Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 71.djvu/250

244 course. Often a collapse in school that seems inexplicable to the teachers is due to a pupil's adding an hour or two a day of piano-practise to an already full school course. It is worth while for the girl to take music lessons during the summer if she is within reach of piano and teacher; the discipline and regularity are a good thing during these weeks of complete freedom.

Many pupils suffer from eye-strain; every possible care should be taken at home to minimize this, both for the sake of the eyes and for the direct influence upon the mind and temperament. Study before breakfast is very likely to aggravate eye-strain; if there must be early study the pupil should bathe her eyes in cool water and take some food, that the congestion of the eyes may be relieved. A proper light lessens the fatigue of the eyes. By day the student should not face the window and at night her lamp should have an opaque shade. Often the change from a white to a dark-green shade relieves long-continued pain in the eyes.

Reference has been made to a girl's spending time "over her books" and the phrase is sometimes especially accurate. Instructors of college freshmen complain that boys and girls go through preparatory school without having learned how to study. The teachers may be responsible for a part of this, but there are some conditions that the most devoted teacher can not govern. She can regulate a pupil's work in school, but when much of the study must be done at home the home must help in establishing good habits of work. A student needs a well-lighted workroom reasonably free from interruption. It is not necessary that the window have an extended outlook; a girl is likely to establish herself for her afternoon's study where she can get a wide view of the street. With a little attention the daughter of the house may be helped by her surroundings at home to a concentration upon the work at hand that will lessen marvelously the hours that she must spend with her books and give her more time for recreation.

Elements internal and external, elements physical and mental, have been treated together in this discussion and inevitably so, for they are almost indistinguishably interwoven in the life of the girl. How much her health of body depends upon her health of mind no one can venture to say. One feminine characteristic becomes especially evident in the adolescent maiden which has considerable influence upon her health. This is the narrowness of mind that causes her to give undue importance to really minor elements of her life. She comes to believe that there are only two or three things in the world that are really important; if she is an only child she may decide that there is only one.

It is undoubtedly desirable that a girl stand well in her class and wear attractive gowns, but there are other things just as essential. When she sees that it is worth while to hold fast to "a taste for simple pleasures" and to promote the happiness of her family and community, and