What now?" Sometimes with
bitter tears, often with deep regret, always in half guilty fashion the
girl answers, "Well, I really meant to do it, only--"
If the drifting girl who "meant to" is to be strengthened in character
she must be helped to substitute "I have done it" for "I really meant to
do it."
The girl who continually "means to" and seldom "does," is usually
emotional, responsive, lovable and irresponsible. I remember a most
interesting teacher in the last year of the grammar school who had just
such a girl in her room. The girl admired her teacher greatly, and
whenever she expressed the desire to read a new book, to have the class
see a fine picture, to use certain material for the lesson in drawing or
painting, the girl promised that the book should be brought, the picture
would gladly be loaned by her father, the poppies or tulips she would
get from her garden. Almost never was the promise fulfilled, still she
continued to promise. One afternoon her teacher talked with her after
school and showed her a list of twenty-one things she had promised to do
and had not done. "I know you do not mean to be untruthful, but you
are," the teacher told her. "Whenever you promise now to do a thing, the
other girls smile. You wanted to be chairman of the luncheon committee
the other day and did not receive a single vote, not because the girls
dislike you, but because they cannot depend upon you.
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