But few know how to
center the social life in the home, in the out-of-doors, in clean
sports, instead of letting it center about exotic conditions,
unreasonable hours, and deadly refreshments. Only now and then does the
present social life demand any exercise of mental power.
It is wonderfully encouraging to find, here and there, groups of girls
of sixteen and their boy friends having their simple good times in each
other's homes, enjoying the picnic and the skating party; or the girls
by themselves enjoying camp life, the tramp in the woods, the gymnasium
class; or with their parents or chaperones enjoying the moving pictures
of high standard, without vaudeville. These girls are such a contrast to
the usual groups of sophisticated, bored, blase girls who at eighteen
have tired of the ordinary means of recreation and amusement. Our social
life suffers from too rapid growth. It does not offer the tonic for
healthy social nature. It needs pruning. Some of it needs to be torn up
by the roots.
And what of the schools? Can she find there the atmosphere that will
stir her soul to noble, unselfish joyous living? Yes, in some schools.
Many are engaged in merely continuing the "system," following a
curriculum strangely deficient in those things which touch life
directly, to inspire it and kindle it with ambition.
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