Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1906-12-19
BY MARGARET {. sANesrER.

Breezy, buoyant, self-reliant, a trifle
self-assertive, and usually equal to the
situation, the western girl belongs to
the most modern and, it may be added,
the most charming type of woman
hood. A generation ago her mother
was a pioneer in the rapidly growing
states that lie beyond what we now
call the middle west. If her mother
were not pioneer her grandmother
was, and no little debt does the girl of
the day owe to the women who went
before her, in that they braved the
trials of new country and brought
into it the refnements and comforts
of the higher civilization.
Too much praise can never be given
to the men and women who have made
the great west. The women, particu-
larly, have shown Indifference to
hardship, and pluck in the face of diff
ficulty, a dauntless courage and
boundless hospitality. To their homes
the casual visitor was ever welcome
and they were equally ready to re-
ceive new idea and to foster what
ever was best in culture and educa-
ton.
All over the western land there are
colleges and universities to which stu
dents throng for the sake of gaining
the higher learning. These colleges
lack the superb apparatus and costly
equipment of eastern institutions, but,
on the other hand, they are splendidly
manned by professors and tutors
eager to teach, and their students are
willing to undergo severe privations
that they may be taught.
The western girl, if she decides to
go to college, cares less about the So
cial side of college life than she does
about the solid good she hopes to
gain. She studies hard and she often
very largely pays her own way. It is
to be noted that many of the western
institutions are coeducational and, in
a part of the country where women
are as influential as men, even in poll
tics, it is not extraordinary that they
should sit side by side in the class
room.
When the western girl comes to the
east she is fully able to hold her own
with the daughters of other sections
She has, as rule, the advantage of
definite aim. She knows what she
wants and she is not easily turned
from the direct line. She is practical,
adaptable and thorough.
In business, the young woman from
the west is bound to succeed Wheth-
er she act as buyer for her firm or ad-
vance agent or assume any other obi
cation of trust, she does her work
with the tact of woman and the en-
ergy of man. One such girl, fair
haired, blue-eyed, and distinctly femi-
nine, not long ago shouldered the re-
sponsibilities of large manufacturing
house, and represented it in a city
5000 miles away. She was feminine
to her f1nger-tips, but it was said of
her that she had the brain and the
business capacity of man in the en-
terprises with which she was identi-
fed.
When the western girl marries, if
her husbands means are small, she
attacks the problem of living with a
resolution and cheerfulness that make
daily life a poem. She cooks, washes,
irons, looks after children and very
likely keeps up her technique in music
and writes papers for her club. West
ern women are apt to regard very seri-
ously their pledges to the club that
keeps them in touch with current
events and opinions. The club idea
has done great deal for the women
who live at distance from the great
towns. At the little weekly or fort
nightly gatherings of the club, women
discuss the village and municipal af-
fairs, inaugurate reforms and work
for the uplifting of humanity. The at
mosphere of many town that would
else be inert and sluggish is bright
ened and freshened by the earnestness
and conscientiousness of the women
who reside there.
When the young woman of the west
marries wealth, she proves herself
able to assume the direction of large
establishment, to manage servants, to
entertain visiting royalties if they
happen to cross the Atlantic, and
come to her door, and to be an intelli-
gent patron of art and literature. If
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