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Ballard, Danger to our Girls, [1900]
fallen from it. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell[A], of London, says, "The failure
of young women of any country to embody the beauty and strength of
virtue is one of the most serious evils that can befall a state." We will
not go over the history of the past to learn if we ever reached nearer
the perfect woman than we do now; we will accept the simple fact that
to day there are dangers surrounding the girls, and they are largely
growing into womanhood robbed of their power in integrity, selfreliance,
and reserve. We must try to learn what these dangers are,
and try to overcome them, and place in their stead those wholesome
influences about girlhood that shall help it to rise to the full tide of
womanly energy. We are convinced that these dangers do not come
as the natural outgrowth of civilization, and the expanding of the
opportunities of womankind. Indeed, enlarged opportunities, an
expanded life, should build up a larger character, should inspire
greatness of soul. The outlook for womanhood to-day should help to
hold it closer to the divine heart, and to the divine plan in the
upbuilding of character.
Dr. Sarah Hackett Stevenson tells us that "the childhood of this
generation is crying out 'Educate my mother.'" The childhood of the
next generation will cry in a still louder voice, unless certain traits that
are growing into the character of women to-day are uprooted, and
better ones implanted. We have learned in the study of heredity, that
any class of influences will in time develop a certain trait of character.
This is a blessed guarantee to us that if we are diligent in setting in
motion good influences, we may outstrip the evil and bridge over the
dangerous places. "It is ours to do; the results are God's."
We little realize how much the circumstances under which the
young girl comes into this life have to do in shaping her character; and
we do not sufficiently consider the strong bent given an individual life
during the period in which all its growth and all its impressions come
from the mother. To illustrate: in the character of women we have often
to deplore the frivolity, the extravagance, and the monstrosity in their
dress. How much of these traits were formed in those first months of
the young life, by the intense concentration of all the powers of the
mother-heart and brain upon the intricacies and minutiae of an
elaborate wardrobe? Not alone in houses of wealth, but among most
well-to-do people, how often we find the mother more absorbed in the
baby's outfit than in the qualities of heart and mind which she alone
can give it! Let me charge you with the words of Frances E. Willard:
"Put your wealth into the arteries, store it away in the brain cells and
heart fibres of your children."
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