And the people at home? Is it fair-play to them, when they are making sacrifices of money or of happiness to keep the daughter at school, for her not to put good work into her study and play her part faithfully in the classroom game? So many things have to be taken into consideration of which we are not likely to think. There is the girl herself, the other girls with whom she is working, the instructor, the people at home, the institution that is providing an expensive equipment or plant through the philanthropic efforts of others or the taxation of the public. If the girl does not play her part fairly, there is a rather big reckoning against her, is there not?
The right sort of leisure ought to help as much in the development of the girl as the right sort of work. If it is leisure worthy the name, it will bring refreshment; it will not leave one physically and mentally jaded. Neither mind nor body should ever be exhausted because of the way in which freedom has been used. Leisure is as important to work as work is to leisure. A person who has not worked cannot appreciate freedom, while the one who has had no leisure is not best fitted for work. "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy;" it is just as true that it makes Jill a dull girl. The girl who works all the time, not realizing the importance of free moments, becomes fagged in body and mind. She is a tool that is dull, and would do well to remember that even a machine is better for an occasional rest.
Some mistaken ideas about leisure have grown up, making it difficult to say anything on this subject without being misunderstood. Stories--whole books of them--about "spreads" and more or less lawless escapades in school and college, have given girls and other people, too, the impression that this is the sort of thing school leisure is. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Midnight feasts may occur in school, and most of us, unless we are too good to be average girls, have taken part in them. But such stories are vicious, for they misrepresent the life by suggesting that eating inferior and unwholesome food is the real freedom most girls desire. There is something repulsive in the very thought. Feasts that leave a girl with a coated tongue and a dull head and Monday "blues" do not fairly represent school or college leisure. Good times that interfere with good work have no place in ideally free hours. But, indeed, the odours from the chafing-dishes do suggest that some of the girls are trying to put into literal execution the wish of a great German professor in Oxford. The professor, eager to try a dish he saw on the hotel bill of fare, but with his English and German verbs not quite disentangled, said to the waiter, "Hereafter I vish to become a Velsh Rabbit." Perhaps becoming a Welsh rarebit represents the height of some girls' ideals, but this is hard to believe.
