The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1898-01-21
The Reign of Common Sense Begun,


I glory in the new woman, in that so
often she is rich and beautiful. 1t is easy
enough to be good if you are plain. In
fact, there is nothing else left for plain
woman to do! But to take these lovely
girls who are tempted by society &c idle
away their days, and waste their lives
listening to hattery which is but thing
of the moment, and let them have sense to
see through it's hollowness and want to
be something and do something, and it
becomes heroic. Perhaps it is only a
fad: Then heaven send more fads! If it
is the fashion to have a vocation and to
educate ones self along these lines
which were never heard of few years
ago, then for once fashion has accidental
y lyt become 3n noble noble It strikes me rather
has begun; that the age of utility
has come. When nine out of ey-
cry ten of the girls you meet in smart
society have a distinct vocation of their
own: when a girl who only sings or plays
or crochets is considered by her sister
woman to he butterfly; when society
girls are being trained nurses; when, if
you are paying calls upon a fashionable
friend, YOU are quite apt to be told that
she is living at Hull house this month;
when a girl whose face generally appears
in the society column suddenly comes out
as the composer of a new song; when
girl who dances best at the balls calmly
announces that she is taking a course at
the university; when everything nova
days is gone into so seriously, the time
has come to look the question of the new
woman Squarely in the face, to put stop
to cheap witticisms at her expense, and
to give her your honest respect.-Lilian
Bell in WOman's Home Companion.
Round Shoulders and Dropping Heads.
/ hoc NJ s.,l
ism to say that American women carry
themselves badly and that their walk is
ungraceful, but it is a fact so apparent
to the observer that it cannot be too fire.
quently reiterated or brought to the at
tention of both mothers and daughters.
Is there no possible way of inducing our
girls to throw back their heads and their
shoulders? They are willing enough to
give due attention to what is becoming
in other things, the arrangement of their
hair, the cut and color of their clothes.
even the adjustment of a curl or veil.
or the effect of a bow of ribbon. Why is
it, therefore. that they apparently can
not be brought to consider what is so
much more essential to their good looks
way Of holding their heads and their
bodies?
THE proper carriage" says success
full dancing master, "and the one that is
most becoming to face and figure, is to
hold the. elbows slightly back of the
waist line, to throw the chest forward
the stomach in, the head back, and so
have the chin little raised.''
1T is all very WE'LL" said an anxious
mother in reply, Ito say what ought to be
done. The question is how to effect this
reform? My girls will straighten I'D
when l tell them to, and they REALLY try,
l think, to remember, but it is hardly de-
s,rable for unaffected, natural girls to be
always conscious of their looks or the
impression that they make upon others
What is needed, it seems to me. and
what, seems impossible to find is some
form of exercise that can be done at
home, or braces that will really brace
l have tried number of the latter. and
they are no good at all, the forward car
rage of the head, which is the hardest
fault to contend with, not being corrected
by either gymnastic exercises or braces
l have threatened my family with irons TO
hold the heads, like those they have in
Photographic establishments. which nav
be screwed to each of their chairs in the
dining room or in any other room where
they may be sitting."-New York Tri-
bune.
Tho Girl with Brother.
The girl with brother was buying
Christmas presents and the friend who
met her at the frame. counter wondered
at the stock of photograph holders. racks
and screens which she was having sent
homo