Another point for which the school looks in recommending its students is physical fitness, which shows itself in many different ways:  in voice, in carriage, in attractiveness, in staying power.  One teacher who had an excellent record as a student and was, besides, a fine girl, had so unpleasant and absurd a voice that her students were in a continual state of amusement and would learn nothing from her.  A great many teachers have lost in power because of a poor voice, strident, or lifeless, or husky, or falsetto.  A poor enunciation, or words that do not carry, are ineffectual means by which to reach a class, to hold a customer, or to introduce one’s self favourably to the interest of others.  For a girl who is going to have any part in public life—­and most girls do nowadays—­a good voice is an absolute essential.  And it is well for us to remember that the voice is not something superficial, but that it is the expression of that which is within.

Another way in which physical fitness shows itself is in the carriage.  A girl who carries herself with erectness and energy brings a certain conviction with her of fitness for many things, of self-respect, of ability, and reveals in her bearing something of her mind as well as of her body.  We are always tempted to think a person who “slumps” physically may slump in other ways.  A good carriage, good voice, and strong, clean, digestive system are far more important than beauty of features.

There is another matter at which the school in placing its students must look.  To be a desirable candidate for a good position a girl need not be expensively gowned, but she must be daintily and freshly dressed.  Immaculate shirt waist, a plain, well-made skirt, with good shoes, stockings and gloves and a quiet, pretty hat, are all any woman needs in meeting her business obligations.  And that daintiness which she shows in her dress she must show in her person too, in clean skin and finger-nails, good teeth, and smooth, attractively arranged hair.

It is very important for the interests of a school, as well as for the individual, to place its students advantageously.  To have them succeed widens its sphere of usefulness and influence and opens new channels of service.  Every college puts itself to considerable expense in looking out for the interests of its students, for the glory of a great school lies not only in the people whom it collects into its midst, but even more in those whom it sends out.  A girl has no right to go so lightly through her school life that she fails to see in it all the self-sacrifice and effort and ambitions that have gone into the building up of what is her privilege and opportunity.  In so far as she does this she fails in the team-play spirit.  Why should a girl think that she can spend her father’s money, or the means of her school, thoughtlessly?  What would happen to her if she did this with the funds of her basket-ball team?  Yet girls waste the resources of their school by carelessness with its property, a carelessness that collectively mounts up into thousands of dollars, and never once stop to think how difficult every big school finds it to make ends meet.