San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-03-15
OUR GIRLS AT SCHOOL.
cATHARINE COLE SEES CAUSE FOR
A POINTED COMPLAINT.
Graduating in White Silk and Mental
Philosophy at 1.-THE Mothers Are
Really to Blame-It Would Be Better II
the Teachers Had Their Way.

the Teachers Had Their Way.
II often happens that our graduated young
ladies are not really thorough in anything
They never will be thoroughly taught until
co-education exists everywhere and until
parents demands less show, less sensation and
more study. A moths boasts that her II
year-old daughter will graduate in the
spring. Graduate in what, MADAME In one
show piece of music, in one show piece OF
painting or drawing, in one show compost
ton. She has studied some books and knows
almost enough to know that she knows moth
ing Half of her school days have been spent
in preparing for commencement exercises
and public school exhibitions. All her train
ing, all her ambition has led her to hurry out
of childhood into young ladyhood. She has
tried to get an education so she can get
beau. Fifteen-year-old school girls talk about
dress and parties and beaux; but boys of the
same age are tossing ball, shooting each other
with toy pistols, and give no more thoughts
to girls than they do to the man in the moon
running THE CoUNTRY's MOTHERS.
The career of a modern young woman is as
rapid and as distressing as the career OF MIR
Solomon Grundy, who was born on Mon
day and galloped through life in seven
DAYS She graduates in white silk and mental
philosophy at II and has season or SO in so
ciety. By 20 she is married, and at %, when
she ought to be in the very heyday of gra
cious, wholesome, healthy young womanhood,
she is a tagged out home body and the mother
of a lot of babies Her music is gone, heI
drawing is gone; she cannot so much as say
''boo" in French, and all her boosted educa-
ton is less than nothing. When she gradu-
ated it was with a fine flourish and she read
amid applause the pretty valedictory, from
which a discreet teacher had carefully pruneG
away all signs of originality, leaving only
the nicely phrased platitudes and proverbs
that are respectable and not too startling fol
unprofessional life. But now, alas! she does
| not so much as look at a newspaper. She has
| no art of thinking, and an old woman at %,
| she has accomplished nothing in life save
| diploma and a husband. 1t is the most beautl-
| ful life of all for woman that of the wife
and mother; but this wife cannot preserve
her charms in the domestic circle if she has
not patiently and thoughtfully cultivated
them to make them last She hurried through
the very best of her life 1t is done with and
gone. Good or bad, gay or sad, it is gone
| forever She can never be a girl again
| Vanity and ignorance rushed her through the
rose garden time, when the blossoms were
J fair and the orchards were full Of Junes
| Il ho fDr
her.
The really thoughtful and earnest teacher
will be proud of having in her ranks young
women of Is and 20 years of age. These have
minds that are beginning to act, to move, to
think These will be worthy of her teaching,
for they have broadened to something better
than bangs and beaux and sending notes and
chewing gum. The public exhibition, the
recitation and essay, the fine dress, the news
paper report of it all, the weeks of excited
preparation for all this-why it is enough to
turn the head of a l7-year-Old girl. And it
does turn her head, away from her studies,
away from the real why she is at school.
What has she learnedt Chemistry? Physi-
ology1 Botany? Mathematics! Astronomy
l uIIOoOphg 4LC LlSIOl tlIlu ILL lLS SSlSilSSs
of the world2 Lord! Lord What a wise
little head it is, and how sorry am for it
under its curl papers and jeweled hairpins
and powder These sweet girl graduates
often do not know how to read a book or q
newspaper, or to carry on a conversation.
But they do know all about dressing, about
looking finer than other girls, and having the
most flowers, and about going to the play
. and dancing the german by the time they are
r 10. A child of l6 hides her book in the street
car because she is ashamed to let it be seen
that she is still studying the United States
history! A mother boasts that her growing
girl sits up until midnight or later studying
and that at this rate she will finish school in
q year.
HOW WILL 1T BE CHANGED2
1t is not disgrace to be a school girl al
20 years and still studying lessons, but it i:
almost disgrace for us to hurry our girl
along, graduate" them and have then
; ready for all tife's mysteries and sorrows al
an age when they should still be scampering
J like colts through the Aowery orchards il
the June time of their youth. At the exhi
bition, the proudest mother is the one who's
daughter figures most frequently on f..
stage, whose name is oftf1ast on the.pro