THE 
 
 1NDUSTOMMIN1NG 
 THEGIRL 
 
 WILLIAM A. 
 
 MCREEVER 
 
GIFT OF 
 Agricultural Educ.Dlv. 
 
THE INDTJSTKIAL TRAINING 
 OF THE GIRL 
 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS 
 ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED 
 
 LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. 
 TORONTO 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 
 OF THE GIRL 
 
 BY 
 WILLIAM A. McKEEVER 
 
 PROFESSOR OF CHILD WELFARE IN THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF KANSAS. AUTHOR OF "TRAINING THE 
 
 GIRL," "TRAINING THE BOY," 
 
 "FARM BOYS AND 
 
 GIRLS," ETC. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1914 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
COPTBIGHT, 1914, 
 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Nortoooti 
 
 J. S. Cushing Co. Berwick & Smith Co. 
 Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 
 
TO MY ESTIMABLE NIECE 
 
 EDITH MARIE J 
 
 THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY 
 DEDICATED 
 
 674625 
 
PREFACE 
 
 IN the ideal state of society Labor and Love and Life 
 would be regarded as three ways of characterizing the 
 same thing ; namely, a complete human existence. This 
 larger, richer personality is to me an enticing goal of 
 training, especially because of my belief that its means 
 of attainment exist potentially in the nature of every 
 ordinary child. Now, it is the dominant note of this 
 little volume that industry when properly related to 
 the growth and the training of the young is cultural 
 and ennobling. Slowly yet unmistakably, from the age- 
 old superstitions about her sex, there is emerging a type 
 of woman which, as I believe, will be known as distinc- 
 tively American a type which is being created out of 
 our plain, substantial, composite stock. And during all 
 the years of her development this coming American 
 woman will be guided first of all by the secret whisper- 
 ings of her own true feminine nature. From the time 
 when she first extends her tiny hands to grasp eagerly 
 the baby doll, to the day when she bids adieu her first- 
 born departing for college during all these years she 
 will continue to attain unto higher perfection and beauty 
 of character. 
 
 To play and work and love and serve and worship 
 these are the component parts of all good womanly lives. 
 Deny a woman any one of these holy practices and she 
 becomes incomplete, servile, and unhappy. This present 
 
 vii 
 
viii Preface 
 
 volume treats of the industrial training alone, but the 
 other forms are implied and have been considered else- 
 where. It is the humble wish of the author that many 
 parents and other girl trainers may be led by this book 
 to see the way whereby they may add genuine charm 
 and dignity and spiritual worth to the character of the 
 growing girl through a carefully adapted course of indus- 
 trial training. 
 
 The text of this volume is constituted of Part One of 
 the larger one entitled "Training the Girl," and that in 
 accordance with a preconceived plan. 
 
 WILLIAM A. McKEEVER. 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 THE INDUSTRIAL TRAINING OF THE GIRL 
 
 OHAPTEB PAGE 
 
 I. THE SMALL BEGINNINGS 3 
 
 An Unusual " House of Childhood " .... 4 
 
 Home Industry is Culture 5 
 
 Love will Lead the Way 8 
 
 Home Mindedness Inculcated ..... 8 
 
 The Tedious Beginnings , 9 
 
 The Secret of Success 11 
 
 II. THE KINDERGARTEN TRAINING . . . . .14 
 
 A Constructive Plan of Development .... 14 
 
 The Kindergarten Method 15 
 
 A Concrete Illustration 16 
 
 Much Work to Perform 18 
 
 The Spirit of Co-operation 19 
 
 Another Important Appointment 21 
 
 Indulging the Creative Spirit 22 
 
 The Duty of the Mother 24 
 
 III. ATTENDING THE PUBLIC SCHOOL . . . . . 26 
 
 Work Distinguished from Play . . ... 26 
 
 Beware of Contests 28 
 
 The Reconstructive Method 29 
 
 Condemning the Teacher . . . . . .30 
 
 Mastering the Lessons 32 
 
 How Much Home Study 33 
 
 What of the Child's Health 33 
 
 IV, HOME AND SCHOOL CO-OPERATION 37 
 
 The Parent-Teacher Association 37 
 
 How to Organize a School and Home Club ... 39 
 ix 
 
x Contents 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 How to Conduct the Club 40 
 
 Getting the Point of View 42 
 
 Topics for the Program 43 
 
 Home Study 43 
 
 The Schoolground Discipline . . . " . .43 
 
 Morals on the Playground 44 
 
 Home Industry 44 
 
 A New Method of Grading ...... 45 
 
 Work Must Receive Recognition . . . . .47 
 
 V. THE HIGH-SCHOOL GIRL ....... 50 
 
 The Danger of Confusion ...... 50 
 
 Is this Description True ? 52 
 
 What is the Remedy ? 53 
 
 Choice of a High-School Course 54 
 
 What of Domestic Mindedness 55 
 
 The Course in Household Science and Art ... 56 
 
 Common-Sense Instruction 57 
 
 The Vocation not Overlooked 58 
 
 The High School may not Fit . . . . 59 
 
 Democracy in the High School 60 
 
 The Spirit of Democracy 61 
 
 The Discipline in One Home 62 
 
 The High-School Secret Society 64 
 
 Keep the Daughter Out of It 64 
 
 The High-School Girl's Clothes 66 
 
 VI. SENDING THE DAUGHTER TO COLLEGE 68 
 
 Choosing the Right Institution 68 
 
 Selecting the Course of Study 69 
 
 A Danger Period at College 71 
 
 A Change in Attitude of Mind . . . . .72 
 Playing Fair with the Freshman Girl .... 73 
 
 The College Home for Girls 75 
 
 The Letters from Home 76 
 
 The College Sorority 1-77 
 
 Health-Impairing Training and Exercise ... 78 
 Shall the Young Woman Earn Her Way . . .79 
 Other Topics to Follow .81 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 On the way to happy womanhood . . Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 Where love leads the way 8 
 
 In the school of life . 8 
 
 A kindergarten in " God's Great Out of Doors " . 18 
 
 Love and life and labor may be made one . . 28 
 
 A " Little Mother " at her best .... 28 
 
 " Once upon a time a good little girl " . . 38 
 
 A home theatre and these sisters are better for it 44 
 
 She is just as much at home in the classroom or at 
 
 the piano . . . . . . .56 
 
 A familiar May pole scene at college ... 70 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 
 
 OF THE GEkLM.-V, C 1 ?" 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 
 OF THE GIRL 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 THE SMALL BEGINNINGS 
 
 IF, on the day these lines were written, the reader could 
 have stepped into the large attic of a certain modest 
 suburban home, the attractiveness of the scene witnessed 
 there would have doubly repaid the effort expended in 
 climbing the two flights of stairs leading thereto. This 
 attic room was perhaps 24 x 30 feet in I dimensions, ai)d 
 all of its commodious space was taken lip'by W remarkabfy' 
 complete equipment for the training <rf jtwo ; littles gi els: 
 aged respectively four and six years/ ^fibW'inticn do you" 
 want for these girls?" the parents were banteringly asked 
 by a caller, before the presence of the room above had been 
 made known. "Oh, they are not for sale, they are worth 
 too much," quickly replied the mother. "We are not 
 placing any wealth in their hands but we are trying to 
 put all the riches possible into their characters." 
 
 What an object lesson that well-equipped attic room 
 would furnish for the parents of America could they see it 
 as it was and become acquainted with all its interesting 
 details of arrangement! There were displayed in minia- 
 ture form practically all the belongings, the furnishings, 
 the means of industry, play and the other activities neces- 
 sary for a complete and well-balanced life for little girls. 
 The father was an ordinary sane and right minded busi- 
 ness man, the owner of this unpretentious home and the 
 
4 Training the Girl 
 
 recipient of what you would call a very ordinary income. 
 The mother was a well-poised, yet vivacious young woman 
 who seemed to possess every characteristic of wholesome 
 motherhood as well as much fondness for the home life 
 over which she presided. It was plain to be seen that the 
 thought of these two happy parents was very much ab- 
 sorbed in the conduct and development of their children. 
 A description of this interesting "house of childhood" 
 will serve to make clear their remarkable course of home 
 training and their complete plan for the bringing up of the 
 little daughters. The description follows. 
 
 AN UNUSUAL "HOUSE OF CHILDHOOD" 
 
 Through wise foresight in planning the house the parents 
 of the two little girls referred to above had specified that 
 'fchft roojf \shcu I'd be high and steep, thus allowing for a 
 < large -amount of open space in the attic room. The two 
 <* gabfe Mentis -6f this upper apartment were practically all 
 filled up with the window space, admitting a maximum 
 supply of light and air. At one end there was a door 
 leading out to a small open balcony with high railing for 
 protection. But the arrangements of the room within 
 were particularly complete and attractive as they in- 
 cluded practically all the materials so dear to the hearts of 
 little girls. The thoughtful parents had made use of very 
 light lattice strips in framing up partitions which sepa- 
 rated the large room into many small compartments. 
 This light frame work, which was little more than waist 
 high to the girls, was covered with strips of wall paper, 
 thus giving much of the appearance of the partitions in 
 the ordinary house. 
 
 There were door and window spaces of convenient size 
 in this interesting child-house. In the extreme rear there 
 was the little room which represented the kitchen in an 
 
The Small Beginnings 5 
 
 ordinary home, and in this were many pieces of toy 
 furniture a miniature stove, dishes, cooking utensils, 
 and the like, all arranged in first-class order. Next to the 
 kitchen was the little dining room with its table with 
 dainty cloth, and on that were such furnishings as you 
 might expect the little girls mentioned above to provide. 
 There were tiny dining-room chairs, some pretty pictures 
 on the walls, and other appropriate materials. Adjoining 
 the dining room was a living room where sweet-faced little 
 dolls served as the occupants. A diminutive couch, rock- 
 ing chairs, a toy piano, a few baby books, a small carpet 
 on the floor, some Perry pictures which the girls had 
 framed, and other appropriate materials too numerous 
 to mention these made up the furnishings of the living 
 room. And then there was a bed chamber with two little 
 white beds and a dolly peacefully sleeping in each. This 
 well-arranged bedroom quite equalled the other apart- 
 ments of the child-house in point of attractiveness. Bath 
 room and closets had not been overlooked in this complete 
 little home and at one side there still remained space for 
 what the children called their play-house. For, please 
 mark the attitude of mind of the two little women, this 
 other was not to them a play-house. It was a home and it 
 received the same serious consideration which the model 
 homemaker gives to the place in which she reigns. 
 
 HOME INDUSTRY is CULTURE 
 
 The well-ordered and complete equipment of the child 
 home described above impressed the author with the 
 thought of its peculiar meaning and significance. And 
 especially the idea that this attractive place was to the 
 little girls not a play-house but a home this impressed 
 him above all else associated therewith until there came 
 ringing in his mind clear and strong, the suggestion: 
 
6 Training the Girl 
 
 Upon this foundation will I erect a superstructure of a 
 beautiful ideal character for womanhood ! 
 
 It may at first prove well-nigh a shock to the sensi- 
 bilities of some of our readers if we propose to place or- 
 dinary work and industry as a foundation stone for every 
 great life, including a life of well-poised womanhood. 
 This we now do. But we feel sure that as the discussions 
 develop we shall have an increasing proportion of our 
 readers as friends and supporters of our plan. After all, 
 perhaps there is no good life save that life which has 
 learned mastery over the self and has acquired supremacy 
 over something worthy of being done. And so, in con- 
 structing a plan for the ideal career of woman, we should 
 begin with the child, and by giving the tiny little hands 
 some baby task to perform, and we should see that she per- 
 formed the appointed duty so successfully and so well as to 
 make it bring its certain reward of joy in the mere doing. 
 At the same time we should be careful not to lay on the 
 delicate little form a single duty that might be regarded by 
 the child herself as in any sense burdensome. The childish 
 instinct, created and ordained by Mother Nature herself, 
 and coming to expression in the life of the little one, 
 this should be our first guide to the selection of the task. 
 And the childish spontaneity and enthusiasm, as it rose 
 and waned, should assist us in determining the amount of 
 the appointed industry and the length of time during which 
 the little one should continue in its pursuit. 
 
 There is something very sweet and sacred in the native 
 capacity of the unspoiled little girl for love and sympathy. 
 Oh, how we wish for more ability to understand this pre- 
 cious inheritance, with the thought that it might be de- 
 veloped into a rich and forceful influence such as would 
 dominate the career to the end of its existence! Yes, we 
 should have these fine qualities of love and sympathy 
 
The Small Beginnings 7 
 
 color every future deed in its performance, but we see no 
 other certain avenue of approach to the successful attain- 
 ment of these attributes save that of training the young 
 life in the performance and the mastery of plain everyday 
 work and industry. Be it known, however, that we are 
 not thinking merely of the girl who must spend her adult 
 life in some industrial pursuit. We are thinking quite as 
 earnestly of the little one who may have been born in a 
 home of wealth and refinement, and who, so far as eco- 
 nomic reasons are concerned, will most probably never 
 actually need to turn her hand to the performance of a 
 single self-supporting task. 
 
 Now, if we take these two extreme cases, namely, the 
 little girl whose entire way of life seems to promise to be 
 one of heavy work and industry; and the other little girl 
 whose promise for the future seems to be that of attaining 
 a position of ease and affluence, we shall perhaps be able 
 to make our plan of ideal womanly development more 
 easily understood. In part it is this: We sincerely desire 
 and hope that the girl destined to a life of industry and 
 the other one destined to a life of affluence shall always 
 know each other through and through; that they shall 
 be prepared to dwell in the same community with the 
 highest possible degree of mutual sympathy and good 
 fellowship. We desire also that the girl of industrial life 
 shall be so masterful in her place as to receive a large in- 
 crement of joy and satisfaction from her work, and as to be 
 not altogether envious of her sister of the so-called upper 
 ranks. And we desire that the other one shall have been 
 made so intimately acquainted with ordinary girlhood 
 work and industry as to be prepared to think lovingly 
 and sympathetically of all the women who toil, and as to 
 be deeply imbued with the thought of doing her part 
 toward the amelioration of their condition. 
 
8 Training the Girl 
 
 LOVE WILL LEAD THE WAY 
 
 Wherever love leads along the way labor is transformed 
 into a delightful occupation. So, in casting about for a 
 tiny industrial duty for the baby girl we should question 
 the affectionate yearning of her own little heart. Just at 
 the moment of our approaching her, what is she most fond 
 of trying to do? Having obtained an answer to this ques- 
 tion we should then regard the response as the unfailing 
 pulse of nature throbbing in the little life; and we should 
 immediately do our part in furnishing the opportunity 
 and the equipment necessary for much practice in the 
 performance of the chosen task. Such in short seemed to 
 be the method of the good mother described above, who 
 presided so ably over her entire household and who per- 
 fected such a beautiful plan for the development of her 
 two little girls. We must go back to her methods and 
 follow them in detail supplementing them where neces- 
 sary with the helpful methods of other good homemakers. 
 
 HOME MINDEDNESS INCULCATED 
 
 In watching for the mottoes of development which seemed 
 to pervade all the efforts of this good house mother in so 
 far as they are related to the conduct of her daughters, 
 we came upon the suggestion of the apt phrase "home 
 mindedness." From the very first day and continuously 
 throughout the use of her home-training plan there was 
 clearly being inculcated into the minds of the little ones 
 this most praiseworthy sentiment about the home life. 
 Let the reader mark carefully again the fact that these 
 two girls were not taught either to say or to believe that 
 they were playing while engaged in caring for their minia- 
 ture attic home. Every reference to this was in terms 
 suggestive of work and industrial occupation. On the 
 
The Small Beginnings 9 
 
 other hand, they were taught to regard the small apart- 
 ment called their play room as the place for the play ac- 
 tivities. While in that part of the attic home they played 
 and romped and threw things about capriciously. Noth- 
 ing there was done with necessary seriousness of purpose. 
 Blockhouses were built up only to be knocked down. The 
 swings, see-saws, and other equipments were for purposes 
 of mere sport. Any play activity might be begun and 
 then abandoned the next moment. But in the other 
 departments, those of the real household, the children 
 were taught at all times to assume a different attitude. 
 While there, as in their play room, the attitude of spon- 
 taneity led the way: but the task once begun must of 
 necessity be carried through to its completion. Sometimes 
 the eagerness of the children would lead them to wish to 
 undertake too large a household duty, but just here the 
 splendid forethought and counsel of the mother guided 
 the childish effort. So, in case of all chosen tasks like 
 that of making up beds, preparing a meal for the dollies, 
 scrubbing out the kitchen, or otherwise putting the house- 
 hold in order the children were always required to carry 
 the performance through to its completion. And they were 
 even given time after its performance to pause for a mo- 
 ment and contemplate with satisfaction the work of their 
 hands. 
 
 THE TEDIOUS BEGINNINGS 
 
 A little year-old girl sat in her crib with a small fruit 
 basket half full of clothes-pins on one side of her and a 
 quart milk bottle on the other. The tiny one was slowly 
 learning to pick up the clothes-pins, one at a time, and 
 drop them into the bottle. How awkward were her little 
 soft hands! How prone to carry the clothes-pins to her 
 mouth rather than to the bottle! What a waste of baby 
 
10 Training the Girl 
 
 energy, if we compare the amount of effort with the results. 
 Some of the clothes-pins were dropped on the outside, 
 others were thrown through error out upon the floor, and 
 still others fell back into the basket; but the child was 
 learning. Slowly and tediously she acquired the neces- 
 sary movements and was enabled to do the little task 
 which she sought to perform. We observed in case of 
 this baby's effort more than a mere trial and error attend- 
 ing the little exercise. We witnessed, for example, the 
 interference of habit with the attempt to do a new thing. 
 The child had already acquired the habit of putting such 
 objects as clothes-pins directly into her mouth. So again 
 and again would the little hand go up and bend toward 
 the mouth, then outward toward the bottle, instead of 
 taking the direct course from the basket. However, prac- 
 tice slowly brought its expected improvement, and in 
 the course of a half hour or more the movements of the 
 little hand and arm were brought more definitely under 
 control. 
 
 The mother of this baby girl seemed to understand very 
 well indeed her combined relation of mother and teacher. 
 She repeatedly assisted the child in economizing the ex- 
 penditure of the energy. Several times she directed the 
 movement of the little fingers in grasping and holding the 
 object. The baby learner seemed to understand and 
 appreciate much of the meaning of it all. It was now 
 suggested that the mother try teaching the child to insert 
 the clothes-pins into the bottle all in one manner; that is, 
 with the heads all downward. Perhaps five minutes' 
 time was consumed in this effort before the child seemed 
 to catch the meaning of it. And then, with an expression 
 of real joy upon her little countenance, she began to take 
 the lead in arranging the objects so that they would go 
 into the bottle in the desired manner. 
 
The Small Beginnings 11 
 
 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS 
 
 Now, in this instance of the child playing with clothes- 
 pins we have revealed the secret key which unlocks the 
 door leading into the house of knowledge. Two or three 
 terms stand out with special prominence in so far as the 
 duty of the teacher is concerned: patience and definiteness 
 are the rules of training here. Then add to these merely 
 the understanding of how the child nature learns through 
 native experience, and you have the entire program in 
 condensed form: Patience, definiteness and insight these 
 are the three mottoes of instruction. Now, recall the 
 fact that at the moment when the little child first 
 understood what was desired of her by way of arrang- 
 ing the clothes-pins in her little hands so that they 
 would go into the bottle head first, recall, if you will, 
 this joy of achievement, and you have additional insight 
 into what it means to be the real teacher of a real learner. 
 
 So, in the task of instructing the little girl in the 
 performance of any ordinary task, no matter how small 
 that may be, patience, definiteness and methodical ar- 
 rangement for repeated trials and errors are necessary 
 all to the end that the child may finally catch the purpose 
 intended and perform the act by means of her own self- 
 directed effort. This is the ideal mode of procedure and 
 in practically all such cases the expression of joy upon 
 the radiant face of the little one will amply reward the 
 effort in her behalf. She is learning to do by doing; she is 
 acquiring a mastery over the movements of her body. 
 She is acquiring a deftness in the use of her hands and 
 fingers. In short, the little one is learning to do faith- 
 fully and well some assigned duty, and in reality is taking 
 the first small steps in a possible career of success and 
 triumph. 
 
12 Training the Girl 
 
 Wherefore, the mother who comes to you complaining 
 of her child, "I haven't time to bother teaching my little 
 girl to help me. She is more trouble than she is worth. 
 She gets under my feet and hinders my work," and so on 
 this mother has failed both to understand her duty to 
 her child and to appreciate the method whereby the mas- 
 tery of life is attained. Was there really ever a little 
 growing girl who was "worth her salt" while learning to 
 help about the household? Did it not in every instance 
 cost tenfold more of time and patience and energy than 
 was paid for by all of the fruits of her little labors? Indeed, 
 one of the first essentials for the mother-teacher is that 
 of looking for the reward in the slowly emerging character 
 of the young learner. The training must be thought of 
 as a mode of bringing the inherent qualities out of the 
 young life. With all her inability to do anything helpful; 
 with all her economic uselessness, the little daughter 
 may be thought of as a veritable gold-mine of latent 
 riches. But the wealth hidden there can be got at with 
 assurance only by means of patient toil and labor in lead- 
 ing the child through a systematic course of discipline. 
 
 In the chapters to follow, we shall take up one by one 
 the small disciplinary home tasks suitable for training 
 and developing the growing girl. And we shall attempt 
 to be very concrete and definite in the setting forth of a 
 method of instruction. 
 
 LITERATURE ON THE SMALL BEGINNINGS 
 
 Home Problems from a New Standpoint. Caroline L. Hunt. Chapter 
 
 III, " More Life for All." 145 pp. Whitcomb & Barrows, Boston. 
 Misunderstood Children. Elizabeth Harrison. Chapter IV, " Daughters 
 
 of Men." 168 pp. Central Publishing Co., Chicago. 
 Home, School and Vacation. Annie W. Allen. Chapter III, "A 
 
 General Scheme of Education." 220 pp. Houghton, Mifflin Co., 
 
 Boston. 
 
The Small Beginnings 13 
 
 A Mother's Ideals. Andrea Hofer Proudfoot. Chapter VII, "The 
 ^ Radiant Mother." 282 pp. A. Flanagan Co., Chicago. 
 /'An Introduction to Child Study. W. B. Drummond. Chapter VI, 
 "How to Study a Baby." 348 pp. Longmans, Greene & Co., 
 N.Y. 
 
 Child. A Study in The Evolution of Man. A. F. Chamberlain. 
 Chapter IV, "The Periods of Childhood." 495 pp. Chas. Scrib- 
 . ^ ner's Sons, N. Y. 
 
 ^Increasing Home Efficiency. Martha B. and Robert W. Bruere. Chap- 
 ter XII, "Launching the Child." 318 pp. The Macmillan Co., 
 N.Y. 
 
 Individual in The Making. E. A. Kirkpatrick. Chapter II, 
 "Interest." 339 pp. Houghton, Mifflin Co., N. Y. 
 
 G. Stanley Hall. Chapter I, " Pre- Adolescence." 379 pp. 
 D. Appleton & Co., N. Y. 
 
 Each for All and All for Each. John Parsons. Chapter II, "Individ- 
 ual Initiative." 390 pp. Sturgis Walton Co., N. Y. 
 Fireside Child Study. Patterson Du Bois. Chapter V, "Where to 
 
 Begin." 159 pp. Dodd, Mead & Co., N. Y. 
 
 The Education of Women. Marian Talbot. Chapter I, "The Industrial 
 and Commercial Change." 252 pp. University of Chicago Press, 
 * Chicago. 
 
 ^Tsyschology of Childhood. Frederick Tracy. Chapter VI, "^Esthetic, 
 
 Moral, and Religious Ideas". 216 pp. D. C. Heath & Co., Boston. 
 
 Childhood. Mrs. Theodore W. Birney. Chapter VI, "Obedience and 
 
 Punishment." 254 pp. Frederick A. Stokes & Co., N. Y. 
 A Guide to the Montessori Method. Ellen Yale Stevens. Chapter 
 III, "Self-Discipline through Obedience." 240 pp. Frederick A. 
 Stokes & Co., N. Y. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 THE KINDERGARTEN TRAINING 
 
 WE are thinking of the time when the little daughter 
 will have become a full grown woman, and wondering 
 what to do in order to make her character an ideal one. 
 We observe about us so many attractive appearing young 
 women whose lives do not bear the test of a full and com- 
 plete analysis. Some are mere butterflies, others are 
 parasites, still others seem to have a bone of contention 
 to pick with society. The last named class is one of the 
 largest. One who knows how to make an inquiry about the 
 matter and who does so will be surprised at the large 
 number of young women there are among us to-day who 
 harbor a kind of secret spite at society and at things as 
 they are. Something is the matter. 
 
 Whatever else may be lacking in the character of any 
 member of the classes of young women named above it 
 may be said that practically not one of these is engaged 
 regularly in doing any work which her instinctive nature 
 longs to perform. And how soon all these must perish; 
 for the butterfly is always short-lived, the parasite has 
 an uncertain and unenviable career, and the spiteful and 
 envious creature quickly consumes his own heart. 
 
 A CONSTRUCTIVE PLAN OF DEVELOPMENT 
 
 Why should not the parent have a constructive philos- 
 ophy of life to apply from the beginning in the develop- 
 ment of the baby girl? Indeed, we contend that he should. 
 If the character of the little one is to unfold beautifully 
 
 14 
 
The Kindergarten Training 15 
 
 and to bring perennial joy to its possessor, something 
 very definite must be done to make the child ultimately 
 a producer. She may be very happy during childhood 
 with all play and no work; she may flit about with joy 
 during maidenhood, sipping only the sweets, and avoid- 
 ing all assigned and irksome duties. But the day will 
 certainly come when the full grown young woman will 
 begin to measure herself by a standard of intrinsic value. 
 And from that time on, her joy and satisfaction in life 
 will be dependent upon whether or not she finds herself 
 really worthy within. Not mere getting, enjoying and 
 consuming the fruits of others' labor; but giving, pro- 
 ducing, and contributing to the well-being of society 
 this is suggestive of the balanced program of training and 
 development necessary for rounding out the life of a 
 growing child. Teach the little daughter to use her head, 
 her heart, and her hands with equal facility; give her little 
 problems of her own to think out; give her little occasions 
 for pouring out her heart's love where it is needed and 
 appreciated; give her opportunities again and again to 
 train her hands to perform the thousand-and-one work-a- 
 day tasks that constitute a part of the life occupations of 
 every good woman give your daughter all these forms 
 of discipline, and the day will surely come when she will 
 rise up and bless your memory because of her very great 
 worth to the world. 
 
 THE KINDERGARTEN METHOD 
 
 Would that every little girl could have the valuable 
 benefits of the kindergarten training! If this most helpful 
 form of discipline for the little daughter be not available 
 in the form of a regular training school, then the substance 
 of such instruction must be given in the home. Indeed, 
 such home training is well exemplified in the case of the 
 
16 Training the Girl 
 
 attic room and its equipment described in chapter one of 
 this volume. The kindergarten is a school which com- 
 bines the work and play of childhood. Spontaneity char- 
 acterizes everything. The little learners in this school of 
 life are engaged in doing such baby tasks as will com- 
 bine at once the largest amount of childish interest with 
 the largest amount of structural training. In the well- 
 conducted kindergarten class the children acquire new 
 methods of doing things and of gaining a definite control 
 over their own movements. 
 
 In order that the ordinary mother may be assisted in 
 understanding the meaning of the kindergarten as it 
 applies to the development of her baby daughter, let us 
 describe some of the valuable lessons that were actually 
 given in a kindergarten class of fifteen little boys and 
 girls ranging in age from four to six years. 
 
 A CONCRETE ILLUSTRATION 
 
 These little learners assembled in the back parlors of 
 the Congregational church of Manhattan, Kansas, where 
 they came under the able instruction of Miss Anna Fair- 
 man, a trained kindergartner. Here were tables, chairs, 
 sand-boxes, work tools, and all the other apparatus nec- 
 essary for the training. The floor was marked off in 
 circles and squares for the practice movements. The 
 children were taught to regard the place as their kinder- 
 garten home, and to believe that each one was there to 
 do his little part in rendering the situation a happy one 
 and in making the hour profitable for all. The teacher 
 herself was most happy in her work, and this joy was 
 contagious among the children. While the class was a 
 naked one of boys and girls, for the sake of directly serving 
 our purpose, let us now consider especially the part of the 
 daily programs most suitable for the training of the girls. 
 
The Kindergarten Training 17 
 
 First of all, there were the songs. Children live in a 
 world of things and activities, and to the common little 
 child practically every perceivable object is both alive and 
 sentient. It is not merely a world of make-believe, but 
 for the tiny consciousness it is a world of real belief. So 
 the best kindergarten songs speak plainly and directly of 
 thoughts and deeds. 
 
 "Little Bluebirds, tell us, tell us, 
 
 Do the south winds bring 
 Any news of happy springtime, 
 
 Happy, happy spring?" 
 
 Thus through the medium of the songs in which all 
 joined, the little ones in Miss Fairman's class kept up a 
 happy communication with the things of nature. The 
 robins sang and hurried busily about the place expressing 
 their little bits of sentiment as to the building of their 
 nests, the care of their eggs, and the love and tender re- 
 gard for their young. The violets and morning glories 
 came with their peculiar messages of sweetness and light 
 and thought of the seed time and harvest. Indeed, to this 
 happy and well-taught little class the world was a veritable 
 fairy-land and everything in it was alive with interest and 
 activity and sentiment for the child mind. 
 
 Yes, you say, but this is a fictitious life, the child can- 
 not go prancing through the world of fact as if it were 
 only one of fairies and dreams, not known at its actual 
 worth and by its real meaning. This life is full of hard 
 toils and heavy tribulations which the young must learn 
 to meet. Correct, indeed, we answer. In so far as the 
 adult is concerned you have spoken the truth. But for 
 the child, the natural one who is given even a reasonable 
 opportunity to do so, the dream-world interpretation of 
 things is the normal course for the time being. Allow the 
 
18 Training the Girl 
 
 little one of the kindergarten age to pass happily through 
 this fairy-land of his own creation, give him the means, the 
 apparatus and the opportunities to deal with objects as 
 if they were all animate, as if they all knew and understood 
 him, and behaved in thought of him do this with the 
 little child, we urge, and he will slowly come out of the 
 dream land into the one of adult reality, so-called, by far 
 the better prepared to deal with the sterner situations of 
 life. We challenge any one who is thoughtful and stu- 
 dious with reference to the meanings of childhood, to 
 show that it is not both reasonable and helpful to indulge 
 the child in his natural, animistic attitude toward things. 
 
 MUCH WORK TO PERFORM 
 
 But aside from the songs and other concert movements 
 Miss Fairman gave her little ones much of a constructive 
 nature to perform. The little girls brought their dolls 
 with them and were furnished the materials for making 
 simple doll clothes. How awkward and unskilled the 
 tiny hands were at first! Some mothers would have 
 given up in despair and made the doll clothes themselves, 
 but that method would not have served the aim of con- 
 structiveness as thought of in this little kindergarten 
 school. Each girl was to have the enjoyment of her own 
 doll rightly adorned with garments, and in addition to this 
 joy the further pleasure of having made each little article 
 herself. So there were the slow going processes of train- 
 ing of how to thread the needle; how to hold the ma- 
 terials in the hands; how to make the stitches; and how to 
 assemble the parts of the little dress. Some of the baby 
 movements had to be gone over again and again, but 
 slowly the soft little fingers acquired their deftness, and 
 as they did so the baby face lighted up more and more 
 with an expression of joy and satisfaction. How it would 
 
g 
 
 o 
 
 H 
 
 El 
 
 tf 
 O 
 
 a 
 
 
 
The Kindergarten Training 19 
 
 have brightened the faces of the mothers themselves 
 could they have been there and witnessed the progress of 
 their baby daughters, as now this one and now that held 
 up a little piece of the doll garment to receive a word of 
 approval or a suggestion as to the next part of the task ! 
 
 Then, there were doll houses, beds, chairs, and other 
 equipments to make; and the little girls created all these 
 things so willingly with their own baby hands. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF CO-OPERATION 
 
 What a delightful thing it is for the individual of what- 
 ever age to realize that he is living and moving in a world 
 of real persons; that others, too, have tasks and problems, 
 and perplexities; that others need one's assistance and 
 co-operation, while at the same time they are pleased 
 to render such things in return! So as will be explained 
 presently, the little girls in this well-conducted kinder- 
 garten school learned the lessons of co-operation and in- 
 terdependence. 
 
 But first let us describe the making of the doll house and 
 furnishings. Shoe boxes and ordinary paste board cut 
 into strips, some waste pieces of wall paper, paste, brush, 
 scissors, and the like, constituted the raw materials. The 
 thought of each little girl was upon the work being under- 
 taken. Their teacher continued to talk to them about 
 what they were planning to do, how each piece was to be 
 used, how the doll houses were to be finished, and so on. 
 While all worked in accordance with the same plans and 
 specifications, each little one was permitted to manifest 
 her individuality in the work being done. There was 
 some opportunity for the exercise of personal taste in the 
 choice of colors and in the matter of assembling the parts 
 of the house. Then, there were the tiny bed, the chairs, 
 tables and the dining-room equipment. As the work con- 
 
20 Training the Girl 
 
 tinued and increased in complexity there was displayed 
 more and more the personal taste of each of the little 
 workers. Now, let the reader mark well the peculiar value 
 of the instruction just sketched. It was indeed play of 
 the most enticing sort, but in addition to that every eager 
 little mind was acquiring knowledge of a very definite kind 
 and every little hand was increasing its degree of facility 
 of use. Moreover, and above all things else, each child 
 was learning to construct something that prepared for 
 and signified the more serious business of the years to 
 come. 
 
 Now for the spirit of co-operation. It happened that 
 on one occasion a certain little girl member of the group 
 was ill and could not be present at the kindergarten school. 
 The teacher referred affectionately to the absent one and 
 asked the other members what might be done as a show of 
 kindliness and remembrance. Various things were quickly 
 suggested, and out of it all there was soon evolved the 
 purpose to build the doll house with all of its furnishings 
 and send these things to the little ailing one. How eagerly 
 all hands went to work ! A division of labor was arranged. 
 Some were cutting out the pieces, others pasting, still 
 others assembling the parts, and so on. The instructor 
 had noticed from their own house-building what each 
 one seemed most apt at doing, so in the division of labor 
 she tried to give each little girl that particular part to 
 perform. The work was quickly done. "Why!" cried 
 one of the twelve who had co-operated in making the doll 
 house for the little sick friend, "We made this house in 
 just a little while. It took us about three days to make 
 our own houses." So not only did the little girls learn 
 much from this happy experience about the spirit of co- 
 operation but they derived therefrom the suggestion as 
 to the very large saving of time in the construction of a 
 
The Kindergarten Training 21 
 
 given piece of work, done in suck a way. And in order 
 to make the lesson complete in all of its meanings, the 
 baby workers were appointed to carry the doll house and 
 its equipments to their little sick friend where they might 
 have the pleasure of witnessing her joy in its possession. 
 
 ANOTHER IMPORTANT APPOINTMENT 
 
 Children are naturally fond of the plastic art. If there 
 be nothing better available they will go directly into the 
 mud and work with that, molding it into mud "pies," 
 water dams, and the like. So the kindergarten takes ac- 
 count of all this instinctive disposition of the child to 
 create out of plastic material its own imagined forms, 
 and it furnishes an artist's clay therefor. Girls as well as 
 boys are exceedingly fond of this sort of activity. In 
 conducting the work in molding in her kindergarten school, 
 Miss Fairman kept in mind the natural animism of child- 
 hood. So the forms which her little ones molded out of 
 clay were not dead and inert things, but to them they were 
 creatures of life and thought and activity. In so far as 
 conditions would allow, the models were formed by the 
 children in imitation of living patterns. The dog, the 
 horse, the cat, and the chicken were observed rather than 
 models of these, and thus there was combined with the 
 lesson of molding, an additional lesson in close observa- 
 tion of the forms of living things. In order to deepen the 
 interest and to inculcate wholesome sentiment about 
 domestic animals, Miss Fairman always adheres to the 
 practice of talking much to the children about the animals 
 which they are creating out of clay. When through with 
 all this, the children have been made to understand that 
 horses can suffer from being overworked, driven too fast, 
 not rightly fed and watered, and from being otherwise 
 mistreated. So with the other animals the cow, the cat, 
 
22 Training the Girl 
 
 and the dog these came in for their share of the thought- 
 ful attention and sympathy on the part of the children. 
 
 We must not minimize the value of this lesson about 
 the care and sympathy for dumb animals. It is not always 
 men but it is sometimes thoughtless and heartless women 
 who mistreat these dumb friends and servants of ours. 
 But such mistreatment as we have often observed to be 
 accorded a dumb creature by some apparently intelligent 
 woman such treatment is not a matter of wantonness or 
 intended cruelty. It is most usually an affair of ignorance, 
 in case of one whose thought has never been definitely or 
 adequately brought to the consideration of the nature and 
 the rights of domestic animals. Thus this crude plastic 
 art, introduced in time of mere childhood, trains the girl 
 to create through the use of her deft little fingers, forms 
 that to her are living and sentient. And thus there slowly 
 emerges out of this beautiful kindergarten lesson the 
 character-forming ideals in respect to the nature of dumb 
 animals and their service to mankind. Thus again, there 
 accrues to the baby learner a sense of inner worth and 
 ability; for with her own hands she is constructing that 
 which she in part has created out of the activities of her 
 imaginative mind. 
 
 INDULGING THE CREATIVE INSTINCT 
 
 It will be noticed that Miss Fairman's work in the 
 kindergarten school as described above tended to give 
 expression to the creative instinct of the child. The or- 
 dinary child has very little inventive ability. There must 
 always be suggestion and rough guidance. It is better to 
 say that curiosity and childish interest will lead the little 
 one to the discovery of new acts and movements than 
 to say that the child actually invents them. After the 
 interest of the kindergarten girls was aroused in relation 
 
The Kindergarten Training 23 
 
 to the work of making doll houses, for example, they were 
 encouraged to express their peculiar tastes and individuali- 
 ties. Thus the charm and the enticement of the task were 
 much increased. Indeed, so great is the interest that the 
 little girl of the kindergarten age will often remain at 
 her self-chosen piece of work even longer than her baby 
 strength and the condition of her health would warrant. 
 
 So we cannot be too insistent that the kindergarten 
 girl be given some constructive work to perform, some- 
 thing that she loves to do and something that will slowly 
 give her a sense of security and responsibility in her light 
 endeavors. Miss Fairman's method of building up this 
 creative ability in the little girls of her class is so com- 
 mendable as to deserve a further description. For example, 
 she planned some very interesting raphia work, that is, 
 the manufacture of some little rugs for the doll houses. 
 For the construction of these rugs it was necessary to 
 make looms, and this she arranged to have the children 
 do, using the toy carpenter's tools and the lathe materials. 
 Work baskets were likewise planned and constructed. The 
 first ones were satisfactory in every way excepting for 
 lack of lids to keep out the dust. So these were afterwards 
 re-constructed with a cover attached, and with handles 
 and other parts suitable for their chosen purpose and 
 suggestive of the real work baskets used by women. 
 
 We may note in passing the suggestion that the con- 
 structive work of children should not always be com- 
 pletely planned, that they should be allowed to do some 
 work like that just described above which proves on 
 trial to be unsatisfactory. The value of that sort of lesson 
 lies in the fact that the child gets the benefit of trial and 
 error and receives the suggestion that things planned 
 do not always work out to a wholly satisfactory conclusion. 
 The learner also acquires the lessons of patience so often 
 
24 Training the Girl 
 
 necessary in tearing down and rebuilding a piece of work 
 after it has once been begun. 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE MOTHER 
 
 We have described, at considerable length, the kinder- 
 garten work as conducted by Miss Fairman and in doing so 
 have been guided by the belief that the ordinary mother 
 can conduct much of this work in her own home and in 
 behalf of her own little girl. While we recommend and 
 strongly urge that the child be sent to a good kindergarten 
 school, we find this in the great majority of cases to be 
 impracticable; for, unfortunately the kindergarten school 
 is not as yet available for the masses of the children of 
 the country. 
 
 In closing the chapter we feel inclined to insist again 
 that the mother reader do not overlook the point of giving 
 her baby daughter the industrial discipline as suggested 
 above, and that during the very earliest years. However, 
 let us understand once for all, that this discipline is not 
 thought of in terms of mere preparation for making a 
 living and for earning wages, important as these things 
 are. It is thought of and urged here because of its very 
 great service in building up a beautiful, aggressive and 
 yet well-poised character in the life of the growing girl. 
 In short, this industrial discipline is recommended be- 
 cause of its worth as an agency in slowly placing in the 
 hands of any ordinary girl a mastery over the plain situa- 
 tions of life, and ultimately a mastery over her own fate. 
 
 LITERATURE ON THE KINDERGARTEN TRAINING 
 
 Kindergarten and Home. V. M. Hillgar. Chapter IV, "General 
 
 Method/' 152pp. Baker Taylor Co., N. Y. 
 Children's Rights. Kate Douglas Wiggin. Chapter VI, "Relation of 
 
 the Kindergarten to Social Reform." 235 pp. Houghton, Mifflin 
 
 Co., Boston. 
 
The Kindergarten Training 25 
 
 A Study of Child Nature. Elizabeth Harrison. Chapter I, "The 
 
 Instinct of Activity"; Chapter II, "The Instinct of Investigation." 
 
 207 pp. The Chicago Kindergarten College, Chicago. 
 A Montessori Mother. Dorothy Canfield Fisher. Chapter VI, "The 
 
 Montessori Apparatus in the American Home." 283 pp. Henry 
 
 Holt & Co., N. Y. 
 The Montessori Method. Maria Montessori. Chapter V, "Discipline." 
 
 377 pp. Frederick A. Stokes Co., N. Y. 
 The Kindergarten Review. Monthly, $1.50 per year. Springfield, 
 
 Mass. 
 Outline of a Practical Course in Child Rearing. 31 pp. lOc. Woman's 
 
 City Club, Chicago. 
 Kindergarten in a Nutshell. Nora A. Smith. 134 pp. Doubleday, 
 
 Page & Co., Garden City, N. Y. 
 
 The Kindergarten Magazine. Monthly. Manistee, Mich. 
 The Mothers' Magazine. Monthly. Elgin, 111. 
 Disciplining Children. Maria Montessori. McClure's Magazine. Vol. 
 
 39, p. 95. 
 The Home-Made Kindergarten. Nora A. Smith. Entire text. 117 pp. 
 
 Houghton, Mifflin Co., N. Y. 
 We and Our Children. Woods Hutchinson. Chapter II, "Babies as 
 
 Bulbs." 371 pp. Doubleday, Page & Co., N. Y. 
 Stories to Tell. Julia Darrow Cowles. Entire text. 124 pp. A. 
 
 Flanagan Co., Chicago. 
 A Year with the Mother Play. Andrea Hofer Proudfoot. Entire text. 
 
 182 pp. A. Flanagan Co., N. Y. 
 Love and Law in Child Training. Emilie Poulsson. Chapter III, "The 
 
 Application of Kindergarten Principles in the Child's Home Life." 
 
 235 pp. Milton Bradley Co., Springfield, Mass. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 ATTENDING THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 
 
 ON first thought it might seem to the reader that the 
 public school attendance is not rightly considered as a 
 part of the industrial training. However, it is our purpose 
 here so to regard it. The best definition of work and in- 
 dustry makes little or no distinction between using the 
 head and using the hands. Its substantial meaning is 
 that of the attitude of the individual toward the task 
 before him. So we should regard the public school train- 
 ing which the growing girl receives as first of all an affair 
 of industrial discipline; and we should have her learn to 
 regard her school lessons as plain work-a-day tasks which 
 call for the best of her painstaking effort and patience. 
 
 WORK DISTINGUISHED FROM PLAY 
 
 If parents and teachers will all carefully draw a line of 
 distinction between the work assignments and the play 
 activities of the child, a point of progress in training will 
 thereby be gained. Perhaps there was really some justi- 
 fication in labelling everything in the kindergarten school 
 as play. But if the kindergarten training of the girl 
 now arrived at school age has been rightly conducted, 
 she has been impressed gradually with the idea of that 
 necessity which attaches itself to all good work. At any 
 rate the young learner just entering the grades is brought 
 into a new relationship to her appointed activities. There 
 is now no necessity of trying to make her believe that 
 the assigned work is mere play. On the other hand, she 
 
 26 
 
Attending the Public School 27 
 
 should be impressed with the thought that the lessons 
 are prescribed, that certain standards of excellence are 
 to be met, and that her promotions are to be earned by 
 her own efforts. 
 
 Of course, there is always a possibility of making the 
 little school girl feel that she has been driven to her les- 
 sons, but such a thing is far from our purpose here. So, 
 while imbuing her with the thought that the work is serious 
 and something that is carefully prescribed, we should 
 also say much to give her self-confidence and good cheer 
 in undertaking to bring up her assignments. Upon this 
 point it might be well to quote substantially the state- 
 ment of a good foster-mother who revealed a commendable 
 method of dealing with her eight-year-old adopted child. 
 Her statement follows : 
 
 "My little Edith is eight years old and she is just as 
 dear to me as if she were my own flesh and blood. Yes, 
 I am teaching her to work as well as to play. We talk 
 about her school lessons every day and I try to help her 
 to understand various little matters that come up in 
 relation to her studies. I try above everything else to 
 make her fond of her school and its requirements. I talk 
 to her much about the time when she will be a big girl 
 and a young woman and tell her how glad she will then 
 be that the early lessons were well learned. I remind her 
 again and again that her play will be so much happier in 
 case she has been faithful in her school work. I tell her 
 that it makes it so much easier for her teacher and myself 
 and the other school children to like her when she is ready 
 and faithful in her lesson getting. Edith has been in 
 school one year and is now starting on her second. She 
 and I know a great many things in common about her 
 class work and we enjoy talking to each other about them. 
 It certainly is a pleasure to me to watch that girl grow 
 
28 Training the Girl 
 
 and it especially encourages me to know that she is fond 
 of her school lessons, but I have never tried for a moment 
 to make her believe that the school work is play." 
 
 BEWARE OF CONTESTS 
 
 We, who have studied school matters long and seriously, 
 would forewarn parents against encouraging their daugh- 
 ters to participate in educational contests against their 
 schoolmates. There might possibly be some justification 
 in setting up individual contests for prizes in athletics and 
 in mere games of sport. But we cannot endorse the 
 thought of using such means as a plan of inducing young 
 girls to study their lessons. Do you wish to train your 
 little daughter to match herself point by point against 
 other girls? Do you wish her to look for weaknesses and 
 shortcomings in the others? Do you wish her to have 
 practice in gossiping meanly about the characters of her 
 schoolmates? Then, this personal, school-prize contest 
 this method of matching girl against girl will engender 
 all these mean dispositions. 
 
 Look forward to the time when your daughter will be 
 a full grown woman, think of her matured life in terms of 
 its love and sympathy and good will for others and you 
 will be the more inclined to emphasize during her child- 
 hood days in school, those practices which help her to 
 find and think about and talk about the very best there 
 is in the characters of her schoolmates. It is quite as easy 
 to match your little daughter's best self against her worst 
 self; to have her compare her attainments to-day with 
 those of yesterday; to help her average up her grades in 
 school for one month and determine to outdo her record 
 for the next month. Thus your child will learn to despise, 
 if you will, not some of her classmates, but rather that 
 weaker effort of her own which she feels herself to be 
 
I 
 
Attending the Public School 29 
 
 overcoming. In short, you do not wish your daughter to 
 struggle for supremacy over the little friends with whom 
 she is associated in the class. You rather desire her to 
 strive for supremacy over herself; and you add much new 
 joy and inspiration to her young life in proportion as you 
 assist her in attaining such a position of superiority. 
 
 THE RECONSTRUCTIVE METHOD 
 
 The author of this book has in mind all the while the 
 thought of a slow-going re-construction of human society. 
 It is his most ardent wish that we all might dwell together 
 in a closer bond of sympathy and good fellowship, and 
 he believes that the public school, assisted by thoughtful 
 and conscientious home training, holds the key to the 
 door of this larger and closer social unity. So the little 
 daughter in school must be repeatedly counseled with 
 about the appointed duties and the everyday experiences 
 therein. Again and again the little one will run home 
 with a quickly-made-up judgment about her schoolmates 
 or her teacher: as, "Nellie didn't recite half as well as I 
 did and she got a better grade"; or "Miss Blank (the 
 teacher) made me stay in for missing my spelling and she 
 let others go who missed as many words as I did." These 
 little tales of disappointment, childish and imperfect 
 judgments of what actually happened, are all regular 
 occurrences in the ordinary home where there are children 
 of school age. Such small matters of school gossip furnish 
 the wise and thoughtful parent many an opportunity for 
 re-directing the effort of the child toward more desirable 
 ends. In such cases the parent is slow to condemn the 
 daughter's supposedly favored classmate and still less 
 inclined to speak disparagingly of the teacher. 
 
 We must make our point clear and emphatic here. For 
 example, the little daughter comes home with a story of 
 
30 Training the Girl 
 
 mistreatment in the school. It is well to turn at once to 
 a discussion of her own conduct. "It does not matter 
 so much what Nellie or any other girl did, my child, but 
 what did you do? If Nellie has faults she must correct 
 them or at some future time they will seriously hurt her. 
 Are you certain you know all about how she did in this 
 recitation? Were you watching her all the time? And 
 if you were, was that studying your lesson? Did you 
 really do your part in preparing for the recitation? Could 
 you not easily do better another time? How could you 
 study better? And now about Miss Blank, your teacher. 
 Do you know all about what she is doing and thinking? 
 How do you find time to watch her so much? Perhaps she 
 does many things and better things that you do not see, 
 while you are studying." 
 
 So, as described above, the parent will seem to defend 
 the little girl's schoolmates and her teacher and to throw 
 the blame for the dissatisfaction partly upon the precious 
 daughter herself. The parent who actually understands 
 school situations will be very slow indeed to allow his 
 child to hear him speak a word of condemnation of the 
 teacher. He may think ill of the teacher, questioning 
 seriously her methods and ability; but if these matters are 
 deserving of discussion such consideration should be taken 
 up with the teacher herself, or with the principal or the 
 superintendent of the schools. In a great majority of cases 
 a father or mother who goes to the school to blame and 
 complain of the teacher will go back with the head bowed 
 partly in shame and partly in humility. 
 
 CONDEMNING THE TEACHER 
 
 Any parent or patron who feels inclined to condemn 
 wholesale the work done in the public schools should visit 
 
Attending the Public School 31 
 
 those schools somewhat extensively before deciding to 
 give expression to his condemnation; and in about 90% 
 of the cases he will leave the words of disapproval unsaid. 
 Now, if your little daughter comes home with a story that 
 seems to reflect discredit upon the teacher, withhold your 
 blame and your ill will for the time and go direct to the 
 school for further and definite information. Go less in 
 the spirit of criticism and rather more in the attitude of 
 one who is trying to learn and to assist, than is usually 
 done. Most probably you will be surprised to find in the 
 personality of your child's teacher a devoted and sweet- 
 spirited young woman, one who is more or less over- 
 weighted with the many perplexities common to the or- 
 dinary schoolroom; one who is expending more energy 
 in behalf of the well-being of that school than justice to 
 herself would demand; and one who is far more desirous 
 of having the school deal fairly, justly and sympathetically 
 with all the children than you are. Yes, if you want to 
 hang your head in shame because of that wicked little 
 rebuking note which you hastily wrote the teacher of 
 your child, spend a half day visiting the school and ob- 
 serving the many trials and perplexities arising there. 
 It may be said with certainty that in the great majority of 
 instances the fault-finding school parent is largely ig- 
 norant of the actual condition of affairs in the school. 
 
 So, in case of a disagreement between the parent and 
 the teacher, an honest board of arbitration will usually 
 decide in favor of the latter. The fair-minded parent 
 himself will be inclined to go to the furthest limit in speak- 
 ing approvingly of the teacher in the hearing of the child 
 and in attempting to adjust the child's difficulties in ac- 
 cordance with every reasonable school requirement. In- 
 deed, it becomes a serious obligation on the part of the 
 parent to take every reasonable measure necessary to 
 
32 Training the Girl 
 
 make the little daughter thoroughly fond of her teacher 
 and happy in the performance of her lesson tasks. 
 
 MASTERING THE LESSONS 
 
 It may appear singular that we should delay a discussion 
 of the lesson-getting tasks so long, but we have been far 
 more interested in the school girl's general behavior, and 
 especially in her attitude toward her teacher and school- 
 mates. We may feel assured that the matter of preparing 
 the lessons will tend to take care of itself, provided the 
 little student be fond of her school and enter enthusiastic- 
 ally into all of its vitalizing movements. 
 
 Pupils ranging below the seventh and eighth grades 
 should be required to do no studying at home. For these 
 grades the parents' duty in respect to the lesson prepara- 
 tion will consist largely of informal talks. It will be neces- 
 sary in this connection to keep in touch with the general 
 progress of each study pursued and to see that the child 
 keeps up with the average member of her class. A direct 
 question or two put to the pupil herself will be the means 
 of discovering her attitude of mind toward any given 
 lesson topic. Is she attempting to do the assigned work? 
 Is she desirous of keeping up with her mates? Is she 
 anxious to please her teacher? An affirmative answer to 
 the foregoing questions will most probably satisfy the 
 inquiring parent that good progress is being made. 
 
 Throughout all the inquiry, the suggestion and discus- 
 sion concerning the assigned schoolroom duties, the home 
 trainer should have no thought of placing the daugh- 
 ter in an attitude of envy and rivalry toward her school- 
 mates. It is a serious mistake for the parent to join the 
 child in the school contest, even though the child may seem 
 to have an excellent chance to win the prize. Hatred, 
 strife, bitterness of feeling, and all other such evils, are 
 
Attending the Public School 33 
 
 the first fruits of the hand-to-hand fight that goes under 
 the name of a prize contest. You do not desire to have 
 your little daughter stand above her mates, but rather 
 to rank high along with them, and to be strong and noble, 
 partly by virtue of the fact that she is working in harmony 
 and good fellowship with them. 
 
 How MUCH HOME STUDY 
 
 As stated above there should be only irregular home 
 study on the part of the seventh-grade school girls. A 
 half hour one or two evenings per week spent in bringing 
 up some rather unusual task will be the maximum. And 
 even in the eighth grade the assignments should be such 
 as not to require more than an average of thirty minutes' 
 study during the five school-day evenings at home. If, 
 therefore, the instructor of your daughter should impose 
 heavy assignments requiring much fatiguing home work, 
 radical steps should be taken to inquire into the matter. 
 It is worth more to all concerned for the growing girl to 
 continue in an attitude of buoyancy and good will toward 
 the school than to have her to settle down into a habit of 
 hurry and worry in an attempt to become a brilliant 
 scholar. For, remember, the pupil is not for the school, 
 but the school exists for the sake of the child and his 
 character unfoldment. If the teacher seems to be driving 
 the young pupils overmuch if his ambition appears to 
 be that of covering so much book work, rather than that 
 of developing so much character in the pupil then, call 
 him to task, remonstrating with him first, and afterwards, 
 if need be, with the superior officers. 
 
 WHAT OF THE CHILD'S HEALTH 
 
 There may be no reasonable doubt of the fact that good 
 physical health is the only sound and substantial basis 
 
34 Training the Girl 
 
 for satisfactory school progress. The child which is suf- 
 fering from some physical ailment may keep up with his 
 classmates, and at times he may even lead them all in the 
 matter of reciting and earning grades. But if the child is 
 suffering from ill health all this brilliant school work is 
 bought at the expense of too much nerve strain; and 
 some future time will exact a heavy toll of interest upon 
 the debt. It is not a difficult matter for the conscientious 
 parent to determine whether or not his little daughter is 
 physically sound and well enough to pursue the school 
 lessons. For example, What about the child's eyes? Does 
 she see reasonably well and enjoy the benefit of ample 
 light while working in her seat? Do her eyes ever pain 
 her? Has she ever complained of headache? Does she 
 ever remark that the "letters run together" while she is 
 reading? If there proves to be even the suggestion of any 
 eye defect, consult a specialist and bring about a speedy 
 remedy this is the only reasonable rule. 
 
 Then, How about the child's hearing, Is it normal? A 
 careful test of the hearing ability of all the children in a 
 schoolroom will show a wide variation. A slight degree 
 of deafness means that a certain percentage of the words 
 uttered by others are not heard and therefore not under- 
 stood. Let the adult perform the following experiment: 
 Pick up a page of typewritten manuscript of, say, 300 
 words. Let somebody erase at random one or two words 
 out of each sentence and then attempt to get the meaning 
 from one reading. This test will indicate in some measure 
 the great disadvantage in which the slightly deaf school 
 child is placed. But suppose it were not merely one page 
 but that all the pages were marked as stated above; then, 
 the reading would become so difficult that you would tend 
 to lose interest in it. So with the child that ranges below 
 normal in his hearing. He tends to fall into the habit of 
 
Attending the Public School 35 
 
 not listening, and thus he loses the chief benefits of the 
 oral recitations in the school. 
 
 Other possible physical defects of the little daughter 
 at school are those which interfere with the respiration 
 and thus lower the vitality and mentality. Adenoids are 
 first thought of in this connection. If the child breathes 
 through the mouth such is a very direct indication of the 
 presence of adenoids; and so the case might as well be 
 taken at once to a specialist for examination and treat- 
 ment. As a rule, the child suffering from adenoids is 
 dull and slow to learn. There is apparently for him an 
 obstructed flow of the purified blood to the brain centers. 
 He seems to be more or less low in vitality, to secure 
 imperfect recuperation from his sleep, and frequently to 
 show a listlessness in respect to practically all the juve- 
 nile activities. The removal of adenoids has improved 
 the mentality of many a child twenty-five per cent, or 
 more. 
 
 A further warning in respect to the health of the school 
 girl is that touching her tendency towards nervousness. 
 One cannot be too careful to see that the child has a well- 
 regulated life during the school period, which is an excel- 
 lent means of keeping the growing nervous system in 
 order. Wholesome food suited to the child's age; the 
 avoidance of many sweetmeats, or irregular meals; a 
 regular time for going to bed and rising: a maximum of 
 outdoor exercise and invigorating activity these are 
 some of the matters that suggest an evenly balanced 
 physical life for the school girl and a reasonable safeguard 
 against nervous irritability. 
 
 LITERATURE ON ATTENDING THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 
 
 Child-Welfare Magazine. Organ of National Congress of Mothers. $1.50 
 per year. Philadelphia. 
 
36 Training the Girl 
 
 r Psychology as Applied to Education. P. M. Magnusson. Chapter III, 
 "Child Study." 345pp. Silver, Burdett & Co., Boston. 
 
 The School Journal. Monthly. $1.25 per year. School Journal Publish- 
 ing Co., N. Y. 
 
 Health Pamphlet for Schools. Ernest B. Hoag, M. D. Whitaker & 
 Ray-Wiggin Co., San Francisco. 
 
 Vocational Education in the Boston Public Schools. Frank M. Leavett. 
 Vocational Education. Vol. I, p. 316. 
 
 The New Child-Labor Movement. Win. A. McKeever. Journal of 
 . y Home Economics. Vol. V, No. 2. 
 
 growth and Education. John Mason Tyler. Chapter XI, "The Child 
 Entering School." 270 pp. Houghton, Mifflin Co., N. Y. 
 
 Some Silent Teachers. Elizabeth Harrison. Chapter III, " Dumb Stone 
 and Marble." 187 pp. The Sigma Publishing Co., Chicago. 
 
 Stories and Story Telling. Edward Porter St. John. Chapter I, "The 
 Educational Value of the Story." 100 pp. The Pilgrim Press. 
 Chicago. 
 
 Century of the Child. Ellen Key. Chapter V, "Soul Murder in 
 the Schools." 339 pp. G. P. Putnam's Sons, N. Y. 
 
 The Montessori Method. Maria Montessori. Chapter XVI, "Intellec- 
 tual Education." 377 pp. Frederick A. Stokes Co., N. Y. 
 
 The Modern Mother. Dr. H. Lang Gordon. Chapter XX, "Training 
 in Early Childhood," 270 pp. R. F. Fenno & Co., N. Y. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 HOME AND SCHOOL CO-OPERATION 
 
 ONE of the most cheering signs of the better times to 
 come and of the higher level toward which our modern 
 society is tending is witnessed in the many co-operative 
 activities in which the school and the home are now par- 
 ticipating. Indeed, the day is well-nigh at hand when 
 it will be considered a mark of low breeding and unworthi- 
 ness for the parent having a child in the public school to 
 neglect all active participation in the life and progress of 
 that school. So, in order that the well-wishing parent 
 may if possible have presented to him some specific and 
 feasible suggestions for his becoming a vital factor in the 
 school progress, we shall now indicate a few lines of home 
 and school co-operation. 
 
 THE PARENT-TEACHER ASSOCIATION 
 
 One of the greatest public-school movements of modern 
 times is that which has been organized under some such 
 title as the one above. In effect this organization is a 
 plan for linking the best thought of the parent with the 
 best thought of the teacher in a forward movement in 
 behalf of the child in which they are both interested. The 
 old-fashioned way was to ignore the school until it got 
 into trouble with the child, and then to engage in a more 
 or less bitter contention with the teacher and the school 
 authorities. In that day a visit to the school by the par- 
 ent usually meant the beginning of trouble. But this es- 
 tranged and unfamiliar relation between the school and 
 
 37 
 
38 Training the Girl 
 
 the home is being rapidly transformed into one of co- 
 operation and yoke-fellowship. In every part of the na- 
 tion, and especially in many of the eastern cities, there 
 are now well-organized parent-teacher associations; and 
 in some of these places the father or mother of the school 
 child is considered an ex-offirio member. 
 
 What an opportunity for the parent who loves his own 
 child and earnestly and anxiously desires to have that 
 child make good progress in the school! If such a father 
 or mother will unite with an active parent-teacher associa- 
 tion it may be said that he will learn more during the first 
 year of active interest in this new movement than the 
 child himself will learn in the school. Indeed, to many a 
 parent this is the first and greatest opportunity for the 
 discovery of what child life really means. 
 
 "Oh," you say, "I know all about my child! I look 
 after her health and her clothing, send her to school on 
 time, see that she keeps up with her class, and all that. 
 Now, is not that my full part? " No, we answer; it is not. 
 You do not know your child through and through until 
 you have come into contact with many other children, 
 those who have been born and reared under many differ- 
 ent circumstances. All this first hand observation of the 
 activities of other children will send you back to your own 
 child with a new flood of light upon the problems that 
 relate to his progress and development. 
 
 Is the work in the home too heavy for you, Good Mother, 
 and for that reason can you not afford to go into the 
 home-and-school association? Then, we answer again 
 that participation in this out-of-home club will lighten 
 the burdens of the household, and will give you so much 
 new strength and inspiration for the bearing of those 
 burdens and for the management of the children about 
 your feet, that you will tend to go on your way rejoicing. 
 
* 
 
Home and School Co-operation 39 
 
 There is danger that even the thoroughly good and well- 
 meaning mother may become an irritable slave to the 
 routine duties of her household, largely because of the 
 fact that she stays too closely at her post. So we recom- 
 mend that she become an active member of the local 
 parent- teacher association; and if there be no such or- 
 ganization, we earnestly urge that she take the initiative 
 in the matter of bringing one about. 
 
 How TO ORGANIZE A SCHOOL AND HOME CLUB 
 
 Let us keep to our subject and think largely in terms 
 of the problems that center in the life of the common 
 school girl. Just how may the well-meaning mother pro- 
 ceed to bring about the organization of the parent-teacher 
 club? Interest, enthusiasm and agitation a little of 
 these put into active use and they begin at once to grow. 
 Then more of the same thing and the problem begins to 
 take hold of one's whole being and to pull him along to- 
 ward success. Go to the school once or twice per week, 
 talk to the teacher sympathetically about the school and 
 home relationships. Ask her what you can do, not so much 
 in behalf of your own child's progress, but rather as a 
 means of making that child contribute more worthily to 
 the success of the entire school. Ask the teacher con- 
 cerning her best ideals for bringing home and school life 
 together. Then go to the neighbors who likewise have 
 children in school, and inquire as to their methods of 
 dealing with their children's school affairs. What criti- 
 cisms have they upon the teacher's methods, upon the 
 conduct of the general school work, and upon the policies 
 of the school authorities? So you go about among all, 
 inquiring, suggesting, discussing, until you find a few 
 others who are ready to go into your new project. 
 
 The first meeting of your prospective association may 
 
40 Training the Girl 
 
 be a very informal affair. It may consist of two or three 
 good mothers and the teachers of the building coming 
 together for a brief discussion of matters that have grown 
 out of the school work of the day. Questions and replies 
 here go around spontaneously, and out of this informal 
 meeting there will easily come the beginnings of a per- 
 manent organization. It may be that you have taken the 
 precaution to write for literature on the parent-teacher 
 club movement. The National Congress of Mothers, 
 Philadelphia, The Public School Association of New York 
 City, or the National Institute of Child Life, also at Phila- 
 delphia, will give much definite help and information. 
 Before joining the new movement of the kind we are 
 recommending, the parents naturally wish to have a report 
 of the progress already attained elsewhere. It will prove 
 a great stimulus to action, if you can report a large 
 amount of such activities already under way in other 
 places. 
 
 How TO CONDUCT THE CLUB 
 
 So, we urge again, if you wish to do the very best pos- 
 sible in thought of the unfoldment of the latent beauty 
 resident in your little daughter now at school, that you 
 should participate in this home and school association. 
 But although you have presumably been the most active 
 in perfecting the new society, it may be well to see that 
 others are elected to the honor of holding positions therein. 
 As a rule, one of the teachers should be selected as presi- 
 dent of the club probably some young woman who pos- 
 sesses tact, enthusiasm and good judgment. 
 
 Now the next important step is that of making out a 
 program of topics for the discussions; and in this connec- 
 tion the most common fault is that of making the topics 
 too broad and general. Avoid in every possible way 
 
Home and School Co-operation 41 
 
 mere theories and generalities. Even enthusiasm will 
 die quickly unless it has something definite to do. So in 
 making out a list of topics, two matters in particular will 
 guide the members of the committee: (1) Select only 
 topics that are simple, definite and concrete; (2) In so 
 far as it is possible, select speakers who know from actual 
 experience something about the topics assigned. The 
 sources of information referred to above will be glad to 
 furnish outlines, plans, small programs, methods of con- 
 ducting the work, and the like. 
 
 Another excellent means of making the program a suc- 
 cess will be that of supplying each participant with def- 
 inite literary helps or with at least references thereto. 
 This last-named service is performed by the well-made 
 syllabus. But if such an outline be not available, then 
 some member who knows most about the home library 
 and its contents may render the service. The National 
 Institute of Child Life, of Philadelphia, publishes monthly 
 a little pamphlet giving a resume^ of the child-welfare ar- 
 ticles in the magazines, and this valuable document may 
 be had at a very trifling cost. 
 
 The program committee must be cautioned about as- 
 suming that the ordinary well-meaning, enthusiastic 
 mother naturally knows enough about the topic assigned 
 her, to discuss it helpfully. On the other hand it may be 
 reasonably assumed that she cannot give a good, stimu- 
 lating discussion of her topic without some study and 
 reference reading. In the case of one small club of the 
 kind here mentioned, a certain mother possesses a large 
 number of fresh, new volumes treating the child-welfare 
 subjects. This good mother lends out her private library 
 books, selecting a suitable one for each topic on the club 
 program, and requiring the borrower to return the volume 
 promptly. 
 
42 Training the Girl 
 
 GETTING THE POINT OF VIEW 
 
 We are so deeply concerned about this matter of a 
 parent-teacher club in connection with every school that 
 we shall now go more definitely into the discussion of the 
 program topics. Our thought in doing this is not merely 
 that of improving the work of the school; it is not merely 
 that of assisting the mother in the problem of keeping 
 her daughter well up with the progress of the school. 
 Our purpose is largely that of the better community life 
 which is certain to grow out of all this co-operative ac- 
 tivity. The community must be thought of as one and 
 not many. Classes, castes, factions, cliques, and the 
 like, are all more or less obscured in the wholesome com- 
 munity where there is aggressive team work and co- 
 operation. Now the school is not for the sake of the dis- 
 cipline; it is not for the sake of the lessons, the grades, 
 and the promotions; it is not for the sake of the teacher or 
 the board of education; it is not even for the sake of the 
 individual child. The best justification of the common 
 school is this: It makes for a united community; it in- 
 culcates sympathy, good will, co-operation, personal self- 
 reliance, and loyalty to the best interests of the whole of 
 humanity. If we can but draw the central thought of 
 the common parent away from the idea that his child is 
 to be trained to enter into combat with the world, trained 
 to secure the good things of life through shrewd and 
 cunning activities intended to wrest such things from 
 somebody else if we can get this erroneous point of view 
 out of the mind of the parent and induce him to think of 
 his child as in process of unfolding numerous latent possi- 
 bilities common to all the children; to think of him as in 
 process of learning day by day in school and out, how to 
 enter co-operatively into the great life of the community 
 
Home and School Co-operation 43 
 
 and the nation then, we shall have gained a strong point 
 of vantage in behalf of human welfare. And rightly 
 thought of and organized, the new parent-teacher move- 
 ment will contribute toward this higher and better com- 
 munity life. 
 
 TOPICS FOR THE PROGRAM 
 
 In order to show how the discussions of the parent- 
 teacher club might well go on, we shall now name a few 
 topics and suggest methods of treating them. 
 
 Home Study. We raised the question above as to how 
 much the child should study at home. Your daugh- 
 ter is growing larger and stronger each day. She is pass- 
 ing up through the grades. The lesson tasks are slowly 
 growing heavier and more numerous. How much should 
 she study at home? This topic, treated generally, is 
 sufficiently important to occupy one entire period of 
 the club meeting. What is especially desired is a full 
 exchange of ideas among the parents and teachers present, 
 and a full statement of the situation in which each one 
 works. If it is desired that the topic be subdivided we 
 suggest the following for the afternoon program: 
 
 How Much Home Study for Pupils. 
 
 1. Boys, seventh grade and below. 
 
 2. Girls, seventh grade and below. 
 
 3. Girls, eighth grade and above. 
 
 4. Boys, eighth grade and above. 
 
 One parent and one teacher may be assigned to each 
 topic, the one to offer a well-prepared ten-minute paper, 
 and the other a five-minute discussion of the paper. 
 
 The Schoolground Discipline. While the author con- 
 tends that the children at play are quite as much in need 
 of a leader and instructor as they are in the class room, 
 our present school equipment is not such as to allow for a 
 
44 Training the Girl 
 
 regular, hired school playground leader. Usually the 
 teacher's full strength is required to conduct the classes 
 and maintain good order within. Therefore, she can go 
 only occasionally upon the schoolground during the play 
 period. And yet, much of the most definite and important 
 learning of the whole school comes from the playground 
 activities. The children are acquiring good or ill practices 
 there quite as actively as they are in the class room. 
 Under present circumstances, how can this situation be 
 reasonably well dealt with? The parent-teacher club may 
 well consume another hour in the discussion of this affair. 
 The following program is suggested: 
 Morals on the Playground. 
 
 1. What my boy hears and sees on the playground. 
 
 2. What my girl hears and sees on the playground. 
 
 3. Directing the playground activities of the girl. 
 
 4. Directing the playground activities of the boy. 
 
 One or two parents may discuss each of the first two 
 topics and one or two teachers each of the second two. Out 
 of it all the teachers should learn, first, what good or evil 
 lessons are being derived from the playground activities; 
 second, what re-direction may appear to be feasible for the 
 same activities. Then, the parents may receive many 
 suggestions as to how the home can co-operate in the im- 
 provement of the playground morals. 
 
 Home Industry. The problem of requiring the school 
 child to help with the home work is always a vital one 
 and it is especially an important one for the parents and 
 teachers to discuss together. A survey of the situation 
 will show that some children are doing heavy home duties 
 regularly, while others are doing nothing of the kind. 
 Reports in the case of two little girls in the same sixth- 
 grade class showed that one was devoting an average of 
 three hours per day to the house-helping tasks and that 
 
A HOME THEATRE AND THESE SISTERS ARE BETTER FOR IT 
 
Home and School Co-operation 45 
 
 the other was not even dressing herself without assistance. 
 Yet, both were expected to do the same amount of 
 schoolroom work. The free and frank discussions and 
 reports of the members of the club cannot help but 
 bring out startling revelations of irregularity and un- 
 evenness relative to the home industries of the children. 
 The following topical outline is suggested to guide the 
 discussion: 
 
 Home Industry for the School Child. 
 
 1. What and how much work my pre-adolescent boy 
 does at home. 
 
 2. What and how much work my pre-adolescent girl 
 does at home. 
 
 3. What and how much work my adolescent boy does 
 at home. 
 
 4. What and how much work my adolescent girl does 
 at home. 
 
 This program implies a clear subdivision of the topic and 
 that each participant is to discuss a concrete case, naming 
 the age and grade of the child and including a definite 
 statement as to the kind, nature and amount of the work. 
 After this discussion the parents will nearly all naturally 
 possess a fuller understanding of the whole problem of 
 home industry for the school child, and many will doubt- 
 less be ready to make the necessary re-adjustments. The 
 mother whose little daughter does absolutely no home 
 tasks will be placed in quite as unenviable a light as the 
 other one whose child is required to perform an over- 
 amount of such work. 
 
 A NEW METHOD OF GRADING 
 
 We are especially desirous of making this volume treat 
 of the entire life of girlhood and young womanhood; and 
 
46 Training the Girl 
 
 in thought of this fact we wish to remind the reader of a 
 new and very promising condition that is now arising in 
 the most progressive public schools. It is this: There is 
 now a disposition on the part of the most thoughtful and 
 modern school officials to test the pupil in respect to every 
 possible type of ability and to give credit for every worthy 
 thing the pupil may be able to do. The old school nar- 
 rowed the child down to a few book subjects and graded 
 him high or low in accordance with his ability to pass in 
 those subjects, while it gave little or no heed to ability 
 that lay outside of the school course. But the new method 
 calls for a much wider schedule of tests, and for a graded 
 evaluation of the pupil's home work as well as that of the 
 school work. The girl who makes an average grade of 
 95 in her several text-book subjects, and yet who never 
 performs a single home duty is too often exalted above her 
 true place in the school society. Some other girl who 
 happens to make a very low average in her class-room 
 subjects, and who at the same time proves to be a splendid 
 home helper, is usually rated far too low in the ordinary 
 school. In order to put a check upon this false and one- 
 sided classification and ranking of pupils there is now an 
 interesting and very commendable method of grading 
 in home work as well as in school work. 
 
 Let the parent turn over the monthly report card when 
 it comes from the teacher, showing the grades made in the 
 several subjects, and write on the back the grades for 
 the course of home discipline offered below. Of course 
 the child will not be doing all these home tasks at one 
 time. And then, let there be made an average of the home 
 and the school grades. This will probably give a much 
 more fair and just rating for the daughter than is set 
 forth by the class-room grades when standing alone. If 
 one should desire to use figures instead of letters, then 
 
Home and School Co-operation 
 
 47 
 
 let him assume that E represents 90 to 100; G, 80 to 90; 
 F, 70 to 80; and C, below 70. 
 
 THE HOME GRADE CARD 
 
 1. Washing dishes 
 
 2. Sweeping and dusting 
 
 3. Bed-chamber work 
 
 4. Preparing meals 
 
 5. Waiting on table 
 
 6. Darning and mending 
 
 7. Plain sewing. 
 
 8. Fancy sewing 
 
 9. Household management 
 
 10. Taking care of room 
 
 11. Tending the baby 
 
 12. Personal hygiene 
 
 Note, Grade as follows 
 E= Excellent 
 F=Fair 
 G = Good 
 
 P=Poor 
 C= Condition 
 
 WORK MUST RECEIVE RECOGNITION 
 
 There are two distinctive services to society to be de- 
 rived from this new method of grading school pupils on 
 their home duties. The first very desirable result is this: 
 Common industry will become more and more respectable 
 as an occupation; it will become a topic of schoolroom 
 gossip; its various detailed aspects will receive thoughtful 
 consideration; the teacher will fall into the habit of com- 
 mending the various types of home industry; and the chil- 
 dren will perform such work with credit. By slow degrees 
 the shielded and spoiled and over-rated pupil who is a 
 mere book worm and non-industrial will be placed in 
 an unenviable position before the eyes of all the pupils. 
 
48 Training the Girl 
 
 Thus the epithets, "slow," "backward," "dull," and 
 the like may be made to apply to the child who is not 
 mastering his home work as well as to the child who is 
 not mastering his school work. 
 
 Parents may as well get ready for this new order of 
 things. We have long been regarding the schoolroom 
 instruction as a matter of course and necessity. Expert 
 authorities have prescribed the work there. Now this 
 same systematic mode of treatment is about to be applied 
 to the home industries suitable for the education and 
 training of children. We have long been requiring the 
 girl to pass in reading, grammar, arithmetic, history, and 
 the other book subjects. We are now about to require 
 her to pass in dishwashing, dining-room work, plain sew- 
 ing, and baby tending. And when we have carefully as- 
 signed this full course of study to all common school girls 
 and have required them to make a creditable show- 
 ing in all the subjects of the new course then, we shall 
 have performed a distinctive service for society at large. 
 Thus the personality of the ordinary young woman of the 
 future will have been made rich and deep in sympathy 
 and service, full and strong in force and magnanimity, 
 serene and poised through the inclusion of the higher 
 things of the spirit. 
 
 LITERATURE ON HOME AND SCHOOL CO-OPERATION 
 
 Literature of the Public School League of Philadelphia. Address Super- 
 intendent of Schools. 
 
 Montessori Methods. A. E. Winship. Journal of Education. Vol. 75, 
 p. 399. Boston. 
 
 What the Schools Could Do for the Girls of To-morrow. lOc. 
 Teachers' College, Columbia University, N. Y. 
 
 Efficiency of the City's Girlhood. Edith Wilkinson. Association 
 y t Vol. VI., No. 10. N.Y. 
 
Home and School Co-operation 49 
 
 The Home and Social Efficiency. Eva W. White. Journal of Home 
 Economics. Vol. V, No. 2. 
 
 Euthenics; Better Environment for the Human Race. Ellen H. Rich- 
 ards. Chapter II. "Individual Effort Needed to Improve Individ- 
 ual Conditions." 162 pp. Whitcomb & Barrows. Boston. 
 
 Human Efficiency. Horatio Dresser. Chapter XIII, "The Law of 
 Love." 383pp. G. P. Putnam's Sons. N. Y. 
 
 Progress in the Household. Lucy Maynard Salmon. Chapter II, 
 "Education in the Household." 198 pp. Houghton, Mifflin Co., 
 N.Y. 
 
 Moral Instruction of Children. Felix Adler. Chapter V, "The Moral 
 Outfit of Children on Entering School." 270 pp. D. Appleton & 
 Co., N. Y. 
 
 Child Nature and Child Nurture. Edward Porter St. John. Chapter IV, 
 "How to Deal with the Child's Fears." 105 pp. The Pilgrim 
 Press, Chicago. 
 
 The Century of the Child. Ellen Key. Chapter VI, "The School of the 
 Future." 339 pp. G. Putnam's Sons, N. Y. 
 
 The Way to Win the Heart of the Pupil. Dr. Hermann Weimer. Chap- 
 ter IX, "School and Home." 178 pp. The Macmillan Co., N. Y. 
 
 The Delinquent Child and the Home. Sophonisba P. Breckinridge and 
 Edith Abbott. Chapter VII, "The Child from the Crowded Home. 
 The Problem of Confusion." 250 pp. The Survey Associates, N. Y. 
 
 The Home School. Ada Wilson Trowbridge. Monograph. Houghton, 
 Mifflin Co., N. Y. 
 
 Suggestions for Handwork in School and Home. Jane L. Hoxie. Entire 
 text. 222 pp. Milton Bradley Co., Springfield, Mass. 
 
 Messages to Mothers. Herman Partsch, M. D. Chapter VII, "Some 
 Failures at School." 165 pp. Paul Elder & Co., N. Y. 
 
 Home and School, Monthly magazine. Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 THE HIGH-SCHOOL GIRL 
 
 THE ideal young girl just entering high school is about 
 fourteen years of age. She is sound in her physique, sane 
 in her quality of mind, and buoyant in her thought of the 
 future. She is radiant through and through and all over 
 with a life that is just now in process of unfolding its best 
 and most beautiful latent energies. She is at this time 
 distinctively social in her thought and disposition. This 
 is the period of the young love dreams of the girl, and a 
 time when her personality, her point of view, her attitude 
 toward life and things should be respected and deferred 
 to more than ever before. If we can induce the reader to 
 appreciate the great significance of the fact that the 
 fourteen-year-old girl is undergoing a rapid transforma- 
 tion; that she is stepping into a social world, new, strange 
 and very enticing to her; that everything she thinks and 
 says and does has some reference to this new-found world 
 of society then we shall all stand together in a position 
 of great advantage in our serious attempts to give this 
 young high-school girl fair counsel and guidance. 
 
 THE DANGER OF CONFUSION 
 
 A freshman high-school girl is in the act of emerging 
 from a period of mere giggling girlhood, and there is great 
 danger of confusing her girlhood just now dropping away 
 and her young womanhood just now emerging. We are 
 likely at this time to require her to continue in the routine 
 duties that fit her common-school age and to add to these 
 
 50 
 
The High-School Girl 51 
 
 the new requirements suited to the high-school age. As a 
 result of it all, not a little confusion and unfairness may 
 obtain. Over-work and over-speeding too often mark this 
 first period of young womanhood in the case of the high- 
 school girl. 
 
 Dr. Wm. P. Northrup of New York University, is 
 quoted at length by the Literary Digest (Volume 32, 
 Number 11), upon this subject of over- working school 
 girls. He asserts that in one month the New York clinics 
 for diseases of children and for the diseases of the nervous 
 system "received a crop of worn-out school-girl neuras- 
 thenics," and by way of example on this subject he de- 
 scribes a typical case of the ambitious student who is so 
 often the victim of the strenuous school life: 
 
 "She hurries home from school, is never late, takes a 
 few minutes of outdoor play because some one else has 
 prescribed it, runs home, curls up, and studies hard till 
 the evening meal. This meal she engulfs in the shortest 
 possible time, slips off her chair, and is at her book again. 
 She is the conscientious pupil, and studies until some one 
 insists on her going to bed. . . . This audience can 
 easily imagine several physiological functions impaired 
 by worry and haste, and some daily needs possibly post- 
 poned till Saturday and Sunday. They will wonder where 
 the dweller in crowded districts may, in such strenuous 
 life, snatch a few hours of tranquil, daily recreation in out- 
 door sunlight. They may wonder how the nerves in this 
 strenuous existence are to be daily completely nourished 
 and rested. Alas! such nerves are neither rested nor 
 nourished, and they fall daily further into arrears. They 
 may drag on till early spring accounting. In March is 
 the Feast of St. Vitus. 
 
 "It is well to reflect on the critical physiological changes 
 which our little student between eight and thirteen years 
 
52 Training the Girl 
 
 of age is undergoing. She is manufacturing rapidly new 
 cells; she is building great additions in bone, muscle, and 
 glands; she is developing, training and disciplining her 
 cerebrospinal and sympathetic systems; she is changing 
 her milk teeth for tearers and grinders, preparing for 
 heartier food. The adolescent girl is further developing 
 a new function; is passing from infant life to maturity; is 
 experiencing a change of such critical magnitude that all 
 nature appeals to the generous impulses of human pro- 
 tectors to lighten her burdens, to safeguard the best in- 
 terests of the budding woman and future mother." 
 
 Is THIS DESCRIPTION TRUE? 
 
 In the article cited above, Dr. Northrup has described 
 so ably and fittingly the neurasthenic high-school girl 
 that we feel justified in continuing the quotation at greater 
 length. He says: 
 
 "Do not put the subject away with the thought that the 
 story of the overworked and under-nourished growing girl 
 belongs only to a big city, to the tenements, and to the 
 ignorant. Would it were limited to the last named; for 
 they are most teachable and quick to reform. If you look 
 to your choicest families you will often find them getting 
 up late, that breakfast is late, that the father rubs his 
 swollen eyes and scolds between his morning paper and his 
 coffee because of this disagreeable rush and haste. His last 
 night's nerves are disturbed by his child's early morning 
 start. You will agree with me that in many of your most 
 intelligent families the child's life and duties are not the 
 first consideration of the mother or father. The girl be- 
 gins her first strenuous life in unsympathetic surroundings, 
 gets up a high degree of momentum in the inertia. Only 
 in Wall Street will nerves again be found so thoroughly 
 
The High-School Girl 53 
 
 a-tingle. If this be the case with our best families, how 
 much more is it true of the crowded tenements?" 
 
 WHAT is THE REMEDY? 
 
 Finally, after a further description of how the over- 
 strenuous school-girl brings on her alarming case of ner- 
 vous excitement, Dr. Northrup suggests a number of very 
 sensible remedies in the following paragraphs: 
 
 "Not one physician here present but can easily recall 
 cases in which the girl, after six hours of school, practices 
 one or two hours on the piano, goes to dancing-school 
 twice a week, has some added lesson at intervals. On 
 Saturdays there are children's parties, matinees, and 
 often children's excursions for concerted studies of this 
 or that. All these are well enough, but they leave the 
 girl scarcely any time for relaxation and outdoor loitering 
 or light exercise. From the first days of the term she has 
 insufficient sleep, becomes deeper and deeper in debt to 
 it, as a consequence of becoming more and more nervous, 
 more intense, irritable, impatient. . . . 
 
 "The subject of school hygiene is large, and I have pur- 
 posely refrained from attacking it as a whole. Much is 
 being thought out in the line of ventilation, air space for 
 each pupil, and the like. My special interest is that of 
 providing roof-gardens, where the children can play 
 games in an upper air comparatively free from dust, from 
 clangers of collision and accident of the street, and from 
 the contact of vicious and unclean passers; or worse, those 
 who do not pass loafers. 
 
 "The subject of dividing the time, so that the youngest 
 children shall have short consecutive hours and frequent 
 intervals of air and exercise needs consideration. This is 
 now under collective investigation. In large cities where 
 there is choice of two evils it is often better to corral the 
 
54 Training the Girl 
 
 small children frequently and briefly than to leave them 
 to roll in tenement halls or play under feet in crowded 
 and squalid thoroughfares. . . . 
 
 "In many families there is a habit of sitting up late. . . . 
 Children either sit up with the adults; or, if they go to 
 bed, their early sleep is disturbed because of bright lights, 
 noise and confusion. The family physician, in fathoming 
 the causes of failing health, may well inquire among the 
 details of daily life for explanation. . . . Further causes 
 of worry to the child are the indiscreet conversations of 
 the parents. At breakfast the disgruntled father utters a 
 chance remark that the family is rapidly nearing the 
 poorhouse, that all is lost. Having uttered it, he goes out 
 into the open air, humming 'Annie Rooney,' and quite 
 forgets what he has said. Not so his little girl. The un- 
 meaning remark sinks into her mind, she broods over it, 
 her breakfast does not digest, she furtively weeps, and at 
 night sobs herself to sleep. This needless apprehension 
 arises from a thoughtless remark which adults would en- 
 tirely understand." 
 
 CHOICE OF A HIGH-SCHOOL COURSE 
 
 The last few years have witnessed marked changes and 
 differentiations in the high-school course of study. At 
 the beginning of the twentieth century there was as a rule 
 only one secondary course of study available for young 
 people, and that consisted of a traditional arrangement of 
 Latin, mathematics, literature, and a smattering of ab- 
 stract science. But the new high school is succeeding 
 more and more each year in making itself what it pre- 
 tends to be, namely, an institution for the whole people. 
 Instead of one course as formerly there are now many 
 courses, each one arranged to suit the needs of some class 
 of society. 
 
The High-School Girl 55 
 
 In consideration of what has just been stated the parent 
 cannot reasonably be satisfied with having merely sent 
 his daughter to be enrolled in the high school. He must 
 help her decide what course to pursue, and in doing this 
 he must consult first her individual taste and disposition, 
 and second, her probable destiny as a full grown woman. 
 No matter how attractive the place, how able the instruc- 
 tor, and how well-equipped the school, the young woman 
 will not make satisfactory advancement in her classes 
 unless she be allowed to pursue some course that appeals 
 enticingly to her inherent interests and desires. 
 
 WHAT OF DOMESTIC MINDEDNESS? 
 
 It is probably a very serious error to assume that every 
 healthy minded young woman is instinctively desirous of 
 taking up a course leading toward domestic life. Although 
 probably the great majority of them incline more or less 
 strongly and even fondly toward some phase of the home- 
 making occupation, it has been proved beyond a doubt 
 that a considerable number are not instinctively so domes- 
 tic minded. In his survey of the question of a prospective 
 vocation for young women, the author has had occasion 
 to question in a systematic way several hundred girls. 
 A small number of these, perhaps five per cent, have given 
 assurance that their inherent tastes never have been of a 
 domestic type; and yet these girls have always been 
 sound and well physically and mentally. A typical case 
 of the type of young woman here under consideration was 
 that of a twenty-year-old college sophomore girl who 
 thus far had resisted all the persuasive efforts of her par- 
 ents and friends to incline her training course toward one 
 of domesticity. At least, at that stage of her develop- 
 ment she was still firmly set in her purpose to work out a 
 non-domestic, independent career. Very probably to 
 
56 Training the Girl 
 
 force such a girl to take up the home life would be little 
 short of calamitous; and also very probably the carrying 
 out of her native bent and determination was the only 
 certain means of making her life a happy and successful 
 one. 
 
 THE COURSE IN HOUSEHOLD SCIENCE AND ART 
 
 Notwithstanding what we have stated immediately 
 above, every normal girl should most probably have an 
 opportunity to perfect herself in household science and 
 art. A wide and careful observation of growing girls of 
 all ages brings conclusive evidence that the great ma- 
 jority of them begin in early childhood to show an in- 
 herent interest in the affairs of the household. If turned 
 loose and allowed to follow their own inclinations, their 
 play and make-believe activities nearly always confirm 
 this statement. 
 
 But when confronted with the taking up of a high-school 
 course in domestic science, the young girl may show an 
 adverse disposition which has its history, not in her in- 
 herent nature but in the fact that she has been more or 
 less spoiled. If at fourteen years of age the girl has thus 
 far never been trained in the simplest household tasks; 
 if she has always been surrounded by servants and others 
 who have been ever ready to baby her and satisfy her 
 whims; if she has been taught to believe that household 
 industry is degrading and beneath one of her station 
 in case of one or all of these acquired dispositions, the 
 school girl may assume a very firm adverse attitude to- 
 ward the course in home economy. 
 
 Now, if the parent of such a girl as that described im- 
 mediately above feels satisfied that his daughter will find 
 her best life interest through the stimulating influence 
 of a course in household economy, he may find it both 
 
The High-School Girl 57 
 
 advisable and practicable to take the girl to a school 
 where this particular kind of training is emphasized above 
 all others and where to pursue such a course will be the 
 popular thing to do. Many a young girl has had her 
 entire life transformed through such a change of place as 
 the one here recommended. In the new and well-selected 
 school of domestic training the adolescent girl really dis- 
 covers another self than that upon which her attention 
 has been fixed, and she soon makes out a new and enticing 
 ideal for her future life. 
 
 COMMON-SENSE INSTRUCTION 
 
 It is an easy matter to assemble a group of "high 
 minded" and ambitious high-school girls in a class to be 
 instructed in fudge making and presiding at a pink tea. 
 Moreover, these forms of instruction may be exceedingly 
 important, but they are unquestionably the finishing 
 rather than the beginning part in a course of domestic 
 economy. But we take it that the serious-minded parent 
 of the adolescent girl is anxious to have the daughter 
 learn first of all the plain, simple household duties. Plain 
 cooking, plain sewing, plain serving, and plain everyday 
 living these ordinary matters very probably constitute a 
 fundamental part of the acceptable high-school course for 
 nearly all young girls. And once the ordinary girl has 
 had her life well defined and grounded in the principles 
 of these common things she has certainly made all the 
 necessary beginnings of a beautiful and happy career. 
 
 Yes, there is ample room for music and poetry and 
 flowers and fudge parties and pink teas for the girl who 
 has been trained and grounded in plain, ordinary domes- 
 ticity. And what is better, after such a fundamental 
 course in household economy there accrues to the girl 
 having mastered the course such a sense of inner worth, 
 
58 Training the Girl 
 
 such a feeling of poise and self-supremacy, such a direct 
 means of detecting and knowing and recognizing the true 
 worth of character in others, that her entire future gives 
 promise of becoming one of great joy and satisfaction. 
 
 THE VOCATION NOT OVERLOOKED 
 
 We shall not overlook the very important matter of 
 directing the growing girl toward the best available life 
 occupation. An entire division of this volume is to be 
 devoted to that particular matter. Neither have we over- 
 looked those other important affairs that grow out of the 
 instinctive disposition for play and sociability. These, 
 too, will have ample space for treatment. For the present, 
 however, our interest is centered upon two aspects of the 
 high-school girl's training: first, the directing of her ex- 
 periences along lines suggested by her instinctive desires 
 and dispositions; and second, the discussion of those 
 problems which arise in practically all the high schools 
 and vex and perplex both parents and teachers. 
 
 We can scarcely over-emphasize the distinctive point 
 of view and method of this volume. It is this: To find 
 what is inherent in the young girl's nature at every single 
 stage of her development and to direct her training along 
 the ways suggested by this instinctive type of prompting. 
 The author's faith in the ordinary girl and that means 
 practically all of the girls is very deep and abiding. 
 But it is his understanding that this faith in the inherent 
 sublimity of the life of the common girl can be actualized 
 only through the application of sane and well thought-out 
 courses of training to every stage of her growth. Play, 
 industry, sociability, vocational adjustment, service of 
 one's fellows and of the Supreme Being these are the 
 great ideals of training for any common life; and they are 
 
The High-School Girl 59 
 
 great because of the significant fact that they are expres- 
 sions of the inherent nature of the human individual. So, 
 if the reader will bear with us to a greater length, we shall 
 now go back to a further consideration of our chapter 
 topic. 
 
 THE HIGH SCHOOL MAY NOT FIT 
 
 A careful inquiry into the whole situation may satisfy 
 the parent that it is inadvisable to send the daughter to 
 the local high school or to any other institution of its 
 class. But such a decision is most certainly a serious one 
 and perhaps it should not be made until after expert 
 advice has been consulted. The parent who is seriously 
 in doubt as to the best thing to do next in the training 
 of his adolescent daughter might receive very valuable 
 counsel if he should write a brief sketch of the case and 
 present this outline to such a high authority as Dr. G. 
 Stanley Hall, and ask for expert opinion. Many high- 
 school girls dislike some part of the prescribed course of 
 study, while not a few of them resent certain text-book 
 subjects to the point of quitting the institution as an 
 alternative for pursuing such courses. Therefore, it is 
 imperative that the parent and teacher co-operate in 
 bringing about a pleasing adjustment of the girl to her 
 high-school course. Her instincts and desires are now so 
 strong as not safely to permit of any violence being done 
 them through the medium of an artificial and enforced 
 course of learning. If there be in the curriculum many 
 subjects that are extremely distasteful to the adolescent 
 girl, probably it will be advisable to have her withdraw 
 from the institution and pursue a short course in some 
 vocational-training school elsewhere. The vocational 
 school for girls will be described in a chapter to fol- 
 low. 
 
60 Training the Girl 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN THE HIGH SCHOOL 
 
 As stated above, the adolescent period of the girl is 
 distinctively one of social awakening. It is what the 
 author has called the first "who's who" period of social 
 development. The inner, secret mind activities of the 
 girl are now predominantly social. This inherent ten- 
 dency toward sociability has its correlate in a number 
 of most significant organic changes. The girl is enter- 
 ing the bright bloom of womanhood. The sex organs 
 are assuming their full mature forms. The strong, fresh 
 current of new blood is coursing through the organism; 
 strong psychic feelings now pervade the entire being; 
 many of the thought processes are now such as make all 
 things new. These are all parts of those great living proc- 
 esses which constitute a most interesting epoch in the 
 miracle of life. Verily, the world might worship here at 
 this great shrine of the adolescent awakening; for all of 
 its song and its poetry, all of its sorrow and its tragedy, 
 all of its beauty and its sublimity are traceable either 
 directly or indirectly to this one mighty divine source! 
 So let us go reverently as we proceed to give the adolescent 
 girl counsel and direction for passing through this exhila- 
 rating course of mystery and divinity. Let us go to her 
 rather as a learner and interpreter, than as one who would 
 drive and compel her. Appreciating then as we do the 
 point of view and the instinctive nature of the adolescent 
 girl; knowing as we certainly must that her native and un- 
 spoiled tendency is to meet all on a common level of socia- 
 bility, let us see what might be done to preserve this 
 beautiful spirit of democracy during her high-school 
 career. And as we approach our new task let us expect 
 to find at first not a little that is crude and unrefined 
 in the natural conduct of the young girl. 
 
The High-School Girl 61 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 In the last paragraph above, use was made of the word 
 "unspoiled." Those who have studied human life at its 
 fountain source are inclined more and more to the belief 
 that children are thoroughly democratic in their first 
 social tendencies. They are instinctively fond of play- 
 mates but naturally give little or no heed to the social 
 rank of the other children. The little daughter of the 
 ruler of the empire or of the money king will play fondly 
 and innocently with the children of the slums and alleys 
 until the distinctions of dress and manners have been 
 pointed out to her. One by one the flaws and imper- 
 fections in the character and adornment of her playmates 
 may be made known by the parents and at length she 
 will have acquired a body of social sentiment making her 
 conscious of her particular rank. Social distinctions are 
 acquired more readily by some than by others but prob- 
 ably all have to be taught how to make them. 
 
 Now, it is not the purpose of the author to urge that 
 there is naturally only one social rank. It is not his pur- 
 pose to recommend that the parents try to make the grow- 
 ing daughter continue to be a free and open associate of 
 all ranks and classes of society. Social sympathy and 
 genuine good will to all is rather the goal of our instruc- 
 tion here. So, if the high-school girl has thus far been 
 allowed to meet and greet all classes freely; if she has been 
 taught to be courteous and kind to all; if she has been 
 trained and disciplined through the performance of the 
 ordinary household industry best suited to each year of 
 her age thus far; if she has been taught to understand and 
 to appreciate the full advantage of a genuine character, 
 she will now be inclined toward democratic conduct in 
 the high school. 
 
62 Training the Girl 
 
 So the beginnings of a substantial democratic character 
 have in reality already been made before the high-school 
 period is reached, and the process of training from that 
 period on consists chiefly in giving the right sort of home 
 counsel. The home problem here is largely one of inter- 
 pretation. The daughter comes home with gossip about 
 her school. She naturally has much more to say about 
 the social conduct in the school than she has about the 
 lesson topics. The parents' chief part in the conversation 
 is that of reminding the daughter in indirect ways, of 
 course of the very great value of a genuine character 
 within. For, after all, it is not so much the matter of 
 what other girls say and do as it is a question of what 
 our own daughter is in point of personal worth. 
 
 THE DISCIPLINE IN ONE HOME 
 
 In the restrictive part of a city of about 250,000 people 
 there stands a beautiful residence which must have cost 
 $40,000 or more. The place covers half a city block 
 and has all the ideal attractive appointments; as, shaded 
 lawn, flower gardens, servants, automobiles, expensive 
 inside furnishings, and the like. The occupants of this 
 home consisted recently of the parents and three daughters, 
 two of the latter in high school and an older one at college. 
 The eldest child, a son, was married and gone. In spite 
 of every suggestion of wealth and refinement, the father 
 and mother of this family had somehow succeeded in 
 inculcating a very rare spirit of democracy among their 
 children. The mother's account of the affair is substan- 
 tially as follows: 
 
 "Yes, we have always believed in democracy. Mr. B 
 and I were both born and reared in very modest families, 
 and we were taught from the beginning to earn our way 
 
The High-School Girl 63 
 
 through hard work. These early-day lessons have perhaps 
 helped us very much in the training of our own children. 
 We have always required our children to do an honest 
 amount of work. Our boy, during his growing years, 
 raised a garden and took care of a horse and a cow. We 
 taught him to buy and sell and how to save a part of his 
 money and how to invest a part in his own affairs. He is 
 now succeeding very well in business. 
 
 "The girls have been trained in practically the same 
 way as the boy. They have had instruction in every part 
 of the home work, from plain kitchen scrubbing to fancy 
 dining-room serving. Any one of the three can prepare a 
 first-class meal and serve it to any kind of company. 
 Our girls have never been over-dressed. We have always 
 believed extravagant dressing to be wasteful as well as 
 ruinous to character. We do not allow the girls to think 
 of wearing anything other than plain and simple garments 
 at school, the expense of which could be met by any par- 
 ents who can afford to send their daughters to high school 
 at all. 
 
 "The girls have never given us much trouble about 
 their social affairs at the high school. We desire to have 
 them mingle with all of their classmates on equal terms, 
 and to make their social distinction not on the basis of 
 wealth and clothes, but merely on a basis of personal worth 
 of character. One of the chums of our youngest girl is 
 the daughter of a hardware clerk who lives in a four- 
 room rented cottage. The next older daughter has close 
 friendships with a number of girls of about the same 
 financial rating. It has always been my personal opinion 
 that over-dressing and too much home leisure are the chief 
 causes of the foolish aristocracy that so often breaks out 
 in the high school. But our girls have suffered from none 
 of these faults.'* 
 
64 Training the Girl 
 
 THE HIGH-SCHOOL SECRET SOCIETY 
 
 The secret organization has become such a perplexing 
 problem of the high school as to assume the dimension of 
 a nation-wide issue. Just now, while we write, this very 
 matter is seriously disturbing the peace of a middle- western 
 city. A rule of the school board forbids membership in 
 any secret society on the part of the high-school pupils. 
 A large number of the boys and girls of the school have 
 just been found guilty of violating the rule and have been 
 expelled. The affair is getting into the courts. Large 
 sums are being asked as damages for defamation of charac- 
 ter. And so the merry war goes on in this city, very much 
 as has been the case in other cities and towns. 
 
 Something is radically wrong here. There must be some 
 understandable cause for the bitter contention that has 
 been growing out of this high-school secret society in all 
 parts of the country. Many of the states have passed 
 legislative acts forbidding such societies. A very large 
 number of the boards of education of the cities have placed 
 heavy restrictions and penalties upon the same type of 
 organization. Again and again the matter has been car- 
 ried into the courts; and in every case known to the author 
 of this volume the decision has been rendered in favor of 
 the school authorities, and against the contention of the 
 high-school pupils. Worst of all, the good name and the 
 efficiency of the high school have been very much jeop- 
 ardized. 
 
 KEEP THE DAUGHTER OUT OF IT 
 
 The large amount of recent inquiry and discussion re- 
 garding the matter of the high-school secret society brings 
 overwhelming evidence in favor of keeping the daughter 
 out of such an organization. There doubtless are some few 
 
The High-School Girl 65 
 
 advantages to be derived from the membership; but all 
 things considered, the disadvantages are unquestionably 
 much greater. 
 
 A careful examination of the personnel of the most ac- 
 tive leaders in the high-school secret society reveals an 
 interesting situation. These leaders are very often con- 
 stituted of the boys and girls who have had much leisure 
 and home spoiling, who have received too much and given 
 too little. They are often those youths who have not been 
 taught to soil their hands in plain work and industry, 
 and who have been made to believe that they are being 
 trained away from earnest toil and service toward places 
 of ease and supremacy. Too often they have been imbued 
 with the thought that there are comparatively few attrac- 
 tive people in the world and that these belong to a special 
 class; that this class has a kind of inherent right to be at 
 the top and to rule and to walk over the rights and feelings 
 of the common people. False notions concerning not only 
 industry, but also wealth, clothes, and society lie at the 
 bottom of this unending contention over the high-school 
 secret society. 
 
 The parents may easily train their daughter to experi- 
 ence kindly feelings and sympathy for all classes in the 
 high school. The girl may have her chums and her select 
 groups for this and that affair, and yet, meet all who are 
 worthy of such treatment on terms of a common level of 
 good will and cordiality. Thus she will learn to believe 
 that the best things in life should be and rightfully are 
 common property; that there is nothing so especially 
 good and rare that needs to be taken secretly into the pos- 
 session of a few where it may be kept away out of the 
 reach of the many. No, let us believe once for all that if 
 the secret-society problem in the American high school is 
 ever to be solved permanently the parents, and not the 
 
66 Training the Girl 
 
 teachers and the board of education, will solve it. The 
 inculcation of the spirit of work and industry and of 
 the spirit of plain, wholesome democracy, and all this in 
 the school of home training such will prove to be the 
 method of success; and great, indeed, will be the final gain 
 for common humanity. 
 
 THE HIGH-SCHOOL GIRL'S CLOTHES 
 
 Being as they are in the first exuberant social period of 
 life, high-school girls are naturally very sensitive as to the 
 kind and quality of their personal adornment. Not a 
 little will be written upon the question of the girl's wearing 
 apparel in a chapter to follow. Suffice it to say here that 
 the rule of training outlined in the quotation from the 
 mother mentioned above may be regarded as the only 
 sound and commendable one. 
 
 LITERATURE ON THE GIRL IN THE HIGH SCHOOL 
 
 What Teachers Can Do to Aid Industrial Education. John L. Ketcham. 
 
 Vocational Education. Vol. I, p. 344. 
 Beginnings of Industrial Education. Paul H. Hanus. Chapter V, "The 
 
 Industrial Continuation Schools of Munich." 199 pp. Houghton, 
 
 Mifflin Co., Boston. 
 Talks to Teachers on Psychology. Wm. James. Chapter VIII, "The 
 
 Laws of Habit." 301 pp. Henry Holt & Co., N. Y. 
 The Spiritual Life. George A. Coe. Chapter I, "A Study of Religious 
 
 Awakening." 276 pp. Eaton & Mains, N. Y. 
 The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets. Jane Addams. Chapter VI, 
 
 "The Thirst for Righteousness." 162 pp. Macmillan Co., N. Y. 
 The Home School. Ada Wilson Trowbridge. Entire text. 95 pp. 
 
 Houghton, Mifflin Co., N. Y. 
 
 Ethics for Children. Ella Lyman Cabot. Sixth Year. 254pp. Hough- 
 ton, Mifflin Co., N. Y. 
 Happy School Days. Margaret E. Sangster. Chapter XVIII, "Home 
 
 Study." 271 pp. Forbes & Co., Chicago. 
 Girl and Woman. Caroline Wormeley Latimer, M. D. Chapter X, 
 
 " Daily Life on Leaving School." 318 pp. D. Appleton & Co., N. Y. 
 
The High-School Girl 67 
 
 "Fact and Comment." The School Journal. Vol. LXXX, No. 9. N. Y. 
 
 Women's Health and How to Take Care of It. Florence Stackpoole. 
 Entire text. 159pp. William R. Jenkins Co., N. Y. 
 
 The Gospel of the Kingdom. Vol. V, No. 10. " Vocational and Moral 
 Guidance in the High School." Jesse B. Davis. The American 
 Institute of Social Service, N. Y. 
 
 Bedrock. Education and Employment the Foundation of the Republic. 
 Annie L. Diggs. Entire text. 70 pp. The Social Center Publish- 
 ing Co., Detroit, Mich. 
 
 The Woman Citizen's Library. Shailer Mathews, editor. 12 volumes, 
 illustrated. The Civics Society, Chicago. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 SENDING THE DAUGHTER TO COLLEGE 
 
 WITH an overflowing measure of physical strength, 
 with a radiant hope set high on the ideals of the future, 
 with a secret sense of the charms peculiar to the first full 
 bloom of womanhood, the typical freshman college girl 
 ranks in a class by herself. Moreover, we might as well 
 admit that the college girl is here to stay and that her 
 tribe is likely to go on steadily increasing. Statistics 
 widely gathered indicate that college attendance is not 
 necessarily destructive to her health, that such experience, 
 while it tends to defer the day of her marriage and to 
 reduce the number of her offspring, greatly increases her 
 opportunities for marrying well. Her means of inde- 
 pendent self-support, though at best very much limited, 
 are also much enhanced through higher education. 
 
 CHOOSING THE RIGHT INSTITUTION 
 
 Of the many present-day forms of higher institutions of 
 learning which admit women to their halls, the so-called 
 co-educational school is apparently destined to assume 
 the leading place. And well it may; for the scriptural 
 saying that it is not good for man to be alone applies with 
 equal significance to young women at college. That is 
 to say, our modern society is inclining more and more to 
 a general and free association of the sexes. The lower 
 grades of the public schools are now thoroughly committed 
 to the practice of educating the boys and girls in the same 
 class room. Likewise, the standard high schools of the 
 
 68 
 
Sending the Daughter to College 69 
 
 country receive the two sexes on equal terms, but segre- 
 gate them in a number of the classes, giving each division 
 the forms of instruction peculiar to its needs. While a 
 few of the great colleges of the country Harvard being a 
 notable example are still closed to women, the great 
 majority of these institutions now provide a curriculum 
 admitting of a three-fold arrangement as follows: (1) A 
 large number of general and cultural courses open alike to 
 both sexes and under the same instruction; (2) technical 
 and special courses intended to prepare men for their ap- 
 pointed vocations; (3) special and separate courses suited 
 to the needs and natures of women. In an institution of 
 this sort the sexes usually mingle on free and open terms 
 of sociability and friendship. Now, this last stated fact 
 counts for very much in the life of the man or woman 
 to be, as we shall try to indicate. 
 
 There are a few parents who so misjudge their children 
 as to believe that an exclusive school for young women, 
 in some isolated, out of the way place, will cause their 
 daughter to forget her passionate fondness for the society 
 of young men and to settle down as a sober-minded work- 
 a-day member of the social community. But in the opin- 
 ion of the author this plan is a very poor one to follow. 
 A reconstructed and safe-guarded society at the co- 
 educational school is better for bringing out a rightly 
 balanced personality than is the exclusive institution. So 
 we believe, and the discussion to follow will give sugges- 
 tions for the social direction of the college girl. 
 
 SELECTING THE COURSE OF STUDY 
 
 As was recommended for the high-school girl, so is it 
 now urged in behalf of the college girl, that she be given 
 every reasonable opportunity to pursue a course in the 
 household sciences and arts. In a graduating class at the 
 
70 Training the Girl 
 
 Kansas State Agricultural College in which there were 
 seventy-five women, seventy finished the course in domes- 
 tic science and art, and five the course in general science. 
 This is a ratio of one to fourteen, and it is probably a fair 
 index of the ratio that exists in other institutions. A 
 somewhat careful inquiry into the motives and purposes 
 of the girls who pursue the general science course has con- 
 vinced the author that these girls are not at all eager for 
 the household and home-life occupations. They are as a 
 rule more or less interested in a career that makes for 
 higher scholarship and independent self-support. But 
 these are only exceptions to a general rule among college 
 women, which shows an instinctive interest in the home 
 life. It is a significant fact that the modern course in home 
 economics is preparing so many young women for scien- 
 tific home management, and the parent who gives his 
 daughter the advantage of such a course should learn to 
 think of her, not as one destined to take up the old- 
 fashioned household drudgery, but rather as one pre- 
 paring for a place of mastery and supremacy over these 
 things. 
 
 Presumably the freshman girl has not yet experienced 
 the awakening of many of her best latent dispositions. 
 She is in every sense a girl, but is by no means a complete 
 woman. While it is advisable to have her take the train- 
 ing in domestic science and art, this work should not 
 constitute all of the course. Many of the institutions 
 offer a so-called short course in domestic economy, but 
 this is intended primarily for mature women, who are 
 either occupying home positions or who are about to do 
 so. The ideal course in homemaking, so far as the girl of 
 freshman age is concerned, is a course which includes many 
 collateral subjects. Advanced history, civics, economics, 
 literature, language, psychology, sociology, music, physical 
 
Sending the Daughter to College 71 
 
 training these subjects are all properly related to the 
 ideal college course for young women. 
 
 If your daughter does not seem ready or willing to pur- 
 sue the course in homemaking, then make careful inquiry 
 as to her leading aptitude and interest. She may have a 
 very strong predilection for music, painting, journalism, 
 mathematics, physical science, or teaching. It will prove 
 futile to try to make her what she does not instinctively 
 desire to become. Rather seek to bring out and develop 
 to a higher degree her best inherent abilities. Therefore, 
 choose the course to fit your daughter's nature, but do 
 not turn her undirected into a large institution and expect 
 her naturally to find her way successfully through the 
 most appropriate course of training. 
 
 THE DANGER PERIOD AT COLLEGE 
 
 After admitting that we are gradually finding the mod- 
 ern college course a better way to the solution of women's, 
 as well as men's problems, it is none the less true that 
 this way is still attended by many dangers to the character 
 of the student. So it might be well to point out some of 
 the possible errors into which the college girl is prone to 
 fall and, if possible, to suggest a way of escape therefrom. 
 
 A few young women are still in the silly age when they 
 first arrive at, the college doors. Indeed, it is almost 
 startling to observe the large number of college girls who 
 are still in their middle teens and not yet through with 
 their period of giggling young girlhood too much unde- 
 veloped to judge safely as to what were good to do in 
 respect to their mental, moral, and physical well-being. 
 And then, one wonders if each of these girls has a mother, 
 or at least some capable person who is exerting a subtle, 
 wholesome influence on her life. 
 
 Girls mature earlier than boys. The young woman of 
 
72 Training the Girl 
 
 eighteen is relatively as well developed mentally and 
 physically as the young man of twenty-one. And then 
 since women's opportunities for obtaining suitable life 
 work are much more limited both in extent and time than 
 are man's, there is apparent necessity for some haste in 
 putting the young woman through her course of college 
 training. Seventeen or eighteen is probably the ideal age 
 for the girl to enter the freshman college class, as this will 
 bring her out at about the age of twenty-one or twenty- 
 two. 
 
 A CHANGE IN ATTITUDE OF MIND 
 
 It is exceedingly important that especially the last 
 year of the young woman's life in college should be one of 
 much thought in regard to her future place in society. 
 Indeed, if she continues to be a mere girl during the last 
 course of training she will likely leave the college walls 
 without having properly assimilated the knowledge ob- 
 tained. Not infrequently girls who receive their college 
 degrees at the age of nineteen or twenty have the peculiar 
 experience of awakening a year or two latter to the thought 
 of what it was all about. "I wish I could take my college 
 course again," said one. "If I could go back for a year 
 or two you would see me doing differently, " said another. 
 The foregoing remarks are typical of thousands who were 
 graduated before they became real women, and before 
 their thoughts became instinctively directed toward the 
 larger problems of womanhood. "Home-mindedness" is 
 the significant term that suggests itself here. The young 
 woman who partly forgets the mere fun and frolic of the 
 college society, who reflects deeply and secretly upon her 
 place in life, and who is concerned about what she is to 
 be and to do to prove worthy of that place this girl, 
 it may be said, is in the right attitude of mind to obtain the 
 
Sending the Daughter to College 73 
 
 greatest assistance from her senior year in the institution. 
 Home-mindedness is therefore the watchword for the 
 senior girl. We commend this ideal to all parents who 
 are earnestly engaging in the attempt to assist their daugh- 
 ter to make the college life count for most as a prepara- 
 tion for her own future. 
 
 PLAYING FAIR WITH THE FRESHMAN GIRL 
 
 One of the dangers that beset the more or less giddy 
 young freshman girl is this: She is naturally inclined to 
 take up with almost any well-dressed young man who 
 will indicate a desire to know her. Her whole being is 
 so aflame with the onward rush of physical life that the 
 regular work of the class room may not appear to her as a 
 matter of serious consequence. Love is her greatest 
 reality. The society of young men not necessarily very 
 choice ones is her greatest delight. And at this time, 
 if ever in her life, she needs a ruler, a kind and sympathetic, 
 but firm and unyielding personality to direct her footsteps 
 aright. 
 
 How many good and efficient home mothers fail in their 
 efforts at long-distance government of their daughters at 
 college! So if the absent girl in such a case be young and 
 immature, we can think of nothing better than that the 
 parent arrange for a confidential correspondence with 
 some one of wholesome authority and influence, who 
 knows personally of the daughter's going and coming 
 while in college. Indeed it may be said that every young 
 girl living away from home is in need of a foster-mother. 
 It is hoped that the day is not far distant when college 
 authorities will see fit to select officially a "Mother," in 
 the person of some well- trained, sweet-spirited woman to 
 whom the girls may go with their problems and perplexi- 
 
74 Training the Girl 
 
 ties and receive that particular advice and encouragement 
 which any case may require. Such a woman should be 
 an ex-teacher and a mother of children of her own. 
 
 Probably the chief difficulty in selecting the "college 
 mother" for your absent daughter is that of finding a 
 woman who possesses the peculiar marks of fitness. For 
 the younger and more frivolous your daughter may be, 
 the greater the need of an associate who is prepared to 
 give sympathetic counsel and advice rather than one 
 who is ready to force her decisions upon the conduct of 
 the young girl. In suggesting this woman adviser for the 
 girl we would not forget the very important principle 
 stated in the beginning of this volume and adhered to, 
 we hope, thus far the principle that the inner prompting 
 of the young girl's nature is to be the guide and inspiration 
 for her development. Hence, the suitable foster-mother 
 will hang every desire, new motive and incentive some- 
 where upon the instinctive cravings of the girl student 
 under her protective care. This good adviser will not con- 
 demn or blame or otherwise attempt to force her per- 
 sonality directly in the way of the college girl's instinctive 
 purpose. Rather she will use mild persuasion and point 
 the way out to something better and higher than the object 
 pursued by her youthful companion. For example, the 
 college girl is often inclined to be out too much at night 
 and to go into associations that are not highly creditable. 
 The wrong method of dealing with such a case would be 
 to condemn the course openly and to write an alarming 
 letter to the girl's parents. A better way would be to 
 reveal to the erring one a detailed outline of the social 
 course pursued by the best girls in the college. Show how 
 these ideal young women attempt to follow a systematic 
 plan, how they remain at their rooms during the majority 
 of the evenings for study and work, how they are over- 
 
Sending the Daughter to College 75 
 
 guarded in respect to the choice of their social companions, 
 and the like. 
 
 The next step in a better course of procedure for the 
 weak-willed college girl toward a more elevating and 
 stable plane of conduct would be to assist her in finding 
 congenial company at the better places in society. It 
 often matters much as to how the young student gets 
 started in his social experiences. A well-thought-out plan 
 for bringing such a student into social groups that are 
 directed by the church and the young people's Christian 
 organizations is a most commendable affair. 
 
 THE COLLEGE HOME FOR GIRLS 
 
 A suitable place for the daughter at college is a matter 
 of extreme importance. The dormitory system for girls 
 seems to be coming more than ever into use of late, and 
 it may be regarded with much favor. The fact that the 
 youthful freshman girl rooms with "one of the best families 
 in town" is no guarantee that this good home environment 
 restrains her properly. It has been shown beyond a doubt 
 that these "best families" usually hesitate to exercise 
 any moral supervision over the girl roomer so long as her 
 conduct does not reflect much public discredit upon their 
 house. 
 
 The desirability of a girl's dormitory depends upon its 
 management whether it be for mere revenue or for the 
 well-being of the whole girl. A small, sanitary dormitory, 
 in charge of a competent, motherly matron, and regulated 
 by the strict enforcement of a set of reasonable rules, is 
 certainly a favorable situation for the frivolous sort of 
 young college girl. Unfortunately the parent cannot be 
 fully assured from the catalogue description of the dormi- 
 tory and its management whether or not the place is 
 altogether a desirable one as a college home for the daugh- 
 
76 Training the Girl 
 
 ter. As a means of emphasizing what was said above 
 about giving the girl a very careful beginning in her college 
 career it is here recommended that one of the parents 
 accompany the daughter to the school and assist in secur- 
 ing board and lodgings under the most desirable conditions 
 possible. It is a beautiful thing to witness, that of an 
 innocent and somewhat unpretentious seventeen-year-old 
 freshman girl appearing about the campus for the first 
 few days with her mother as an attendant. Only mothers 
 can know the anxiety of a mother's heart at this time, 
 and those who have witnessed the spoiling of a promising 
 young girlhood through careless college treatment can 
 realize the full measure of responsibility that rests upon 
 all concerned in such a case. So it is well, indeed, for the 
 mother to go to the college with her daughter and live 
 there with her during the first week. Such a thing seals 
 the bond of intimacy between the two, and furnishes a 
 common basis for much of the written correspondence to 
 follow. 
 
 THE LETTERS FROM HOME 
 
 Probably there is no more beautiful and touching trans- 
 action between two members of any family than occurs 
 in case of the correspondence between the daughter at 
 college and the parents at home. More frequently the 
 home correspondent is the mother, but there is no just 
 reason why the father, too, should not participate in 
 this stimulating love-letter affair. "Yes, we miss our 
 girl very much, especially evenings, the time when she 
 is always at her brightest and best among the family 
 at home. But you should read some of the beautiful let- 
 ters we receive from her. We know that something un- 
 usual has happened if there fails to come in the Monday 
 evening mail a letter from Elsie. Really, we did not 
 
Sending the Daughter to College 77 
 
 how to appreciate her until she went away to college." 
 Such a testimonial as that quoted above speaks volumes 
 in its ultimate meaning, for it serves as an assurance that 
 the daughter is safe at college and that her progress there 
 is such as to please and inspire all those remaining at home. 
 On the other hand, it may be said that there is something 
 seriously at fault in case the daughter does not send home 
 often and regularly through the mails, a message of love and 
 good cheer. And in case of a permanent correspondence 
 in the course of which love and sympathy and open frank- 
 ness prevail on the part of both parent and daughter, 
 there is no serious necessity of a well-guarded college home 
 for the girl. The commendable purposes of the student are 
 too well set to require any direction or restraint other 
 than that incident to respectable surroundings. 
 
 THE COLLEGE SORORITY 
 
 The results of a number of inquiries indicate that the 
 sorority house is a safer place for the freshman girl than 
 the fraternity house is for the freshman boy, although 
 both are inadvisable until one has made a worthy record 
 in studentship and morals. Perhaps the worst that can 
 be charged against the college sorority is its tendency to 
 exclusiveness and to build up a caste system and to impose 
 financial and social strains upon its members. 
 
 The sentiment of this volume is intended to be distinctly 
 democratic. Although it must be admitted that every 
 girl will naturally have her little group of confidential 
 friends and companions, there is no very just reason why 
 these should go aside and shut themselves in and bind 
 one another into a group with pledges of secrecy. Indeed, 
 goodness and beauty lose their very essence if we try to 
 take them for our own selfish purposes and seclude them 
 from the eyes of the others. Is it not true in a sense that 
 
78 Training the Girl 
 
 the good things, this highly prized stock of secret pledges 
 and purposes which supposedly binds the members of the 
 sorority together is it not true that these precious things 
 would grow even more precious were they extended openly 
 as a gracious gift to all who might wish them? Our chief 
 objection to the sorority is that it is both ungenerous and 
 undemocratic. It does not intend to offend the sensi- 
 bilities of the girls who are not included within its little 
 coterie, but as a matter of actual practice it does this very 
 thing in a thousand-and-one instances during the course 
 of the college year. 
 
 No, the foregoing statement is not intended as a word 
 of condemnation for the sorority, but it is admittedly 
 intended as a word of admonition to the parent. Keep 
 your daughter out of the sorority, if you can. Make her 
 democratic and generous-hearted, responding kindly and 
 affectionately in thought of all whom she may meet on 
 the campus or off of it. Say to her that you mean to have 
 her become a beautiful companion and social servant of 
 all the divisions and classes of society, rather than of any 
 one of these. 
 
 HEALTH-IMPAIRING TRAINING AND EXERCISE 
 
 Considering the outside duties that claim the girl's 
 time, the college career as a whole imposes many strains 
 upon her health. While statisticians have figured it out 
 that a young woman in college is as healthy in the average 
 case as her non-attending sister and she is probably 
 much more so at the time of beginning her course her 
 health is often impaired during the four-year period of 
 academic work. Hence the necessity of extreme caution 
 in reference to overburdening the young woman student. 
 
 It is not to be disputed that some of the most earnest 
 and worthy college girls need protection against self- 
 
Sending the Daughter to College 79 
 
 imposed over-strains. They try to carry too heavy an 
 assignment, and also to perform too many extra duties. 
 In the first place, the class work assigned is such as to 
 occupy about all the waking hours of the day, if done 
 well. Then, on top of this are piled the dance or party 
 once a week, the literary society, the athletic work, the 
 Young Women's Christian Association meeting and com- 
 mittee work, attendance upon the lecture course, and a 
 hundred and one smaller duties pertaining to the care of 
 the person and the clothes. 
 
 Under the stress of all the foregoing rush and hurry 
 something must naturally break, and the physical health 
 is not unusually the victim. From all outward appear- 
 ances, the mid-week party, especially the dancing party, 
 is hard on college girls. As a result of the tax on the 
 physical strength, many young women are compelled to 
 stay away from classes the day following. On the second 
 day they return pale and wan and absent-minded. Col- 
 lege authorities should insist that these parties be con- 
 fined to the end of the week, so that time may be allowed 
 for recovery. But it is not so much any certain one of the 
 matters named as it is the sum of them that breaks down 
 the physique and brings on mental distraction. Worst of 
 all, many good girls are utterly unable to protect them- 
 selves against the strain of the multitude of demands 
 upon their time. So, it is unquestionably the duty of the 
 college authorities and the parents to see that proper 
 restraints and regulations are operative in the matter. 
 
 SHALL THE YOUNG WOMAN EARN HER WAY 
 
 For thirteen years past the author has been observing 
 closely the efforts of a considerable number of young 
 women college students who earn their way wholly or in 
 part while pursuing the course. As a rule, the attempt of 
 
80 Training the Girl 
 
 the young woman wholly to pay her own way through 
 college is a more or less hazardous affair. Some few ac- 
 complish this undertaking and come out stronger and 
 more triumphant because of the rigorous discipline con- 
 nected therewith, but in regard to the majority a report so 
 favorable cannot be given. Unfortunately in many of 
 the instances of young women working their way the 
 parents are amply able to pay all the college expense but 
 are not considerate enough to do so. Ignorance, penuri- 
 ousness, and a false opinion as to what the college training 
 of a young woman really means, may be attributed as 
 causes of the parental mistreatment here. 
 
 Let not our position be misunderstood regarding the 
 matter of the college girl earning her way. It is this: If 
 the father is amply able to supply the necessary means 
 for his daughter's college training and neglects to do so, 
 some one should have the courage to take him to task 
 about the matter. An interesting and blame-worthy case 
 illustrative of the point here is that of a dry-goods mer- 
 chant, worth perhaps a hundred thousand dollars and 
 prosperous to the point of being entirely free from in- 
 debtedness. The family of which he was head was rearing 
 four daughters. The father contended that a daughter 
 should earn her own way after reaching the high school 
 age. He himself had done so from boyhood. He required 
 his daughters to earn enough for their spending money 
 and some extra clothing while in the high school and an- 
 nounced the policy of requiring them to make their own 
 way through college, if they wished to attend. These 
 girls proved to be most courageous. The eldest struggled 
 through her four-year course in five years, but she come 
 out broken in health from the over-strain of doing a double 
 combined duty of college work and housework. She was 
 also much broken in spirit because of the fact that she 
 
Sending the Daughter to College 81 
 
 was forced again and again to slip back and to be gradu- 
 ated a year behind her own classmates. The second 
 daughter tried the unsupported college career for one year 
 and gave it up, being forced to take a rather menial posi- 
 tion for self-support. This was really a pitiable and ag- 
 gravating case and the more so because of the father's 
 condition and attitude as stated above. 
 
 It is often justifiable to arrange matters so that the 
 young woman may earn a part of her college expense 
 money. She may help in some good home as a means of 
 paying for her board and lodging. But as a rule this 
 arrangement should be regarded as the upper limit for 
 self-support of the college young woman. The home help- 
 ing contract should include a statement as to the amount 
 and time of the service. 
 
 One of the most serious consequences of this program of 
 entire self-support on the part of the college girl is this: 
 She is denied nearly all of the privileges of the college so- 
 ciety; she loses touch with the young men and young 
 women of her class, and tends to fall into the habit of 
 being sensitive about her appearance and manners in 
 public. Worse than all the foregoing, she is likely to lose 
 what is perhaps the most valuable opportunity of all 
 that of coming into close acquaintanceship with some good, 
 sensible college man, who in due time may ask her to walk 
 the way of life at his side. No, if it can at all be avoided, 
 do not permit the young daughter to attempt to earn all 
 the money necessary for supporting her during her four 
 years' stay at the institution. 
 
82 Training the Girl 
 
 LITERATURE ON SENDING THE DAUGHTER TO COLLEGE 
 
 Vocations Open to College Women. Pamphlet. University of Min- 
 nesota, Minneapolis. 
 
 Ethics of the Social Relationships of College Life. Association Monthly. 
 Vol. VII. No. 4. N. Y. 
 
 Tests of College Efficiency. Edwin F. Gay. School Review. Vol. XX, 
 p. 335. 
 
 The American College. Abraham Flexner. Entire text. 237 pp. The 
 Century Co., N. Y. 
 
 Progress in the Household. Lucy Maynard Salmon. Chapter III, "The 
 Relation of College Women to Domestic Service." 198 pp. Hough- 
 ton, Mifflin Co., Boston. 
 
 Girls and Education. L. B. R. Briggs, Entire text. 162 pp. Houghton, 
 Mifflin Co., N. Y. 
 
 Working One's Way Through College and University. Calvin Dill 
 Wilson. Chapter VI, ' ? T\^ays by which Young Women Earn Money 
 while in College." 380 pp. A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago. 
 
 The Freshman and His College. Francis Cummins Lockwood. p. 43, 
 "How to Study." 156pp. D. C. Heath & Co., Boston. 
 
 Personal Hygiene and Physical Training for Women. Anna M. Gal- 
 braith, M. D., Chapter VI, "The Hygiene of the Mind and its Rela- 
 tion to the Physical Health." 352 pp. W. B. Sanders & Co., Phila- 
 delphia. 
 
 Boys, Girls and Manners. Florence Howe Hall. Chapter XVI, " Man- 
 ners at Women's Colleges." 323 pp. Dana Estes & Co., Boston. 
 
 Talks to Women on Essentials to Success in the Business World. Cora 
 Ball Frazier. Chapter I, "Dress and Personal Habits." 116 pp. 
 
 Palmer-Goodman Co., Philadelphia. 
 
 Girl and Woman. Caroline Wormeley Latimer, M. D. Chapter VIII, 
 "Personal Hygiene." 318pp. D. Appleton & Co., N. Y. 
 
 The Common Interests of Parents and Teachers, p. 263. The Play- 
 ground, Vol. V., No. 8. N. Y. 
 
 Educational Foundations. A Monthly Magazine of Pedagogy. N. Y. 
 
advertisements of 
 ed subjects. 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 Industrial Training of the Boy 
 
 Decorated cloth, I2mo y illustrated, 50 cents net; postage extra 
 
 There is no more important phase of boy training than that 
 which is the subject of this book. Professor McKeever has ably 
 demonstrated his ability to get the point of view of both the 
 adult and of the child. His sympathy and understanding of the 
 boy and his mature appreciation of those things which make for 
 the well-rounded life peculiarly fit him for the task which he has 
 essayed in the present volume. The Pre-School Development, 
 The Public School and Adjustment, Vacation Employment, Se- 
 rious Industrial Employment, and Sending the Youth to College 
 are the main heads into which the concise but wholly adequate 
 discussion is divided. 
 
 " Parents will find here many excellent suggestions for the ap- 
 portionment of the work and play of children of all ages and for 
 the kinds of work to be used for the individual training of boys 
 of different temperaments." Congregationalist. 
 
 " On every page the author proves himself master of his sub- 
 ject. 1 ' Watchman-Examiner. 
 
 " It discusses frankly, courageously, and wisely the whole sub- 
 ject of efficiency in fitting boys for efficiency in the life they may 
 lead if at their best." Journal of Education, Boston. 
 
 "A timely and thoroughly pedagogical and scientific work. 
 ... Sound wisdom, born of ripe and serious experience ... is 
 invaluable." Churchman. 
 
 " It will help you to work out a great many things and prob- 
 lems that you now find yourself up against in regard to your 
 boys." Ohio Farmer. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New Tork 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 Farm Boys and Girls 
 
 Decorated cloth, 12*10,325 pp., 40 illustrations, $1.50 net; postage extra 
 
 Comments on ' ' Farm Boys and Girls ' ' 
 
 " From the point of view of life, it is the most notable and useful contribu- 
 tion ever made to agricultural literature." DE WITT C. WING, Associate 
 Editor The Breeder's Gazette, Chicago. 
 
 " Professor McKeever in this volume produced a book which is an honor 
 to himself and his college. The simplicity of the language almost blinds 
 the reader to the immense amount of research necessary to the production 
 of the book." Christian Work. 
 
 " Professor McKeever's ' Farm Boys and Girls ' is a delightful as well as a 
 scientific study of that always absorbing subject, the young person. It has 
 appeared at the psychological moment and is a monument worthy of per- 
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 we most earnestly recommend it to every farm father and mother, every 
 rural preacher and country school teacher." Kinsley (Kansas) Graphic. 
 
 " There are 10,000,000 boys and girls enrolled in the rural schools of this 
 country, and here is one of the finest books that could be placed in the 
 hands of the parents and friends of these children. In this work, Professor 
 McKeever is doing something of the highest value. He is an able running 
 mate of President Butterfield. To such men this land is greatly indebted 
 for their wholesome and inspiring work for the betterment of rural condi- 
 tions." New England Journal of Education. 
 
 " This book is worthy of a place alongside the family Bible in every farm 
 home. It is dedicated to the service of ten million boys and girls who are 
 enrolled in the rural schools of America. It should be read by every one 
 of them, and it should be read and re-read by the parent of every child." 
 Kansas Farmer. 
 
 " The book should be read by all those who are interested in social and 
 economic questions." Guardian, Manchester, England. 
 
 " Professor McKeever's book is a serious study of the problem of boys and 
 girls in the country, and how it may be solved. It is really a Manual of Prin- 
 ciples and Methods for Improving the Conditions of Life in Farming Com- 
 munities. If adopted, country life would be made larger, fuller, happier, 
 and more blessed." Living Church, Milwaukee, Wis. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 
 
Training the Girl 
 
 WILLIAM A. McKEEVER 
 
 Professor of Child Welfare in the University of Kansas ; Professor 
 of Philosophy, Kansas State Agricultural College, 1900-1913 
 
 Decorated cloth, i2mo, illustrated, $1.50 net ; postage extra 
 
 This volume is the third in a series illustrating the author's " whole- 
 life plan " of child training. Here Dr. McKeever provides a whole- 
 some, practical, and inspiring treatise, touching every phase of the 
 growing girl's life. From beginning to end it is rich in methods, de- 
 vices, materials, and suggestions such as can be used by any parent or 
 teacher. The author's varied experience as student and teacher of psy- 
 chology, as public lecturer and writer in the entire field of childhood, 
 and as an enthusiastic believer in the latest possibilities of the common 
 child, are all clearly reflected in the work. Among the heads in the 
 table of contents are the following : The Kindergarten Training, At- 
 tending the Public School, Home and School Cooperation, The High- 
 School Girl, Sending the Daughter to College, Teaching the Girl to 
 Play, The School Girl's Vacation, The Psychology of a Girl's Clothing, 
 The Campfire Girls, The New Vocational Ideal, Training Schools for 
 Girls, Occupations for Women, Service and the Source of Life, The 
 Early Service Development, The Girl's Religious Training, Serving the 
 Common Weal, The Attainment of Peace and Poise. 
 
 "A book of wide scope, offering advice designed to meet every 
 phase of a girl's varied temperamental tendencies from childhood to 
 womanhood. The author's ideas are well founded, while the methods 
 he offers are based on sound psychology, rather than beautiful but 
 vague and indefinite theories." The Continent. 
 
 "A practical and inspiring treatise covering every phase of the 
 growing girl's life. From beginning to end the book is rich in meth- 
 ods, devices, materials, and suggestions such as can be used by any 
 parent and teacher." Philadelphia North American. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New Tork 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 Training the Boy 
 
 Decorated cloth ,368 pp. > 40 illustrations, $r.fO net; postage extra 
 
 Comments on." Training the Boy " 
 
 11 There is scarcely a phase of boy life which is overlooked, and those who are 
 responsible for boys will find suggestion, information, and guidance which 
 will be valuable." Boston Watchman. 
 
 " This is a large, attractive volume, which goes thoroughly into the question 
 of training boys, the best way to do it, the best results to be had in such train- 
 ing, and how to get these results. The work as a whole is admirable, sym- 
 pathetic, and so thorough that there ought not to be any doubt as to its value 
 and the excellence of its results when its inculcations are fairly carried out." 
 Salt Lake City Tribune. 
 
 " It has been said that Professor McKeever knows more about American 
 boys than any other ' boy fancier ' in the country. Certainly he demon- 
 strates, at least, that he belongs in the class of those who have much definite 
 and widely gleaned information about the rearing of boys. His new book 
 is crammed with information about boys and pictures of them at their work 
 and play." Columbus (OHIO) Journal. 
 
 " ' Training the Boy ' is a book for all parents. It may be described as an 
 expert attempt to apply to the problem of making boys into worthy citizens, 
 the general principles of the famous Montessori method. It is not a fine- 
 spun tissue of theory, but a practical discussion based upon common sense 
 and wide experience." Minneapolis (MlNN.) Journal. 
 " The training of the boy from early babyhood through marriage and father- 
 hood is exhaustively treated by Mr. McKeever in this book. Strong com- 
 mon sense and sympathetic interest with the small boy are marked charac- 
 teristics." New York City Club- Woman. 
 
 "Fathers and mothers will find this work of great value in the training of 
 their sons, for from start to finish the book is entirely unprejudiced, broad, 
 sane, and suggestive. It is practically a compendium on the needs of the 
 growing boy, from infancy to manhood." New Orleans Picayune. 
 " This is a crowded book, analyzing the boy and his needs, and what ought 
 to be done for him, marvelously well. To review this book would be simply 
 to write it over. I prefer simply to say to my readers : Here is a volume of 
 wit and wisdom and timeliness." Chicago Unity. 
 
 " A splendid, wholesome book which should be in the hands of every parent. 
 It deals in an intelligent, vigorous way with that topic of vital social interest, 
 the conservation of manhood." Cleveland Plain Dealer. 
 
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