The Girl and Her Religion by Margaret Slattery
page 93 of 134 (69%)
page 93 of 134 (69%)
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thoroughly respectable member of society and an earnest Christian. She
has been able to lead her younger brother safely past the dangerous places and is helping him through school. What the church, through its religious instruction, has been able to do for this girl and many others it might do in far larger measure were it equipped with a regular teaching force adequate to its need, if its preachers could come into real contact with the children and youth of the community and present to them with power the _thou shalt not_ which shall give them at least an opportunity to strive to obey. If the girl herself is reading this chapter I know she will agree with me when I say that a girl respects and honors in her heart the teacher who presents to her, fearlessly and honestly, the things which she believes a girl cannot do with safety, which lead into dangerous places and which make it hard for her to keep pure, true, unselfish in thought and deed; and she respects even more highly the teacher who can give her broad sane reasons for finding substitutes for these things. She may, as she grows older, come to the conclusion that her teacher was mistaken but she respects her for her honest effort to help. In every girl's creed there must be some negative. The _law_ says you must and you must not. As she reads this page perhaps some girl will stop for a moment and write out the things to which she believes a girl should say "no." Here is such a list, written in the form of a creed by a girl when a sophomore at college. "I believe that a girl should not indulge in amusements which make her nervous and excited, give her a headache, make it hard for her to study, cost her a good deal of money and crowd out all thoughts of duty and which make her feel envious and jealous of those who are more popular or |
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