The other day a girl of 14 failed to pass her examination in one of our public schools. When she was informed of her failure she quietly accepted the verdict. Then she went home, went upstairs, found a loaded revolver which some member of the family was in the habit of “leaving around” and shot herself. She died in a few hours.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about the tragic episode was the calmness of the comment made upon it. Grievous though it was, it hardly seemed a surprising circumstance. Many girls of 14 have killed themselves over disappointments which seemed to be vital to them and trivial to others. Every month or two, in the newspapers, we read of some such mournful incident.
The lesson of course is obvious. Without doubt every one of those temporarily frantic children could have been saved by a few understanding words, a little sympathy at just the right moment. The trouble was that in no case did anyone realize how grievous to the little girl was the trouble others could take so lightly. To the onlooker the failure to pass one’s examination was merely a temporary disappointment. Of course one would pass the next time. To the youthful victim the failure was cataclysmic. It humiliated her to the soul.
The girl of 14 is not yet adjusted to such upheavals. Her natural tendency is toward morbidity. A few years earlier, a few years later, she turns naturally to the joyous side of life. At 14, consciously or unconsciously, her mind is dwelling on the other side. She prefers sad music, sad poetry, sad fiction.
One day, when the writer was a 14-year-old schoolgirl, one of the teachers read to our class two poems. Both were beautiful, but one was sad and one was gay. At the end of the reading she asked which we preferred. There were about 20 of us in the class. Every girl announced that she preferred the sad poem.
The teacher nodded. “I was told that it would be this way,” she said, “but I could not believe it. Now, I am going to take this morbid streak out of you girls.”
She did. She harped on joy and happiness and beauty persistently and interestingly. She made us realize their value. Looking back, we can see what an estimable service she did for each of us.
The number of 14-year-old girls who kill themselves is mercifully small. The number who suffer horribly and wholly without sympathy and understanding is appallingly large. It behoves those of us who have a young girl in our circle to keep upon her not only a loving eye, but a deeply understanding one. We must be so close to her that she will instinctively turn to us in her black moments.
This cannot be done by making light of the little troubles which seem so great to her. It can be done only by respecting them and by discussing them with sympathy and with an optimism that will appeal to the heart and the brain of the child-woman.
--E.J.
From the editorial page of the Ladies Home Journal, May, 1921
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