Mary Roberts Rinehart

“ She does not belong, between babyhood and womanhood, anywhere in the social organization. She is active and romantic. Her days are a long waiting for maturity, and with maturity the fulfilment of her dreams, of love, of marriage, of motherhood. ”

“ Fill in the waiting years with work and play. Give them some rules of life which will appeal alike to their imaginations and to their instinctive desire for something better. Let them look out as well as up. ”

“ They seek romance out of sheer boredom, and are driven into hypocrisy. The boy has fewer dreams to conceal, and he is honest with the honesty of fresh air and the great out-doors. When we give our girls occupation, when we get them out of doors, when we give them organized play in the open, there will be fewer morbid women. ”

“ No single movement for the improvement of American people as a race, no advance of science or sanitation, can compare in importance with the necessity for building up morally, spiritually and bodily, our future mothers. ”

“ It is time to realize that hundreds of thousands of young girls in this country—doubly important now that they are future citizens as well as the potential mothers of future citizens—must be given occupation, a feeling of responsibility, a practical ideal to which they may bring their innate loyalty and enthusiasm. ”

“ They need to be taught certain loyalties, sex loyalty. Loyalty to ideals. Loyalty to country. This last, loyalty to country, has to be taught. When a man learns to take off his hat to the flag, he has a new respect for it. ”

“ They need organized play and athletics. They need something concrete to tie to. They need to be taught, if you please, what is the "gang" spirit among boys. They need to learn that their young bodies are to be used, instead of decorated. ”