Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1879-05-24
The English Young Woman OF To-
DAV.

There can be no denial Of the fact that while
tie new generation OF men are rather unusu-
content, women are displaying new unrest, a
new 1mpatience Of the old mOld5 OF their lives.
The girls want to be as educated, as active, as
well fitted for careers OF some sort as the boys;
grow impatient OF mill horse life, even IL it be
accompanied by tie best Of forage and softest
Of fodder; and seek anXfOusly, even hungrily
for her which shall be fuller Of Intellectual
or at least OF human interests: They try to be
artists, 10 be lecturers to be DOCTORS to be any
thing ather than to be stay-at- home young VIC
men, like their graIdmothers, with very little
at all to do worth doing they feel, in short.
the ennui OF the age, and try to escape It, for
the most part In what seems to US a mos
healthy and encouraging way-by making their
studies real, their occupations severe, and the
business OF their lives more or less profitable
as profitable as that Of the boys. In their Ell
forts, however, they are met face to face by one
enormous difficulty, the difficulty known every
where among western peoples as that Of 1.-The
prophecies" All civilized society Is ased upon
the idea that young women need special pro-
unless carefully defended as ever they were In
the savage times. This defense is secured In
France and Italy by conventual discipline, and
In England by wall of etiquettes which com
pleteiy surrounds every young girl. and cuts
her off flom intimate association with any but
her own sex or her own immediate relatives as
finds this wall at the moment when she first
looks into life. as impervious as a quick sc,
hedge, stopping her studies, II they are to be
pursued out Of doors, arresting her movements
beyond her own door or garden-gates, inter
dieting her friendships, and limiting her
search for knowledge, till she begins to feel as
II she were throttled by prophecies. II her
family belong to the old school, or are bound
by position" to extra strictnesS-for instance,
girls ability to go to classroom alone is in
an English city. really settled by her rank In
nfe-Or at heart dislike the new claim of wo-
men to independence, she is, in fact, placed In
a moral strait-waiStcOat, and as much i'm
prisoned as II she were inclosed within fou.
walls. tits not unnatural that, under such cir
cumstances, she should begin to question the
utility OF these prOprieties, to resent them, as
well as the disabilities they produce, and
finally, II circumstances favor, to set them at
defiance, ard to admit that she is ''fast" merely
Tor the sake of going her own way and living
her own life. 1t is done every day by girls who
have not the slightest intention Of doing harm
or getting into harm, who are just as pure.
MINDED as their sisters, who are Simply resent.
ful Of the endless fences In the path, and un
aDie TO believe that they were set up from any
motive but perversity. 1t seems so absurd that
In civilized country they cannot come in ana
go out as they please, cannot make an appoint
ment without asking permission cannot meet
friends OF the other sex as they VIII, cannot
even select their own reading without passing
the books under some sort OF strict or lenient
CeESOrShip.--[The Spectator.