oung travellers, for, he said, "They
go too raw to make any great remarks." Travelling, if it is what it
should be, is an educational opening. In this way can be gained a
background for history, for literature, for sociology, and a vivid and
living knowledge of geography. Merely running about with a guide-book
will not achieve these ends, although a guide-book is a very important
asset: sympathy, trying to understand what one sees, will. Travelling
takes away provincialism because it broadens the outlook. In a very real
sense the world becomes one's home.
The girl who is not able to move about or actually travel may travel in
books. She should be ashamed to read what is harmful or merely cheap,
but further than that it may not much matter. Let her read the Little
Books, if she wishes, and the Great Little Books. As surely as the
magnet swings towards the pole will the Great Little Books take her to
the Great Big Books. She will be drawn on and up in her reading, and
will have cultivated a love for reading which is far more important than
perfunctory knowledge of the classics.
Just as any books that are good point towards books that are better, so
should the good work of a girl's school year be turning her mind towards
the future and her work as a mature woman. In the summer she has time to
assimilate all she has done, to get her bearings, and to plan wisely for
the year, or years, to come. For a girl of strong physique the summer
vacation gives an opportunity to add towards what she is going to do
eventually; to specialize in some line of work, to take a library, or
scientific, course. Many girls, however, who wish to spend their summer
in this fashion ought not to consider it, for they are not strong
enough. It is well for them to remember that it is the quality of work
that counts rather than the quantity. Often the quality of a girl's work
for an ensuing school year depends upon her freedom from study during
the summer. Students should be very sure, if they undertake work in the
summer, that it is not done simply from a nervous desire to go on
regardless of the quality of the work done. But for those in perfect
health this is an opportunity to try their powers in different ways in
order to discover what it is they really wish to do. A summer so spent
may keep many a girl from slipping into teaching just because it seems
the only thing she can do. Such a salvation will be twofold, for it will
save not only the girl
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