Keep yourselves pure, girls and boys—in thought, word and deed.
One of the Girl Guide laws is that of purity. "God make me beautiful within," is said to be a prayer of Socrates many centuries ago in Greece.
Pure as the snow fresh fallen; pure as the light that streams into dark spots and brightens all it touches; pure in what you look at; pure so you can be your mother's and your sister's friend; pure so you can see life's beauty, for nothing so surely blinds the eye as being impure.
Here are two degrees I offer you, girls and boys.
In college, at graduation, the Chancellor puts your hands between his as he says, "Admitto te ad gradum," which means "I admit you to a degree in this college." And one of the officers puts a college hood over your shoulders and you rise a B.A. or M.A. or M.D. or something else.
But it takes some years to get to that day.
But these degrees are yours now if you will take them. You do not have to work, and if you are really trying for them you never will be plucked. If you want them really and truly, you can have them. And if you take them, I don't care much whether you have any other or not. And if you have a lot of them and not these, all the rest will be of very little value.
A Master of Arts! That's fine. A Doctor of Laws! That's a distinction. A Knight of the Garter! That's a proud honour.
But—A kind and courteous girl and boy; a reverent, self-controlled, pure life—that's best of all!
Out where I lived at the Pacific Coast, there were a lot of people who belong to a club of mountain climbers, and everybody had an ambition to climb as high as possible. It was a great boast if one could say he had penetrated far up Mount Robson. To reach the topmost point was what everybody desired, and they went through a lot of toil to get there.