Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1873-07-17
What Girls Really Want.

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1 2-.-zs What Girls Really Want. ~ss'
Il GIRLS really want more selfreliance
They want more liberty to choose fol
themselves. The majority Of girls have
every article of their wardrobe selected by
some friend. OF course the grown-uI
ones are taken shopping, the goods are
selected, and mamma or an older sister
says: There, that's just exactly what
you want. OF course you like it." The
young lady looks dissatisfied, and in IA low
voice says Il had rather have that pat
term" but mamma replies: 90, no! ii
/ isn't half as suitable Or becoming as this
| one,' and the daughter seldom contra
/ diets "mamma" before the attentive clerks
Then the dressmaker tells her just how
it must be made 1t must be cut and
| trimmed in: a certain. manner, and it is
| finally finished without once needing the
wishes of the young lady. Ten chances to
one, if she had selected the dress, it would
have been unbeGoming; and, if made in
the style she directed, nearly ruined: but
We beg to know how the poor child is go
ing to correct her taste or improve her judg-
ment, if never allowed to use either?
| We stood by the counter, not long ago,
looking at goods, when mother and
daughter came in and asked to be shown
some kid gloves, The young lady select
ed a pair, and the mother said: you
| can't have those; they are too light; they
| will soil in wearing once" True, it was
| fact; but the daughter felt bitter sense
OF wrong as she turned away without any
gloves. Had she been trusted to purchase
these, and told that they must be made to
last as long as a pair Of dark ones, might
she not have learned to be prudent and
| thoughtful
What if the fathers and mothers do suf-
fer some for the blunders their daughters
make? Are they not expecting some good
young man will eventually marry these
daughters? Some parents are so blind as
| to think it a kindness to select everything
| a person needs, especially those for the
girls. There is no better way to make
weak, inefficient wives, and extravaganza
mothers, than this habit of being taste,
sense and judg 1nent for ones children or
friends, If, after your kindly hints about
their purchases, they make blnnders, let
the blunders come. Reason will soon
give aid to their efforts, and by failures
their judgment will be disciplined. Do
you wish your daughters to begin their
! expensive experiments in making pur-
chases out OF their husbands purse? The
gentleman who fancied he was wedding
an angel, might be sadly disappointed to
lind your daughter entirely ignorant of
everything like domestic economy
A lady, who had been married several
years, said to me recently that she never
bought but three articles for herself while
she lived at home. Said she: you don't
know what trial it has been for me to
make my own purchases. Half the goods
| have bought have been worthless, be-
cause mother never allowed me to select
anything for myself. Not that | believe
in letting daughters have hundred or
two dollars to use without disCrimina-
ton but | do believe in their choosing
for themselves, and thus learning the
quantity, quality and suitableness of all
kinds of wearing apparel"
Very few daughters refer to this kind of
indulgence with pleasure. In their eager
ness to be independent when wives, and
choose for themselves, they hardly stop to
consult what Judgment they do possess
beside seeing themselves look like frights
in the garments they have selected and
paid so dearly for.
To select a nice, juicy steak and tempt
ing roast, and to serve the same in good
style, might be more difficult than to pur-
chase an elegant dress pattern. We know
hundreds Of fashionable mammas who
tremble to think of their daughters know
ing anything about work,-yot they insist
that these daughters shall have the power
to vote. a-
There is more serious work than in
learning the details of domestic economy.
Out of kindness many mother removes
all responsibility from her daughters. She
buys, and~has made to order, every article
of dress; she bolts every avenue to labor;
she shuts every door leading to healthful
exercise, and at the last serenely yields her
charge to the complicated cares of wife
and motherhood! By sad experience many
daughters learn here that idleness has
been no friend to them. The exercise
they ought to have had in mothers kitch-
en- would have strengthened the lax mus
cles. The hundred pleasant tasks of early
home life would have developed their bod
les naturally. /:
There is a great .saitls about woman's in
efficient way of doing business. We are
told they want the earnestnesS that char
acteriZes men, and yet are they to blame
that do not'have this2 Perhaps two-thirds
Of them were never taught so much as to
take care Of their own wardrobe. What
has been their business more than to at
tend boarding school, thump the piano,
speak German and dress fashionably I'M
til they caught" a hustalli,s To make a
selfreliant, Independent, business woman,
begins in the nursery, and is the outgrowth
of discipline-Bessie Beech IN RuraI Neao
Yorker. r.
THE usefulness of ''Old Probabilities y