Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1884-09-26
THE BRIGHT SIDE.


The Future Men and Women Of Wichita
Last Sabbath morning we had something
to say of the women Of Wichita. We come
this morning with tribute to their sons and
daughters. The new principal of the city
High school, in answer to our question yes
terday, said he was delighted with his schol-
ans and his work. We didn't ask him why
he was more than ordinarily pleased with
his scholars and school for we knew. We
have watched those scholars, some of them
almost every day, for ten or dozen years
and know the secret Of the delight. "To
man" they are bright young ladies and
bright young men who need no urging or
coaxing, but who with avidity and hearty
cheerfulness take hold of everything sub
mitted to their mental powers. OF course
Professor Steffee finds it pleasant task to
lead into the ever varying and widening
paths of knowledge such band of promise
as the boys and girls of Wichita In the
environments of life there is a mysterious
influence which molds and typides and
which, when not perverse, enobles. In this
peculiar to it and us. In the development
Of the human body and the mind who can
measure the potency of cloudless skies and
sun kissed breezes, or grasp the influences
of this bright cline and the never tagging
energies of her people, on the spirits of the
mothers of whom our children are born.
We laugh often at the doctrines of natural
selection" and "the survival Of the fttest"
but if our own Wichita boys and girls do
not show results of these laws. then We are
left to conclude that BY combination of
ten thousand happy chances and occult in
fuences have the sweetest girls and the
brightest boys that ever blessed the homes
of any city been, for some inscrutible pur-
pose, given the fathers and mothers of Wich-
ita. Did you ever spend q half hour in any
of our Sunday schools, or on the streets
some holiday. watching and studying the
forms, features and movements Of the buds
of human blossoms that are growing
up hereaboutss If you have not do
so. 1t will be well worth your while.
We have noticed the children of thousand
towns and cities, and We say, without any
fear of contradiction, that the number of
pretty children is incomprehensible If not
startling. The typical American face pre-
dominates, that is, the open-eyed, broad
browed, smooth, even-featured, delicately-
chisled chin, which in the boys sometimes
suggests efiminency, but which in reality is
rather of the spiritual and mental. We have
heard It called the triangle face. But it is
the future American face, and will be q new
type of beauty. What it lacks in brute force
will be more than compensated for BY men
tai force. To us these faces, or character of
faces, are beautiful, considered aside from
their smooth and comedy features. These
children will be better, more pure, less sell
fish, less brutal and less grasping than this
generation-more gentle and kind, and loft
Ter in their ideas than their fathers and
mothers.
There are twenty-five hundred Wichita
boys and girls enrolled in the city schools,
fourteen hundred of whom are girls; varying
in size from the tiny fairies of six and seven
TO the budding woman of sixteen and seven
teen. Several times of late we have passed
the buildings at the hour of dismissal. The
traditional rough boistrous boy nor the old
time faded and lily dressed girl were not
there. Intheir places were open-faced man
ly little gentlemen, active enough, straight
and finely proportional, but nine out of ten
of the type, and they are the result Of the in
huences, of which we speak. Like clouds Of
butterAys nuttering came our girls, not but
terfys either except as to the neatness and
the harmony of their attire, and their gentle
and graceful movements. Black-eyed and
blue-eyed, gray-eyed and brown-eyed, all
happy, fair-faced, beautiful.