The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-11-29
TALL GIRLS.
A Providence Philosopher Discourses
 on the Upward Growth of American

A Providence Philosopher Discourses
 on the Upward Growth of American
 Girls.
 Ideals of beauty change from age 10 age and differ among different peoples. The curious thin is that humanity IS apparently capable of the physical transformations that the ideals de- mand The statement is made that American girls eltaller and larger than they used to be. and figures are given to prove it. Nor is there any, thing improbable in this. The ln- creased attention to athletics in late years would account for 1t easily enough. There are few sports now III which women cannot and do not take an active part. The healthy girl of to- day walks, rides, rows, swims, plays golf and sails beat as freely and nat urally her brother does, and is an en- tirely different being from her prede- cessor of a generation ago That this should have its effect upon the future of the race goes without saying, per- haps; but the figures to which we have referred prove that physical culture will add an actual inch to the statue or d ment of waist, chest. lungs, arms and so on. Thus by taking thought any girl can be taller than she is.
 Nevertheless, there still remains something inexplicable in the fact that the race changes to meet the ideal How long is it since the small soft, clinging creature was celebrated as the
 divine type of womanhood? Read the novels of forty or fifty years ago and see what a bundle of affeatations the heroines were. They sacrificed every-
 thing to their conception of female
 delicacy' and fancied that men would despisa them if they acted like reasona-
 ble beings. They ran to one extreme as completely as the new woman has
 run to the other. Perhaps the new wo-
 man is more or less confined to fiction;
 she is not to be confounded with the
 athletic girl, at any rate; but she is not
 further from the normal ideal of wo-
 manhood than her weak sister of half a
 century ago. Doubtless then as now
 the ordinary woman ran into no ex- treme at all. Doubtless many of the traits from which we are wont to gen. eralize are superficial and do not affect in the least the essential nature of the sex. But still we should be conscious of living in a very dierent atmosphere if
 we were transferred suddenly from the
 presence of the girl of 1898 to that o1
 the girl of 1S4S.
 Those skilled in such matters have often noted that other changes thar those in manners seem to have fash. ion of their own A well-known wo man in society or popular actress is 1 initiated ad nauseam until dark hair ol | thin lips or pale complexion, or what | not, is as common as the opposite 1 things were six months before. What i ever "type' happens to strike the fan | cy is multiplied a hundred times over 1 The sarcastic say that it is all art, bu1 | there are certainly authentic case! | where the beauty was genuine enough l be it blonde or dark, Titan red or Wat | teau blue, that at the time was reg | nant. All this only shows the adapta | bility of woman to her environment il l which respect she is two or three centu ries ahead of that wretched creatur, man. For our own part we are glat l that just now the healthy, tall, athleti, girl has the field, even though the re l suit may be that at fashionable wed l dings, as we are told, it is no unusua | occurrence to see the bride toWerins l several inches above the bridegroom l This is no argument for women to stol l growing, but rather a warning to mel l to forswear sack and live cleanly an,
 so keep up with their partners in tht | game of 1ife.-Providence Journal.
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