X
A GIRL'S SUMMER
Any girl who settles down to a summer with the idea of doing nothing, or in an aimless, not-knowing-what-to-do-next fashion, lessens her opportunities for pleasure. Pleasure is not idleness, although in the minds of a great many people who have not thought very much it is. The right sort of leisure is full of opportunities for doing interesting things.
There are some girls who look upon their summers as an escape from the slavery of their school year. There are others who think of their summers as something to be endured until they can go back to the more or less selfish freedom of the school. Neither is the right way. The summer ought not to be an entirely frivolous season, neither ought it to be too workaday. If a girl has work to do, everything should be so arranged as not to deprive the vacation of its recreative side. On the other hand the summer should be all the happier because of a definite object to be accomplished. Something is wrong with a girl unless she finds both summer and winter full of opportunity and pleasure.
No one can possibly do all the delightful or useful things which may be done in a single summer. In these months there is opportunity for growth just as in the winter—perhaps more opportunity physically. And intellectually there is much to be seen and observed. For the girl who can, it is well to plan to be out-of-doors as much as possible. For some, there are opportunities for camping, for long walks, for gardening, to learn how to do certain physically useful things, to row, swim and ride. Only an extraordinary emergency would deprive a girl of all the out-of-door exercise which she needs. If she isn't able to be by the sea or in the mountains, in almost all cities there is opportunity for exercise and games. With a short car ride she can go to golf links, to tennis courts, into the country. In many semi-citified homes there is space for a girl to do some gardening, one of the most profitable of pleasures, good for the girl and good for the home. Many homes would be much more attractive if there were more of the garden spirit in them. But if there is no chance for this, there can always be physical culture, an opportunity to build one's self up in health, to live sanely and wisely, to get plenty of sleep, and to take corrective exercise. In physical culture a girl should find out what she most needs—almost any gymnastic instructor in school or college would be glad to outline work—and then in ten or fifteen minute exercises develop herself along those lines.
For the girl with means there is the chance for travel, a splendid opportunity to cultivate many virtues of which the young traveller seldom thinks: patience, adaptability, seeing the bright side of things. Travelling may be made a very important part of education. It is too bad that some people of limited horizon take it simply as a chance to aggrandize themselves, something to boast about and with which to bore their friends by repeated accounts of what they did "abroad." The great Doctor Samuel Johnson, the compiler of the famous dictionary and author of "Rasselas," heartily disliked young travellers, for, he said, "They go too raw to make any great remarks." Travelling, if it is what it should be, is an educational opening. In this way can be gained a background for history, for literature, for sociology, and a vivid and living knowledge of geography. Merely running about with a guide-book will not achieve these ends, although a guide-book is a very important asset: sympathy, trying to understand what one sees, will. Travelling takes away provincialism because it broadens the outlook. In a very real sense the world becomes one's home.
The girl who is not able to move about or actually travel may travel in books. She should be ashamed to read what is harmful or merely cheap, but further than that it may not much matter. Let her read the Little Books, if she wishes, and the Great Little Books. As surely as the magnet swings towards the pole will the Great Little Books take her to the Great Big Books. She will be drawn on and up in her reading, and will have cultivated a love for reading which is far more important than perfunctory knowledge of the classics.
Just as any books that are good point towards books that are better, so should the good work of a girl's school year be turning her mind towards the future and her work as a mature woman. In the summer she has time to assimilate all she has done, to get her bearings, and to plan wisely for the year, or years, to come. For a girl of strong physique the summer vacation gives an opportunity to add towards what she is going to do eventually; to specialize in some line of work, to take a library, or scientific, course. Many girls, however, who wish to spend their summer in this fashion ought not to consider it, for they are not strong enough. It is well for them to remember that it is the quality of work that counts rather than the quantity. Often the quality of a girl's work for an ensuing school year depends upon her freedom from study during the summer. Students should be very sure, if they undertake work in the summer, that it is not done simply from a nervous desire to go on regardless of the quality of the work done. But for those in perfect health this is an opportunity to try their powers in different ways in order to discover what it is they really wish to do. A summer so spent may keep many a girl from slipping into teaching just because it seems the only thing she can do. Such a salvation will be twofold, for it will save not only the girl, but also a profession overcrowded with loveless followers. There are so many needs to be filled by a woman's work that it is her duty to look for some vocation for which she is truly adapted, to get out of the ruts of those professions into which women flock because they have no initiative.