When anything goes wrong which we do not understand, it is generally necessary to consult a physician. Special care should be taken to see a good doctor or dentist, if anything is wrong with eyes or teeth.
Other aids to health and happiness are sunshine and fresh air, drinking plenty of good water, useful work, good temper, and good times. To be healthy and happy we must also give affection and kind help to other people.
Like everyone else, the girl at work needs holidays. Two weeks in the year is a usual allowance; but three weeks are better than two. After the girl has become a responsible and important worker, she will find two holidays in the year a good investment for health, a short holiday and a longer one of three or four weeks.
To be angry, bad tempered and to think unkindly are all harmful to one's health and destroy a great part of one's happiness. No one can be a successful worker of a high type who is habitually jealous or bad-tempered. Good thoughts are an aid to both health and happiness. In the same way one needs what are called "good times." Many girls love walks in the country with a number of companions. Learning to know birds and flowers by sight, and keeping a record of those found, and when and where they were found, is an enjoyable pursuit of endless interest. Learn to keep and cherish all the festivals of the year—Christmas, New Year's, Thanksgiving, and other holidays. Charades and plays, games and dancing, picnics and excursions, may be made enjoyable and delightful and should help to keep girls healthy as well as happy if they are planned with good sense and restricted to suitable times and places.
CHAPTER XXVI
A GIRL'S READING
Anyone who has developed a love for reading possesses resources for self-improvement and enjoyment which are almost limitless. This love for reading a girl may acquire when she is young, or she may develop it at any time. It is worth while taking some trouble to learn to read well.
Reading for the girl at work should include newspapers and magazines as well as books. She should learn how to read newspapers, because as a great journalist said once, "A newspaper is a sign post telling the traveller which road he ought to take." In this sense we are all travellers and every worker needs to read his sign post which is a newspaper. To each girl some parts of a newspaper are more important than others; much depends on her occupation and on her relations to life. The business man reads the newspaper to find out what is happening that will affect his business. The girl at work should read what we call foreign news, that is, news about countries other than our own, and she should read also about important happenings in our own country. We ought to read the newspaper carefully so that we may be in touch with the rest of the world. We should read important local news, that is, news of our own neighbourhood. We cannot understand our neighbourhood unless we know what is going on in it. A new library may have been opened, a new church or picture gallery. Some worth while person may be speaking whom we may go to hear. There may be trouble in the community which we can help to put right. The person who is really living in touch with progress must give some time to daily newspapers.
But there is a good deal in a newspaper which one does not need to read. A newspaper is a report of daily happenings, sometimes even of rumours. These should be published, so that the truth may be arrived at, but the girl at work should find the parts of the newspaper which are her special concern and should not give much time to the rest of the paper. She should learn to distinguish facts from rumours and opinions. The girl who is learning discrimination in buying will find some of the advertisements useful reading.