The Indianapolis journal., 1904-05-15

as one who has left
girshood a long way behind, and
has seen the daughters OF her old
lfSI school friends and contempora-
- rie. emerging from babyhood in
TO girlhood .and womanhood, l notice
considerable change of type in the modern
maiden. In some respects the change Is
admirable n others 1t requires modifica-
ton. But il. all ways the change is ex-
tremely marked. l am not going back so
far to the Early or mid-Nictorian
epoch; | speak now of the girls who -four
ished in the seventies and eighties, and
i think that even in the space OF twenty
or five and twenty years a great change
has come about. The typical girl of the
present day glories in her strength. She
can play cricket and hockey; she can ride
and drive and swim; she can walk ten
miles with. ease, row a boat with her
brother and. enjoy life with the zest of
SChOolboy. Very often she Is accomplished
in some particular line; she has a taste for
carving or music, or for managing girls
clubs; and she throws herself into pur-
suit of this kind as whole-heartedly as
into her asnusements. If she is of the
wage-earnirg or salaried class, she does
her work in business-like fashion and
makes hersself valuable to her employers.
She is goC.l humored, bouyant, generally
brimmins sver with good spirits. cap
ital comrade. a trusty friend But she is
clined 10 cOnfide their affairs TO her; and
those who are sick or sorry pass her by.
TIE OLD-STYLE GIRL.
Still, she Is a more complete human being,
in many respects. than her predecessor of
the seventies, who suffered only too often
from insult. cient exercise and misdirected
energies. Eublic examinations and crowd
ed high schools were in their infancy, and
the education of girls was almost entirely
IA the hands Of private teachers, schoolmis-
trssses ant governesses. In the better
class schoo:rooms there was an almost ex-
aggeratcd .conscientiousness about small
duties. proceeding from the efforts OF teach
ers TO follow DR.. Arnoid's methods-an ex-
cellent idea IL well carried out, but apt 10
produce a morbid scrupulosity and tin
tive fear 0f any sort OF enjoyment. 1t
can't be ris:ht. because L like IL so much.
was sentence uttered by a girl of my ac-
Quaintance in all sincerity.
There MS also a good deal of religious
and phianthropic activity among the girls
of that time in the way OF Sunday school
teaching. tract distribution. ana the carry ~
litical economy did not. in those days. az
feet us. We believed that We were doing
matter OF TACT we ourselves proited more
BY our exertions than the recipients of our
gifts Miss Charlotte Yonge has some very
Well-draWH specimens OF SlFiS ol tiiS SUI
in her books Take, for instance. Ethel
May or Army Morviiie- In our day Ethel s
Classical attachments would be the CHIEF
factor of her life; she would have had
coach and gone to Girton. instead of set
Ting dowY. to keep her fathers home and
build a church at Cocksmoor. Amy, Wild
owed at seventeen, would most assuredly
have made a second brilliant marriage, IN
stead OF cutting of her hair, wearing
Widows cap Cat seventeen) and living for
her child The girls of the present day are
not likely 30 suffer by the sacrifice or their
Intellectual gifts or the remuneration OF all
worldly enjoyment at the age or seventeen
They would laugh the idea 10 scorn
And yet-is there not something amiss?
Ethel Mays self-suppression. Amy Nor
ville's abnegation-had they not their origin
in some real conception of the divine?
These girls had ideals. and did their best.
I'm what we may perhaps think mistaken
fashions. to live up TO them. am very
much afraid that a large proportion OF
modern girls have left ''the IDEAL out OF
their confederation They have plenty or
ambition: they want to get on in the world
and most Of all they want enjoyment