Observation of the girl in class showed all that the young teacher had said to be true.  The girl took no voluntary part in the recitation and when called upon her usual answer was “I don’t know.”  I talked with her and she said she liked the teacher, she liked the school and her classmates.  She did not care about them especially.  She did not know whether she would go to high school or not; she “didn’t care either way.”  She did not know what she wanted to do when she grew older.  Her excuse for falling so far behind her record of other years and her unwillingness to recite was that she did not feel like studying and that she could not seem to remember what she read.  She said she felt well but she was growing very rapidly and did not seem strong.

I called upon her mother and learned that she was greatly concerned because of the changes in her daughter.  I was surprised to find, however, that she stated quite calmly that the girl’s appetite was not good and that she complained of being unable to sleep and of having “dreadful dreams.”  The mother had not consulted a physician.  She scolded the girl for being lazy and indifferent; at school the teacher reprimanded her constantly.  I urged the mother by all the arguments I knew to see a physician at once.  She said her husband seriously objected to one’s “running to the doctor all the time,” and that he thought the girl would come out all right.  If she did not “brace up pretty soon,” she added, they might “take her out of school and put her to work.”  During the winter the girl contracted a heavy cold and her indifference and apparent laziness increased.  The mother was finally enough impressed by our concern for the girl to take her to a good physician.  He found her to be in a very run-down state, in bad condition nervously, and really ill.

A year out of school, spent in a country town with her aunt, where she had the best of food, fresh air and exercise, cured this indifferent girl entirely.

Continual headache is often the cause of indifference, and eye strain or improper food the cause of the headache.  The first duty of those in charge of the indifferent girl, before passing judgment upon her, is to make sure that the physical condition is not at the bottom of the trouble.  Many a case of indifference and loss of spontaneous interest, which cannot be cured by punishment, by persuasion, by prayers or exhortation, can be cured by a wise physician.

Sometimes a girl becomes indifferent from lack of a sympathetic environment.  She feels that others do not care about her and that what she does makes no real difference to any one.  She may be surrounded by poverty, where the struggle to exist is so keen that there is no time to think of the girl and her needs, or she may have every luxury yet be denied the companionship of one who understands.