The Girl and Her Religion | Page 9

heart. Her playground had
been the street. She had enjoyed boisterous good times, had patronized
moving pictures of every sort, had entered into the mischief of "the
crowd" always close to the leader. In a pathetic letter to one of her
chums she said that at the very first opportunity she should run away
and be with them all again. She characterized the beautiful suburb with
its neatly kept lawns and pretty homes as "a dead old hole" from which
she 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