The average girl has some handicaps and some privileges, in some things she is easily led, she is often misunderstood, she has periods of being indifferent, she spends too much time following the dictates of fashion and too much strength endeavoring to have a good time, she means to do things that never get done, she has times of drifting, she has some high ideals to which she clings with more or less tenacity—­she is a combination girl.

The average girl is in many ways the most important member of society, for what the average girl is, that society is.  Society cannot be more generous-hearted, pure, altruistic, content and happy than its average girl.

I am thinking of two towns whose inhabitants number between three and four thousand.  In one, the girls are careless in dress, vulgar in speech, spend their evenings in the two dance halls and the cheap picture shows.  While still young girls they marry men who drink and gamble, start homes with practically no money, are poor cooks and housekeepers and know nothing about the care and training of their children when they come.

There are beautiful homes in that town and sweet, fine girls with the highest ideals.  There are wretched hovels in that town with wicked and criminal inmates.  But neither the girl with the highest ideals, nor the girl with the lowest, can stamp that town; neither the sweet, refined, cultured girl, nor the immoral and vicious one can stamp that town.  The average girl determines the character of it.

In the other town the girls impress every stranger with their cleanliness in dress and in speech; the streets are clean, the homes are simple and neat.  The girls spend the evenings in their own homes, in “The Center,” a house dedicated by one of the churches to the young people of the town for their enjoyment, in the one excellent moving picture establishment.  They have a debating society, a dramatic club, and do fine work in the gymnasium.  They marry young men of simple tastes like themselves, start their homes with at least the necessities, they know how to keep house and they make good mothers.

There are some girls of culture, some of wealth and fashion in the town, but they do not stamp it.  There are some immoral and degenerate girls in that town but they do not stamp it.  It is the average girl who leaves her imprint upon it.  Neither of these towns can get away from the impress of the average girl.

The first town has the licensed saloon and the factory owners have not the breadth of mental vision to see what good houses, fair wages and common sense treatment can do to build the character of the average girl.  The second town has never had a saloon, the owners of its factories and business houses live in the town and they have the keen vision which sees the value of good houses in which to live, fair pay, and opportunity for real recreation.  They have been able to raise the standard of the average girl, therefore the enviable record and character of the town.