The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1905-09-15
LESSONS |. s )! D rs D|SlI|IK
CONQUER INERTIA AND STUDY
WITH ZEAL. s..~.

l
How SCHOOLGIRLS May Become Inter.
esting Women - Dorothy Enjoys
English, But Hates Mathematics
The Girl Who Never Can Re
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 reeite; il
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, a 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 a 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 we'll 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 fower'
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 a dusty lumber-room
full of rubbish. It 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 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 a beau
tlful 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 a fashion: for
tunately most girls have share of
common sense. Even reluctantly ac-
quired knowledge is better than none
at all.
y
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 English 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 a 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.
I don't think there is pleasure in
the world that can be compared with
an honest joy in conquering a 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 a good quality. But
better enc is downright, sturdy, dog
ged perseverance, that never lets 20,
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 it
for yourself.
You, Edith, who complain that you
cannot remember, that what you learn
to-day is forgotten tomorrow, may
change all that, if you will give your
attention to one thing at a time, and
let nobody disturb you: Some girls
are scatter Drained Don't be like
them. Fix your mind on single
word, single sentence, a single para
graph, and compel it to understand
that, and to remember it. Memory is
a slave to those who know how to
command it and make # nhev ~