XIII SELF-CONTROL WORD unspoken is like a sword in thy scabbard, thine; if vented, thy sword is in another's hand." What a sword of power is the unThose who know how and when to keep the sword in its scabbard have learned one of the most profound secrets of life. I would not have girls silent, yet I would have them consider what a danger there is in allowing themselves license of speech. Emerson says: "A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will or against his will he draws his portrait to the eye of his companions by every word. Every opinion reacts on him who utters it." Each word you say, even about the humblest of life's issues, does its little part in carving your niche in the minds of your friends, and selfcontrol is essential if that niche is to be beautiful. Self-control is the hand-maid of Justice, and injustice is spoken of as the besetting sin of girlhood. To be "fair" is considered almost an impossibility for women. Why should this be? Women are emotional, of quick impulse, born to be partisans and to give heedlessly of self, but these qualities are in themselves beautiful. Is it not lack of self-controi that dissipates them and turns them into weakness? However we would like to think otherwise, dependability and justice are wanting in the make-up of the average woman. Women who possess them are signalled out and receive peculiar admiration from the world. Why cannot more women live down the prejudice of centuries and prove by their daily lives that they are overcoming faults to which they seem, in a way, predestined— that they are to be depended upon and able to be "fair"? I feel that lack of self-control is at the bottom of it all. How, then, can self-control be developed? Principally, I think, by exerting it in youth and by deliberately avoiding hasty judgments upon any subject. You often hear a girl say, "I hate that!" and when you question her you find that she has no reasons to give why she hates, nor can she in the least define her dislike. Now this impulsiveness and warmth is so valuable a trait that I do not want to discourage it. If only the girl who is tempted to say, “I hate it," will control her statement until she has satisfied her own mind that her impression is reasonable and has a foundation! Then let her speak out her hatred, with its cause, and thus "take sides" with the fervor woman must always exhibit if she is to develop happily. If girls would only realize the importance of stopping to think, fewer hasty and mistaken judgments would be made, and fewer |