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