Chats with girls on self-culture

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. What is Self-Culture? i

11. A Word about the Body i8

I. What Is Self-culture?

ONE summer morning, long ago, I sat in a pleasant schoolroom and listened while a group of fine young girls in fresh, white dresses read their graduating compositions. One of them, whose eyes were clear and whose voice was earnest, had chosen as her subject the words of Jean Paul, — "I have made of myself all that could be made of the stuff." I have forgotten her composition ; but I think it must have been forcible, since after all these years I remember her dignity of bearing, and the impression of her motto has never been lost. It seems to me a worthy introduction to the subject of Self-Culture.

Self- Culture is the education which we give ourselves, or in other words, the culture of ourselves by ourselves. We have all kinds of material to work upon, and some of us have great help from others in our work, but we all have to do something. Even a princess, surrounded by teachers from the moment she is born, cannot be cultivated without doing a part of the work.

The help of others ought to be a blessing to us, and it is so in the case of real help ; but so much that is called help is not real, that those who are forced to rely on themselves often make the most complete men and women. Nevertheless the pronoun I is apt to have an unlovely character. Whoever is always saying, " I did it," '' I made this of myself," etc., is not very attractive. Those who have no culture but self-culture are so in danger of being one-sided in their development, that it is necessary to sound a note of warning to them at the very beginning of this little book. It is certainly our duty to make all we can of the stuff. We can often do this modestly by following the advice of our parents and teachers ; but when we are called upon to take counsel of ourselves alone, we have to concentrate our attention so much on ourselves that the result may be disastrous.

" Evelina's conversation is rather exhausting," said a lively young teacher. " On the train she explains the action of the engine, beginning with the fire under the boiler, and never stopping till the steam has passed off into space. Coming home from a concert she lets no one rest till she has pointed out all the visible constellations. At Plymouth the other day she insisted on relating the entire history of the Pilgrim Fathers, — that is, so far as she knows it ; and she always uses French when an English word would express her idea better. Of course it is beautiful that she is so devoted to her studies ! "

Now it happened that Evelina had had few home advantages. She had never known the principle of the steam-engine till she learned it in a book, and she was delighted to find she understood it. Her father and mother had never told her the story of the Pilgrim Fathers, and she naturally supposed it would be new to other people. As for French, she thought that only practice would make perfect, without realizing that such practice as hers would be likely to make her speech all the more imperfect. She was a well-disposed girl with a good mind. She would sometime be educated, so far as information goes, and perhaps after a time she would see that education-^ is something more than information.

It is well to have knowledge at our command, but not always well to inflict it upon others, especially if it is of a kind they could easily acquire for themselves if they had the wish. I knew a teacher so determined to avoid pedantry that she made it a rule never to correct any mistake made by others outside the schoolroom. Indeed, she often indulged in little colloquial errors herself, saying she would rather be ungrammatical than disagreeable. I should not be surprised if she went too far.

For why should we not take pleasure in telling others the things we know? Is it not amiable to do so? It is amiable to tell them what they wish to know ; it is even occasionally a duty to tell them what they do not wish to know ; but it is never either amiable or a duty to tell anything simply to show that we know it. The self-educated are most in danger of doing this. The girls who learn from cultured mothers and fathers by sharing the atmosphere of culture are not so likely to "show off" their acquisitions as those to whom such acquisitions are less a matter of course.

Culture of ourselves is an even more important part of self-culture than culture by ourselves. We must be glad of all the advantages of home and school, of friends and society and travel, which come to us without our own effort, and then we must make the most of all these.

But why do we wish to cultivate ourselves? Perhaps many motives are at work in us. It may be that some girl who takes up this book is smarting with a sense of injustice. She feels that she is looked down upon by those who are not her superiors. She has heard that knowledge is power. She has no one to help her, but she wants to learn how to help herself that she may win her way to a higher position in life. Well, the motive is not altogether bad, and yet it is not a noble one. I hope that every such girl will win her way, but I hope that her object in trying to cultivate herself will not be what is generally called success.

A great deal of self-culture comes from a desire to make an impression on others. This is especially so with women because in them approbativeness is large. But what an unworthy motive !

Some think of culture as a means of increasing the sources of happiness. This is right. We are happier when we have the full use of our powers. There is a never-failing glory and exhilaration in thinking new thoughts and discovering new truth which makes us happy in poverty, obscurity, neglect, and pain. Age does not dull the keenness of this pleasure. Young people are sometimes impatient because there is so much to learn, and the girls for whom I write may not realize that what I say is anything more than mere words ; but it is true that those who love the things of the intellect unselfishly find surprises of splendour waiting for them all along their pathway to the very end.

Sometimes the motive for self-culture is the hope of being of use to others. This is so lofty that I wish it were common ; but it is very rare.

I believe the true reason why we should wish to be all we may be is because the power to become so is put into our own hands. This is the little garden-plot which we have had given us to beautify. If we neglect it, there will always be one blot on the universe,

It would still be our privilege as well as our duty to "make the most of the stuff" if we were cast away on a solitary island and knew we were never more to see a human being. If we had any nobleness in us, we should still wish to keep our bodies clean and sweet ; we should still wish to think and feel truly though we could no longer tell the truth ; and to hold ourselves in the attitude of love though there was no one of our race to whom we could express our love. We could still love God and the humble creatures around us ; but more than that, our hearts could go out to those we should never see. If it were not so, if we failed here, we should also fail when living in the world.

Self-culture is never wholly for ourselves. Intellectual and physical culture may in a selfish person end with the individual, though even this is seldom true ; but moral culture cannot possibly end with self.

What is the end of self-culture ?

Perhaps we may turn to our catechism for the answer, — ''What is the chief end of man ? To glorify God, and serve and enjoy Him forever." But this is a general though a sublime answer, and we must have definite aims if we wish to bring our daily life into harmony with our highest conceptions.

What kind of women do we wish to be ?

A great deal depends on the answer to this question. I suppose that the girls who are most likely to read a book on self- culture are those who have an intellectual bent. Their first thought — at least in reading such a book — is how they shall make the most of their minds. And yet how few of them, if they stop to think, would be satisfied to be simply intellectual women !

I remember a girl who had an insatiable thirst for knowledge and a mind of wonderful power. She had germs of a noble character. She was upright and just. Terrible trouble came to her when she was very young. She had a desperate struggle with poverty, and the whole care of a chronic invalid fell on her delicate shoulders. She did her duty faithfully ; she fought her way through frightful obstacles ; she gained a thorough education, and became at last a learned woman. On the day when the news of the taking of Richmond roused the whole country, an enthusiastic friend rushed in upon her with the cry, "The war is over ! Lee has surrendered ! " " Has he?" repHed the young girl, indifferently ; "well, lam more interested in this new Hebrew grammar than in the war ! " There was so much that was heroic in her nature that she inspired respect ; but it was always sad to see her, not only because her circumstances were so hard, but because she missed so many of the best things of life.

I heard not long ago of a fine young fellow who asked, " After all, why do we care so much for culture when it only separates us from our kind ? " Certain forms of culture do separate us from our kind ; perhaps most of what is commonly called culture does this, but is that the culture we are striving for? I hope not.

Irma, the heroine of Auerbach's great novel, " On the Heights," writes in her journal : '' That is the point why our modern culture cannot take the place of religion ; religion makes all men equal ; culture, unequal. There must, however, some day be a system of culture which will make all men equal ; then only will it be the right and true. We are yet only at the beginning."

Shall I not describe to the girls who are to read this book the kind of woman I believe they wish to be?

They wish to be as strong and beautiful physically as is possible with the bodies which have been given them ; they wish to be clear-sighted and intelligent ; they wish for wide knowledge, — not to exhibit it, but to use it ; they wish to make their accomplishments a means of expressing beauty in their every-day lives ; to be refined in manner and still more refined in feeling; and, above all, to be sweet, fresh, truthful, modest, and — again, above all — large-hearted women.

It is not my province to say much of physical culture, but a girl who neglects it does so at her peril. Without it she will not only suffer bodily, but she can never be mentally or morally what she was meant to be.

Intellectually, it is best to lay broad foundations. I once heard of a young girl who studied Latin two weeks.

She said she just wanted to get an insight into it. I do not think she had a keen sense of humour. She was laughed at by other people ; but I have sometimes wondered whether her study was necessarily in vain. If she fancied she knew anything of Latin, then she was superficial ; but in two weeks an average scholar might easily learn something of the way Latin differs from English, and might in consequence look at many problems of language and literature, and even of history, more wisely.

A slight knowledge of a subject is not always a superficial knowledge. A lady who was a botanist spent an afternoon in explaining to a friend something of the structure of mosses, showing her especially how the whole kingdom of these exquisite little plants is dominated by the plan of four. " Oh," cried the enthusiastic listener, " I feel as if I had had a glimpse into a new world ! " One afternoon could not make the student a botanist, but it could give her large thoughts about plants.

I once heard a young girl give a reason for wishing to graduate from a good school, though she was poor, and sacrifices were required to keep her there for the last few months. " I know well enough," she said, " that another term in school will not ' complete my education ; ' but I have always thought I should like to take a full course of study and know a little of all the subjects which the older and wiser people who planned the course considered a necessary foundation for an education."

This careful laying of a symmetrical foundation is not like the feverish rushing from one thing to another which characterizes so many girls. '^ I am too busy to go to see you," said a friend on the street not long ago. " It is because I have my living to earn, and not because I am tearing round like mad after culture, like everybody else in Boston."

And now, how can we cultivate ourselves? It is the purpose of the following pages to make some practical suggestions in answer to this question. It is not my intention to present an exhaustive plan of self-culture, yet I have wished the outline of this little book to be somewhat comprehensive, because I feel that a one-sided development is an injury to any one. I think that the cultivation of the physical, the mental, and the moral natures should go hand in hand. There are some principles of growth which may be applied equally to all these three cases, others which can be best understood by studying them in connection with some special form of culture.

In this preliminary chapter I will speak of things essential to any self-culture, whether of the body, the mind, or the heart.

A wise normal- school principal was accustomed to begin his instructions to his pupils by telling them that

WHAT IS SELF-CULTURE? II

the first requisite in getting an education was to be teachable. Nobody can help a scholar whose attitude is that of self-sufficiency. No one learns from even the best teacher without being willing to learn. Any instructor will tell you that when a class is made up of indifferent scholars, it is impossible for him to treat the subject of the lesson in the most interesting way, no matter how conscientiously he may try. On the other hand, there are pupils so full of eagerness to be taught that even a commonplace teacher feels a glow of inspiration with 4;hem, and thinks of a thousand new illustrations to make the subject clear. " I always enjoy any class when Miss Frost is in it," said a teacher. " She is not brilliant, but she is so interested in all I say, that I feel like saying the best things." I have heard of a lady who loved poetry who would never teach literature to her pupils because they were so unappreciative that she said she felt as if it would desecrate any poem to mention it to them. No doubt she was partly to blame herself, but you see how each one may be in a measure responsible for what others give to her.

Even if a teacher's ardour were not influenced at all by the carelessness of the listeners, yet no one will learn who is not wilHng to be taught. If we think that we know already everything worth knowing, we are not likely to add much to our knowledge. If we approach the very humblest of our teachers in a spirit of criticism, we do not get from such an one even the Httle which might be given us.

Some one may fancy that teachableness is not necessary in self-culture ; but it is more important for those who must work much alone than for others who have pastors and masters appointed them, because those who have few to help them are most in danger of relying on their own narrow view of a subject. No one is so unfortunate as to be entirely without teachers. At the very worst we can still turn to books with a teachable spirit. But as a matter of fact, any one who is teachable can usually find a teacher, though not always in the formal sense of the word. For instance, an ill- educated young girl thinks she would like to speak better EngHsh, but she cannot go to school. Now, she probably knows some one who speaks well. Perhaps it is her rector, or her employer, or even some companion. If she chooses to pay attention to this friend's manner of speech, she is sure to improve, though the friend may be quite unconscious of giving any help. Suppose she would like to know something of literature, but cannot buy books. She is undoubtedly acquainted with somebody who would be glad to lend her a volume of Shakspeare, and until she has learned that by heart, she need not be troubled by her narrow surroundings.

Most of us, however, are not reduced to such extremities, We have a wealth of opportunity to choose from ;

and it must never be forgotten that those who have every advantage that money can buy, and all the cultivated friends and teachers who work directly and indirectly in their behalf, still have the duty of self-culture laid upon them even more imperatively than their less fortunate fellow-creatures. The young girl who sits through a classical concert with the utmost propriety, but who spends her time in examining the bonnets of her neighbours, or in thinking over the last party, gets no culture from the music, though she may be able to discuss the performers, and say that the soprano had a voice like a steam-whistle, and that the piano was out of tune. A poorer girl who could not go to the concert may envy her, and wish that she too were a connoisseur, but that is simply because she does not know what she is envying. Unless we use our opportunities, we have not the spirit of culture, and any true growth is impossible.

Teachableness, however, is not the only quality essential to self-culture. We must know how to choose our teachers. That means that we must be self-reliant, — and for a moment some one may think that this spirit is exactly opposed to teachableness ; but self-reliance is not self-sufficiency.

We are not all capable of choosing the best teachers. A little child, for example, has not much judgment. Some of us never can depend on our own judgment. It is right that we should be modest. If we have good reason to think that one of our friends is wiser than we are, we must take counsel of that friend. Nevertheless, if we cannot choose our teachers well, it may sometimes be a positive disadvantage to us to be teachable. To illustrate : there was once a young girl with a great musical endowment. She lived in a village where there was little musical culture. She took some lessons of an agreeable young lady who was considered the best musician in the place. By and by she found her voice failing unaccountably. She decided to go away to a distant city and study with a distinguished master. The master told her that all she had hitherto learned was a hindrance rather than a help to her, for her teacher had not understood the need of correct breathing, and she had formed bad habits. The young girl went to work with a will to overcome her faults ; but after she had been struggling a long time, her master told her one day very gently that he had never had a pupil whose faults were so ingrained, and who would require so much time to eradicate them. " If you had not been so determined to do your best, and to follow your teacher's directions exactly," he said, "you would never have learned these false ways so thoroughly ! " Then they both laughed, but the pupil could not help crying at the same time. " Suppose I should be making the same kind of a mistake again?" she said roguishly. "Sure enough," said the master.

" Well, think the matter over, and see if you can't decide for yourself whether to follow my directions." She thought for a while and then said, " When I was at home, I always felt tired after a lesson, and I grew more and more tired as time went on ; but with you I find it is easier and easier to use my voice. So I think I shall risk doing exactly as you tell me."

Every one of us must love the girl better for her faith in her first teacher and her zeal in obeying her. She certainly gained in moral culture by her docility, for she had chosen the teacher she believed to be best. Still her want of discrimination had involved a great loss musically. In this case it was inevitable. No one could expect a young girl under the circumstances to do better.

I have before said that we could not get the best which even the humblest could give us by approaching the teacher in a spirit of criticism ; and yet we must exercise some criticism or we shall always be following blind guides. How can we reconcile these two facts? It seems to me we must choose the teacher we believe to be best and then give him a fair chance. If he tries to explain something to us, let us try to understand, instead of wondering if some one else could not ^o better. When he has done all he can, and we have done all we can, and still we have not mastered the difficulty, we must seek for another teacher. We must, however, be modest enough to acknowledge that the fault may be in us.

j Yet it may be in the teacher. Perhaps you may say that this was substantially what our little singer did, and that she suffered in consequence. That is true. It is not given to most of us to learn our lessons without suffering. But her docility proved a gain in the end. For though it took her so long to conquer her faults that many a fellow-student less highly endowed outstripped her at first, yet her habit of persevering work enabled her to overcome at last; and then this same habit gave her the power to learn true methods of singing with the same thoroughness, so in the end she did make of her superb voice " all that could be made of the stuff." A friend of hers who took life very easily, and who practised or not according to the mood, seemed for some years to be a much more successful musician ; but her careless habits always went with her, and she never became really great.

We do want the best teachers in everything. It is a very delicate matter to know how to choose them ; but the first essential is to desire the best. Our power of choosing is the measure of the degree of culture we have reached. Of course those of us who have had few advantages will make a great many mistakes ; but there is one direction in which we need not make mistakes. We always win a moral victory when we try to do the best, even if we are mistaken in what we do.

There must be many girls who have already realized that in every effort to nourish the moral nature there is

WHAT IS SELF-CULTURE? \J

unbounded help from an unseen power. There must be many who are surprised to find so much help when their own efforts are so weak and few. If there are some who do not yet know this truth from their own experience, I cannot prove it to them. But we can all prove it to ourselves, by making such an effort ; for then we always touch a chord which vibrates through the whole universe. The help waiting for us is so mighty that our feeblest aspiration is never without a response.

II. A Word About The Body

THE girls who are willing to read a volume on Self-culture are the very ones most likely to need bodily culture. Yet I shall not say much about it here, partly because other volumes of this series deal with it more fully, and partly because special training is often needed to counteract special defects, and this calls for a physician or a gymnast.

I cannot omit the subject altogether, however, for it is of vital importance ; at least, it is necessary to be well. Moral culture, it is true, is possible, though difficult, for the most helpless invalid ; but intellectual labour demands a sound body. A girl who knows she is injuring her health by study must be willing to restrain her ardour ; if not, she will become a burden to herself and to everybody else, to say nothing of the fact that she will not even accomphsh her object. It would be a good plan, however, for her to make sure that it is work which is hurting her. I do not think young people often over-study ; but many school-girls are careless

A WORD ABOUT THE BODY. I9

about taking proper food or exercise or fresh air; and many more ruin their health by parties and late hours ; while there is, alas ! a large class who study selfishly, from ambition alone, who worry so much over their lessons that every one takes it for granted that the lessons themselves are injurious. If you study with the true aim of making "the most of the stuff," it is easy to be serene, even when the stuff proves cotton instead of silk ; or, to drop the metaphor, when you find that your faithful efforts still leave you at the foot of your class. If you mean to make the most of yourself, it will be easy, too, to give the body its due share of attention.

Those of us who are born invalids must bear our cross patiently, but those of us who begin life well are usually to blame if we do not continue to be well.

I must insert a word here for the sake of the poor girls who have but a limited time to study, and who believe that if in that time they fail to gain a diploma, or to set some other definite seal upon their work, it may change their whole course of life. Their temptation is great. With care in other directions, they may be able to study as much as they hope to do ; but if not, still it will not do to give up health. It would be better to work in a factory all one's days with a healthy body, and the sunny spirit which is apt to accompany it, with a love for books and a determination to make the most of spare minutes, than to take honours at college, and then, breaking down, to become a querulous invalid for the rest of one's days, — though I do not mean that I look on a factory life as either agreeable or healthful in itself.

As most of us cannot be even well without care, the preservation of health certainly forms a part of the subject of physical culture ; but from culture, in its strict sense, we always hope for improvement. Can we improve our bodies, or must we accept them exactly as they are given to us? I am inclined to think the body can be improved. The great trouble is, that after we reach full maturity physical change is almost impossible ; and where are the old heads on very young shoulders necessary if there is to be any improvement in early youth? Luckily, there are often parents and teachers at hand to guide, and docility is a virtue generally admitted to be a peculiar ornament of a young girl.

Moreover, some change is possible even for older people ; probably more than we think, if we only had the heart to try for it. For instance, statistics show that the brain measurements of the uneducated do not increase after the age of twenty-one, yet they do so perceptibly among college students. If exercise can affect the brain, why not other parts of the body ?