s my own.

The _ideal average_ girl is strong in body, is intelligent, believes in
God and strives to obey His laws. She is not afraid to work and she has
courage to meet hardships and loneliness if they come. She is interested
in pretty clothes, she wants them for herself, she has what she can
honestly afford and she spends time and takes pains to get the very best
she can for the money she has. She refuses to be extreme in style or to
make herself ridiculous or conspicuous. She likes fun, she enjoys
amusements and good times. She will not indulge in things of which her
parents heartily disapprove or which unfit her for work or study, and
which her own conscience tells her are doubtful. She loves friends and
companions and has as many as she can. She chooses carefully her
friends among the boys and men and lets neither word nor act lower in
the least degree their respect for her. She looks forward to the day
when she shall have a home of her own and fits herself to care for it
with intelligence and skill. She is honest, and faithful to the present
tasks. She is kindly, generous, helpful, cheerful, _just the sort of
girl one would like to live with every day_.

It is a high average, yes, it is _ideal_. But the fact that so many
girls are seeking that ideal, that so many against fearful odds are
pressing toward it, and that so many little by little are achieving it
fills one with hope. The fact that so many men and women who but a few
years ago were not concerned with either the needs or rights of a girl
are bending every energy to the task of setting her free from the things
that burden her, hold her back and make her suffer, fills one with
anticipation, for the things which touch the average girl are the things
which concern all who have great hopes and dreams for the future of our
land.

This chapter and all the chapters preceding are an appeal to the average
girl and those who love her to summon all their strength and raise the
standard of the average.

Let the average girl be the highest possible average, realizing the
important place she holds in the working out of all problems of right,
justice and public welfare and knowing that God must have had great
faith in the power and possibility of the average girl else He would not
have trusted so much to her keeping.

The world is grateful for the brilliant girl, for the gifted, the
talented, the beautiful; but without the average girl it could not live.
God bless