The Girl and Her Religion by Margaret Slattery
page 43 of 134 (32%)
page 43 of 134 (32%)
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about anything. If you don't invite her she doesn't seem to mind, if you
do she doesn't care whether she goes or not. I'd rather die than not care about _anything_." "Such people are so uncomfortable to have around, I'd rather have a girl who gets mad," was the opinion of another in the group. Young people feel naturally that there is something vitally wrong about the girl who has no enthusiasm, whom all the interesting life of every day fails to arouse. And there _is_ something wrong. The problem facing those who have to do with the indifferent, don't care girl is to find _what is wrong_. Indifference is merely a symptom--there is always a cause. One may discover if he will the things to which the girl is _not_ indifferent, her real interests. Knowing these, he sees the door through which he must go to awaken other interests. Sympathy and friendship are the foes of indifference. If one "feels with" the girl who does not care, he may help to awaken her interests. Friendship can discover causes which nothing else can find. But there is one word which must be stricken from the vocabulary of parents, teachers and friends, who hope to awaken the indifferent girl. It is the word _hopelessly. Hopelessly_ dull, _hopelessly_ bad, _hopelessly indifferent_! Experience teaches that these must go. No teacher has a hopeless pupil, no mother has a hopeless daughter. One may regard the indifferent girl as a difficult problem but never a hopeless one. Behind the indifference and the don't-care is the _real girl_ and one must with patience and sympathy find _her_. VII |
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