Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-11-15
SIUDYOF THE MODERN GIRL
CHARGES FILED AGAINST Young
WOMEN OF TO-DAY.
ID q. Alleged That They Are Pessimists
and Professional
Athletes.
From ,br London Telegraph.

From ~" IscB,ou Telegraph.
Every one and especially herself, is tre-
rneudullsly Interested in the modern girl.
The morning papers spare couple of col
uTnns from frivolous matters like the war
and the sultans latest escapades. and give
them up to a strenuous discussion of really
serious, questions such as whether the mod
,.rn girl knows how to boil an egg or hold
the. baby Her image and superscription
axe hlazoaed abroad in the magazines. We
ind her in stories long and short talking
slang which her creator fondly believes to
be masculine SympOsiums dissect her,
ctuseries abuse her. One writer tells us
that the modern girl has become a sort of
professional athlete, and another echoes the
wall in a very different key by assuring us
that she ruins her health by overstudy- In
dne paper told that the girl who
catches the 9:15 with her brothers is ruin
ing her own physique and posterity and
che market for male labor. Another bids
us believe that the millennium will never
come till every girl is earning her own iiv-
Ing In an office or shop, on the stage or at
her desk; in fact. it is quite certain, II we
may believe all we hear, that the very best
kept houses are those in which the mistress
is at home only after O'Clock.
The modern girl has had to bear fearful
and wonderful attacks. and if she contrives
to exist fairly comfortably in spite of
them, il Is perhaps because these assall-
ants II hers have delightful way of kill
ing one another The latest charge Is
highly serious and quite novel THE mod
srR girl. says a ladies' paper, bluntly, lis
d pessimist.' This is worse than being fg-
UorIut Of the proper way to boil eggs. After
all. an cgg must boil in time. if you keep
the fire alight; but no amount of fire and
water will make pessimism paiatable. AS
to the reason why the modern girl has
come to hold this dreaTy faith not
Informed 1t may have been an overdose
II the works of lady noyelists 1t may
have been reading long and elaborate in
VvctiyeS against herself, and coming at
last To believe in them The writer of this
defamutory article appeals (they always
dOJ to the good old times. In those excel
lent days. which all admire much and
know nothing about, sweet and twenty"
used to mean happiness and high spirits
we'll as obedience to grandmamma and
worship of Mrs. Grundy. You might, per-
hIps, have thought that "sweet and tweu-
ty' means much the same today, minus
Grandmamma- But no; the modern girl
has a tendency to grizzle and despair and
NOPE. which her predecessors never dis
played No longer do girls rejoice in the
froiicSOme mirth of IL. E. L. and Mrs
Hemans; no longer is a crinoline scarcely
big enough TO contain their optimism They
are fallen on evil days: pessimism and tight
skirts are the only wear Things are sad
i changed from that desirable period
when. the ladies' paper POLITICALLY OBJ
serves "all the world was young to them:
life was dear and bright; everything was
true. everything new" 1t seems cruel
To bring this tragic tone to the test of any
JllHg 50 commonplace as real life. but he
modern girl is nothing if not practical, and
borrowing her assailant's style she may
well ask whether all l4is charge is true
even il all Of IL is new?
Clothes soon Grow Old.
IL Is clearly impossible to take it quite
literally. What was new yesterday is on
the road to dowdiness today. The modern
girl win respectfully decline to believe in a
golden age when clothes never grew old,
when everything, even a dressmaker's prom
lses. was true. But this is petty and
niggiing criticism to devote to such an aw-
ful charge. An outsider is proverbiaIly
allowed to see most of the game and ON,
who has no hope of ever being a girl an
Client or modern, may claim the right tn
state an opinion with all the gravity that
the case demands. This froIicsone girl of
the past turns out, on examination, to be
something OF a fraud. Our great-gcand-
mothers may have been optimists TO The
bone. but If we believe the BOOKS they
read and the books that were written about
them they Were rather lackadaisicaI crea-
lures They tainted at the smallest excuse
and wept with none at all. This may mean
that their life was dear and bright but
IL 1t does they chose strange way of ,x-
pressing their feelings No doubt they did
not all give way to these annoyiug habIrs
We must fairly put some of their faIntit,p
nts down TO the conventions of fiction. But
the modern girl certainly does not do fha,s
Iaines 10 anything like the same cxtrava-
CANT extent. Whatever she may do in the
way OF grizzling or "moping" she 5 far
TOO busy to faint
No doubt there are girls who 'grizzIe ard
NOPE and, with all respect to our grand
mothers, no doubt some of them did the
same: But TO say such things of the mod
efn CIR! as class is trifie rash Tho girls
We meet on the river with sY,Db,rpaa e. =.
and brown. capable arms keep their nesc,
tillsm' II they have any. very much 20
themselves The girls who play tennis al
me evening after day in the city have
not very much time to NOPE The fact 20
there Is no such thing as the modern ci.I
ohe IS a mere creation of newspapers and
Ihdsdzlnes Some one meets a pessimistic
maiden and promptly writes an article al
ttchhs girls In general Some unfortunate
man has his dinner badly cooked and writes
70 the papers about the inferiority IF wo-
men me, It Is Is creed much in favor with boys
ana IpNellSts that all women are alike and
one OF the reasons why women are yraat
ieduerS Oh novels Is that IL Is rather anus
s"s 10 see naan-even a novelist-m4ke q
lool or himself. Still. one swallow docs not
make II summer, nor one moninp girl s,.nI
for all her sex o "'<'ii"
ffoodny there are some ''half-pennv-
worth OF bread TO this monstrous deal az
sack The world, as the ladies. 49,, ~
wisely observes does grow older; the string
gle Tor life has perhaps grown more strane,-
Is, NirIs no longer spend their DAYS In
sewing samplers IN turning good yoosa-
perry Jam into Indifferent euaya ieIt.
.No"aaiys they have way of going ni,t
into me world and earning their POCKET
money II not their living or course The
makes a difference ~
MODERN Girl IL Serious.
me modern girl knows more and doos
hiore IMAM her grandmother and Inevitably
vein OF seriousness runs through her
Character. But seriousness Ia M, -.
~ M ihheed. the new interests the chance
90 place even sheltered place in the
S.LussIe Tor existence are the best Of anti
uoces 10 moping- The old life passed IN
the hltchen. the stiIi room and the nurssrw
almost dead. but IL the modern girl is
Deter used 10 the typewriter II does NOT
tono" thdt she knows nothing about the
ir3HS pan-StiH less that she nlopes On nor
Dlcycle or frizzles as she shoves her NUM-
Ihere was time when il was an sTior,
IN all welI-regulated families that no re-
spectacle girl could be the friend of a man
Mhether our great grandmothers Thought
tnat an men were beasts OF prey or that
All girls We're fools Is not certain. hat 81
siI events. the modern girls knows better
one OF the things she has learned from her
freedom Is that mere friendship is worth
having and worth keeping and so sbe has
found out how TO be a friend