CULTURED GIRLS | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 10, 1887

CULTURED GIRLS.

IN one of Rev. Smith Baker's admirable sermons to girls, given recently to his own congregation in Lowell, he points out as follows what elements enter into true cultivation of character:—

It is sometimes thought if a young woman has graduated at a college and traveled in Europe, she must be cultured; but some such young women are the most uncultured of persons. One need not be rich, or educated, or traveled, in order to be cultured; but only be sure that all sides of her being grow in harmony. Then, though she is limited in capacity, she shall be beautiful. Culture does not mean music or French, but womanhood. Very few can be rich, a small number educated; but culture is for all.

Be determined to know something, even a little, of the best history, the best poetry, the best biography, the best of art, the facts in science, and the best thoughts of the best minds—ten minutes each day, five or six books a year, not mere stories. The best in style and sentiment is as cheap as the poorest. There is no excuse for reading trash, when the standard works on all subjects are as cheap as the poorest, no more than for walking in the mud when a clean sidewalk is provided. Not extensive, but selected, reading gives culture. Gather a little standard library of your own; you will respect yourself, and others will respect you for it. Keep a scrap-book, fill it with the best things. Nothing reveals a young woman's line of thought more than her scrap-book. Read and think; read a little and think much; read when at leisure, think when at work.

A thoughtless, selfish, snappish, cross, fretful, overbearing, and dictatorial young woman may take the prize at school, may excel in music, and travel round the world, but the more she knows, the less culture she has. The commonest country girl with good health, and open brain, and a warm, unselfish, patient, self-controlled disposition, is a hundred-fold more cultured then the boarding-school graduate who is fractious with her mother, cross with her sisters, or knows too much to associate with working girls. Disposition is culture. Health is the soil, intelligence the branches, and disposition the leaves, buds, and blossoms,—the robe of living beauty, fragrance, and sweetness with which a young woman is to clothe her life; for without heart culture the finest mental culture is like a tree with nothing but cold, leafless limbs.

The cultured young woman is spiritual. Loving what God loves, hating what God hates, reading his thoughts over after him, in nature, in his word, and in your own soul, coming into sympathy with him—this makes of life a living art, and lifts the passions, the thoughts, the affections, and the will with greatness, pureness, and joy. Such is the final fruit on the tree for which all the rest are given. This is the highest culture, without which no woman can have her greatest beauty, or power, or joy. Christ gives this.—Congregationalist.