Vocational Guidance for Girls Part 9

Girls' games and boys' games at this period happily show little differentiation. Almost any game not prejudicial to health serves to call into action the moral forces we strive to cultivate. The game to a certain extent typifies the larger life--the life of effort, contest, striving to win. Self-control and proper consideration of others in the one must serve as a help in fitting for the other.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Courtesy of L.A. Alderman Drill work as well as games is beneficial to health and also teaches self-control]

Teachers are often inclined to overlook or undervalue the training of girls in games. The fact is that girls especially need this training as the woman's sphere in present-day life is widening. Men have always had contact with the world. Women have in times past had to content themselves with a single interest involving contest--the social game.

How far we may safely go in utilizing the game element--that is, the contest or compet.i.tion element--in school work is a question for thought. The "rules of the game" are less easy to enforce here; jealousies are harder to control; handicaps are more in evidence and less easy to make allowance for in contests; the discouragement of failure may have more serious results. The mere fact of cla.s.s grouping involves a natural compet.i.tion, healthful and beneficial and wisely preparatory for future living. More emphasis than this upon rivalry may produce feverish and unhealthful conditions, far removed from the mental poise we desire for our girls. The school can give the girl few things finer than the ability to attack work quietly and yet with determination and a sense of power to meet and overcome obstacles.

The school and the playground form the growing girl's community life.

In them she must learn to practice community virtues, to shun community evils, and to accept community responsibilities. For her the school and the playground are society. Here she will take her first lessons in the pride of possessions, in the prestige accompanying them, in the struggle for social supremacy, in doubtful ideals brought from all sorts of doubtful sources. Here she will find exaggerated notions of "style" and its value, impure English, whispered uncleanness in regard to s.e.x matters, and surrept.i.tious reading of forbidden books. Here also she will find worthier examples--clean, pure thought, honesty and fair dealing, pride of achievement rather than of externals, fine ideals exemplified in the best homes. And no finer or more delicate task lies before teacher and mother than the guidance of the girl in her choice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

A school playground. The school and the playground form the growing girl's community life]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

A model playground. The model playgrounds in the parks are doing much to aid the playground movement]

Going to school is rightly considered an epoch in the child's life. No longer confined to the narrow circle of home and family friends, the child may lose all the tiny beginnings of desired virtues in this larger life. Or, on the contrary, when the school recognizes and continues home training, or supplies what has not been given, these foundation virtues may be so applied to the old problems in new places as to form a foundation for the life conduct of the girl and the woman that is to be.

Take the question of s.e.x knowledge, so widely agitated of late. We cannot guard our girls against contact with some who will exert a harmful influence. We can only forearm them by natural, gradual information on this subject as their young minds reach out for knowledge, so that s.e.x knowledge comes, as other knowledge comes, without solemnity or sentimentality on the one hand or undue mystery and a hint of shame on the other. No course in s.e.x hygiene can take the place of this early gradual teaching, answering each question as it comes, in a perfectly natural way, and with due regard for the child's wonder at all of nature's marvelous processes. The little girl _who knows_ presents no possibilities to the perverted mind which seeks to astonish and excite her. And if she knows because "my mother told me," the guard is as nearly perfect as can be devised.

Upon this foundation the formal course in s.e.x hygiene may be built.

Such a course will then be a scientific summing up, with application to personal ideals and requirements. It can easily, safely, and wisely be deferred until the adolescent period.

Teachers and mothers can find scarcely any field more worthy of their thoughtful concentration than the cultivation of good temper in the girls under their care. The number of marriages rendered failures, the number of homes totally wrecked, by sulking or nagging or outbursts of ill-temper, can probably not be estimated. Neither can we count the number of innocent people in homes not apparently wrecked whose lives are rendered more or less unhappy by a.s.sociation with the woman of uncertain temper. Think of the families in which some undesirable trait of this sort seems to pa.s.s from generation to generation, accepted by each member calmly as an inheritance not to be thrown off.

"It's my disposition," one will tell you with a sigh. "Mother was just the same." Surely the time to combat these undesirable traits is in childhood, and probably the first step is for the mother, who looks back to her mother as "being just the same," to stop talking or thinking about inherited traits and at least to present an outward show of good temper for the child to see.

Then there is the teacher, who is under a strain and who finds annoyances in every hour which tend to destroy her equanimity. Her serenity, if she can accomplish it, will prove an excellent example.

And little by little the mother and the teacher who have accomplished self-control for themselves may teach self-control and the beauties of good temper to the little girls who live in the atmosphere they create.

CHAPTER IX

THE ADOLESCENT GIRL

Adolescence, the critical period of the training of the boy and girl, presents a complexity of problems before which parents and teachers alike are often at a loss.

The adolescent period, the growing-up stage of the girl's life, is physically the time of rapid and important bodily changes. New cells, new tissue, new glands, are forming. New functions are being established. The whole nervous system is keyed to higher pitch than at any previous time. Excessive drain upon body or nerve force at this time must mean depletion either now or in the years of maturity.

But, on the other hand, the keynote of the girl's adolescent mental life is _awakening_. Her whole nature calls out for a larger, fuller, more intense life. Home, school, society, dress, all take on new aspects under the transforming power of the new s.e.x life stirring and perfecting itself within. The world is beckoning to the emerging woman, and her every instinct leads her to follow the beckoning hand.

Now, if ever, the girl needs the influence and guidance of some wise and sympathetic woman friend. It may be--let us hope it is--her mother; or, failing that, her teacher; or, better than either alone, both mother and teacher working in sympathetic harmony.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

Camp Fire Girls. Outdoor life is one of the best means of safeguarding the girl's health]

The first care demanded for the maturing girl is the safeguarding of her health. School demands at this age are likely to be excessive under existing systems of instruction. In many ways the secondary school, in which we may a.s.sume our adolescent girl to be, merits the criticism constantly made, that it works its pupils too hard or, perhaps more accurately, that it works them too long. Nothing but the closest cooperation between parents and teachers can afford either of them the necessary data for working out this problem. It can never be anything but an individual problem, since girls will always differ whether school courses do so or not, and adjustment of one to the other must be made every time the combination is effected. Some schools content themselves with asking for a record of time spent on school work at home. Many parents merely acquiesce in the girl's statement that she does or doesn't have to study to-night, and the matter rests. Other schools and other parents go into the question with more or less detail, but usually quite independently of each other in the investigation. It is only very recently that anything like adequate knowledge of pupils has begun to be gathered and recorded to throw light upon the home-study question.

School girls naturally divide into fairly well-defined cla.s.ses: the girl who is overanxious or overconscientious about her work, the girl who intends to comply with rules but has no special anxiety about results, and the girl who habitually takes chances in evading the preparation of lessons. How many parents know at all definitely to which cla.s.s their girl belongs?

The same girls may be cla.s.sified again with regard to activities outside the school. They may help at home much or little or not at all. They may have absorbing social interests or practically none.

They may be in normal health or may already be nervous wrecks from causes over which the school has no control.

There is no question about the value of definite information on all of these points gathered by home and school acting together for the best understanding of the child. The modern physician keeps a carefully tabulated record of his patient's history and condition. The school should do the same thing and should prescribe with due reference to such record.

It frequently happens, however, that the schoolgirl's health is menaced less by her hours of school work than by misuse of the remaining portion of the twenty-four hours. No mother has a right to accuse the school of breaking down her daughter's health unless she is duly careful that the girl has a proper amount of sleep, exercise in the open air, and hygienic clothing, and that her life outside the school is not of the sort that we describe in these days as "strenuous."

It is this strenuous life which our girls must be taught to avoid. Any daily or weekly program which is crowded with activities is a dangerous program for developing girlhood. The very atmosphere of many modern homes is charged with the spirit of haste, and parents scarcely realize that the daughter's time is too full, because their own is too full also. They have no time to stop and realize anything. A quiet home is an essential help in preserving a girl's health and well-being.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright by Underwood & Underwood A mountain camp. Good health is conserved by outdoor games and exercise]

It need scarcely be said that the children of a family should be troubled as little as possible with the worries of their elders.

Parents are often unaware how much of the family burden their sons and daughters are secretly bearing, or how long sometimes they continue to struggle under the burden after it has mercifully slipped from father's or mother's shoulders.

Good health means buoyancy, a springing to meet the future with a tingle of joy in facing the unknown. The adolescent period is essentially an unfolding time, in which probably for the first time choice seems to present itself in a large way in ordering the girl's life. In school she is confronted with a choice of studies or of courses. To make these choices she must look farther ahead and ask herself many questions as to the future. What is she to be? Nor is she loath to face this question. Some of the very happiest of the girl's dreams at this time are concerned with that problematical future.

There was a day when girls dreamed only of husbands, children, and homes. Then, as the pendulum swung, they dreamed of careers, a hand in the "world's work." Now they dream of either or both, or they halt confused by the wide outlook. But of one thing we may be sure--our girl is dreaming, and she seldom tells her dreams.

It is during this period in a girl's life that she is most likely to chafe at restraint, to picture a wonderful life outside her home environment, and to demand the opportunity to make her own choice. As she goes on through high school, she longs more and more for "freedom," quite unconscious of the fact that what seems freedom in her elders is, in reality, often farthest removed from that elusive condition. Her imagination is taking wild flights in these days.

Sometimes we catch fleeting glimpses of its often disordered fancies, although oftener we see only the most docile of exteriors standing guard over an inner self of which we do not dream.

The wise mother and the wise teacher are they whose adolescent memories, longings, misapprehensions, and mistakes are not forgotten, but are being sympathetically and understandingly searched for light in guiding the girls whose guardians they are. They recognize once and for all that normal girls are filled with what seem abnormal notions, desires, and ideals. They recall how little they used to know of life, and the pitfalls they barely escaped, if they did escape.

Thus only can they keep close to the girl in spirit and help her as they once needed help. They respect her longing for freedom of choice and they teach her how to choose. It is of little use to attempt to clip the wings of the girl's imagination, however riotous. The wings are safely hidden from our profaning touch. Instead we must teach her to dream true dreams and to choose real things rather than shams.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A study room. The life of the adolescent girl is by no means bounded by the schoolroom walls]

At this time the girl's life often seems to the casual observer to be bounded by her schoolroom walls. As a matter of fact, however, school work appeals to her much less than it has probably done earlier or than it will do in her college days. Dress is becoming an absorbing subject. "The boys," however little you may think it, are seldom far from her thoughts. Intimate friendship with another adolescent girl perhaps affords an outlet, beneficial or otherwise, for the crowding life which is too precious to bear the unsympathetic touch of the world of her elders. Or perhaps the girl becomes solitary in her habits, living in a world of romance found in books or in her own dreams, impatient with the world about her, feeling sure she is "misunderstood."

What can home, school, and society in general do for the adolescent girl, that her awakening may be sweet and sane, that her future usefulness may not be impaired or her life embittered by wrong choice at the brink of womanhood?

Any wise plan for the training of girls "in their teens" must include provision for:

1. Outdoor play and exercise. In the country this is much more easily accomplished. City problems bearing on this question are among the most acute of all concerning boys and girls.

2. Systematic attention to the work of the schoolroom. Thus the girl acquires habits of concentration and industry that she will need all her life.

3. Some manual work in kitchen, garden, sewing room, or workshop.

Here the girl's natural tastes and inclination may be discovered and trained.

4. Food for the imagination. Books, music, pictures, inspiring plays. The Campfire Girls' movement is valuable in its imaginative aspect.

5. Attention to dress. Laying the foundation for wise lifelong habits.

6. Healthful social intercourse under the best conditions with boys and with other girls, both at home and at school. Croquet, tennis, skating, offer fine opportunities for such intercourse. "Parties," dancing, present more difficulties, but have their value under right conditions. Not all "fun" should include the boys. Athletic contests between girls do much to develop a neglected side of girl nature.

7. Companionship with her mother, or some other woman of experience. Nothing can quite take the place of this. The girl is sailing out upon an uncharted sea. She needs the help of someone who has sailed that way before.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A botanical laboratory in Portland, Oregon. Through systematic attention to the work of the schoolroom the girl acquires habits of concentration and industry]