Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1872-02-10
OLIVE LOGKH.


Logans lecture on "Our Girls" The lee
turer was neatly dressed, and seemed to be
quite at home on the stage. Her action is
graceful and her voice pleasing. The sub
ject was skillfully handled and the interest
of the audience never for momsnt fagg-
ed. She prefaced her lecture by saying that
in choosing her lectures she had always
been animated less by the purpose of Sc
lecting popular subject than by that of
selecting subject with which she could
feel herself thoroughly at home. That was
the reason she was going to speak about
| girls. She was thoroughly acquaint-
ed with girls. She was once
girl herself, her schoolmates
were girls, her sisters were girls, and her
mother said she had been a girl too. Nat
urally she might say something of little
girls. The first thing that happened to a
little girl was that she was a baby.
| [LaugEter.] 1t happened to little boys too,
she supposed. [Laughter.l The girl baby
and the boy baby looked very much alike,
but as soon as they began to w4lk they
took different paths. If little Mary had a
desire to romp in the fields, or to pitch
stones in the river, she was speedily made
| to understand that such things were not
womanly. A girl having those healthful
| inclinations was reminded of the awful end
of the Growing hen;" she was warned
/ against growing into that awful thing-a
tom-boy. She was taught to crush out the
instincts of nature; to avoid acquiring
strength; to keep her hands soft and pref
| ty, and her face free from tan
and freckles. Her brother Tom might do
what he liked, for every parent knew
that was the road to health. Why was it
not the road to health for girls, toos Why,
the only reason she ever heard for it was
| that it was not womanly. If Tom does an
act that is wrong, he is told that it is not
manly. If he cries with pain when he stubs
his toes he is told "Tom, that is not manly"
If he is a coward, and screams at msuse,
"Why, Tom, / am astOnished at you'll Be
| a man." The worst thing you can call him
| is "girl boy" If he is a quiet, retiring
boy, his comrades point their fingers at him
and cry, so what a coward! Before 1
would be such baby-just like girl"
And if you would make Toms heart float
! with proud consciousness Of his future,
tell him 'You will be man before your
mother" [Laughter.l That will make
him strut. What little girl was ever
made happy by the information
that she would be a woman
before her father One of the most pecu-
liar characteristics of little girls is that they
are always saying smart things.
Here the lecturer narrated number of
anecdotes to illustrate the statement.
But while girls are still children there is
not so very much difference between them
after all, and that was the principal reason
why she made no division among them.
| bn Oof vDov,Y,lar rrhi0h aOYYlA hn
was that which most mothers did actually
make; namely, our little girls and other
! peoples little girls, Laughter. Our lit
tie girls, of course, are everything that is
interesting and delightful, but other peoples
little girls have great many faults.
The big girls were classified as follows:
LIST. The fashionable girl; I'd. The beautiful
girl; Sd. The womanly girl, 4th. The Yankee
girl; 9Th, the Western girl; 9th, the Southern
| girl, and lastly, the strong minded girl. She
| had not time to refer to the bad girl. They
were the kind who did not come to her good
] lectures. There was the good girl, too,
who did attend her lectures, and sat there,
patiently, out to the end, and liked them
| first rate.
There were two kinds of fashionable
| girls. There was the ultra fashionable girl,
| who was merely fashionable and nothing
else; who had but one idea, and that was
to dress. There was another fashionable
girl, who united to her fashionable habits
some evidence Of character, virtue, mind
and soul.
The ultra fashionable girl is a bundle of
! artifcialities, articles, airs and pretence,
with just as little of the natural girl under
meath them as it is possible to conceive. 1t
is this stupid girl that has cast a stigma
on al elegance of attire, and
sickened so many people with
the absurd prejudice that any girl who
| dresses fashiOnably must necessarily be a
! fool. When love of dress occupies a girls
mind to the entire exclusion of better
things, it is not only 8 contemplate weak
ness, but absolutely sin and shame.
Here the lecturer gave description of an
ultra fashionable girl she had lately met.
The other fashionable girl has brains and
heart and the place she occupies in life is
the result Of wealth, fortune and circum-
stances. Such girl feels the emptiness of
| a mere fashionable life. In the silence of
her chamber she often asks herself if life
! has no sort of earnestness for her. She des-
| pises the vapid flatterers who surround her
| and sharpens her wit at their expense to
their very faces. She generally has some
hobby, and she rides it with a gal
lantry and zest which shows how
useful she could be if her energies were
only directed into nobler channels. But it
is the prerequisite of the fashionable girl
all over the world that her hobby shall not
be Questionable. There is no prejudice
so strong as that of the born and bred vo-
tary of fashion.
By the beautiful girl is meant the kind a
man refers to when he says F'there is a
pretty girl" She overrates the advantages
of personal beauty ID the world, and under
rates everything else. Unfortunately she
is encouraged in this error by a thousand
differences. In almost every book she takes
up she is sure to find some encouragement
of this sort, for there is no end to the praise
which men bestow on beauty. The poets
of every age have exalted woman's beauty
to the skies. The novelist whenever he hunts
a heroine, almost always paints her with
pretty face. Men have raved through
the literature of generations about the mar
vellous power of beauty in woman. From
the conduct of the men she meets she
draws the same inference. 1t is simply
madness to expect girl to go through life
without seeing plainly what her power is,
just through her personal---very.. 1t would
be wonder indeed if such woman did
not get an exaggerated idea of the value of
such charms and be led to neglect the cult
walton of head and heart to increase her
personal attractions by superficial and arti-
fetal means. OF all girls in the world, this
girl is most difficult to advise, for she
knows her power. The chief fault of most
persons who undertake to advise her is I'M
Outstanding what she overrates, and that is
fatal. II you tell girl that sensible
men do not care for a pretty face,
you close her ears TO you at
once. She knows better. You might as
will tell her that sensible men don't care for
strawberries and cream. The statement
kills itself. My experience teaches me
(and have had my experience) that sensi-
bic men do care for pretty faces just as truly
as they do for strawberries and cream.
There is something about both which all
sensible men smack their lips overs
TLaughter.l That is half the truth. The
other halftruth ofthis matter is that neither
sensible men nor fools can live on strawber-
ries and cream alone. The strawberries on
your rosy lips and the cream on your fair
cheeks are excellent so far as they 60, BIT
they wont go far. At the dinner table