The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1902-06-06
EXIT THE NAGGING WOMAN.
Education and Larger Opportunity
Are Banishing This Type from
Modern Society.

The wonderful changes that have
taken place in the experience and the
character of women in the last so
years have not yet found chronicler,
perhaps will never find one. Tenny-
son wrote "The Princess" in 1947.
Serio-comic as was his treatment of
the questions that were later to as
sumo such Importance, he had the
poets prophetic vision, and spoke a
word which holds good so years after
it was penned.
In 1867, the first class, consisting of
-four girls, was graduated from Vas
sar college. The dream of "The
Princess" had come to pass, and now
the "alumna" is as much matter of
course as the "alumnus."
Education and enlarged opportuni-
ty have not wrought their changes on
those alone who have gained the right
to add the magic B. A. to their names.
The new learning has filtered through
the mass of society, and has leavened
the whole lump. Certain types famil-
lar enough both in fiction and in real
life so years ago have become practi-
cally extinct, says Youths Companion.
There was the romantic maiden,
who walked about the house in dream
of titled lovers, cruel parents and mid
night flights. She was difficult mem
Der of well-regulated family, ana
even sending her to a boarding school
was not sure to clear her mind of its
roseate unrealities. Before the whole
some breeze of more vigorous educa-
tion they seem to have vanished, and
one seeks in vain to-day for Lydia
Languish.
Then there was the delicate maiden.
She was famous for her lack of appe-
lite, her disregard of sleep and her
interesting pallor. She was given to
the consumption of pencils.
chalk, sweetmeats, and some times she
even dropped dark hints of familiarity
with arsenic. She talked sweetly of
her nerves, and she could faint at the
shortest notice. Her shoes, her cor
sets and her earrings were matters of
the greatest moment to her.
Tennis, golf, the gymnasium and the
basket ball team have reformed the
delicate maiden, and she is now in
more danger of becoming a hoyden
than an invalid.
There is another type which has not
yet wholly disappeared, but which is
less common than of old. This is the
nagging woman. She had no sense of
proportion. The. stopping of her
watch was as important to her as ii
death in the family. She harped on
single string-for example, a per-
sonal inconvenience-until husband
and guests were at the last notch of
Irritation. She worried her children
into open rebellion. She could never
keep her servants. She could break
up church committee at a single ses-
sion, although no one dared to think
of her as anything but ga very good
woman"
Slowly but surely the broader hori-
zon, the richer resource. the better
training are banishing this woman
from modern society. She was often
the unconscious victim of her own
energy and ambition. To-day these
are directed and utilized in the activi-
lies of town and city. She begins to
see herself as others see her, and the
twentieth century will mark the dis
appearance of the nagging woman as
the nineteenth has reioiced over the
extinction of the romantic dreamer
and the invalid by profession.