The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-28

With most of the June brides off on their wedding trips, the season, socially speak ing, is at a comparative standstill. Many members of society are out of the city, though by no means is Birmingham de- serted by its fashionables; on the con- trary the favorlte period for the annual flight comes much later. The chief effort at the moment is given to the art of keeping cool. Many methods prevail, a number of families have adopted the plan of dining out-of- -doors and dinner is en- joyed within a screened porch famed by electricity; other porches provide sleeping quarters, and hammoeks are swung under the trees on the lawns so that the time is being passed in relative comfort if not in gayety. Aside from the evening motor trips which furnish a means of getting cool, few social diversions are making any appeal to the stay-at-homes. Prac- tically the only pleasure comes in an evening spent on someone's veranda or lawn, engaged in no more arduous pas time than just talk. And if the ideas ex- changed among good friends these sum mer evenings do not add to the gayety of nations, they at least keep the social ball lazily rolling along.
 What do you think of the girl of 1914? In, one of those hours of interchanging ideas the other evening someone ad vanced the notion that the young girl of today has the cleaning instinct where the world Is concerned; that spring cleaning the universe appears to be the aim of the crop of graduates Maybe so At any rate, l sat the other day at lunch con beside a fresh, pretty girl of IS, who was an astonishing type. She only came out of a convent school not long ago, and yet she talked as she sat beside me with the ease and assurance of a woman of 40 She had heard the newest music, seen the newest plays, read many of the newest books-not all, because her read- ing is still censored-and she knows what is going on in the world. l am sure she thought me back number for delighting in Grieg and venturing the opinion that Bernard Shaw used to be very amusing" They were both triflers," she announced with a firm set of her decided little chin.
 Now, this girl surprised me; I know many like her, to be sure, but they are high school girls or a little older-girls who come back from the big schools up north with fund of advanced knowledge beside which their ltra-fashionable cloth- ing pales into insignificance. But to see that the convent schools are turning out girls so apt at playing their own hands in the game of conversation, so deter mined to make up their own minds about everything and take nothing on trust re- vealed the fact that there must be some stimulus in the intellectual atmosphere which has transformed the shy, gawky, red-elbowed young thing into a self-pos- Sessed social animal, quietly scornful of her elders and a1ame with enthusiasm for revolutionary ideas
 So the thought of "spring cleaning" the world was pursued that evening, when a party of older people heard one assert that the higher institutions of learning are turning out a dogmatic type, stiff in opin- ion, convinced that the world needs put ting right and eager to begin cleaning 1t up with the same energy that their more grandmothers put into their pe- riodical "turnings-out." This is the day for turning out the drawing room" That was the brisk ultimatum of the housewife In the long ago, and away she went. briskly directing the work of the house. maids. Well, this Is the way the girl of today would like to treat the universe. Polish all our mental furniture Sweep all corners free from the dust of tradition. The sweet girl graduate is giving place to the busy, eye-glassy professional young woman with an air of genial truculence which says plainly, "You can't humbug me- or to the eager. interested young person whose store of enthusiasm Is given to advancing equal suffrage and other progressive notions
 It is not really surprising. The energy and will power of women really exceeds the energy and will power of men. If you want an old building saved. lease" taken up by charity, a son "jobbed' into a position. movement set going, you wouldn't dream of depending on a man. You know that woman will take up your case with far more zest and will make up her mind to push 1t through. For merly these qualities of women were em- ployed to household ends. They worked off their energy in the kitchen and the linen press, but the ease with which housewives can today buy almost all they need instead of making almost everything themselves-as in the early days-this and countless developments left women with too little to do so their energy has turned fin other directions.
 Speaking of change what can be the meaning of this rapid and feverish change fin human dress going on all around us to- day? The sign has become a portent and the wonder a miracle. Even men, the con- servatives of costume, are touched with ! tne splflt. lnelf mats are QWln0llng to nothingness and their coats are growing shorter day by day. Meanwhile, always out daring the less daring sex, women ap- pear daily in dresses that grow ever small by degrees and beautifully less. One can't tiuthfully say that the new thrifty change of costume among women-the tight skirt the restricted corset-is simply a rush away from decorum; not if one thinks well of women. Of course, the change has its extravagances. and there are those who take advantage of them. Fashion can always turn even beauty to base uses and the art of dress, like every other art can easily become a form of devil wor- ship. But that is not the heart of the matter. Behind and beyond all these aberrations a change is taking place in woman's costume which expresses desire for greater ease of movement and fulness of life. And with men this aspect of the matter is becoming as evident; not it's least sign is the widespread adoption of Palm Beach suits. in which the men of Birmingham are looking so cheerful this summer.
 How shall. we know our friends? The test that one uses may be imperfect in the hands of another; there are different degrees in the demands made of friend ship, so different rules hold in measuring 1t. Most people, down at the bottom of their hearts, if they are sentimental, or