The New York herald., 1879-12-01
American Girls.

contemporaries, found 1t necessary 10 say
something about the American girl, and as
most English editorial opinions on the
same topic have to their estimable subject
been far more provocative Of pouts than
smiles, we are happy in being able to say
that Truth believes the American girl to
unite the tact and saUoir virre Of the
French woman with the solid qualities OF
the Anglo-Saxon race. We are further in
formed that our young women know how
to set off their natural advantages with
dress, they are philosophically good tenn
pered, and-although on this side of the
ocean it has strongly the appearance
of negative virtue--they are favor
ties with wife-seeking Englishmen. The
editor is to be congratulated upon his dis
cernment for most of his fraternity abroad
have blundered wofully whenever they
have attempted to consider the same sub.
ject {; they have followed rules established
by society greatly unlike our own so far
as women are concerned, falling to realize
the fact that in Europe, as we'll as here.
womans manner is the result of the re-
quirements that society, in the larger sig
nifcance Of the word, makes upon her. It
is not only impossible, but decidedly i'm
proper, for the American woman, even
of excellent English lineage, to be
an exact follower of her foreign
cousins, for her position at home and
in society is higher and more important.
Married, she is not only her husbands
1 4 l.: g..
malities; she is, if she chooses, his business
confdante and in every other way his
equal unmarried, and still girl at home,
she has nevertheless, through birth and
the unconscious education of the home cir
Gle, at least as much taste for general affairs
as for housekeeping. Her very vivacity,
which is unexcelled by her sex in any other
nation, and equalled only in France, is
partly the result of mental rebound
from practical cares and thoughts
from the cause, in fact, to which in
most countries the higher spirits of
the ruder sex may be traced. The demands
of q newer civilization are probably the
cause of the difference, just as the special
requirements of travel in rude countries
have turned delicate English ladies-for
instance, Lady Duff Gordon and the wife Of
Sir Samuel Baker-into admirable women
of affairs, without in the least marring in
herited graces and refnements. Most of
our girls graduate from home schools where
the special tuition has range to which
that enjoyed by the English girl is not to
he compared and among the effects are
perception, decision and independence,
which unconsciously modify conduct
with results that are entirely mis-
understood abroad, for the simple
reason that vigorous individuality in
woman is not demanded there by the
conditions of society, and its manifesto
ton is consequently regarded with sus-
picion. That the typical American girl is
not entirely at home in foreign society fol-
lows as a matter of course, and not for
reasons ascribed by most English writer's
and suggested by some Americans who seem
to be endeavoring to denationalize them
selves. That she is not an English girl may
occasionally cause her annoyance, yet to
become other than she is would require
loss of character, for which the conven-
tional graces of different though not a
more refined civilization would be no COM
pensation.
Pounds, Shillings, Pence and Weather.