Vesper Talks to Girls

by Laura A. Knott

“Man is made great or little by his will,” said Schiller. The disciplined will has gained the power of attention and of industry, has learned method, accuracy, and dispatch in doing work. It has acquired patience and perseverance and knows how to resist, to persist, to attack and to conquer obstacles. “My imagination would never have served me as it has,” said Charles Dickens, “but for the habit of commonplace, humble, patient, daily, toiling, drudging attention.” “Genius,” said George Eliot, “is a vast capacity for receiving discipline.” If even the great writers admit, as many of them do, that their work is the result of long and patient self-discipline, surely in the more ordinary walks of life that kind of training may not be despised.

To have a work that we love is one of the supreme things to be desired in life. It must be admitted, however, that the majority of the world’s workers find little pleasure in their task. Yet the next best thing to doing one’s work with enjoyment is to do it—even without enjoyment. This takes strength of will, more strength of will, indeed, than many possess. This is one of the reasons (though not the only one) why there are always and everywhere so many persons out of employment. The number of such persons who have to be taken care of by the charity of the State, simply because they cannot or will not hold themselves to labor of any kind, is appalling.

But even the most favored of us, congenial though our work may be, have duties to perform every day that are not especially pleasurable. A few years ago Dr. Eliot, then President of Harvard College, addressed a body of laboring men on “The Joy of Labor.” He tried to show them that they should not expect pleasure in every detail of their work, but rather in seeing its larger relationships, and in working toward a certain definite goal. He said that among the men of his acquaintance, those whose work seemed to him most enviable had much to do in the course of each day that could by no means be called pleasurable and that had to be done by sheer effort of will. The men whom he was addressing, he remarked, probably regarded his own work as wholly delightful; yet that was by no means the case, as the larger part of each day’s work was drudgery, and his joy in doing it came only through realizing its importance in the scheme of the whole. It is the disciplined will which enables us to do the disagreeable or the uninteresting thing uncomplainingly. The scientist at work in his laboratory, the lawyer preparing his brief, the business man toiling by day and often by night in his office, give most of their time to uninteresting details. Yet the difference between success and failure usually lies in one’s ability or lack of ability to hold himself to uninspiring details.

Does the mother who has the care of a family need a disciplined will? Who, indeed, needs it more? In whose life is there more of petty detail and unending drudgery? Where is there greater need of the wide outlook and the large vision? In this case it is the vision of a perfect home which glorifies the petty details and the drudgery.

“Who sweeps a room as for thy laws

Makes that and the action fine.”

The person of disciplined will has learned to respect the rights of others. English people often comment on the lack of discipline in a certain type of American home, with its self-asserting children who ignore the rights of their elders. These children, grown up into young men and women, trample on the rights and on the feelings of others. The spoiled girl who goes away from home to live the community life in school or college can quickly be distinguished from her more fortunate fellow students who have behind them years of the firm and kindly discipline of a wise home. She is obliged to adjust herself to the new conditions, where her rights are of no more importance than those of any one else. She must put herself under prompt and severe discipline if she is to win for herself any place in the school or college world. If she fails to do this, she must pay the penalty. Until she can be an acceptable member of the community, she can have but small share in its life. One of the best reasons why every girl should receive a part of her schooling away from home is because of the wholesome discipline sure to be administered by her fellow students.

The athletic field is one of the best places in the world for discipline. Self-subordination to the good of the whole forms the basis of success in every game. Good “team-work” admits of no bumptiousness on the part of any player. No good, clean game is ever played without its lessons in self-restraint and self-control.

A trained and disciplined will you will find to be your most valuable resource, enabling you to do the thing that ought to be done and to do it when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. Is not this power the greatest asset possessed by those who have achieved true success in every age? In these days, when learning is so often sugar-coated and made attractive by every possible device, it is well to emphasize this point. It seems to be the aim of some teachers—indeed, of some schools of education—to administer the greatest amount of knowledge with the least amount of effort on the part of the pupil. Every device and every method which deprives a pupil of doing his own thinking is harmful. The more genuine effort put forth the better. We all know that the quick pupil who learns without effort is often surpassed later in life by the plodding, hard-working pupil. One reason is that the latter was forced to acquire while young those habits of industry and perseverance which are the price of success.

A wise sprinkling of electives is a great improvement upon the iron-clad course of study of a generation ago. I certainly would not be understood as saying that it is better to study without enjoyment than with enjoyment, for I strongly believe the opposite. There is a tendency among students, however, in selecting a course of study to follow the lines of least resistance. I would almost advise a student to go to the other extreme. Remembering my own student days and the feeling of joy and mastery that came from conquering some particularly difficult subject in an inflexible course of study, I should give every student the opportunity occasionally to measure himself against a subject that is especially hard for him. It strengthens the sinews of the mind. It breeds confidence and power. Can you not remember some occasion when you mastered some especially difficult problem or subject, and can you not still feel the exhilaration that came with that mastery? You became suddenly conscious of new power, you could feel yourself grow. Then how can you believe that you are being educated if your work is not of such a nature as to call forth your highest powers? In regard to the tendency of students in schools and colleges to choose “snap courses,” Dean Briggs says, “For any responsible work we want men of character—not men who from childhood up have been personally conducted and have had their education warped to the indolence of their minds.” The attitude of mind which is satisfied merely with a passing grade is most unscholarly and betrays low ideals. One who is so satisfied has missed the conception of what education really is.