And it is not fair-play to cram because of time lost, or for any other cause.  The only end of cramming is that the student soon forgets all that has been learned.  Alone by normal, slow acquisition and all the associations formed in such learning can information come to us to stay.  It may not be particularly wicked to cram if one has plenty of time to waste, but it is foolish unless one has.

There is a kind of gossip in which a girl takes part, made up of snap-shot judgments of the classroom, idle carping about some little unimportant point, expression of wounded vanity and unfair talk, which may mean a tremendous loss of prestige for a really admirable course; it may mean that girls, who would naturally go into it because of their liking or gift for the work, do not go or go in a critical and unsympathetic attitude.  If there is a complaint to be made about any course it should be made to the responsible person concerned, and that is usually the teacher.  Anything else is not fair-play.  In the classroom the instructor is the “coach” of the game and she is the person with whom to talk.  It is needless to say that if a girl is putting nothing into a course she cannot expect to get anything out of it, or to complain because things do not “go.”  If she wants them to “go” why does she not help, and have the profit of taking something away from the work as interest on her effort?  A girl gets dividends only from work into which she has put some brain-capital.

And the people at home?  Is it fair-play to them, when they are making sacrifices of money or of happiness to keep the daughter at school, for her not to put good work into her study and play her part faithfully in the classroom game?  So many things have to be taken into consideration of which we are not likely to think.  There is the girl herself, the other girls with whom she is working, the instructor, the people at home, the institution that is providing an expensive equipment or plant through the philanthropic efforts of others or the taxation of the public.  If the girl does not play her part fairly, there is a rather big reckoning against her, is there not?

VIII

THE RIGHT SORT OF LEISURE

The right sort of leisure ought to help as much in the development of the girl as the right sort of work.  If it is leisure worthy the name, it will bring refreshment; it will not leave one physically and mentally jaded.  Neither mind nor body should ever be exhausted because of the way in which freedom has been used.  Leisure is as important to work as work is to leisure.  A person who has not worked cannot appreciate freedom, while the one who has had no leisure is not best fitted for work.  “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy;” it is just as true that it makes Jill a dull girl.  The girl who works all the time, not realizing the importance of free moments, becomes fagged in body and mind.  She is a tool that is dull, and would do well to remember that even a machine is better for an occasional rest.