really was. She is likely now to swing from a sense of self-importance
to an injured feeling of insignificance, and to a conviction that people
can get along quite as well without her. Up to this time when she has
gone home she has been an honoured visitor. But now that she is at home
to stay, instead of becoming the centre she is merely part of the family
circle with its obligation of doing for others. Her presence in the
household is no longer a novelty.

The swift change from a highly-organized, methodical life to the life of
the home where there is not so much method, is hard for a girl. One
reason it is difficult is that while she may be accomplishing a great
deal that is useful, she seems to be doing nothing and to get nowhere.
She feels as if she were in the midst of a conflict of duties. In school
she has had implanted in her the idea that she must accomplish some
definite thing, and between this objective and the irregular demands of
the home there appears to be more or less clashing. She is confronted by
a problem not easy for any one to solve: how to keep her definiteness
of aim and work, and yet not be self-centred.

Oftentimes when a girl fails to adjust herself to the home life, her
family and friends feel that she is rather selfish in her desire to
carry out her own aims rather than to give them up for new demands.
Frequently the family is as much to blame for not realizing that the
girl needs to be helped back into the old life as the girl is for not
being able to help herself. In the home the spirit of team-play is much
needed. Quite as much as the girl, the family has a lesson to learn in
the art of adjustment and in remembering that this grown-up child isn't
just the same individual she was when she went away several years ago.
They need to realize that the girl may be able to give more to the home
life than she ever did before, but that it will be given in a somewhat