It is during this period in a girl’s life that she is most likely to chafe at restraint, to picture a wonderful life outside her home environment, and to demand the opportunity to make her own choice.  As she goes on through high school, she longs more and more for “freedom,” quite unconscious of the fact that what seems freedom in her elders is, in reality, often farthest removed from that elusive condition.  Her imagination is taking wild flights in these days.  Sometimes we catch fleeting glimpses of its often disordered fancies, although oftener we see only the most docile of exteriors standing guard over an inner self of which we do not dream.

The wise mother and the wise teacher are they whose adolescent memories, longings, misapprehensions, and mistakes are not forgotten, but are being sympathetically and understandingly searched for light in guiding the girls whose guardians they are.  They recognize once and for all that normal girls are filled with what seem abnormal notions, desires, and ideals.  They recall how little they used to know of life, and the pitfalls they barely escaped, if they did escape.  Thus only can they keep close to the girl in spirit and help her as they once needed help.  They respect her longing for freedom of choice and they teach her how to choose.  It is of little use to attempt to clip the wings of the girl’s imagination, however riotous.  The wings are safely hidden from our profaning touch.  Instead we must teach her to dream true dreams and to choose real things rather than shams.

[Illustration:  A study room.  The life of the adolescent girl is by no means bounded by the schoolroom walls]

At this time the girl’s life often seems to the casual observer to be bounded by her schoolroom walls.  As a matter of fact, however, school work appeals to her much less than it has probably done earlier or than it will do in her college days.  Dress is becoming an absorbing subject.  “The boys,” however little you may think it, are seldom far from her thoughts.  Intimate friendship with another adolescent girl perhaps affords an outlet, beneficial or otherwise, for the crowding life which is too precious to bear the unsympathetic touch of the world of her elders.  Or perhaps the girl becomes solitary in her habits, living in a world of romance found in books or in her own dreams, impatient with the world about her, feeling sure she is “misunderstood.”

What can home, school, and society in general do for the adolescent girl, that her awakening may be sweet and sane, that her future usefulness may not be impaired or her life embittered by wrong choice at the brink of womanhood?

Any wise plan for the training of girls “in their teens” must include provision for: 

  1.  Outdoor play and exercise.  In the country this is much more
     easily accomplished.  City problems bearing on this question
     are among the most acute of all concerning boys and girls.