Helen Ekin Starrett

“ I have frequently heard wise parents and teachers speak of the perplexity of spirit which they feel when they see that in so many instances the acquirement of accomplishments, as they are termed, fails to add any moral strength or beauty to the character of the young people in whose welfare and advancement their hearts are so entirely absorbed. This young girl sings and plays beautifully, paints and draws in a genuinely artistic manner, speaks French and German like a native, and yet she is ill-tempered and shrewish if circumstances happen to cross her inclination. ”

“ I could only express my sorrow that the better and higher nature of such an one was so undeveloped, and that the greatest source of true happiness was so unknown and unappreciated. I could only hope that the conscience and the moral nature of such an one might be aroused and quickened by some good and faithful admonition or word of instruction. And right here I wish to call the special attention of my young friends to this fact: Youth is a period given up largely to the work of obtaining an education; but education is of a two-fold nature. ”

“ The first and highest good, next after a home of your own, is to be able to render to the world some service for which it will pay you, thus making you independent and enabling you to shape your life as you wish. You and all young girls of the present generation are happy in having avenues of useful remunerative occupation open to you on every hand, and society smiles and approves if you work at something to win independence and make money. ”

“ One reason why the art of conversation has so degenerated in these days is that so few have a real interest in hearing the fine thoughts of good thinker and talkers. So many people want to talk about themselves, or their affairs, that it is in many circles almost an impossibility to maintain a high and elevating conversation. Until years and experience, as well as wide reading and information, have given you the right to express freely your opinions in society, it will be well to listen a great deal more than you speak, especially when in the company of your elders. ”

“ It is so easy to make a petulant or disrespectful reply to parents or teachers when they reprove; so much harder, yet so much better, to acknowledge a fault and feel and express sorrow for wrong-doing. Your own conscience and consciousness tell you how much happier you feel when you have done the latter. Yet you need, over and over again, to fortify yourself against temptation to hasty or ill-natured or improper speech by determining beforehand that you will not give way to the temptation; that you will control yourself. ”

“ A hundred rules might be gotten up forbidding the doing of a hundred things, the only evil of which is that they are outlandish and unbecoming; not modest, or ill-mannered, and behind which there is no evil intent—only thoughtlessness. The same endowment of common sense ought to teach young people to do those things which will promote their health, and not to do those things which would injure it. The greatest blessing to a young person, especially to a young woman, is good health ”

“ There are others equally good and talented who are not blessed with comeliness, who are not bright and winning in conversation, who are awkward in dress and manner. What kindness and considerateness is due from the more favored to the less favored! How careful should school-girls, and not school-girls only, but everybody be to extend courtesy and kindness to those of their number who are apt to be neglected, to be left lonely and forgotten while more favored ones enjoy special pleasures! ”

“ Generosity, kindness, self-denial, industry—these are the traits which inspire love and win friends. These are the graces that will make the humblest home beautiful and happy, and without which the costliest mansion is a mere empty shell. ”

“ Why do the rules of good manners forbid the slamming of doors, or noisy running along halls or up and down stairs, or loud talking or boisterous laughter? Because such noises inflict pain on those who hear them, if they are of refined sensibilities. For the same reason it is bad manners to drum on a piano, or to drum on table or desk or chair, or to shuffle the feet, or to make any noise that distracts or obtrudes. Why is it bad manners to come late to meals, to be unpunctual, to keep people waiting? ”

“ And now let us consider some of the rewards that will come to those who give attention to the culture of the spirit. Emerson says that "it is our manners that associate us," and this is one of his truest observations. We all wish, or we all should wish, to become fitted for association with the good, the refined, the intelligent, the cultivated, with those who have a noble purpose in life. Into such society there is but one passport—intelligence, and gentle, quiet, cultivated manners, coupled with a like noble and earnest purpose. ”

“ Then should come the conscious effort to do right, to change our spirit from selfishness to unselfishness, from unkindness to kindness. This is the work that no human being can do for us. Every individual soul must pass through that struggle alone. Whenever we are conscious of the necessity of a decision between doing right and doing wrong, even though we may feel indisposed to do the right and disposed to do the wrong, yet if we can will to do the right we have taken a step toward God and heaven ”

“ This much of the products of genuine culture he may buy with money. But no money can buy the pearl of great price, the cultured spirit in the individual or family, without which the most palatial mansion is but a dead and lifeless shell. ”

“ Better good health than beauty, if one were obliged to choose—which one is not, for good health is one of the chief elements of beauty.
So, if you aim first to be good and kind and intelligent and industrious and skillful, so that you may be fitted to guide and adorn a home should you be blessed with one, or to be fitted to shape your life to usefulness and independence if you never have a home of your own, and if in connection with these aims you seek to obtain and preserve good health, you will, so far as this life is concerned, "be thoroughly furnished unto all good works." ”

“ To attain the power of self-control in a high degree is one of the greatest and most important aims we can set before us in life. I do not believe it can ever be attained in our own strength. To rightly control temper and speech and conduct requires help from the divine Spirit which is always around and over us, and within us, if we will but let our hearts be receptive to its influences. The greatest possible help to self-control is to learn in the moment of temptation to lift the heart to God in earnest aspiration for His help and guidance. ”

“ Good health is the fountain of human enjoyment and the greatest of earthly riches. It is the great beautifier; it is the great preservative of good looks. How strange, then, that so many girls are so careless, so provokingly careless, of this priceless blessing! ”

“ My Dear Daughter:—One of the greatest blessings I could wish for you, as you pass out from the guardianship of home into life with its duties and trials, is that you should possess the power of winning love and friends. With this power, the poor girl is rich; without it, the richest girl is poor. In the main, this power of winning friends and love depends upon two things: behavior and manners. Between these there is an important distinction, but one is the outgrowth of the other. The root of good manners is good behavior. ”

“ If you find that you cannot relish or fix your mind upon standard works of history biography, travel, or any of the many excellent books written to bring scientific knowledge within the comprehension of the general reader, then you may conclude rightly that your mind is in a very uncultivated state.
Your own efforts and determination—in other words, your power of self-control—alone can effect anything worthy in self-culture. ”

“ And so I would wish to see you and all young people cultivate tact; study how to speak and act so as to touch gently all with whom you are associated. Behind the best tact lies the wish to be kind and to make people comfortable and happy, to avoid wounding and irritating; and so it is true that the basis of true tact is, after all, the moral sentiment.
The young person who would cultivate tact in speech and manners will carefully guard against obtrusiveness. ”

“ Every mother of young daughters knows the difference between visitors who are thoughtful and deferential and helpful, and those whose overweening interest in self and selfish plans makes them oblivious to the convenience and wishes and preferences of their hostess and other members of the family.
If one wished thoroughly to understand the character of any young girl, no better test could be applied than to invite her to a three weeks' family visit. ”

“ Every right-minded and affectionate-natured young girl looks forward to, and hopes most of all to have, a home of her own, which it shall be her life-work to keep and guide. To prepare herself rightly to fulfill all the duties that belong to the mistress of a home, should be the one all-embracing aim of any young girl's life; but with this should be other aims, which may help to prepare her for vicissitudes, emergencies, or disasters, and also give her worthy occupation and interest in life should she never be called to the duties of a wife and mother. ”

“ Now all people, old or young, are influenced in conduct somewhat by their associates and friends; but young people especially are susceptible to the influence of example. And it is a painful but well known fact that young people are much more easily and quickly influenced by bad example than by good. One frivolous, vain, forward, pert young girl, coming for a season into association with a company of young people, may in a few short weeks make her impress on the manners and conversation of the whole of them. ”

“ On the other hand, I should rejoice to see you form friendships with good, high-minded, intelligent, gentle-mannered girls of your own age, and should hope that you would mutually emulate and stimulate each other in all worthy aims and ambitions. Such friendships, however, are seldom hastily formed. The gushing and violent attachments that sometimes spring up between young girls are sure to be of mushroom growth and duration, unless there is genuine character and merit in both. ”

“ If at the close of your prescribed school course you should return to your homes, skilled in all the sciences, possessed of extensive knowledge of literature, fine musicians, fine artists, and yet selfish, ungentle, proud or haughty in demeanor, wanting in thoughtfulness for the rights and feelings of others, careless of being unkind, the time spent in your education would largely have been spent in vain. ”

“ There are, also, constant opportunities for observation of the conduct and manners of polite people, by which young people may and should profit and learn to observe the outward forms of society. These are easily learned and practiced; but the finest, best, most genuine good manners can never be acquired except as they become the natural expression of gentleness, kindness intelligence, respect for parents and elders, and an earnest desire to do good to our fellow beings. Strive, my dear child, to cherish these graces in your heart, and good behavior and good manners will naturally follow. ”

“ Now, no rule or rules will ever prevent anyone from doing and saying things which show lack of tact. Nothing will do it but the cultivation of a spirit of sympathy which will enable one to realize how other people feel when their opinions and peculiarities or circumstances are so bluntly antagonized or alluded to. I know an excellent and high-minded lady, of superior intellectual culture, who often complains that she has few friends. ”