Perhaps the most valuable possession that any girl has is her character. The honest, kind, likeable girl, who keeps her word and is a good friend, is valued by everyone who knows her. The character of a nation is not unlike the character of the individual. We love our country. We would give her the best service. The best we can do for her is to make her national character honest, kind, strong, helpful and lovable. Every individual in a nation has a civic duty and responsibility to make that nation a good neighbour.
A Canadian woman of seventy years said once to a younger woman who was a professional worker, "My dear, tell me about the hospital where you are working. I have heard that conditions are not all they should be. I want to know, because if I know I may be able to help in making what is wrong right." She was a quiet, gentle woman, charming in manner, and somewhat shy and reserved. She never talked about disagreeable things. On this occasion she believed it was her duty to make sure whether there was a wrong, and if there was to try to put it right. No one ever heard anything said about this matter in public, but after some time the management of one public institution was greatly improved. Age, experience and wisdom can help in these wonderful ways. Girls may learn from such women.
We learn best to be good citizens in our own homes. Study public affairs and community questions with your father and mother, brothers and sisters.
Those who read Queen Victoria's Letters, which have been published, notice that in her girlhood she was a simple, gentle, innocent girl, not specially clever, but eager to learn, resolved that everything in the government of her country should be explained to her so that she might understand it. It was her duty to know the details of that great government, and she was determined, no matter what it cost her in work and study, to know and understand her duty. In her later letters she appears as an old, very wise woman, one of the first statesmen of her age. Queen Victoria had great responsibilities. Ours are smaller. But no girl, whether she works at home or in paid employment, can reach her highest development in the twentieth century without living up to her civic and national responsibilities.
CHAPTER XXX
THE BEST KIND OF WORK
Summing up what we have been able to learn, and what the world has learned, about employment, it is generally agreed that hard work is best. By hard work is meant work which requires from us the putting forth of all our energies and which calls for all our gifts. Work is very beneficial. As a man has said, "It takes the nonsense out of people," not the fun out of life, but the nonsense out of people, foolish, wrong, mistaken ideas which make people disagreeable to work with or play with or live with. It is not until our work, and methods of doing work, make use of all our ability and capacity that we know how fine work can be. You remember the story in the Bible which tells how Jacob wrestled with an unseen adversary until the breaking of the day. Then when Jacob was asked what he would have, he answered, "I will not let thee go except thou bless me." So work when we do our best with it blesses us.
Musicians speak of "technic" in playing and artists of "technic" in painting. Technic is skill, but it is more than skill. It is skill and individuality joined together. There is technic of a certain kind which we all may acquire in our work. Perhaps a story will explain best what this technic is. A beautiful girl who had all the gifts of a great actress but was untrained once made an extraordinary success in one of Shakespeare's plays. Later she failed utterly. She had not had that patient unceasing practice which makes every performance a high level of acting. When she felt inspired, she could act; but when she was dull or tired or out of sorts, her inspiration failed her, and she had no technic or skill in acting to fall back upon.
The good cook practically never fails in what she makes. She may not feel like cooking her best every day, but she knows how, and all her good work in the past stands by her skilful hands and makes her cooking a success every day. In the same way, the practised writer can rely on a certain technic or skill in writing even when he is dull and jaded and yet there is work which must be done.