A Girl's Student Days and After Part 3

IX

THE OUTDOOR RUNWAY

After Nebuchadnezzar came in from eating gra.s.s there had taken place in that potentate a great change for the good. One of the factors in this betterment may have been the gra.s.s itself. The gra.s.s-cure has always been popular and always will be, for it is just as good for the tired mind as it is for the tired body. Nowadays every big school and every college provide a gra.s.s-cure for students who are out at elbows with their nerve sleeves, or who have not sufficient muscle to make them fit, or who are overworking or need toning up in any way. There is more and more recognition of the fact that a school course which is taken at the expense of health is not worth having. And side by side with this wholesome admission has come a great awakening in the last fifteen years to the curative value of the _outdoor runway_, whether that runway be a field track, energetic walking in a park or campus, or a cross country run.

Some girls--and there are more girls of this type than there are boys--put in their outdoor life as a stop-gap. It is inconceivable that this should be true, yet it is true. Apathetically the students have exercised sixty minutes, considering this minimum quite sufficient. Not a particle of zest do they reveal in the exercise taken. They do not seem to know or they do not care that the fields and woods should be full, not only of health and all that goes with it, including success, but also of the best of friends who all have their good points worthy of notice and imitation, in quick leap, cheerful voice and blithe song.

What are sixty minutes in this great outdoor runway? Not a t.i.the of the twenty-four hours and at best only half of what the minimum should be.

Exercise should be taken even if nothing else in the school life is.

And I say this advisedly, for health is the basis on which not only the future of the woman's life must depend but also that of the race. Good health, the inheritance of it, its maintenance and increase, neither the girl nor her parents can ever hold as too sacred a trust. That it is a sacred trust the schools are recognizing more and more, and provisions are being made, especially in the public schools, for the defective in health as well as for the strong. The outdoor school, at first an object that attracted universal attention, is now being taken quite for granted. Foolish the girl who does not learn to take the outdoor runway for granted, too, and go out to it in high spirits to learn its wisdom, to take part in its joys and to receive its health.

It may be accepted as a new axiom--the more exercise the less fool.

Strong, able muscles, steady nerves (and let us remember that nerves depend for their tone on the muscular condition), a clean skin open at all its pores and doing its eliminative work thoroughly, and clean strong vitals make up the kind of beauty within the reach of all womanhood, and the physical beauty which she should most desire. The day is coming when our ideal of what is physically perfect--not spiritually, for Christianity has carried us beyond anything that Greece ever knew--will be more like the Greek in its entirety, its emphasis upon the harmony of the whole body. The body is a mechanism to be exquisitely cared for--self-running, it is true, and yet in need of intelligent attention. Think of the care an engineer gives his engine, and it is by no manner of means so wonderfully and so intricately fas.h.i.+oned as these bodies of ours on which our happiness, our working ability, even our very goodness depend. Health as a safeguard to one's whole moral being is coming into more and more recognition, and not only as a safeguard but also as a cultivator of all that is best in us spiritually. There are people very ill, or permanent invalids, whose great victory it is to be among the saints of the earth, but that it is easier to be good when one is well no one will deny. Every big school has now its cla.s.s or cla.s.ses in corrective or medical gymnastics, in which stooping shoulders, ewe necks, curved spines, flat insteps, small waists and narrow chests are rectified as far as possible in the limited hours of the school days.

The time is coming when parents will consider it a disgrace to allow their children to be physically undeveloped. The physician, always in advance of the community for which he cares, sees how grave in moral or intellectual import physical defects may be. The educational world, alive to new messages for the reconstruction of its educational ideal, begins also to place more and more emphasis upon the physical care and development of its students--and not by any manner of means for physical reasons only but because the whole girl or the whole boy is better spiritually and mentally for having a body that is strong and well. The whole being keeps better time, just as a watch does, for having clean works. No one has the right to shut out the fresh air or the suns.h.i.+ne; no girl should remain undeveloped physically through lack of exercise when she could, through exercise, make herself strong. Even to abuse her feet, the important centre of many important nerves, by tight shoes, is wrong; so is it to rack her spine and upset or throw out of position all the delicate and wonderfully fas.h.i.+oned organs of the abdominal cavity by the wearing of high French heels. Undoubtedly, however, American motherhood and girlhood represent something more and more intelligent; indeed, in physical culture women are beginning to keep step with men, and it is upon this fact that school and college depend in their splendid efforts to make the sum of feminine vitality, despite the pressure of modern civilization, plus rather than minus.

_The more exercise the less fool_; and it is worth remembering that the daily exercise, the plunge into cool or clean air, as well as the plunge into water, is a wit sharpener, and will do more for a student in the long run than "digging" possibly can. _Mens sana in corpore sano_ may be an old saying but it is still new enough to be repeated with vigour to certain people. Let us get out-of-doors and have our wits sharpened and see more, and do more, and be more! No one can permanently starve her whole body for the want of fresh air and exercise, which are the body's birthright, and expect to have a clear head or do well-balanced and helpful work in the home, or in school, or in some wage-earning career.

If the girl attempt this impossibility she will be like the frog which jumped up one foot and fell back two. She will get to the bottom soon enough, the bottom of the cla.s.s or the bottom of her health account, but she will never get to the top of anything. Any success, if by chance it should come to her, resting on a basis of ill health or indifference to her physical fitness for living and working, will be like the house built upon the sands. Before the girl is twenty, before she is twenty-five--the earlier the better--she should recognize this fact and begin to establish her life on the bed rock of health.

It is true, too, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, that the country boy and the country girl are more resourceful than their city cousins.

Out-of-doors they have had to use their wits and have not been spoiled by all the appliances of city life. Out-of-doors, too, they have made invaluable friends.h.i.+ps with bird and squirrel and rabbit and deer, friends.h.i.+ps whose intelligent wood-life has taught them much.

Self-reliance is one of the lessons of the outdoor runway; and wisdom and inspiration come from it when they are needed. About this truth the work of the poet Wordsworth is one long poem. Again and again he writes of the perfect woman shaped by the influences of nature. Of her he says:

"Three years she grew in sun and shower; Then Nature said, 'A lovelier flower On earth was never sown; This child I to myself will take; She shall be mine, and I will make A lady of my own.

"'Myself will to my darling be Both law and impulse: and with me The girl in rock and plain, In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, Shall feel an overseeing power To kindle and restrain.

"'She shall be sportive as the fawn That wild with glee across the lawn Or up the mountain springs; And hers shall be the breathing balm, And hers the silence and the calm Of mute, insensate things.

"'The floating clouds their state shall lend To her; for her the willow bend; Nor shall she fail to see Even in the motions of the storm Grace that shall mould the maiden's form By silent sympathy.

"'The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pa.s.s into her face!'"

No one can afford to neglect all the spiritual influence of nature, and the only way to receive it is to go to nature. Purity of mind, a clean conception of G.o.d's creative plan, a more active intellectual life are all there for the girl who will seek them. She cannot afford _not_ to go back to nature for these helps, for every woman is in some sense a burden bearer, and she must needs know all she can of what life means in order to bear these burdens well.

There are various kinds of outdoor life, some one of which is within reach of every human being, even if they are cripples. Probably most girls when the outdoor life of school and college is spoken of think that athletics is meant. That is one part of the outdoor runway, and since it is provided in every school, and insisted upon, but little about it need be said. It is doing its work with more and more inspiration, as the response to its ideals comes in. And it does something more in every well-equipped school than merely make a girl use her legs and arms: it gives her a large, sane ideal of health and provides her with the means of keeping well. There is no more useful profession for the woman seeking one that is useful as well as remunerative than physical culture.

There is another aspect of the outdoor runway of which less is said. I mean gardening, or the care of live stock of some kind, or bee culture.

This is practical remunerative work which for the girl living at home and going to school should serve famously as a gra.s.s-cure; it would keep her out-of-doors with profit to both her health and her purse. And then there is another kind of gra.s.s-cure: the outdoor life out-of-doors, to be taken in long country walks, in fis.h.i.+ng expeditions, in picnics, in camping or wherever roads, hills, meadows and brooks lead. Finally, there is the outdoor life indoors. This life insists upon windows open to the air and open to the suns.h.i.+ne, and this life every one of us may have all the time.

X

A GIRL'S SUMMER

Any girl who settles down to a summer with the idea of doing nothing, or in an aimless, not-knowing-what-to-do-next fas.h.i.+on, lessens her opportunities for pleasure. Pleasure is not idleness, although in the minds of a great many people who have not thought very much it is. The right sort of leisure is full of opportunities for doing interesting things.

There are some girls who look upon their summers as an escape from the slavery of their school year. There are others who think of their summers as something to be endured until they can go back to the more or less selfish freedom of the school. Neither is the right way. The summer ought not to be an entirely frivolous season, neither ought it to be too workaday. If a girl has work to do, everything should be so arranged as not to deprive the vacation of its recreative side. On the other hand the summer should be all the happier because of a definite object to be accomplished. Something is wrong with a girl unless she finds both summer and winter full of opportunity and pleasure.

No one can possibly do all the delightful or useful things which may be done in a single summer. In these months there is opportunity for growth just as in the winter--perhaps more opportunity physically. And intellectually there is much to be seen and observed. For the girl who can, it is well to plan to be out-of-doors as much as possible. For some, there are opportunities for camping, for long walks, for gardening, to learn how to do certain physically useful things, to row, swim and ride. Only an extraordinary emergency would deprive a girl of all the out-of-door exercise which she needs. If she isn't able to be by the sea or in the mountains, in almost all cities there is opportunity for exercise and games. With a short car ride she can go to golf links, to tennis courts, into the country. In many semi-citified homes there is s.p.a.ce for a girl to do some gardening, one of the most profitable of pleasures, good for the girl and good for the home. Many homes would be much more attractive if there were more of the garden spirit in them.

But if there is no chance for this, there can always be physical culture, an opportunity to build one's self up in health, to live sanely and wisely, to get plenty of sleep, and to take corrective exercise. In physical culture a girl should find out what she most needs--almost any gymnastic instructor in school or college would be glad to outline work--and then in ten or fifteen minute exercises develop herself along those lines.

For the girl with means there is the chance for travel, a splendid opportunity to cultivate many virtues of which the young traveller seldom thinks: patience, adaptability, seeing the bright side of things.

Travelling may be made a very important part of education. It is too bad that some people of limited horizon take it simply as a chance to aggrandize themselves, something to boast about and with which to bore their friends by repeated accounts of what they did "abroad." The great Doctor Samuel Johnson, the compiler of the famous dictionary and author of "Ra.s.selas," heartily disliked young travellers, for, he said, "They go too raw to make any great remarks." Travelling, if it is what it should be, is an educational opening. In this way can be gained a background for history, for literature, for sociology, and a vivid and living knowledge of geography. Merely running about with a guide-book will not achieve these ends, although a guide-book is a very important a.s.set: sympathy, trying to understand what one sees, will. Travelling takes away provincialism because it broadens the outlook. In a very real sense the world becomes one's home.

The girl who is not able to move about or actually travel may travel in books. She should be ashamed to read what is harmful or merely cheap, but further than that it may not much matter. Let her read the Little Books, if she wishes, and the Great Little Books. As surely as the magnet swings towards the pole will the Great Little Books take her to the Great Big Books. She will be drawn on and up in her reading, and will have cultivated a love for reading which is far more important than perfunctory knowledge of the cla.s.sics.

Just as any books that are good point towards books that are better, so should the good work of a girl's school year be turning her mind towards the future and her work as a mature woman. In the summer she has time to a.s.similate all she has done, to get her bearings, and to plan wisely for the year, or years, to come. For a girl of strong physique the summer vacation gives an opportunity to add towards what she is going to do eventually; to specialize in some line of work, to take a library, or scientific, course. Many girls, however, who wish to spend their summer in this fas.h.i.+on ought not to consider it, for they are not strong enough. It is well for them to remember that it is the quality of work that counts rather than the quant.i.ty. Often the quality of a girl's work for an ensuing school year depends upon her freedom from study during the summer. Students should be very sure, if they undertake work in the summer, that it is not done simply from a nervous desire to go on regardless of the quality of the work done. But for those in perfect health this is an opportunity to try their powers in different ways in order to discover what it is they really wish to do. A summer so spent may keep many a girl from slipping into teaching just because it seems the only thing she can do. Such a salvation will be twofold, for it will save not only the girl, but also a profession overcrowded with loveless followers. There are so many needs to be filled by a woman's work that it is her duty to look for some vocation for which she is truly adapted, to get out of the ruts of those professions into which women flock because they have no initiative.

Often a girl thinks only of what she will do with her own summer without thinking of what she will do with her mother's or her father's summer.

For nine or ten months they have been thinking of what they could do for her. Sometimes girls do not realize the actual need of help and of companions.h.i.+p which those at home feel, and the older people are too unselfish to force this need upon their juniors. Between the unselfishness of those who are older and the self-centredness of those who are younger, there is often sad havoc made in a home. A girl who, after a year's absence and all that has been done for her, can't adjust herself to those who need her, has still something to learn.

If older people cannot do without the buoyancy of the young, the young cannot very well afford to forget the mother and father who have much, although no word may be didactically spoken, to teach them. Let the girl take her summer not only as an opportunity to grow closer to her family but also as a chance to learn home-making, to train herself in the practical things of the home. This practical training is often a very valuable supplement to the school work. The time is pa.s.sed when the learned woman who is unable to do anything for herself is the ideal--if she ever has been that. The inability to make a home for herself, to do all the necessary things daintily, detracts from a woman's power. In practical ways a woman should be both dainty and capable. Parents, as well as girls, sometimes forget or do not clearly recognize the fact that no school, no college, can take the place of the home, that schools are not primarily schools in home-making, but rather schools of general education. The summer is a good time for the girl to find her place again in the home life, and for both parents and children to rejoice in the pleasures of the home--pleasures and opportunities which no inst.i.tutional life can give.

XI

FROM THE SCHOOL TO THE GIRL

What the school is able to do for the girl depends very largely upon the girl herself. The majority of people with whom she comes in contact do not take that into consideration, and the school is held unfairly responsible for the girl. All any school can do is to use the material it finds. Some one has said, with harsh but true emphasis, that a college does not make a fool, it simply helps in the development of one.

As an ill.u.s.tration of its limitations, a school sends out two girls from the same cla.s.s; one girl it is proud to have taken as a type, the other it is sorry to have represent it. Yet both have been under exactly the same influence. Students do not realize how fearfully at their mercy a school is, or that, so far as reputation is concerned, it is they who make or mar its credit.

If the school training is worth anything at all, it makes the most of unpromising material. Its really discouraging experience is not with the girl of limited ability who gives her best and so in some sense gets the best, but with the student who doesn't give her best and who, because of her own indifference, is always misrepresenting the training she is receiving. No school ever wishes to have its ideals confused by a vulgar display of wealth or by loud or conspicuous behaviour. Yet many a school, with ideals all that they should be, is misjudged in public places because of some thoughtless or unreliable girls. This doesn't seem like fair-play or team-play, does it? The fineness of life ought to be felt and expressed in student behaviour. Yet how often it is not!

Another way in which the ideals of a school or college are misrepresented is by lack of intellectual integrity. Any school informed with a large spirit wishes to meet its students on a platform of absolute trust,--a platform which makes precautions against dishonesty unnecessary. Just so long as a school must be vigilant in order to keep a few students from unfair behaviour, just so long is it prevented from meeting them all on a basis of absolute trust. Why should girls excuse themselves for cla.s.sroom dishonesty? What would they think of a girl who cheated in basket-ball? Would they condone that? Until student government has recognized absolute intellectual integrity as a part of its ideas, it will not have achieved its end. The rock on which all scholars.h.i.+p is founded is honour. Lack of honour is fatal to its ideal.

"Cribbing," often excused by people who do not stop to think, is the small beginning of a big evil.

Many a large inst.i.tution is like an anxious mother, not always infallible in wisdom, but personally interested in and eager for the success of the individual. A successful girl brings credit to her school, for she demonstrates, as nothing else can, the fact that the school is achieving its purpose in service to the community. How much this encouragement is needed, girls do not realize, for they do not know all the difficulties which inst.i.tutions, especially technical and collegiate, have to meet in sending their students out into the world.

In finding a position for a student, the school has to consider the whole girl. It may care greatly for an attractive personality and yet see that its possessor is lacking in qualities of faithfulness and accuracy, and that with its utmost endeavour it has never been able to correct these faults. On the other hand, the school may have those students whose manners, whose dress, whose personality, whose spelling, whose awkwardly expressed notes, whose lack of promptness, make against success in any capacity.

Another point for which the school looks in recommending its students is physical fitness, which shows itself in many different ways: in voice, in carriage, in attractiveness, in staying power. One teacher who had an excellent record as a student and was, besides, a fine girl, had so unpleasant and absurd a voice that her students were in a continual state of amus.e.m.e.nt and would learn nothing from her. A great many teachers have lost in power because of a poor voice, strident, or lifeless, or husky, or falsetto. A poor enunciation, or words that do not carry, are ineffectual means by which to reach a cla.s.s, to hold a customer, or to introduce one's self favourably to the interest of others. For a girl who is going to have any part in public life--and most girls do nowadays--a good voice is an absolute essential. And it is well for us to remember that the voice is not something superficial, but that it is the expression of that which is within.

Another way in which physical fitness shows itself is in the carriage. A girl who carries herself with erectness and energy brings a certain conviction with her of fitness for many things, of self-respect, of ability, and reveals in her bearing something of her mind as well as of her body. We are always tempted to think a person who "slumps"

physically may slump in other ways. A good carriage, good voice, and strong, clean, digestive system are far more important than beauty of features.

There is another matter at which the school in placing its students must look. To be a desirable candidate for a good position a girl need not be expensively gowned, but she must be daintily and freshly dressed.

Immaculate s.h.i.+rt waist, a plain, well-made skirt, with good shoes, stockings and gloves and a quiet, pretty hat, are all any woman needs in meeting her business obligations. And that daintiness which she shows in her dress she must show in her person too, in clean skin and finger-nails, good teeth, and smooth, attractively arranged hair.

It is very important for the interests of a school, as well as for the individual, to place its students advantageously. To have them succeed widens its sphere of usefulness and influence and opens new channels of service. Every college puts itself to considerable expense in looking out for the interests of its students, for the glory of a great school lies not only in the people whom it collects into its midst, but even more in those whom it sends out. A girl has no right to go so lightly through her school life that she fails to see in it all the self-sacrifice and effort and ambitions that have gone into the building up of what is her privilege and opportunity. In so far as she does this she fails in the team-play spirit. Why should a girl think that she can spend her father's money, or the means of her school, thoughtlessly?

What would happen to her if she did this with the funds of her basket-ball team? Yet girls waste the resources of their school by carelessness with its property, a carelessness that collectively mounts up into thousands of dollars, and never once stop to think how difficult every big school finds it to make ends meet.