superintendent's prayer--the appeal it makes depending upon the leader's
sympathy, and knowledge of childhood. Often both are lacking. These
Junior girls know the street, the moving picture show, the unsupervised
playground, the temptations of school life; they are beginning to show
the moral effect of poverty on the one hand and social ambitions and
false standards on the other. How many prayers for girls from ten to
twelve does one hear? How many can he find though he search ever so
diligently.

When we come to the girl in her teens we find often in large numbers of
classes that the only instruction in prayer is the indirect teaching
from the prayer at the desk. How many girls listen reverently to it?

They come from stores and shops, from high schools, offices, homes of
plenty and homes of want. They know temptation, they meet it in more
dangerous forms than ever before. How does the prayer affect life as
they know it? Very little I am bound to believe unless _the great
experience_ has come to them and they have said in simple girlish
fashion, "O Christ, I choose thee King of my life--I follow thee
wherever the way shall lead," unless that transferring of _will_ from
vague and indefinite desire to a definite purpose has come, the prayer
which is a part of the average opening service will have little
influence. Even if the great decision has been made, the prayer of one
far away at the desk, often out of touch with young life, does not bring
the uplift.

What a teacher may do the following testimony of a young girl may help
us to see:

"I never had any special instruction in prayer at home. I think I must