The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1905-10-07

member-The Girl Who Can't Rea-
son-How One Miss Acquired e
Foreign vocabulary-school Prizes
If You've Too Many Studies,
Drop the Ones You Like.
BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER.
Copyright. 1905. by Joseph B. Bowles.)
Some girls dislike all lessons. They
would shed no tears If they never
again had to memorize or recite; If
lessons were left wholly out of their
calendar from this time onward.
hope you do not belong to their COM
pany, or that if-you do, you will make
haste to leave it.
There was Molly Sue, girl knew
when she was 16, pretty, soft-man-
nered, sweet-voiced, but, oh! so lazy!
She drifted through successive schools
without learning anything. always
playing the role of good natured,
irresponsible shirk. Her kittenish
ways and dainty sweetness won her
far too many excuses from her teach
ers, and among her friends the feel
| ing was well expressed by an artist,
who said: molly Sue does not need
to know anything. 1t is quite enough
to look at her, as one looks at a per-
feet flower"
| But Molly Sue did not stay 16! She
grew out of girlhood as you will, too,
and after awhile people forgot to no.
tice her when she was in the room
with those who had brains and ideas.
The perfect beauty faded. She be-
came a withered rose. The vacant
mind was like dusty lumber-room
| full of rubbish. 1t was all the great
er pity, for if somebody. had taken
Molly Sue by the shoulders and
shaken her out of her Incidence when
she was a schoolgirl, she might have
| grown up an interesting woman.
1t is your positive duty, dear girl,
to so train mind, heart, will and dis
position that you shall be neither.
stupid, silly, insipid nor tedious when
you are older. An interesting woman,
clever, enthusiastic, keen and respon-
sive, is more to be desired than beac-
tiful woman; and is more attractive
| in her home She will more deeply
| impress society.
OF course this girl was an excep-
ton. Most girls conquer their in
ertia and study after fashion; for
tunately most girls have share of
| common sense. Even reluctantly ac-
quired knowledge is better than none
at all.
What l want to urge upon you is to
put the emphasis of your efforts on
the studies you don't like. We all
have studies we love, and it is easy
to pursue them. For instance, Dor
othy, who enjoys her Engl sh work,
finds no difficulty in keeping at the
head of her class, but when the ques-
ton is of mathematics she gropes
about in the dark. If you will glance
over your classmates, you Will have
no trouble in picking out halt dozen
Dorothys Some of them come out
splendidly in history and are dull in
physics; some shine in Latin. and
cannot tackle the simplest algebraic
problem. The point for every such
girl, don't you think, is to spend
strength and time and really hard
/ work on the book, the subject, the
situation, that she has no particular
aptitude for? The things one likes
one acquires without painstaking. but
it is painstaking that rewards one in
the end.
l don't think there is pleasure il
the world that can be compared with
an honest joy in conquering diff
cult task. 1t is by hard work over
what one does not enjoy that one
gains that mastery of the will and
facility of the mind that make the
true distinction between the educated
and the uneducated person. Natural
cleverness is good quality. But a
better enc is downright, sturdy. dog
ged perseverance, that never lets o.
once it has started on any line OF
work.
A schoolgirl should take stock OF
her own capacity. There is an old
story of a preceptress who wrote to
the rich parent of very dull pupil
that his daughter lacked capacity
Buy her one Immediately" tele
graphed the man of affairs Alas!
gold cannot buy capacity. No outsider
can give it you. But you can buy il
for yourself.
You, Edith, who complain that you
cannot remember, that what you learr
to-day is forgotten tomorrow, may
change all that If you will give your
attention to one, thing at tine, and
let nobody disturb YOU Some girl!
are scatter-brained. Don't be lik,
them Fix your mind on a single
, word, single sentence, single para
graph, and compel 1t to understand
, that, and to remember it, Memory Il
q slave to those who know how tt
command it and make 1t obey.
You, Rosamond. who have no trou
Bile about memorizing, but whose hard
ship is that you cannot reason, tina
| 4