As has been hinted in previous studies, the Sunday-school should lend valuable assistance in making the church a social center for the young people who need it. To be of real vital interest to the girl, the Sunday-school must touch her everyday life. It does that through the social side of its work. The organized class giving socials, entertainments, enjoying lectures and music, picnics, trolley parties, skating or camping has a decided influence for good on all the members. I know of one such organized class of girls eighteen and nineteen years old which met three times a month for an entire year. They met one week “for fun,” the next to “go somewhere,” or “to hear a talk,” or “to sew and read, and talk if we want to,” and the third for a “sing” to which they invited members of the boys’ classes. All these meetings were popular, well attended, and have meant a strong united class with a splendid spirit.
The girl in her teens needs the Sunday-school because of the help and uplift which its teachings are bound to bring to her. Even if she belongs to a class in its early teens which is given over to the giggles, to wandering thoughts, to all sorts of asides in more or less noticeable whispers, to the continual admixtures of the Bible lessons and the events of the week just passed or to come,—even though as is often the case with the American girl, she is thoughtless enough to forget to be either reverent or courteous, still it pays for her to come. She gets something,—often more than we think.
And the Sunday-school needs the girl in her teens. It needs her devotion, her enthusiasm and eagerness, her close touch with both the real and ideal in life, that it may keep its balance, stay in the real world of need, and not walk far afield by paths of theory. The Sunday-school has awakened to its need of the girl, and now at its door lies the task of making her feel more and more her need of it.
CHAPTER VII—HER RELATION TO THE CHURCH
The girl in her teens, in common with all humanity, needs the upward pull. Fresh air, suitable clothing, nourishing food, so desirable in all stages of her development, become, we have seen, an absolute necessity during her teens. If not supplied, her whole future is doomed to pay the penalty; and unless during the period of the awakening and strengthening of ideals, a steady, uplifting, spiritualizing force has a definite influence upon the rapidly changing and developing forces of her nature, the chances are that her whole future will pay the price neglect always demands. The steady, upward pull is a necessity.
There are so many things in life that furnish the downward pull. Even the more fortunate girl, who lives in her own home and spends the greater part of each day in the enlarging atmosphere of a good public school, feels the downward pull. In the most carefully selected of select schools, the girl, though guarded every moment, feels the downward pull of the petty, selfish and mean. The girl in her teens hard at work among the world’s toilers is painfully conscious of it in one or more of its many forms.
In the struggle between the higher and the lower—the upward and the downward pull—humanity finds its growth and development. If there is no struggle there is no strength. The girl in her teens does not know all this—her teacher does, and puts forth all her effort to strengthen the upward pull.
As we study and observe the girl in her development one question persistently follows us. To what shall we look for this upward pull? There are many answers: the home, the school, friends, good environment, the church. With the last we are especially concerned.