The Girl and Her Religion | Page 5

at her and asking questions it scarcely
dares to answer; the corporation is looking at her, compelled to do so
often against its will; City Government, School Board, Board of Health
are all looking at her; women's clubs, whose individual members have
never given her a thought, are reaching out a hand to her; the Church,
whose part we shall study definitely later on, is looking more
practically and sensibly and with deeper interest than ever before; the
Young Women's Christian Associations are looking wisely and
intelligently, getting facts which speak with tremendous power and
showing them to the world. More than all this the handicapped girl is
looking at herself.

It has become in these days the passionate desire of those who see the
problem with both heart and mind, and are interested not in abstract
girlhood but in the individual, living, real girl, that the public
conscience be more deeply touched and stirred until it shall feel that by
whatever means the thing is to be accomplished, the bounden duty of
Church and State to give themselves to the task of solving the problem
is clear.
For in the midst of every problem--political, social, economic, religious,
there stands _The Handicapped Girl._ God help her--and us--for until
we have gained the wisdom to remove her handicap the whole problem
will remain unsolved. We are learning--every year shows a gain and in
this fact lies our hope.

III
THE PRIVILEGED GIRL
One finds her in all sorts of unexpected places. Last summer I saw her
in a home of wealth and luxury. She was fifteen, the eldest of a family
of four children. Behind her was a long line of ancestry of which
anyone might rightfully be proud. Her face was pure and sweet and her
eyes revealed the frankness and honest purpose of past generations.
After breakfast she played for the hymns at prayers and in a clear, true,
soprano led the singing. A twelve-year-old brother had selected the part
of the Bible to be read and the eight-year-old sister had chosen the
hymns. The father's prayer was simple and sincere and some of its
sentences were remembered for many a day. After prayers the girl
attended to the flowers. This was her work for the summer. I saw her
gather from their lovely garden dainty blossoms and sprays of green,
making them with unusual skill into bouquets for the Flower Mission in
the city. Then three small baskets were filled with pansies. These went
to three old ladies in the factory section of the village. She told me they
were "the sweetest old ladies" and "dear friends" of hers. She seemed to
take real delight in making the baskets beautiful. I saw her later in the
day galloping off through the woods on her horse, her face glowing

with health and happiness. In the afternoon she spent an hour on
German which she said was her "hopeless study," but I found her
reading German folk lore with ease. She was familiar with the best
things in literature, was intensely interested in art and revealed unusual
knowledge without any evidence of precociousness. She was just a
normal, healthy, natural girl, well-born, well-bred, a girl with every
advantage. When I said good-night to her in her lovely room and
thought of her protected, sheltered life, I wondered how she might be
helped to know into what pleasant places her lot had fallen and how she
might come to understand and do in later years her full duty toward the
other fifteen-year-old girl who that day made paper boxes, feathers,
flowers or shirtwaists, toiled in the laundries or the cotton factory, or
walked with heavy heart from place to place searching for work. They
are dependent upon one another, these two. They do not know it now,
but if each is to be her best, they must know.
How to lead her daughter to value and help this other girl, that sweet
mother told me as we talked in the library that night she felt was her
great problem. "We women are responsible for so much," she said,
"and our daughters will be responsible for still more. We must help
them estimate things at their right value." With that thought and spirit
in her mother's heart the girl I had watched all day with such pleasure
seemed doubly privileged.
Last September I saw another privileged girl. She showed me her trunk
packed for college. Every member of the family was interested in it,
perhaps most of all her father who had put into the bank that first dollar
on the day that she was born with the faith that what should be added to
it might one day mean college. Behind her was a long line of honest
ancestry, simple people who