Polk County news-gazette. (Benton, Tenn.) 190?-191?, 1914-07-16

dress they herald the new day. The picturesque
and fantastic costumes have been discarded for
simple eheched bingham frocks under all envelop-
Tipk white linen aprons.
In sharp contrast to these cooking school girls
q are the young women who are studying in va
rious other branches and clinging religiously to
the gayly Powered skirts. tight at the hips flow
ing away to voluminous breadth and great trains
at the feet, and surmounted by the queer little
crisp cotton Jackets, for all the world like badly
cut kimonos and punching up about the neck in
an ungracefu fashion, always suggesting hump
shoulders.
To make beautiful aces and fine embroideries
seems to be an almost natural art with the Fill
Pine girls, inherent aptness resulting undoubt-
edly from the uncounted generations of lace max
ers before them The strong, supple and deli
cately slender brown fingers are steady as iron.
The clear dark eyes are not tired by the intri-
cate tedious patterns which would meal wreck
of nerves and vision of women less patient and
tranquil minded.
Lace making and embroidery not intro
duced by American teachers, but brought
to the islands centuries ago by the Spaniards
According to Medinas history, needecraft was
taught in the convent schools as early as $780,
and Retana in the early eighteenth century wrote
that the girls easily initiate the laces and en-
broidery of Europe" and that they perform such
work fairly well in little time"
The foundation being laid, it was an opportu
and while the instruction under convent teaching
necessarily was restricted to a comparatively
small number, it is the hope of the instructors
OF these days that needlecraft speedily shall be-
come of universal knowledge among Filipino
women. Also it is hoped that through their apt
ness for embroidery and lace making there may
be opened up for them steadily remunerative
occupation.
In the nurses training work also the idea has
been to provide the young women with remunera-
tive work, but the beginnings in that line we're In
the face of stubborn prejudice and opposition.
The natives were extremely suspicious of doctors
and hospitals and it quite beyond compre-
henson that any young woman of modesty and
good taste should be willing to undergo nurses
experience
A campaign of enlightenment had to be car
ried on before 1t was possible to establish nurs
ing classes But the readily adaptable Filipino
once convinced that the finest of young women
became nurses among more advanced and en-
lightened people, speedily abandoned her pref
udice. The set of the wind is now as strongly In
the opposite direction and the vocation of
trained nurse has so caught popular fancy that
the number of applicants each year is far greater
than the capacity of the training school.
In basketry and rug weaving another profitable
line has been opened for women, and by rare
good fortune it happens that the islands produce
In lavish quantities all of the required materials,
which with their commercial values unknown
hitherto were permitted to rot in the jungles.
Still another line OF income is from the preserv-
ing and canning of fruits for commerce, line
which at once makes income bearing previously
wasted human energy well as vast fortune In
unused fruits.
SO summed up the training OF the young Fill
pino women means that when the Americans
came to teach them the desire for better meth
cd OF living the new and strangely benevolent
conqueror showed them at the same time how
the desire might be gratifed.