New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1866-06-11

To the Editor Of the Crescent:
We are all aware that the war has produced
great changes in our land, that the tmes are sadly
ont of joint, and that in consequence duties
devolve upon us. We should no longer waste our
time in idle lamentation and plaintive elegies over
the irrevocabe past, but perform our duties to the
living and train the young generation to meet the
exigencies of our present situation. In common
with many deplored as one of the greatest calam.
tiles produced by the war; the necessity of with
drawing so many of our youth from school, and
the closing of our literary institutions. However,
am old fashioned enough to believe that educa-
ton includes a good many things not to be learned
from books and in some of these we have reason
to congratulate ourselves on the progress made.
In spite of the license and temptations of camp
life, the majority of our young men have prof
tied by the stern teaching of necessity. They
have learned to labor cheerfully, to bear priva-
ton and hardship without a murrhur they are
faithfully emulating the noble example which their
most cherished chieftains have set them, and &C
cepting any honest employment sooner than eat
the bread of idleness.
Our young ladies are not, perhaps, as accom-
pished as those who Finished" at some Northern
collegiate institute, and were presented with
diplomas certifying that they were mistresses OF
arts and at the age of seventeen had gone through
a course of study which would have tasked the
powers of Leibnitz or Humboldt.
1t would then have perhaps been unreasonable
to expect them to be thorough in any branch OF
knowledge, and it may seem ungenerous to smile
at the botanists who could not classify flower
the chemists who scarcely knew an alkal from an
acid, who could manage repartee better than
retort or the astronomers who innoCently asked
who lost the Pleiad, thinking it was another Kohl
moor. At the beginning of the war more than one
! Of these graduates might be found eagerly search
ing our horizon for the constellation of the South
ern Cross so that perhaps the education of the
young ladies has not suffered very much, and thei
deficiency in boarding school erudition may bt
more than compensated by their requirements il
domestic economy, the art Of spinning, weaving
etc., and 'last not least" that art Whichwe nigh
call "preservative of all arts" cooking.
| In our changed circumstances the importance o
these useful pursuits cannot be over-rated, and i
is hoped that the habits of industry and economy
induced by absolute necessity, will continue to b
practiced in the future. Our girls were not les
interesting when the blockade prevented thei
being enlightened ~ byHarper's and Lesle's peri
odicals, or Dumas and Miss Braddon's novels. No
were they less attractive in appearance when the.
wore their home made fabrics, fashioned by thei
native taste costume which won compliment
thatevery Southern woman should remember from
the first gentleman" in our land. tits to beregret
ted that any Southern lady should adopt Yanke
fashions, some of which are not only Amazonian
but meretricious, term which might justly b
applied to the elevators and fitting hoops wit
their accomplishments. There is much signiica
canoe in dress, and those who employ men mill
ners, or male hair-dressers, who dress in styl
characterized by efrontery, cannot escape invid
i0us comment.
tits astonishing to see sensible women submit