The Girl’s Self-Expression. 
By Edward F. Bigelow, ArcAdiA : Sound Beach, Connecticut. 
Many teachers and many parents 
have expended too much effort in de- 
veloping the girl, and too few persons 
have taught her or encouraged her to 
develop herself. The general educa- 
tional thought and tendency have too 
largely regarded the girl as something 
to be molded into form, rather than to 
be permitted to grow into it. If we 
may compare this treatment with a 
game in which something concealed is 
to be found we have put into the game 
too much of the centuries old situation 
in which are an active teacher and 
a dormant or silent class. Only in re- 
cent years have we begun to learn that 
the real value of the game lies largely 
in the enthusiasm and the activity ex- 
pended in the search. I of course rec- 
ognize that in the best of modern 
teaching there is a skillful stimulating 
of the pupil’s interest and mental activ- 
ity, and in teaching to follow the teach- 
er’s lead and to listen. But that is not 
enough. For most of the time the pupil 
should lead and the teacher follow. Aye, 
there is the point. I have much charity 
for those who make the mistake of de- 
pending wholly upon the pupil to fol- 
low the lead of the teacher, because I 
frankly admit that I made it myself 
for many years as a teacher and as a 
principal in the graded schools, as well 
as in the early half of my nearly a 
quarter of a century’s work in high 
class private schools. 
Perhaps not from my long experience 
as a teacher would I have emerged 
from the half truth to the whole, per- 
haps not even if that experience had 
been widened and deepened, because 
the purpose of a teacher is to shape by 
direction. In more recent years my 
own teaching attitude has been gradu- 
ally, yes, even startlingly, changed and 
developed along new lines because of 
two factors : the first as a parent and 
grandparent, the second as a biologist 
and naturalist. These four subdivisions 
of the two classes are accustomed to 
watch, study and admire growth. The 
teacher is always centripetal, the par- 
ent-naturalist is always, no, not always 
is, but always should be centrifugal : 
the one is compression, the second ex- 
pression. 
Why is a girl diffident and self- 
conscious? Because she has been too 
repressed, and allowed too little out- 
ward expression. She has been made 
to feel, and to feel unjustly perhaps, 
that her parents, her teachers and even 
her friends in their solicitude for her 
welfare are constantly watching and 
criticising her. Her friends have, un- 
intentionally of course, so tight laced 
her that she is not free and natural, 
and we all know that lack of natural 
freedom is always lack of natural grace. 
So many persons have exhibited so so- 
licitous a care of her that her own 
abilities of expression have become 
atrophied. She is not mentally deficient 
but mentally repressed and compressed. 
All the attributes are present, they are 
inactive. The result is a self-conscious- 
ness commonly but mistakenly known 
as diffidence and awkwardness. I claim 
no discovery of this situation. It is 
painfully self-evident to many a teacher 
and parent, but I do claim originality 
in the cure. Yet in this I do not ask 
for any special credit. The remedy was 
forced upon me almost against my will, 
and would have come to anyone in sim- 
ilar circumstances as naturally as effect 
follows cause. The causes that brought 
about this effect have already been ex- 
plained, but to them is added the factor 
of the widest personal experience and 
