Girlhood

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an excerpt from the INTRODUCTORY:

One day, when the schools broke up for vacation, there passed along the streets, towards the railway station, a carriage containing a party of young ladies who were taking leave of school for the last time. Sweet, young, wistful faces had they each; there was no laughing, no lightness. A quiet seriousness was on their countenances and in their hearts. They were grave, earnest girls, who knew how to think. They looked back upon their sheltered school-life a little regretfully, and forward to the completion of their education in the world a little timidly; but they all felt the importance of the occasion, and echoed the wish expressed by one of their number, " I hope we shall all do well with our lives."

The carriage passed four girls of about the same age. But these had left school some years before. They were poor, and belonged to the many thousands of English maidens who are compelled to work in order to live. They were on their way to a factory, where they were each regularly employed. You would have thought that those in the carriage and these on the pavement had very little in common, and yet their feeling was almost identical: for these also " hoped they should do well with their lives," and fully intended to try. With light, quick steps, with earnest, cheerful faces, forth they went to the work of the day. People might have pitied the hard lot which obliged these girls to work early and late for a livelihood, but it was impossible to feel toward the girls themselves anything but the greatest respect. Their appearance, and deportment, and entire bearing, convinced everybody that they were earnest, worthy, honourable girls.

Now, if these two classes comprised the whole of our English maidens what a happy land would be ours!
But, alas! there is another side. There are some girls who really do seem to give themselves up very much to giddy mirth and idleness. They have no stability of character, no soundness, no greatness. They are blown about hither and thither by every breath of flattery that happens to come in their way. Their whole thoughts are given up to pleasure. They have no reflection, no thought, no depth. Life's duties circle round them; but if they are compelled to do anything besides waste time, it is done with a very ill grace. They do nothing well. They are in a hurry to be unburdened and back to their pleasure-making again. And yet these shallow, superficial young persons never find the happiness they seek. That is most certainly monopolised by the thoughtful, earnest girls.


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Contents:

Introductory
The One Thing Needful
Home
The Mission of Girlhood
Womanliness
What May Be
Work
Pleasure Taking
Reading
Conversation
Friends
The Dignity of Self-Respect
Health
Submission
Happy Girls
Influential Girls
Courageous Girls
Generous Girls
Tender-Hearted Girls
Disagreeable Girls
Domesticated Girls
Honest and Dishonest Girls
Resolute Girls
Earnest Girls
Girls to be Trusted
Suffering Girls
The End of Life