A Girl's Student Days and After Part 1
A Girl's Student Days and After.
by Jeannette Marks.
_Introduction_
The school and college girl is an important factor in our life to-day.
Around her revolve all manner of educational schemes, to her are open all kinds of educational opportunities. There was never an age in which so much thought was expended upon her, or so much interest felt in her development.
There are many articles written and many speeches delivered on the responsibility of parents and teachers--it may not be amiss occasionally to turn the shield and show that some of the responsibility rests upon the girl herself. After all, she is the determining factor, for buildings and equipment, courses and teachers accomplish little without her cooperation.
It is difficult for the "new girl," whether in school or college, to realize the extent to which the success of her school life depends upon herself. In a new environment, surrounded by what seem to her "mult.i.tudes" of new faces, obliged to meet larger demands under strange and untried conditions, she is quite likely to go to the other extreme and exaggerate her own insignificance. Sometimes she is fortunate enough to have an older sister or friend to help her steer her bark through these untried waters, but generally she must find her own bearings.
To such a girl, the wise hints in the chapters which follow this introduction are invaluable, giving an insight into the meaning of fair-play in the cla.s.sroom as well as on the athletic field; the relation between physical well-being and academic success; the difference between the social life that is _re_-creative and that which is "_nerves_-creative"; the significance of loyalty to the school and to the home; the way in which school days determine to a large degree the days that come after. These, and many other suggestions, wise and forceful, I commend not only to the new girl, but also to the "old girl" who would make her school and college days count for more both while they last and as preparation for the work that is to follow.
MARY E. WOOLLEY.
_Mt. Holyoke College_, _South Hadley, Ma.s.sachusetts._
_A Word to the Wise_
We train for basket-ball, golf, tennis or for whatever sport we have the most liking. Is there any reason why we should not use the same intelligence in the approach to our general school life? Is there any reason why we should make an obstacle race, however good and amusing exercise that may be, out of _all_ our school life? We don't expect to win a game with a sprained wrist or ankle, and there really is no reason why we should plan to sprain the back of school or college life by avoidable mistakes.
The writer believes in the girl who has the capacity for making mistakes,--that headlong, energetic spirit which blunders all too easily. But the writer knows how much those mistakes hurt and how much energy might be saved for a life that, with just a pinch less of blunder, might be none the less savoury. School and college are no place for vocal soloists, and after some of us have sung so sweetly and so long at home, with every one saying, "Just hear Mary sing, isn't it wonderful!" it is rather trying, you know, to go to a place where vocal solos are not popular. And we wish some one--at least I did--had told us all about this fact as well as other facts of school life. Anyway it should be a comfort to have a book lying on the table in our school or college room, or at home, which will tell us why Mary, after having been a famous soloist at home made a failure or a great success in chorus work at school. Such a book is something like having a loaded gun in readiness for the robber. We may never use the shotgun or the book but they are there, with the rea.s.suring sense of shot in the locker.
It is something, is it not, to have a little book which will tell you how to get into school and how to get out (for at times there seem to be difficulties in both these directions)--in short, to tell you something of many things: your first year at school or college, your part in the school life, the friendships you will make, your study and how to work in it, the pleasure and right kind of spirit involved in work, the quiet times, as well as the jolly times, out-of-doors, your summers and how to spend them, what the school has tried to do for you; and, as you go out into the world, some of the aspects, whether you are to be wife, secretary or teacher, of the work which you will do. Of one thing you may be certain; that behind every sentence of this little book is experience, that here are only those opinions of which experience has made a good, wholesome zwieback.
I wish to take this opportunity to thank my friend, Mrs. Belle Kellogg Towne, editor of _The Girls' Companion_ and _Young People's Weekly_, Chicago, for her cooperation in allowing me to use half the material in this little book; also Dr. C. R. Blackall, of Philadelphia.
_Camp Runway._ J. M.
I
THE IDEAL FRESHMAN
Freshman year, the beginning year, the year of new experiences, new delights, new work, new friends, new surroundings; the year that may mean much to a girl, that may answer some of the questions that have lain long in heart and mind, that will surely reveal her more clearly to herself, that may make her understand others better and help her to guess something of the riddle of the years to come!
What has the student done to get ready for this year? If she were going camping she would know that certain things were necessary to make the expedition a success. With what excitement and pleasure, what thoughts of jolly camp-fires, deep, sweet-smelling forests, and long days afoot, she would prepare everything. She would not let any one else do this for her, for that would mean losing too much of the fun. But the _freshman year_, what about the thinking and planning for that, also an expedition into a new world, and a veritable adventure of a vast deal more importance than a few days or weeks of camping? Would she enter forests upon whose trees the camp-fires throw many shadows, follow the stream that cleaves its way through the woods, go along the runway of deer or caribou or moose, with a mind to all intents and purposes a blank? No, her mind would be vivid with thoughts and interests.
With the same keen attention should she enter the new year at school or college, and as she pa.s.ses through it, thinking about all that comes to her, she will find it growing less and less difficult and more and more friendly. She will consider what the freshman year is to be like, think of what sorts of girls she is to meet and make friends with, what the work will be, what she may expect in good times from this new adventure, and, thoughtful about it all, make the minimum of mistakes and get the maximum of benefit.
Here come some of the girls who are entering school and college with her--bright-haired, dark-haired, rosy or pale, tall and thin, fat and short, clever and average, desirable and undesirable,--in fact, all sorts and conditions of girls. Who is to be the leader of them all? She is the _ideal freshman_, a nice, well-set-up girl who does not think too much of herself, who is not self-conscious, and who does not forget for what she is sent to school. Despite the temptations of school life she uses her days wisely and well. She does not isolate herself, for she sees the plan and value of the recreative side of school-days. She is already laying the foundations for a successful, useful, normal existence, establishing confidence at the outset and not handicapping herself through her whole course by making people lose their faith in her. Our _ideal freshman_ may be the girl who is to do distinguished work; she may be the student who does her best; and because it is her best, the work, though not brilliant, is distinguished by virtue of her effort. She may be the girl who is to make a happy home life through her poise and earnestness and common sense. Whoever she is, in any event in learning to do her best she is winning nine-tenths of the battle of a successful career. It is she, attractive, able, earnest, with the "fair-play" or team-play spirit in all she does, true to herself and to others, whom every school wants, whose unconscious influence is so great in building up the morale of any school. Mark this girl and follow her, for she is worthy of your hero worship.
This is the girl who goes into school in much the same spirit that she would enter upon a larger life. She is not a prig and she is not a dig, but she knows there are responsibilities to be met and she meets them.
She expects to have to think about the new conditions in which she finds herself and to adjust herself to them, and she does it. She knows the meaning of the team-play spirit and she takes her place quietly on the team, one among many, and both works and plays with respect for the rights and positions of others. It is in the temper of the words sometimes stamped upon the coins of our country--_E Pluribus Unum_--that she makes a success of her school life. She knows that not only is our country bigger than any one of its states, but also that every school is bigger than any one of its members whether teacher or student. In a small family at home conditions have been more or less made for her, just as they are for other girls. Yet she knows that the school life is complicated and complex, and it is impossible for her to feel neglected where a more self-centred or spoiled girl fails to see that in this new life she is called upon to play a minor part but nevertheless a part upon which the school must rely for its _esprit de corps_. She goes with ease from the somewhat unmethodical life of the home to the highly organized routine of the school because she understands the meaning of the word "team-play." She has the cooperative spirit.
Yet there are other girls, too, in this school which the freshman is entering. There is the student who errs on the side of leading too workaday a life, and in so doing has lost something of the buoyancy and breadth and "snap" which would make her a.s.sociations and her work fresher and more vigorous. "The Grind," she has been called, and if she recognize herself in this sketch, let her take care to reach out for a bigger and fuller life than she is leading. And there is, too, the selfish student whose "cla.s.s-spirit" is self-spirit; and the girl who is not selfish but who uses herself up in too many interests, dramatic, athletic, society, philanthropic and in a dozen others. She is probably over-conscientious, a good girl in every way, but in doing too much she loses sight of the real aim of her school life. To these must be added another student,--the freshman who skims the surface, and is, when she gets out, where she was when she entered--no, not quite so far along, for she has slipped back. She is selfish, relying upon the patience and burden-bearing capacity of her father and mother, as well as the school.
No doubt every girl would meet her obligations squarely if she realized what was the underlying significance of the freshman year; the school life would surely be approached with a conscientious purpose. What a girl gets in school will much depend upon what she has to give. No girl is there simply to have a good time or merely to learn things out of books. Nor is she there to fill in the interim between childhood and young womanhood, when one will go into society, another marry, and a third take up some wage-earning career. No, she is there to carry life forward in the deepest, truest sense; and the longer she can have to get an education and to make the best of the opportunities of school and college life, the richer and fuller her after-years will be. Both middle life and old age will be deeper and stronger. Let us think about these girls, let us think about what it means to be a freshman, and so lessen our difficulties and increase our pleasures; let us have a big conception,--a large ideal always at heart--of what the _first year_ should be, and beginning well we shall be the more likely to end well.
II
THE GIRL AND THE SCHOOL
Inside school or college the girl is in several ways responsible for the atmosphere. Merely in her conversation she can be of service or dis-service. It may be simply a good joke which she is telling, but if the joke misrepresents the school she will, perhaps, do lasting harm. If she is hypercritical--and there is nothing so contagious as criticism--she influences people in the direction of her thought; she sets a current of criticism in motion. A student frequently gives vent to an opinion that is only half-baked--it is well, by the way, to make zwieback of all our opinions before we pa.s.s them around as edible--about courses and instructors. She does not realize that some opinions to be worth anything must be the result of a long process of baking, that a nibble from the corner of a four months' or nine months' course will not, however understandingly it may be Fletcherized, tell you whether the course is going to be fruit cake, meringue or common soda crackers.
She may think that she herself is so unimportant that what she says can't matter, or she may not mean what she says and be merely letting off steam. Nevertheless her influence is exerted. Some one showed an old lady, who had never been known to say anything in the least critical of any human being, the picture of a very fat man prominent in public life.
She looked at it a moment, and then said sweetly: "My, isn't he plump!"
If only there were more old and young ladies like that dear soul!
There is another kind of conversation which may not be ill-natured and yet does harm. Idle gossiping, talking about things that are not worth while or speculating about affairs which are not our business and of which we know little or nothing. Akin to this is fashionably slangy conversation concerning the latest thing in books, magazine articles, trivial plays. For even the "tone" of school or college conversation a student is responsible. She can make her school seem cheap or cultivated. The remarks which visitors overhear as they go from room to room or from building to building are likely to indicate the "tone" of an inst.i.tution. A catalogue may say all it pleases about a school but in the end the school is judged by the women it educates and sends out, even as a tree is known by its fruit. Cultivated, strong women are worth more in advertis.e.m.e.nt than all the printed material in the world, however laudatory.
When a girl has received everything her Alma Mater has to give, she has no right to be untrue to its fundamental aims and ideals, or to misrepresent it in any way, either by what she says or by her own behaviour. Every student in a large inst.i.tution is in a sense a pensioner. No student can pay for what is given to her. Is it not a poor return for her to be reflecting dishonour rather than honour upon her school?
There is a certain social selfishness in the way some students take their opportunities for granted without realizing that there are thousands and hundreds of thousands of girls who would give all that they possess for a t.i.the of such riches. Also, because of the sacrifice which is being made for them at home girls are selfish in taking their school or college life carelessly. The school has to bear much of the responsibility for the individual failure. But of this the student who is failing rarely thinks. Parents hold an inst.i.tution to blame if it does not do for their child what they expect it to do, when it may be the girl who is at fault.
In the use she makes of her portion of inheritance, in the gift the school bestows on the student, there is a large social question involved. The school gives her of its wealth, the result of the acc.u.mulation of years and of the civic or philanthropic spirit of many men and women. This, if the girl's sense of responsibility is what it should be, she feels bound to increase and hand on. It is the old _n.o.blesse oblige_ under new conditions of privilege.
While she is still in school the girl discharges part of this obligation by realizing what is best for her school as an inst.i.tution. A college or a big school is no place for vocal soloists. Its life is the life of an orchestra, of many instruments playing together. The student's sense of responsibility is shown by her att.i.tude towards the corporate government and administration of the school. Instead of regarding the laws of her school as natural enemies, chafing against them, making fun of them or evading them if possible, she has a duty in fulfilling them. The consciousness of this responsibility is the very heart and soul of the student self-government movement, for it recognizes not only the obligation placed upon its members by an inst.i.tution, but also the wide influence one girl may have on others. Student government knows that upper cla.s.s girls can determine the spirit of the under cla.s.ses. Even looking at the matter from the lightest point of view, respectful and law-abiding ways are always well-bred ways.
When a student becomes an alumna she can discharge a large part of her great responsibility by realizing that it is not any longer so much a question of what her school can give her as of what she can give to her school. One thing she can always give it--that is, kindly judgment. And she can acknowledge that her ideas of what her Alma Mater is after her own school-days may not be correct. The school, sad to say, is sometimes placed in the position of the kindly old farmer who, hearing others call a certain man a liar, said: "Waal now, I wouldn't say he wuz a _liar_.
That's a bit harsh. I'd say he handled the truth mighty careless-like."
Schools find that some of their alumnae handle the truth mighty careless-like.
While she is still a student a girl's service to her school lies largely in her daily work, the mental muscle she puts into all that she does in the cla.s.sroom and studies out of it. If because of her and a multiple of many girls like her, the college does not possess that _sine qua non_ of all the higher mental life, an intellectual atmosphere, it is the student's and her multiple's fault. "You may lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink," may be an old adage, but it would be hard to improve upon it. You may set before students a veritable Thanksgiving feast of things intellectual, but if they have no eagerness, no appet.i.te for them, the feast remains untouched. Energy and hunger of the mind, not the anxious hosts, will in the end decide whether that feast is or is not to be eaten.
The school considers not only scholarship but also the sum of all that it is, its culture, its attainment, its moral force, as these elements are expressed in its living members, its students and its teachers--in short, its idealism. Idealism is having one's life governed by ideals, and an ideal is a perfect conception of that which is good, beautiful and true. If the girl's life is not governed by ideals, how, then, can the school hope to have its idealism live or grow? Frequently students think of the ideals of college or school as of something outside themselves, more or less intangible, with which they may or may not be concerned. Students cannot do their inst.i.tution a greater injury than by harbouring such a thought, for if their sense of responsibility will only make the idea of the school personal, then indeed will the school be like that house upon which the rains descended and the winds blew but it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock.
III
FRIENDSHIPS
Homesickness and friendships, how much and how vivid a part they play in the first year, or years, of school life! An old coloured physician was asked about a certain patient who was very ill. "I'll tell you de truf,"