Part 1

VESPER TALKS TO GIRLS

LAURA A. KNOTT

Principal of Bradford Academy

Boston and New York Houghton Mifflin Company

The Riverside Press Cambridge 1916

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Copyright, 1916, by Laura A. Knott

All Rights Reserved

Published March 1916

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TO THE STUDENTS OF BRADFORD ACADEMY PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

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PREFACE

This volume contains a few of many talks which the author has given on Sunday afternoons to the students of Bradford Academy. At their request and for their convenience the volume is published. While hundreds of addresses to young women of college age have found their way into print, the books that deal with the problems and needs of younger girls and that look at life from their point of view are few. Though these talks were inspired by the needs of a definite group, the author will be glad if the book finds a wider audience.

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CONTENTS

I. NEW STARTS IN LIFE II. SCHOOL FRIENDSHIPS III. THE ART OF LIVING WITH OTHERS IV. ENDURING HARDNESS V. THE RHYTHM OF LIFE VI. THE USES OF TROUBLE VII. SCHOOL SPIRIT VIII. MAKING THE BEST OF THINGS IX. CONFLICTING LOYALTIES X. THE VALUE OF DISCIPLINE XI. THE SUCCESSFUL LIFE XII. THE PROGRESS OF WOMAN XIII. SOURCES OF HAPPINESS XIV. AFTER GRADUATION

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VESPER TALKS TO GIRLS

NEW STARTS IN LIFE

Life is full of opportunities for new beginnings. Courage and hope go out of a person only when he ceases to believe that for him there is one more chance to retrieve the mistakes of the past. George Eliot says, "It is never too late to be what you might have been." Such a conviction is necessary if we would live lives of power. There is a sonnet by Senator Ingalls in which Opportunity is represented as saying,--

"Soon or late I knock, unbidden, once at every gate! · · · · · · · ... those who doubt or hesitate, Condemned to failure, penury, and woe, Seek me in vain and uselessly implore. I answer not, and I return no more!"

One who saw life from a different point of view replied by a poem on the same subject in which Opportunity says,--

"They do me wrong who say I come no more When once I knock and fail to find you in; For every day I stand outside your door And bid you wake, and rise to fight and win."

The latter view is surely the truer and more inspiring one.

To the person with the forward look and genuine enthusiasm there are ever-recurring opportunities for a fresh beginning. Indeed, there ought to be no one for whom each day does not commence the world anew. A well-known woman, noted for the inspiring and cheer-bringing quality of her life, used to say upon awakening each morning, "Another great, rich day!" There is no reason why every one of us should not hail each returning morning in this spirit.

New Year's Day is proverbially the time for "turning over a new leaf." The thought of the clean, fresh pages of another year so soon to be written upon has proved a stimulus and an inspiration in many a life; and, in spite of all the broken resolutions, the world is on the whole much better because of a certain fresh impulse to right living which this day always brings.

Nature has her New Year in the lovely springtime, the time of budding leaf and blossoming flower and nesting bird. Yet for us human beings the real New Year's Day of work is neither the first of January nor the twenty-first of March, but the early autumn. At that time activities of all sorts that have been dormant throughout the summer take on renewed life. The stores and shops have a new air of briskness and prosperity; churches that have languished during the vacation season now settle down to their wonted usefulness; benevolent organizations open up their year's campaign; the great army of teachers and students return to their work rested, freshened and recreated by the long vacation and ready for new tasks. There is a feeling of joy and strength in the very air.