The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1875-02-09

The MODERN Scuoon GIRL.-Eyery.
body is, aware that sentimentality.
sIate-pencils and pickles. go hand in
hand With the modern school. girl.
she IS an completely saturated with
the frsta as David Copperaeld was with
love for Dora; she believes that friend-
ship is plant Of Immortal verdure,
though her own limited experience
ought to teach her that it is Of deoidu.
ous growth; she keeps q volume of
autographs of persons remarkable for
nothing but their insignifioance and
bad hand writing: her scrap. book is q
mosaic OF moral maxine. comic songs,
love.sick rhymes and decaloomanie;
her diary is not go much q record of
her individual emotions as O reflection
from the inner ife Of her favorite
heroines in romance; she eats sweet
meats and digests Sensational novels:
her ideal is q black-browed lover at
whom society shakes it's head, after tho
manner OF Rochester; while Lucy
SHOWS Paul Emanual seems TO her q
| very poor apology for hero, at whom
she would not vouchsafe q second
glance. In composition, she is prone
to indulge III the melancholio atyle,
aud il sentimentality is her god, Mrs.
Hemans and L. E. L. are the prophets
whom she most affects. Read her let
ters to her comrades and those she
writes home, and you will hardly guess
that the same mind had framed them
both; the one is all extravnEance and
poetry, while the other is apt to be a
s,E
financial complaint-with suggestions
toward dress reform. for our young
girl has her practical side as we'll as
her sentimental, and pnts no faith in
beauty unadorned. She pours out her
soul to her bosom friend, bnt enter
tuning an idea that older folk have no
sym pathy with the longings and aspi.
rations OF youth, and are wholly ab.
sorbed in the sordid cares OF life, with
small interest in the play of the finer
| emotions, her nearest of kin are often
left In utter ignorance Of her peculiar
faculty for gushing. And perhaps
this is not 80 unnatural es it seems.
since condolences must be invited by
oonfidences; the bosom friend gives
| On easure for measure, but are there not
often CULTS O! reserve existing between
the sohool girl and her mother or older
friends in thu matter of the emotions?
| Perhnps We would not have our school
girl other than she ia, with the exoep- :
tion OF the pickles and slate. pencils,
the too early Lessons in Irritation which
she pruotices. and the respect for dress
which she develops. Only few gene.
rations back our mothers sent ns to
school in cool ginghamsA and in
warm liusey-wooIseys fashioned in al
simplioity; the jeweler did not bore
our ears. cor hang chains about our
small necks; nor did the mautua-maker
shape our figures to her patterns q
generation ago. But to-day We hear
Inquiries for corsets for children OF ten
years, aud We begin to reflect that the
schoolgirl may not be altogether to
blame for her weaknesses and morbid
tastes. She wears finer clothes at her
Rotations now than her grandma.
theirs donned on holidaye-olothes
more elaborately designed, and in
such sickening mimiory of adult ia.
shions that it would seem, after all. as
If her precocious fondness for adorn-
ment night be reasonably charged to
the vanity of her guardians. How
ever, our schoolgirl will doubtless
work clear OF her weaknesses in time
Her sentimentalities will get winnowed
III the process of living. aud the chaff
separated. The girl who weeps over
The Children of the Abbey" aud
The Mysteries of Udolpho" at sixteen
will be convulsed with laughter on q
second reading at twenty; aud she will
one day discover that the safest ear
into which she can pour her confidence
is the maternal; while even the inor-
dinate love of dress and of masculine
almiratio that has been engrafted in
tho tender sab2ling, may be snbor di.
mite to higher Impulses in proportion
us the original stock is healthy and
vigorous. Exchange.
Now they tellof Photographic ap
paratus by which plato, kept perma-
nently sensitive, can be put in locket
| on the watch chain. and with which