wise relation, for friendship is like scholarship: if it is worth
anything at all it comes slowly. Impulsive, quickly forced friendships
are not wise investments; the very fact that they come so quickly
implies an unbalanced state of idealizing, or lack of self-control. This
does not mean that one is not to form pleasant acquaintances from the
very beginning of the school life. Acquaintanceship always holds
something in reserve and is the safest prelude to a deeper and more
vital friendship.

There is no denying that there is great temptation to violent
admirations and attractions in school. In the first place, in school or
college the girl is brought into contact with a large circle of people
who are immensely interesting to her. The whole atmosphere is full of
novelty, of the unusual. Some of the students and teachers whom she
meets for the first time represent a broader experience, it may be, than
her own home life has given her. They are often new types and new types
are always interesting.

I shall say nothing of the idealism of friendship--it plays its part in
other books. It would seem sometimes as if almost too much emphasis had
been placed upon the making of friendships in school,--friendship which
is, after all, but a by-product, the most valuable it is true,
nevertheless a by-product of the life. Wholly practical are the tests of
friendship which I shall give. In the first place a friend is too
absorbing who takes all of one's interest to the exclusion of
everything else: there should be interest in other people, other
activities as well as in one's work. Such a friendship can only make a
girl forget for what she has come to school. The new relation which
disposes one to look with less respect and affection upon one's own
people and home--and they, be it remembered, have stood the most