The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-01-28
nx lrnrraret D. sanr.ter.

Copyright, 1906, by Joseph B. Bowles. | hope you won't be frightened o
 fancy that 1t isn't of importance tt
 schoolgirls when ask you to talk witi
 me about sense of proportion, Very
 few of us have just that rbyht idea ol
 the real value of things that makes
 us keep our lives we'll balanced.
 Most of us run to extremes For in- stance. there Is Annie who feels tha'
 nothing is so needed as to be always
 tidy and we'll dressed; from her head l to feet Annie IS so trim and shining
 that # is q positive delight to look al ! her. She boasts that she never wears
 the same white shirt waist two days in
 succession, that her frocks and her
 petticoats are always fresh from the 1 laundry and that she never mas so
 much as a hair ribbon out of place, hold rather rigid views about neat ness myself, and I think It ineXcusa- ble in a girl to have boots run down at the heels and lacking buttons, or
 to wear gloves that should be mended,
 but when I remember that Annle's mother keeps only one maid. and that
 her father Is a clerk on a small salary
 and there are four other children In
 the family, I am driven to the con
 clusion that the number of shirt
 waists in the wash every week convicts Annie of extreme selishness. She pur. chases her immaculate appearance at too great a cost, since she IS far too busy with high school work to do her own washing and ironing. When girl eXalts one good quality at the ex- pense of others, and gratifies her taste through the self-dental of hard worked mother, she knows very plain ly that she has no sehse of proportion
 could tell you of women, not school girls, who having failed to secure true feeling for harmony when they were young, have made life burden for everybody belonging to them ever fetish of system; having determined to have breakfast at a fixed hour! they have been wretched themselves and made everybody else so if a single person in tho family came down few minutes after the clock had struck sew ell or eight, as the case might be. | Their housework had to be done on | certain days, at sny cost. There was no freedom or elasticity in their re- gime; they lacked sense of propor- | ton. System Is an excellent servant, | but when 1t is made a master it be- | comes the worst of tyrants. want | you to do your work according to l method. but occasionally put the meth | od aside if the interruption will tend ! to the general well-being of .the day
 In one of Dickens's novels ~he intro | duces us to d character whose name is ! Mrs. Jellyby. This lady is very char ltable; and spends her time in doing good works. She writes innumerable { letters and sends them to the ends of the earth. She carries on societies that nake flannel skirts for children in Africa and send leaflets in an unknown tongue to people who cannot read. or course there is extravaganza in this de- and yet there are women of the Jellyby type in the world. Then effort is not practical no' sensible They intrude into homo where they are not wanted and ash questions of the poor and oestow aims where almsglvinR Is su- oeri1uous. Very likely all the time they are neglecting home. duties. Doe ye lext thyng" Is a good motto for mos; ,f us. The Jellyby children were fall ng down stairs and crying for bread. .heir father and their eldest sister were 1t their wits end, while Mrs. Jellyby absorbed in her several schemes of benevolence-
 She was a person who had no sense ,f proportion.
 Helen, Tho used 10 be my n6trhbor'