p. 12 | Teaching Girls How To Live by MRS. W. E. A. AUL

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 7, 1911

Teaching Girls How To Live

By MRS. W. E. A. AUL

(Concluded)

MRS. W. E. A. AUL

In this day the knowledge of the use of money is a valuable asset in a woman's life. Women are notably bad financiers. Parents often have the idea expressed by the man who was asked what he thought of giving children spending money. His reply was: “Yes, a boy will handle money all his life; therefore he must be taught how to use it; but as for my daughters, why should they not trouble about money? When they need a dress or car fare, I give it to them. If they marry, their husbands will care for them.” In France it is different: the girl becomes a business woman and a housekeeper. She runs her home well and economically.

One of the finest arts is to know how to dress well. Miss Gould says, “A becoming dress is a dress suited to the occasion and the wearer.” Such a dress the world expects of every woman, for it has come to be the mark of the dignity and power of the sex. A true woman is always well dressed.

Dress is more than a covering or an ornament: it is an index to character. It is a picture painted by her own hands for public exhibition, showing herself as she would wish to be. It is well here to note that dress and manners go together. They are inseparable comrades. Let her mind dignify her dress, and her dress dignify her manners. Then she becomes an inspiration, and dress has done its perfect work.

The girl who has been carefully guarded all her life up to the time of taking a hand in the game of life, will have no difficulty in choosing friends; for each one will have to come up to the standard that a wise mother has taught her to raise. She will not measure possible friends by their surroundings, but will judge them for themselves. True worth is all that will appeal to her. Educate the girl to be her own defender. As far as human beings can act, the need of the hour is that each young woman should uncompromisingly determine not to recognize on a social equality for personal association any young man who drinks, swears, dissipates, uses tobacco in any form, or who is immoral in any way. Teach her to take it upon herself to frown down the social lie that man may sin with impunity, and be received unquestioned in society.

The great and universal cry of middle life is this, “O, if I had only been taught how to live when I was young!” So many girls grow into womanhood with almost no conception of the power and glories, duties and sanctities, of girlhood and womanhood; with little or no idea of the possible power, influence, and beauty of mind and body. Teach the girls the sacred importance of the powers and gifts entrusted to the body, about that greatest gift of all, the extreme beauty of which makes all other gifts in the world seem small. Teach them to guard their bodies, and set their ideals so high that these gifts, especially this one greatest gift, may not be thought less of, that the beauty of these gifts may not be tarnished, that the purity and wonder of them may not be sullied; so teach them that they may bring to all their great duties and privileges healthy bodies, fresh minds, and pure, free spirits.

Every girl knows what is expected of her. Her parents, brothers, sisters, teachers, society, and the world intend that she shall be good and gentle and gracious. They will be satisfied with nothing short of all that, and it will be well for every girl to learn early in life to pursue only the paths that will lead into ways wherein these qualities of person and character may be found. We see that true characters are but the expression of habits and manners; and only those habits that are formed in the early years of life seem to fit perfectly and naturally through all the years. Fortunate is the young girl who finds her lot cast among the good influences of a cultured home. She has at hand the material from which to select all that she may need to build the fine character the world shall observe and admire. Those whose earlier years are spent amid surroundings not so favorable for the formation of noble characters must strive all the harder for the prize of gentility, which they should obtain. The character that is the most laboriously built is the most enduring. Noble characters that have been hammered out of life's experiences are to be implicitly relied upon.

The world's history is full of the triumphs of those who have had to struggle from beginning to end for recognition. The great and good women of the world have won their distinction in the same way. They cultivated the sterling qualities that made for success. And the girl can, if she will, make her life a success. She may be praised by the world, or it may be by the small circle of friends with whom she comes in contact. In a thousand gracious ways she can make the days and years good and golden for herself and for all who know her. She must be thoughtful, and intelligently alert to the opportunities lying all about her ready to be fashioned into shining deeds. She must know that

she is a precious craft on the sea of life, and that she must not be permitted to drift from the harbor of youth and of home without a life pilot. This pilot should be her own conscience hedged about with the learning, the good breeding, the fine character that she herself, under proper guidance, must cultivate through the impressionable years of childhood and maidenhood. If she so wills it, beauty and grace and true worth are all hers.

College View, Neb.