Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1916-08-25
Society Notes Personal Gossip Womams Work ousehoM Topics
The NeW Girl
BY ADA PATTERSON.

A woman who visits colleges and
lectures to- girls told me about her
the new type OF girl.
She was western girl, OF course"
said the lecturer. Everything big
and new and fine seems to come from
that quarter She strobe into my
office. \ Strobe is the word. She
was one of the biggest, newest, finest
things | ever saw. She seemed all
white teeth and glowing eyes and
shining hair and long, straight limbs.
It was advice hour after the lecture
and she had come to me for advice.
I came to ask you how can be
OF use in the world she said.
Just let the world look at you and
admire your young strength and draw
inspiration from it." the lecturer was
stirred to answer, but didn't. Mid
die aged and prudent, she moved with
caution. And when | had finished
my talk with the girl found that
she had done about the lie work Of
one woman, and was ready to under
take another" she said.
The girl had helped her widowed
mother to bring up the younger chill
dren. She had taken claim and put
out the crops and built the house
with her own hands She had helped
put her brother through college.
Things were going well at home. The
chance had come, or she had made it.,
to go to college. The first year that
question had risen i'll her heart and
mind and reached her lips: How can
| be of use to the world?" Not, How
can | advance myself" Not, What
can turn to make the most money!"
Not, How can ! have good time
the rest of my life?" Not, How can
| hook a husband?" But, How can
| be OF use in the world?"
The girl, and the girls like her, are
heralds of new age. The age Of
the broadening souls and quickening
brains and deepening hearts Of
women. The era of the old-fashioned
mother is departing. To the sweet
faced, self-sacrificing. little lower
than-t angels mother, our greet
ings and reverence and adieus She
is going. There will follow her a
more spirited type, one of broader
and wider vision and larger sympa-
thies.
The woman whose life is bounded
by her own doorstep on the north
and her own backyard on the south
and on the east and west by the pal
ing fence is vanishing. And it is
we'll.
Many all epitaph might be truth
full craven: "She was a good wife,
and a good mother; and a stranger
and enemy to the rest of mankind"
She meant we'll, no doubt, Everyone
does, more or less. But she peeped
over the rim of her little world with
eyes OF distrust at all the rest of the
world She narrowed life for herself
and her family. She would have
been greatly surprised had anyone
told her she was selfish, but she was
selfish for her family Family selfish
ness is only little less blame worthy
than personal selhshness.
1t was never a beautiful thing. 1t
made life small and mean. 1t sent
the children of such a mother into
the world mentally cross-eyed from
looking so sharply after their own
interests. They acquired near-sighted
minds.
For the devotion OF such as she to
the family collectively and individ-
ually, thanks and respect. But to the
new mother, who gives thought also
to the welfare of the town, the State,
the nation-greeting, for she shall
mother the world.