Esprit de Corps.

While I was away, I was present at a discussion on Esprit de Corps, and whether it was a good thing in girls\' schools. What is esprit de corps?—The feeling that we are one of a large body of which we are proud. A soldier has it when he is proud of his regiment and is proud of belonging to it.

Now, is it good or bad for girls to have a strong feeling of this kind for their school? Many opinions were expressed at the meeting. My opinion is that it is a good thing—a necessary thing. But every virtue has its defect—if you overdo it, you fall into some fault; if you are too amiable, you may fall into being untruthful; and so with esprit de corps. I want you to have it, but I want you to be on your guard against some faults connected with it. I want our School to be full of it, but I want it to be of the best kind.

One fault very common in members of any large body is conceit. The feeling of belonging to a fine institution swallows up personal humility. You may be more occupied with the importance and dignity of your position, than ready to take home the idea that you yourself are a very faulty member! Margaret Fuller, a clever American friend of Emerson\'s, said, "There are so many things in the universe more interesting than my individual faults, that I really cannot stay to dwell on them." There is one form of conceit—or rather of self-satisfaction—to which schoolgirls are liable: they know they are living up to the average standard imposed by public opinion and esprit de corps, and they are satisfied with this, instead of trying to live up to their own best self. It is quite possible for any straightforward, honourable girl to live up to the average standard, and it is very comfortable to feel satisfied. But if you are trying to live up to the highest standard you know, you will not be comfortable—you will be always profoundly discontented with yourself, but it will be the Divine discontent Plato speaks of. You will be always failing, but it will be failing nobly—the failure of one who loves the highest, and is content to follow the highest, even though it be afar off. In King Arthur\'s court, the noblest knights went in search of the Sangreal—scarcely one could succeed in his quest, but it was nobler to aim high and fail than to be content with "low successes." We, too, ought each to follow the quest of the Sangreal, that is, to seek to be perfect, and then there is no room for self-satisfaction, far less conceit.

Sometimes esprit de corps not only makes us think a great deal of our own merits, but it also makes us blind to the merits of others. We need only put this into words, to see its smallness, but it often happens. Some people\'s patriotism seems to consist in despising the French and Germans. No one values true patriotism more than I do, but I detest "insularity"—that insufferable feeling of superiority of which English people are so often guilty. We ought to love our own school, or hall, or college; but it is a poor, low kind of love if it means despising other schools, or halls, or colleges, picking holes in them, refusing to learn from them, and being mere partisans. A soldier would be proud of his own regiment, and think it the finest there was, but he would admire the splendid history that other regiments could boast, and he would be glad and proud of the fact that there were so many fine ones. All good schools belong to a splendid brotherhood—a grand army—and they should be proud of each other. We can be just as true and loyal to our own, and yet have wide feelings. Esprit de corps—loyalty to our body—is a very splendid thing, and we degrade it when we turn it into mere clannishness; it ought to bring out our love for all that is good, just as love for home ought to make us love outsiders better.

I have spoken of the faults of esprit de corps—do not think that means I do not value it. No; a thousand times, no! If we had no esprit de corps we should not be a living body, but a dead, stagnant mass, only fit to be swept away. What is true esprit de corps? My idea of it is, being content to sink all personal interests—being content to be as he that doth serve—being glad and proud to fill the smallest post, if so be that, by filling that post in the most perfect way, you can help on the perfection of the school to which you belong. I was talking to some one the other day about the community to which she belongs, and where she holds a leading place. "Of course, I would black the shoes," said she, "if it would help the work in the very least, and so would any one who was worth their salt." I quite agree with her, and I would not give much for any work in which that was not the feeling of the workers, from the highest to the lowest: that is the only true esprit de corps.

Some say women are incapable of such a masculine virtue—that women cannot put their private feelings in their pocket and act in subordination to the good of the whole—that they cannot sink their self-importance and their petty jealousies—that they cannot suppress themselves for a cause. Schools like ours have done a great deal for the mental educa............