The Indianapolis journal., 1903-03-22
OF INTEREST To WOMEN
ADVICE TO GIRLS TO CLEAR THEIR
ROOMS OF GIMCRACKs.
Diet Cookery Special and Profita-
BILE Art-One Fat WOman's Method
Odds and Ends.

An observant instructor in one of the
large colleges for women comments wisely
and well on the decoration of college rooms,
force TO the room of the average girl to-
day, says a writer in the New York Trib-
une. Some valiant spirit should start
league for the Improvement of decoration"
writes the observer, with the aim by ex-
ample and precept and ceaseless effort to
Danish from rooms posters, fish nets full
of photographs. unframed casual pictures,
second-rate Madonnas and tawdry decora-
tions of all kinds. We need some among
us to teach the beauty and value of
open spaces on walls, to help us to the ap-
probation which the Japanese, with their
finer aesthetic standards. have Of bringing
into relief single beautiful object or flow
er, by letting it stand in significant isola-
ton. 1t matters not how little we have in
our rooms, provided that little has excel
lence and distinction. 1t is to be expected,
in a certain sense, that our college women
shall form part of the cultivated class in
America, that they shall set standards for
others who have not had the liberal train
ing and refining Of intellectual and spiritual
fiber which advanced education is supposed
to give. But If the rooms of our college
students are at all an index TO the aesthetic
feeling of educated class. then they
reveal-we must be honest with ourselves
a barbaric delight in gewgaws. in clashing
colors. in wild profusion of detail.
'Some one demonstrates: Many girls
cannot afford to spend money their
rooms Such people can at least keep their
rooms from being glutted with cheap
things. There is something commanding in
the self-respect of girl whose room re-
mains frankly bare, or who has in 1t only
the few good pictures she can afford. For
the girls who have fairly ample allowances
the exercise of a little judgment would
show that beautiful effects are consistent
with economy. Every girl can decide on a
color scheme and keep her purchases in
harmony with that-couch cover, screen
and cushions. Every girl can Danish all
but three or, at most, four photographs Of
friends, or put out different photographs
is fatal to a room. Every girl can apply
the most elementary principles of interior
decoration-that a rug should run parallel
to the four lines of the floor space, and
should never be placed crosswise to them.
Every girl can make couch, ugly or
shapeless with a prodigal heap of cush-
ions, into something that shall have beauty
through its restraint and severity of out
line. Severity of hue-that is the watch
word for those who care to give their rooms
distinction.
Our ToOilS are, III way, tne oulWdru
vesture of our lives, and should be made
to express the things we hold dear. In
dress we make a stand for certain things;
will not take up up the silly fashions
of the street in our rooms? Why not put
our personal impress with fastidious care
and selection on that which forms the back
ground of our life? 1t always seems as if
really beautiful pictures help one to live
on a higher plane, as if it were less easy
to have mean and sordid thoughts in their
presence. We ought to bear testimony to
our faith in the beautiful by having at
least one visible symbol of it in our room to
solace or admonish us at our need. If we
are poor and can have but one thing, let
it stand In the enlarged dignity it will have
by it's refusal, its unqualified refusal, to
mate with commonness and tawdriness."