The Girl and Her Religion by Margaret Slattery
page 39 of 134 (29%)
page 39 of 134 (29%)
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exhortation, _can_ be cured by a wise physician.
Sometimes a girl becomes indifferent from lack of a sympathetic environment. She feels that others do not care about her and that what she does makes no real difference to any one. She may be surrounded by poverty, where the struggle to exist is so keen that there is no time to think of the girl and her needs, or she may have every luxury yet be denied the companionship of one who understands. I am thinking now of a girl of fifteen, who does not seem in any way to belong in the family where she was born. Her sisters are at work in the factory and content. They are sweet, attractive and good. But she does not want to work in the factory. She would "give the world to have a room alone, that could be all fixed up," as she would like it. The family cannot understand her. She can have none of the things for which she longs, she is not able to be with the sort of people she loves and admires. She wants good books, she enjoys music and longs to be permitted to finish her high school course. She is willing to work out of school hours, to do anything if only she may continue to study. Because the family consider all her notions ridiculous, and all she longs for seems impossible, the don't-care, reckless spirit and the indifferent "what's the use anyway" are gradually enveloping her whole life. Surrounded by much that money can buy, a most interesting girl whom I met recently is surrendering all her interests to the "don't-care" spirit because the one great desire of her heart is not to be gratified. She has been urged to enter upon the duties of the social world but says she has tried it and "despises society." She does not care about travel, she wants to be trained as a nurse, enter a school of philanthropy and |
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