The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-11-03

WHAT PROGRESS HAS DONE AND
UNDONE FOR HER.

Than Her Grandmother, Because
More Are Required Nowadays-At
Thirty She Has Merely Reached
the Point of Being Ready for Mar
riage-Perhaps She is Not
Dainty as of Old, but She IL
Stronger and HeaIthier-There Are
Some Extremes, However, which
Need CURLING.
10 poise with solid sense a spirght-
ly wit'--that is what the present-day
young woman has somehow caught the
trick of doing, and it is largely this
piquant and alluring union of wit and
wisdom which distinguishes her from
her grandmother. Not that wit, grace
and beauty were not the grandmother's
pre-eminently; but there is little evil
dence in history or tradition to show
that solid sense was possessed or even
desired in the young girls of her time.
Men were required to be sensible; men
were expected to be brave, strong, wise
serious and self-sacrificing; but the
girl was encouraged and educated even
to be as silly. cowardly. weak, frivol-
Gus. selfish and hayward as a carefully
shielded, over-indulged, unframed and
untried little animal, bi-pedal or quad
rupal, inevitably tends to become.
Nor was she in the least to blame
for her shortcomings. Our grand
mothers, from all accounts. seem to
have struggled up through the two
| stages of an abnormal. sunbonnetted,
| pantaletted, low-necked and short
sleeved childhood, and an unnatural,
wasp-waisted, paper-soled, sentimental
young ladyhood, into neurotic creatures
Of prematurely overtaxed organs and
unstrung nerves, prone in moments Of
calm to unhealthy sehtimentality, and
| in times of excitement to uncontrolled
| Mysteries.
| On the other hand, the young woman
OF to-day has been allowed to develop
| with Natures slow and healthy growth
| from a properly clothed, hygienically
reared babyhood, though a rational
childhood, girlhood and young lady
| hood, during which, with a healthy
young animals keen delight in mus
cular exercise she has learned to swim
and row. dance and skate, play tennis
and ride a bicycle. She has formed
rather than filled her mind by read
| ing of the right books and by enough,
but not too much, hard study. At
thirty she is often unmarried, because
girls of to-day are more and more cher
| ishing in their hearts lofty ideals, not
| 80 much of their partners as of
their own selves, which it takes time
to create.
A gracious. self-possessed woman of
| the world is she at thirty. as for re-
| moved from the old time woman of
that age as is the joyous, earnest, am
bilious school girl of to-day from the
| Dresden china shepherdess damsels of
| hundred years ago--those fragile, or
namental, sentimental maidens Of six
teen or under whose most serious oc-
cupation was the ensnaring of beaux.
In those days, when girls married at
sixteen, the woman of thirty was the
mother of numerous family. Her
highest ambition was to be called the
best housekeeper in town and all her
thought was given to the hemstitching
of her linen sheets and the embroider-
ing of her underclothes All honor to
her name, for her standards were high
in the only things which were con-
sidered legitimate for women. Stand
ards for women to-day are higher, but
they will do we'll If they strive as
strenuously to reach them as did she.
An exquisite creature was our grand
mother in her girlhood; no one so
dainty and so graceful as she; no.
| where to-day Is there so delicate a
piece of femininity. To-day indeed. few
women covet that praise. 1t is no
longer the tiny hand. the milk white
skin. the trim ankle and the taper WAIST
that women strive for and men de-
| mand, but rather the strong arm, the
firm step. the bright eve. and the clear
| brain-no longer perfect femininity but
| perfect womanhood. ;,
1t has been said that there is less
| physical beauty in the world to-day
than there was a. century ago. Ger
tainly there is less talk about 1t. But
view by the new standards. our grand
| children will blossom into such beauty
as the world has never seen; for 1t has
| been given to us to know many things
| that were undreamed of in the philos-
ophy of those pretty little maids of
long ago. Perhaps most important,
most helpful of all. we have learned
to see the fallacy of that me-honored
aphorism. Beauty is only skin deep"
| and we now set TO work scientifically
to make ourselves beautiful from the
| inside outward. .
I'VE may indeed have lost some of
the fineness and fastidiousness which
| marked the young women of our
grandmother's time-the belief that a
cotton handkerchief would injure the
| nose; that cotton underclothing was
not only vulgar, but unwholesome;
| that a soft, white hand was the hall
mark of lady: that a knowledge OF
dancing. singing. playing, embroidering
| and letter-writting stood next in i'm
| portarlce to the art of personal adorn-
nent. But we must still admit that
| there Is certain mental elegance
| which comes of intimate association
with linens and expresses itself some
how in the body. and which we lack
| nowadays through close familiarity
| with cottons: a certain fineness be-
| tokened by a soft, white, shapely hand
| that our modern athletic women, with
| their hard. brown hands, sometimes
| fail of; and certain culture that even
superficial study of the arts can not
| fail to impart.
On the other. hand women, to
| greater degree than ever before, have
common sense, and utilitarianism, and
the calmness and poise that go with
strength; but in their eagerness for
this physical and mental power they
may have sometimes lost in grace and
sweetness IT remains for those of the
next generation tremendously to COM
bine the two. .,
There are still to be met young
women who cling and faint and shrek
and pinch their waists and toes. So
are there those who, to quote Senator
John ]. ingalls,. go to the races with
one man, and bet, drink cocktails,
.MAIrz IL