Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls | Page 6

occupation open to
you on every hand, and society smiles and approves if you work at
something to win independence and make money. It is scarcely
necessary to remind you that in order to do effective paying work you
must choose some specialty and acquire skill in its exercise before you
can hope to earn any considerable wages or salary. While perfecting
yourself in the specialty you will have abundant opportunity to observe
that it takes patience, perseverance, and determination, to do any kind
of work well. One great reason why so many fail of making any
success in life is that they have not the power of sticking steadily to
their work. They get tired, and want to stop; whereas the true worker
works though he is tired--works till it doesn't tire him to work; works
on, unheeding the numerous temptations to turn aside to this or that
diversion. There are now so many fields of honorable and profitable
employment open to young girls that it is only necessary for you to
choose what you will do. But make a choice to do something useful and
worthy of your powers. You will be happier, and you will be a better
and nobler woman, for so doing. You will be spared the discontent and
restlessness of spirit which characterize the girl with nothing in
particular to do, and who often becomes on this account a nuisance to
all earnest people around her.
In order to fulfill aright the duties of any relation of life, the first
requirement the greatest necessity, next to a firm resolution and will, is
good health. Without good health there is no substantial foundation for
anything earthly. Good health is the fountain of human enjoyment and

the greatest of earthly riches. It is the great beautifier; it is the great
preservative of good looks. How strange, then, that so many girls are so
careless, so provokingly careless, of this priceless blessing! How
strange that they will wear clothing that they know tends to break down
their health; tight corsets that compress the lungs and spoil the natural
shape of the body; tight shoes that interfere with the circulation of
blood, and make their noses and hands red, and give them
predisposition to colds and coughs and nervous headaches, all of which
put to severe tests the patience and affection of those around them.
Good health is always attractive; ill-health, invalidism, nervousness,
are very apt to be repellant. Better good health than beauty, if one were
obliged to choose--which one is not, for good health is one of the chief
elements of beauty.
So, if you aim first to be good and kind and intelligent and industrious
and skillful, so that you may be fitted to guide and adorn a home should
you be blessed with one, or to be fitted to shape your life to usefulness
and independence if you never have a home of your own, and if in
connection with these aims you seek to obtain and preserve good health,
you will, so far as this life is concerned, "be thoroughly furnished unto
all good works." You will become a noble woman, whose adorning will
be not alone of the outward appearance, but of the inner life and of the
soul--an adorning which, according to St. Paul, "is in the sight of God
of great price."

LETTER IV.
PERSONAL HABITS.
My Dear Daughter:--The power of winning love and friends, which is
such a precious possession to all young people especially to young girls,
will, in connection with good behavior and good manners, depend very
largely upon certain personal habits, chief among which are order,
neatness, promptness, and cheerfulness.
The girl or woman who is personally disorderly and untidy in her room

and dress puts a great strain upon the patience and affection of all those
associated with her who are possessed of refined and cultivated tastes.
In fact, I believe there is nothing so disenchanting, so contrary to ideal
young womanhood as a lack of neatness and tidiness in person and
dress. This wonderful physical organism with which we have been
endowed depends for its perfection and health and attractiveness upon
the care we give it. The teeth, the hair, the complexion, are all
dependent for their beauty--and it is quite right that we should strive to
make them beautiful--upon constant attention to those conditions which
insure their health and perfection. And the most important of these
conditions is cleanliness. At the present time, no young girl can hope
for recognition or welcome in refined and cultivated society, upon
whose teeth tartar and other discoloring deposits are allowed to
accumulate; whose breath is not pure and sweet; whose hair is muggy
and untidily kept; whose finger nails are neglected and dark at the
edges. These