Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1883-08-02
BOSTON IDEAL WOMEN.
Who and What She of the Future Must Be.

There is no doubt that whatever wo-
man ia to be or not to be, potentially
considered, she is in the actual present
the strongest social force Of the day
Life is her keyboard and she sweeps the
scale with practiced ease. From old dis
cords she evolves harmonies; from rag
ments of a song half sung she Is bring,
ing the grander creations OF musicai
art. The power that lies in woman as
social force is its own responsibility
Great gifts are less designed by God TO
confer privileges than they are to indi-
cate duties. Opportunities are some
times given in Chaldean language and
read backward to remuneration rather
than forward. The woman OF to-day
stands with tremulous eagerness on the
threshold of this new life of woman
hood which is to her practically new
heaven and a new earth. To her all
doors arc opened. The limitation of
individual capacity is the only limita-
ton of her life. Art, literature, the pro-
fessions, the Industrial vocations, await
her inspirations and her ministries
1t is q beautiful and blessed world in
which she stands. What shall she do
in it?
The ideal woman of the future must
be symmetrical. She must recognize the
one great work of MISUNDERSTANDING
inc. The moral and the intellectual
forces must find their point of reconcil-
| iation and of unity. She must recog-
nize the profound significance OF tend
encies. Habit becomes an automatic
| action, and if it is not wise to do any
thing repeatedly it is hazardous to do
once. An action repeated gathers mo-
| mentum and becomes the active and
| controlling rather than the passive and
| comfortable force. The coming woman
will recognize the Importance of those
tendencies and will guard her life in that
direction.
The ideal woman of the future will be
the complete woman. Ethics will not
crowd out esthetics in her character
She will give the sensitive shading to
the values of life. Intellectual pursuits,
great ideas, will neither be subordinated
to emotion and decorative vanities, mol
will they eliminate from her character
that nameless elegance of manner, the
finish of address, the beauty of costume.
that all unite to make up that perfect
woman nObly planned. Dress and adj
dress in this higher significance consti-
tute the symmetry, the fruition OF the
social forces. Yet is the striving after
beauty line that lies between the Scylla
of sensuous qualification and vanity and
the Charybdis of disregard of the sub
tie, pervasive influence of esthetics.-
Professor Sargent, of Harvard, said, in
his grand address before the Moral Ed
ucation Society recently, that we may
carry decoration and refinement to ex-
cess and to sin. IL believe" said he,
Gin the stern simplicity of nature" II
we could but recognize the true beauty
that lies in this simplicity and the cheap
and tawdry effect produced by over
decoration, we should arrive ut one i'm.
, portant truth that must govern the wo-
man who sways the social forces OF the
future. Dress and decoration may be-
come the clog rather than the garniturc
I they were designed to be.
The ideal woman. clear in her intel
lectual perception, trained and balanced
in her Judgment, discriminating between
nobility and cheapness, and compre
hensive of that other fine truth stated
by Professor Sargent, that ii is vulgar
, to seem and not to be. She will unite
: the trained power of the developed in
tellect, the generous sympathy OF the
heart, the grace and social ease of the
elcgante of society, and by right Of these
, pre-eminent gifts of influence will she
stand as one of the elemental powers OF
life, as the needed social force of the
age.-BOStoR advertiser.