The Girl and Her Religion | Page 9

could not wait to escape. Still, her aunt's home, the new wardrobe containing the lovely dresses, becoming hats and coats, for which she had always longed, tempted her to remain. One day, early in October, her classmates made the discovery that she could sing. She had quite a remarkable voice for a girl of her age. The teacher of music became her interested friend and found she could play unusually well, though mostly "by ear." The leader among the girls who "adored" any one who could sing adopted Leonora as her special friend. The new wardrobe added greatly to her attractiveness, and her aunt's social position opened many doors for her. Her new friend's mother was pleased with her daughter's choice of a companion despite the lack of good breeding and lapses in English.
Leonora became the obedient and devoted follower of the new girl friend and the influence of the music teacher was indeed remarkable. Almost as by magic Leonora dropped the coarse slang, loud talking and shouting of her companions, who in the city had been termed "wild" and adopted the ways of the new leader. At the end of two years it would have been quite impossible to recognize in the pretty, interesting, well-mannered girl of sixteen, who sang so sweetly, the uncultured, ill-mannered, slangy girl of fourteen.
Leonora was so easily led that it was not a difficult task or a great accomplishment to have so transformed her. If she remains until she is eighteen or twenty in her present environment, the chances are that the good friend, Habit, will have determined the way that she shall go. If she should now drop back into the old street, the old companionship, the place which until her father's death he had tried with her help to make a home, the chances are the old voice and manner, the old slang and old interests would return.
For a girl of Leonora's type the impress of the right environment, the guidance of the right hand, means everything. To discover such girls, to open the way for the working of new friendships, which shall furnish new leadership for them, is a fine task and a great pleasure for the lovers of girlhood.
But so impossible is the task of attempting, through the individual, to touch the great mass of girls who are easily led, that one can work effectually only through the individual effort plus the law. It must be made "to go hard" with those who, for selfish ends and financial profit, plan to take advantage of the weak will and trusting, unsuspecting mind of the girl who is easily led.
Most of the girls in their teens, who are walking in evil ways, are there because they have followed friends and companions. There are girls who have blazed the way to paths of evil for themselves, but they are comparatively few. Any court, or school for delinquent girls, which contains a sympathetic man or woman to whom the whole truth may be poured out, will testify that somebody led the way. When allowance is made for the tendency to lay the blame upon other shoulders, the facts bear out the testimony that there has been a leader. The girls who by nature are weak of will, and have had no training which could tend to strengthen or develop that will, must be protected, and that protection must be furnished by the community. It may be furnished by putting the welfare teacher into the school; by making the street on which so many girls find companionship as safe as possible; by driving professional leaders of the unsuspecting and easily led from all places of recreation and amusement; by helping parents, especially those parents, who, themselves born across the sea are attempting to bring up daughters in the new land, to see and understand the dangers; and by making it a real crime to lead the easily led astray.
But this is not enough. Perhaps the greatest steps toward the safe-guarding of the easily led were taken when the carefully supervised public playground and the school gardens were started and the women police were sent out into the streets of cities.
A strong, wise, sane woman who is neither a prude nor a crank can do more toward preventing the first steps into forbidden ways than those interested in great city problems have yet dreamed. The day will come when these women will make the arm of the law an efficient friend of the weak and unprotected girl and give all the positive, helpful agencies an opportunity to strengthen her against temptation.
I shall never forget my visit that Sunday afternoon to a detention school for delinquent girls. Over in the corner of the room where the afternoon service was to be held was the piano, the orchestra,