When for a moment one remembers the girl in her teens, the long line that lives in the memory from those just thirteen up through the sweetest and prettiest at sixteen, to the beautiful, graceful, and dignified ones just twenty, it makes a picture hard to equal.

There is such evident joy in just living! When one catches a glimpse of the groups in their light dresses, with hair ribbons of every size and color according to the wearer’s interpretation of the latest fashion, wending their way to the high school, he feels that life is indeed a glorious summer morning. Though sighs and complaints may be heard over lessons too long and too difficult, they are not very deep, and are soon forgotten; though low marks do make very serious students with minds concentrated on work for a few days after report cards are out, yet with the majority the depression is short-lived, and life is sunshine once more.

When as whistles blow and factory gates swing wide, one catches a glimpse in the early morning of the girl in her teens going to work, he hears snatches of happy laughter and jesting. No matter how hard the work, it cannot crush out the laughter in the heart of the girl in her teens; the good times after work is over or at the week end when she puts on her ribbons and gay attire make easier the crash of machinery and less painful the aching muscles.

The girl in her teens is glad she is alive, and her evident and keen enjoyment of a world which some of her elders have found hard and a little disappointing does more to cheer and brighten the dull gray of the commonplace than she knows, or than we stop to remember.

As we think of this long procession of the girl in her teens which memory can so easily recall, and then see in imagination the host of those who call themselves her teachers, we are tempted to cry, “Her teachers! What manner of beings are they who pretend to instruct, enlighten and guide all this energy, this fascinating line of possibility and promise!”

It is easy to write or speak of the “ideal” teacher for all this fresh young life, filled with inexpressible longings for success and happiness. But the study of the very human and very real teacher, ideal only in the highest sense, in that she is struggling after perfection, will be much more practical and helpful to us.

Should the teacher of girlhood in the years of the teens ever be a man?

Yes, there have been many fine, successful teachers whose strength and manly qualities, whose sincere devotion to Christ and his teachings, have had a lasting influence for good upon the girl in her teens.

It is a good thing for the girl to see the world and its relation to moral and religious life through the eyes of a far-seeing man. It is a help to her to get his mental grasp of situations as from week to week they follow together the life of Christ and his teachings or seek to understand the characters of Old Testament days.

A fine man’s frankness, sincerity, and general freedom from the annoyance of little things prove a stimulus and a help to the girl. It is almost unnecessary to say that he must be the right sort of man, large-hearted, strong, and free from all suggestion of the “goody-goody.”

However, it has been my experience that while a man makes a most efficient teacher for the class during the hour of the Sunday-school session, he cannot guide and influence a girl’s life in the everyday as can the right sort of woman. Unless he has a home and a wife thoroughly interested in his work, or herself active in the work of the Church, he can do little in a social way during the week. If he is a successful, hard-working man he has little time to think of the girls or their needs except on Sunday, and unless he is a man of wide experience or has daughters of his own he does not understand girls, and must perforce deal in generalities.

In this matter, as everywhere in life, there are exceptions and no hard and fast law can be laid down, but my experience thus far has been that, all things considered, a womanly woman is best fitted to meet the many needs of the girl in her teens.

She must be a womanly woman, else she will have forgotten her own girlhood days and cannot come near enough to the girl in her teens to appreciate her need, nor will she have the personality that wins her confidence and love. The cold, hard, mechanical sort of woman one occasionally finds in charge of a class of girls is not the one whose influence will be felt in the years to come.

We have seen again and again in previous chapters that the teacher of the girl in her teens must be in love with life. If she has found it hard, she must not let that embitter her. The fact that she has met hardships and conquered them, has met sorrow and it has only deepened her sympathy and broadened her outlook on life, makes her a real inspiration to the girls who meet her each week.

I am thinking now of such a woman, into whose life one heavy sorrow after another has come. At thirty she is alone in the world, having lost in ten years parents, husband and two children. Yet there is no bitterness in her life. She is not in any sense a cynic. More than twenty girls, from sixteen to nineteen years of age, who make up her class, leave the presence of that sweet, strong woman with her tender, sympathetic spirit, and her calm, steady faith, able all the week to live better, more wholesome lives because they have been with her for one hour. She never speaks of herself, but often of courage, of hope, of making the best of things, of giving all one can in service to the world, of unselfish, cheerful living, and the girls listen and believe that all she says is true and possible.

The teacher must be an optimist. She is not self-deceived, she sees the faults of the girl in her teens. She is conscious of the thoughtlessness, the utter lack of courtesy, the love of the extreme in everything, and the greater faults of insincerity and pretense that characterize to so great an extent the girlhood of to-day. But while she is pained she is not dismayed. She is a good diagnostician. She examines her individual patients, finds the weak places, discovers the cause of the disease, and then goes to work systematically to eradicate it, trusting to the normal, unaffected organs and tissues to aid in restoring perfect health. She believes in and uses preventive measures and they pay.

The teacher must herself be an example in thoughtfulness and courtesy, respectful to those higher in office, and willing to co-operate with, instead of criticizing, those who have plans by which they hope to add to the efficiency of the school as a whole.

None of these things are lost upon the keen-eyed girl in her teens; indeed, the teacher’s dress, even the condition of her gloves, makes an impression and has an influence.

It has become a truism that to be successful in teaching one must know the pupil; yet only last week I met a teacher anxious for a new course of study which would interest her class of girls sixteen and seventeen years of age, who revealed in conversation the fact that she knew practically nothing of the girl’s homes. She did not even know the section of the city in which many of them lived, had made no calls and could tell the occupation of only two of the fathers. She did not know for what the girls were preparing themselves, nor any of their hopes or desires, and she had taught the class for two years. She said the girls were not interested, and did not prepare assigned work.

This type of teacher is fast disappearing, but wherever she exists the fact that the class seems to be “not interested” indicates very clearly that those who insist that the teacher must know the girl are right.

In the series of studies of the girl in her teens an article appeared in The Sunday School Times^[1] giving the opinions of several hundred girls as to what constitutes “a lovely teacher,” and according to the statements of these girls, a lovely teacher is, “pleasant,” “fair to everybody,” “treats every one alike,” and “is interested in what you are doing.” “She writes notes to you when you are ill,” “calls on you,” “is kind and patient,” “makes the lesson interesting,” “explains what you don’t understand,” and “knows a great deal.”

Upon these as necessary qualifications of “a lovely teacher,” the girl in her teens from all sorts of homes and from various parts of our country is agreed, and as we think about it we feel inclined to trust her analysis.

When the average teacher tests herself by these standards, she finds deficiencies, but they are not discouraging ones, because every characteristic named by the girls is possible to every teacher.

She can make things interesting if she is interested and takes time to prepare her lesson material. It is a never-failing source of surprise to discover what interesting material,—anecdotes, illustrations, pictures and information,—can be found upon every subject when one is looking for it.

It is perfectly possible for the average teacher to be “pleasant”—to carry about with her the atmosphere in which work becomes a pleasure and difficult problems are just things to be conquered. This atmosphere of cheerful hopefulness makes everything easy. For many teachers it is the natural attitude toward life and work, which comes from constant association with eager, buoyant youth. If it is not natural it may be cultivated.

“Notes” and “calls”—acts of thoughtful kindness on the part of the teacher when illness or trouble enters a home, may be small things in themselves, but they mean much to the adolescent girl, and they bring their own reward. They also are possible to every teacher.

The confidence of a girl is more easily gained if one, to use her own phrase, “really likes” her. If a teacher knows her pupil, that is, sees her as an individual, learns her ambitions, longings, hopes and fears, she does “like” her. It is almost impossible not to like the average girl when one knows her. Every teacher can learn to teach individuals, not classes, and girls, not subjects alone.

The wise men of the past have told us, and experience and observation have proved, that we grow to resemble that which we admire. Admiration means imitation, therefore the necessity that those who are striving to awaken the best in the girl in her teens be those she can and does admire, and have traits of character she ought to imitate.

There never was a time in the history of religion when so many tools and such fine equipment for service were ready for those who want to be skilled workmen, and the teachers who desire the skill to make their work on Sunday really count in life every day in the week, have but to begin just where they are and progress as fast as possible. Bible classes for those who want and need to know more of the Book they teach are easy of access to many, and courses of study are open to all. The training class, where the characteristics of the various ages, and the needs of pupils, and how to meet them, may be intelligently considered, is possible in any community, and good correspondence courses are now available.

If one desires to do so it is perfectly possible for him to become a better teacher for the sake of those whom he instructs. For it is in desire, after all, that action is born, and that which one greatly desires he will seek after. To help the girl in her teens see the best in life and desire it, we have said, is the business of her teacher. Through the physical, mental, and spiritual sides of her nature, the teacher is to lift the girl to the place where she can see for herself.

There are so many girls all over our country, and in the farthest corners of the earth, to-day rendering splendid service to the world, sometimes in the shelter of their own homes caring for their children, sometimes in great hospitals, or lonely outposts as nurses, sometimes as teachers or missionaries, often as servants of every sort, who are living with a broad outlook and deep, sympathetic insight, because somewhere, back in the teens, by the patient effort of teachers they were lifted out of their narrow selves to the place where they were able to catch a glimpse of the real meaning of life.

Finding it impossible one day to make my way through the crowds on the street waiting for a procession to pass, I stopped, and standing back a little from the curb watched the eager faces gazing up the street. Right in front of me stood a group of men in their working clothes, and in their midst a tall, broad-shouldered expressman, explaining the reason for the “parade.” In a moment the sound of brass instruments burst upon us, a line of policemen swung into sight, the crowd of small boys following close beside the uniformed men, their eyes on the flying banners, and keeping step as only boys can.

Suddenly above the noises of the street, above the commands of the officers and the music of the band, I heard a little, thin, shrill voice from the crowded corner where the men stood, cry out, “Lift me up so I can see!” It was a street child, a little girl, whose dress and face showed that neither money, time, nor thought had been expended upon her. She looked so tiny as she stood there trying to peer through the crowd at the procession in the street. But she was not afraid. Again it came, “Lift me up, I say, so I can see!” Eager, insistent, filled with desire, the voice attracted the attention of the men. There was a moment’s hesitation, and then with that look one loves to see upon the face of a strong man, the expressman stooped and picked her up. As he held her there, high above the heads of the others, one little arm went round his neck, and she “held on tight” while the other hand pointed at horses, banners and men, and she called out again and again in her joy and delight, “Now I can see, I can see everything!”

The procession passed. He placed her on the sidewalk, and as the crowd scattered she hurried away, satisfaction written upon her small face. But as I walked slowly back toward the great school buildings on the hill, her voice rang in my ears, “Lift me up so I can see!” And I knew that that is the unconscious cry of the childhood of the world to the teachers of the world; that those words are the plea, often unexpressed, of the girlhood of to-day—“Lift me up—so I can see!” And I know that those who answer must themselves have eyes opened by the Christ, to see, and hearts quickened by his power, to lift.

[1] “A Lovely Teacher,” March 5, 1910.