a home means being ready to take part in all its little tiresome duties; to throw yourself into amus.e.m.e.nts which sometimes do not amuse you personally; in all ways to help on family life. The girl who distinguishes herself in the tennis is thought a good public-spirited member, and so she is,--she helps the school and shows _esprit de corps_,--but, to my mind, the girl who f.a.gs well at the match, and gets small thanks and no credit, shows even more _esprit de corps_ than the one who has the excitement of distinguishing both herself and the school.

The clever girl who wins prizes and scholarships, helps our school to shine, and no one applauds her more than I do, but in my heart, I feel that the school owes even more to the dull plodding girl, who knows she cannot do much, but who determines to give her very best to the school, and to be worthy of it by giving no scamped work. Perhaps she gets low marks, perhaps she is told she ought to do better,--and quite rightly, because we want her to rise to give really good work, and are not satisfied till she does; but whether it is good or not, if it is her _best_, she has fought a good battle for the school, and has "helped to maintain the high standard of duty which was founded in the school by its first and beloved head-mistress--Ada Benson."

Rough Notes of a Lesson.

I hope to start a new lesson for some of you, and I have gathered you all here to-day, whether you will be able to come to it or not, because, in thinking over what I wished to say about this one lesson, I found I was led into describing what I should like all lessons to do for you. My new lesson will be a talk on various things in which you are, or ought to be, interested. I have tried this plan before, and have sometimes been laughed at for having such miscellaneous lessons, but I found their effect very good. I had a spare half-hour in the week, which I gave to this Talking Lesson.

Once I took Dante, and after a sketch of his life and of Florence, we went through the "Inferno;" I read the famous parts in full and told the story of the rest, and now many of those children who listened feel, when they come on anything about Dante, as if they had met an old friend.

Then I happened to go to Yorkshire and saw several of its lovely abbeys: I came back with a craze for architecture, so I and the girls did that together. Neither they, nor I, imagine that we understand architecture, or are authorities on it; but though we only took the barest outline, it made us all use our eyes and enjoy old buildings. I often get letters from those girls, saying that they have since enjoyed their travels so much more, because they now notice the architecture. You know the story of "Eyes and No Eyes"--how two boys went out for a walk--one saw nothing to notice, and the other found his way lined with interesting things. I am sure, architecturally, your way is lined with beauty in Oxford, which deserves both outward and "inward eyes."

Another time we took the French writers of Louis XIV. and we all feel that Moliere and La Fontaine and Mme. de Sevigne are our personal friends, so that the value of their books is doubled to us!

We took mythology at one time, and many girls found that they understood, much better, allusions in books and various pictures in the Academy, which are often about mythological subjects. Ignorance on this point may sometimes be very awkward. I have heard of an American lady who invited her artistic friends to come and see a picture she had lately bought of "Jupiter and Ten." The friends puzzled over her notes of invitation, and, on arriving at her house, were still more puzzled to know how to pa.s.s off the mistake gracefully, when they found that the picture was one of "Jupiter and Io." I trust you will not cause your friends embarra.s.sment of this kind!

Another time we took the history of Queen Victoria, as our way of celebrating the Jubilee patriotically. We began by all collecting as much patriotic poetry as we could, which was surprisingly little--I wonder if you would find more--and, all through, we made a special point of finding poems written about any of the events. We found _Punch_ a valuable a.s.sistance, and we much enjoyed the cartoons and jokes which had been so mysterious to us before. Just that part of history which is not in "Bright," and which, yet, is before our time, is so very hard to find out about, and many allusions in the newspapers and parliamentary speeches are consequently wasted on us.

Now, all this was miscellaneous, yet I had one object running through it all, and the girls helped me to carry it out by listening in the right spirit, knowing that I was only pointing out the various doors through which they might go by-and-by. Not one of them thought she had "done" a subject because we had thus talked about it,--we all learnt to feel our own ignorance, and at the same time, how much there was in the world to learn.

I want to show you this morning where such a lesson should fit in, in the general plan of your education. To do that, you must first have the plan.

Have you ever thought what education was to do for you, or, are you learning your lessons, day by day, just because they are set? I know what I want to do with you, but I cannot do it unless you work hand-in-hand with me, and you cannot do that unless you think about the matter and realize that, for instance, Euclid is not only Euclid, it ought to teach certain mental and moral qualities which you must have if you are ever to be worth your salt. There is a story of Dr. Johnson, which seems to me to apply to so many things. When his friend, Mr. Thrale, the great brewer, died, there was a sale of the brewery, which Dr. Johnson attended. An acquaintance expressed surprise at the great man's honouring with his presence such an ordinary affair as the sale of a brewery. "Sir," said Dr.

Johnson, turning with crushing deliberation on the unhappy speaker, "this is not the sale of a mere brewery, but of the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice." This story seems to me well worth remembering, both because it is so characteristic of the Doctor, and because it is applicable to so many things. It is so easy to go through the world not seeing the importance of things, like the common people in "Phantasies," who never saw what a fairyland they lived in. Lessons, for instance, are not mere lessons, they are "the potentiality of growing rich in wisdom and in goodness beyond our highest dreams."

I should be sorry if, in after life, you should wake up and say to yourself, "How much more good my lessons would have done me if some one had shown me the real use of them and made me think, so that I might have learnt all I could, instead of just slipping through them day by day." No one can do the thinking for you. Unless you work with me by trying to think, I cannot really do much for you. I can bring you to the water, but I cannot make you drink. Yes, after all, I _can_ make you drink, _i.e._ do your lessons day by day as a matter of obedience. So a better ill.u.s.tration would be that I can make you eat, but I cannot make you digest your food.

You can prevent its doing you any good. If you simply learn your lessons by rote and do not use your thinking powers, education is very little good,--the obedience will have done you good, but, as far as mental growth is concerned, you will not gain much, for that sort of education drops off, like water off a duck's back, when you leave school. They say "a fool and his money are soon parted," but that is nothing to the speed with which a fool and his education are parted!

Now, I am going to take the chief subjects you learn, and show the higher things which I want you to gain when you are doing those lessons, and _you_ must want it too, or my wanting it will not do much good. You do not learn Mathematics simply that you may know so many books of Euclid, and so many pages of Algebra; it is to give you power over your minds, to enable you to follow a chain of reasoning, to teach you to keep up continuous attention, and not to jump at conclusions. I do not say you cannot learn these things except by Mathematics; you might do it by Logic, and I know many people who have done it by mother-wit and the teaching of life; but when a person is inclined to trust to his mother-wit, and to neglect educational advantages because he can do without them, I for one feel inclined to doubt whether his share of mother-wit can be very large, after all. The people I have known who are clever, without having had the careful school-training you enjoy, used all the advantages that came in their way (though, when they were young, advantages were fewer), and unless you do the same, you cannot expect to be like them. Also, clever untrained people often feel very much hampered by their want of training; you see the cleverness, but they feel how much more they could have done if they had been trained. Therefore, do not allow yourselves to think "Euclid is no good, because 'Aunt So-and-so' is quite clever enough, and she never did it;" depend upon it, that is not going the right road to be like her. I feel quite sure that if this "not impossible aunt" had had opportunities of learning Euclid when she was young, she would have done it, and very well too! Of course, if you mean to read Mathematics from choice by-and-by, you will work hard at the subject now, but I can quite understand that those who are not going to do this, perhaps sometimes feel, "What is the good? I shall never look at a Euclid again after I leave school--I want to learn how to hold my own in after-life,--I want to be able to talk when I come out,--I want to be a sensible woman, whose opinion will be asked by other people,--I want to be clever at house-work or cooking, or to be able to manage a shop,--I want to be strong enough and wise enough to be a support and comfort to others,--I want to be a useful woman and not a mathematician!" Well! that is just what I want you to be, but I am quite sure that Mathematics will help you to this, by making you accurate and reasonable and attentive, without which qualities you will be no use and very little comfort. If you work hard at Mathematics while you are here, and gain these qualities, you have my free leave to shut your Euclid for good on the day you leave school,--you will have learnt his best lessons.