“Yes, if they do it at all. They do it when they are tired with the long day’s work and play, and their attention is not particularly drawn to it by any stipulated time set aside for devotions. I think we should emphasize our idea of the importance of devotions by giving it time during the day.” She outlined a plan, and they agreed to try it in the winter term. They provided a fifteen-minute “quiet time” just before breakfast, which every girl was expected to use in meditation and prayer. After a time they changed it to fifteen minutes after breakfast, before classes began; this worked much better. Girls who had never given any time to devotions now found a time provided, and a lack of distractions which suggested a compliance with the expectation. Girls who had always wanted to, but could never find time, now began systematically to study the _New Testament_ or the “_Imitation_.” There was no compulsion about it, but the suggestion of the definite provision for the cultivation of the inner life bore abundant fruit in lives made gracious by its growth. CASE 149 (HIGH SCHOOL) [Sidenote: Religious Perplexities] Mr. Horne had won the respect and devotion of the high school boys by his efficient and conscientious coaching of the athletic teams. Therefore, it was not strange that one of the boys, Donald Hope, came to him one day after school, and, after much hesitation, plunged into a discussion of religious faith. “Now, our minister says we ought to believe,” he said, “and I don’t see how we’re to believe a thing that we never saw or felt or heard, but that people just tell us is so. It isn’t scientific. I don’t want to be wicked, you know—he says you’re condemned if you don’t believe; but how’s a person to believe when he doesn’t?” Mr. Home was greatly puzzled by this question, and much troubled as well. He hardly knew whether to attempt to answer it or not; finally, he decided he would better not. “You ask Mr. Curtis about it, Donald,” he said. (Mr. Curtis was the minister whose teaching Donald had reported.) “You see, I’m a public school teacher, and we are not allowed by law to teach religion. Besides, I’ve never thought much about such matters, and I might tell you wrong.” Donald went away with a heavy heart. Mr. Home was the one person in whom he had faith enough to take to him this big and serious question, and he had failed him. He did not think for a moment of going to Mr. Curtis, who was elderly and inclined to be dogmatic. He resolved to wait until chance might bring him an explanation of his difficulties. CONSTRUCTIVE TREATMENT “Never fail to help where help is needed.” Even if giving help involves research into new fields, this is a good ideal for teachers to live up to. Mr. Horne, finding himself unable to help Donald, should have promised him at least to think about the matter, and the two might have discussed it freely and in sympathetic sharing of a difficulty which most people have faced at some time or other.