The morning call., 1890-12-19

put them in garden and at once the
atmosphere is 0vercEarged.
At home we are not conyentional-that is,
in the English sense. Here in England So
ciety is formed; in America it is forming.
In America we do not
SEARCH FOR PRECEDENTs,
We create them; and so the American girl
is styled original. One of her first lessons is
self-reliance. She is taught it in an indirect
way by the great activities that lie around
her, and in a direct way by the influences
that surround her home. She sees her BROTH
ers studying for a profession, at work in a
store or office. or apprenticed to trade.
Her own activities are reused; she is III
vited to competition; and unless her tastes
and habits are especially domestic she finds
something to do. Stimulated to action in
this way. without the incentive of need, her
work, whatever it may be, best expresses
herself.
In Middemarch," George Eliot in
weighed against the ''cripplinR conditions"
that modern society imposes upon men and
women. "a life of mistakes, the offspring
OF certain spiritual grandeur, Unmatched
with the meanness of opportunity"
Now this meanness Of opportunity is less
encountered by American women, young
and old, than by the sex in any other land.
1t may be said that the sex is on trial in
America. With 10 limitations put uron
her, the thus far and 10 farther" of the
past has become in the long distance the
echo of dream.
The American girl takes too little exer-
else. An occasional game of lawn tennis or
croQuet, and her physical DEVELOP ment is
done with, unless she cuitivates walking as
lad. Then she belongs to the
"PERIPATETICs,"
Walks herself tired the first month, and
spends the rest of the time in recuperat ton.
The old Arabs believed that the days
spent In tue chase were counted out in the
length of life. Does the English girl knew
this? Is 1t why her tonic is the open air,
and why she looks SO young?
The Alterations of the American girl
make her charming. She keeps up" as
they put it at home. The "Toisto Club"
Afternoons" give her a clever analytic turn !;
the Theosorhic Circle" enlarges her vision
and Subdues her egotism.
A young Englishman said of young
woman OF my acquaintance: 81 knew she
was American. An English girl would
only our college-bred girls read Clough
Outside the circles Of Girton and NEWMAN,
you don't, as rule, find books of that or
der"
In America girl may or may not be col
lege-bred, hut she has her Emerson; she is
not unacqUainted with John Stuart Mill on
the prerosa!ives and possibilities of women,
and Herbert Spencer's Education" anu
Sociology" are among her textbooks.
Girls are not rellgiously bred at lone.
That is, they are not forced into the &C
ceptance OF certain religious tenets. and
this fact may have more or less to do with
the universally OF their culture.
WE HAVE AN INTERESTING TYPE
or girl called the school-marm." Edu-
Gated either in public or private school,
she takes three years course in tho Nor
NAL Institute, where she is qualified as a
teacher. The next step is to secure d school
in country district, where her novitiate is
served. Alter three or four or five years you
lind her in town teaching in a high school.
Once year the teachers convene or held
what is called their institute, and here are
gathered together 100 or more young women
of the school-marn may be briefly stated.
She is bright, full of energy, a little dogmatic,
but with quantities Of exact knowledge on
a great diversity of subjects.
These young women earn from e12 to 915
month, and as a majority of them marry
before 80 years of age constant exodus is
Kept up from the professional ranks.
Out in the Western States in Nebraska,
Wyoming and Montana, these very inter-
esting young women invest in land and
cattle. In certain districts the Government
grants 160 acres at nominal price on the
condition that the settler improve the tract
and live at least three months in the year
on it. This necessitates a cabin, and
party of sChool-,eachers have been known
10 take up their various claims adjoining
each other, the four OF five in the party
spending each consecutive month
IN EACH OTHERS CABINS.
This nomadic life, sort of patriarchal
tentiDg, is kept up until the end of the
specified time, when each one has title to
her farm of loo acres. 1t may be said, in
passing. that this extraordinary type Is not
to be found east of the Missouri or west Of
the Sierra Nevadas, nor has her novelist
yet been found.
Two of our cleverest writer's have made
their fame by their portraits Of the Western
girl. George w. Cable has given us dainty
and exquisite glimpses iuto the lives of the
daug hterS of the old Creoles i'll the Southern
capitals. Through all his sketches there is
the CLEAN OF white sunlight, of waving
palms, OF languorous heat and dolce far
niente."
Miss Murfree, with the nom de plume +"
Of Charles Egbert Craddock, has sketched
the girl from Tennessee, who breatheS the
air Of the mountains and of the pine. Iu
the nature Of this girl there is something
suggestive of those wild untouched birds
that circle III tie freedom of woods and for
eSis.
Mr.. Gable has given us water lily; Miss
Muriree wild rose.
Girls enjoy a freedom at home that is en-
TREY UNPRECEDENTED in the history of their
sex. Apart from their drawlng-rOUm expe-
rience with men, they meet them every
where. This varied contact educates them
in sense; they learn to know the sex
apart from the Observation-Disclosures Ho-
gan In Woman" of London.