Vesper Talks to Girls

by Laura A. Knott

The youth replies, I can.”

The realization of all these sober facts, coming home to the young heart with sudden force, often begets a mood of seriousness and of peculiar responsiveness. It may be that one has not always listened very attentively even to words spoken in deepest earnestness. Life is so full of absorbing interests that it is easy to hear yet hear not. We sometimes forget what an enormous amount of good advice is given to young people and how difficult it would be to follow all of it. Yet I have seldom known a student in whom the combined circumstances of graduation—those to which I have referred and many more—did not produce an earnest and responsive mood, a mood which welcomed sincere and kindly advice. At such a time words of counsel are likely to sink into the heart as seeds into the upturned earth after a rain. Is it for this reason that we call in the wisest and most inspiring speaker we can find to say the very last words to those whom we send forth, conscious, as we always must be, how far short our best efforts have fallen of our high intentions?

There is in the heart of every young person who has any serious thoughts a desire that life may be lived worthily. Who can look forward with any satisfaction to being a drone in the world’s busy hive? Who can be content to count only as a cipher? “Each of us,” says one of our ex-Presidents, “unless he is contented to be a slumberer on the earth’s surface, must do his life-work with his whole heart.” Does not this strike a responsive chord in each one of us?

There is a phrase current in these days which began as slang, but which found so useful a place it is not likely to disappear. It is the phrase, “make good.” It is oftenest heard in connection with young people after they have left school or college for active life. Their anxious friends inquire, “Will he make good?” “Is she making good?” Unless I am mistaken there is more or less turmoil and anxiety in the minds of most young people—an anxiety seldom admitted to others and not always to themselves, lest they may not “make good.” The greater one’s longing to be of use, the greater, perhaps, the fear of inability to live up to one’s high obligations. How can one be sure of finding the opportunity to render the service one is eager to render? All departments of service seem already crowded; can it be that the world needs more workers? One must be peculiarly endowed with self-confidence who feels no misgivings on this score. Yet timidity never accomplished anything, and belief that we shall succeed is the first essential of success. Though the world presents an apparently solid front to the would-be worker, it is astonishing how quickly it makes a place for one who shows the qualities of perseverance and pluck. There is work for every one who is earnest and willing. Put out of your mind, then, every thought of failure, have faith in yourself and your own powers, and believe that your part in life will be a worthy one.

We must remember, in the first place, that what we are at any given time is only the beginning of our real selves, that is, of our realized selves. The self you seem to be is not you any more than yourself of five years ago was really you. We are constantly changing, never completed. Little do you know the power that may develop within you. To begin somewhere, somehow, doing what your hand or your brain finds to do and doing it enthusiastically and well, is a sure guaranty of that growth which begets larger opportunity.

To discover that opportunity, however, that vantage-point which determines future growth, is, in the case of many young women, not so easy as it seems. Few who are not brought close to the problems of large numbers of young women realize how much more difficult it is for them than it is for their brothers to find, immediately after graduation, conditions which are conducive to earnest, purposeful, and growing lives. Contrast a graduating class of young women with a similar class of young men. Look forward into the next few years and note the differences that are likely to exist in the conditions and circumstances of their lives. In the majority of cases the young man has already chosen his life-work and he hastens eagerly to it. Every stimulus to endeavor is furnished him. The world expects him to give up all else, if necessary, for that chosen work, and it is demanded of him that he succeed. He knows the rich rewards which come to the man who reaches the top of his profession or business. He may go to any part of the earth that will best suit his own purpose. Though he be an only son, or even an only child, he goes, and the world does not disapprove. To give up a promising career that loved ones might not be left lonely would seem, to say the least, quixotic. Has not the young man his own destiny to carve out?

All this is probably right. I am not finding fault with the world’s attitude toward its young men. I am not intimating that there is no difference between men and women, or that it is right or desirable that the average young woman should aspire to a “career.” I should like, however, to point out some of the obstacles that often lie in the way of her growth. How frequent are the comments upon the apparently aimless and purposeless life of some young woman who once was eager for growth and useful activity! I want to inquire what the world has done to make her life purposeful. Indeed, the probability is that if she has desired to engage in some definite work that she loved and believed worth while, a chorus of voices has gone up in protest.

Not all girls meet the same problems after graduation. In this respect there are to my mind three distinct classes. First, there is the girl who is well satisfied to settle down at home and to whom after a brief period there comes an early and a happy marriage. So far as we are concerned here, her problems are settled, and settled in an eminently satisfactory way. To such a girl one only wants to give the warning that to ensconce one’s self snugly in a happy home with one’s loved ones and forget the rest of the world is ignoble. There are too many bad homes in the world that need your touch, there are too many homeless people who need your hospitality. While the first and best service you can render is to create an ideal home, yet that home should be shared. One thing which all of us, from the greatest to the least, can do is to work for the betterment of the community in which we live. So long as there are bad laws or unenforced good laws, harmful sanitary conditions, wrong social influences, we should prove our good citizenship by making sacrifices for the public welfare. The woman without a business or profession is in a peculiarly advantageous position for giving the service those with less time at their disposal cannot render.

The second class of girls I have in mind consists of those who do not wish or need to settle down at home with little or nothing to do, but who crave a larger activity. I am not speaking of those who are genuinely needed at home. No girl with right instincts can be so cowardly as to desert in their need—and for her own happiness or supposed welfare—those to whom she owes most. Yet the need for her often seems to exist when it really does not. There is no family that would not be the happier for the presence of an affectionate and helpful daughter in the home. Increase in the family happiness alone, however, is not a sufficient excuse for stifling the desires of an eager and aspiring daughter. The family should make sure that her highest welfare, as well as their own, is being guarded. When the parents decided to give that daughter an education, they took an irrevocable step. Is it strange that now, with all her mental faculties developed and her heart awakened to the needs of humanity, those things which once filled her life can do so no longer? Parents who do not want to see in their daughter the development of new interests and new longings should not educate her.

How often have I heard the plea that the daughter was needed in the home when to the outward observer this need was much less than the daughter’s need of opportunity! Those who take it upon themselves to deprive a young woman of that form of growth, or of service which she most desires, should not be forgetful of her future. How many women have I seen who had given up exclusively to their parents the best years of their youth, letting the time slip by when they might have acquired proficiency in some special and satisfying work! Death finally stepped in and removed the objects of their love and the center of their life-interest, leaving them alone, with empty hearts and lives. Look about you and see how many women you can count up who belong to this class. I have often asked myself in such a case what it was the family received from this woman to justify the enormous sacrifice. I sometimes wonder how parents ever dare to run the risk of such a fate for a beloved daughter. The woman who does not marry should have some definite occupation as a permanent source of happiness and growth.