THE LADIES’ WORLD.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2651, 5 November 1909, Page 3

THE LADIES’ WORLD.

DOMESTICITY AND DAUGHTERS.

HOUSEHOLD MA N A GEM ENT LESSONS.

We seem from all appearances to be on the eve of a great and much-needed revival in the domestic education cf our girls. In the old days girls learnt, housewifery, from their mothers, but in these times’ of higher education and professional careers for women the most essential part of their training came to be omitted, and a reaction was bound to come.

The mistake being, made at present, however, is to think that domestic knowledge is an outside accomplishment which can be acquired like music or drawing. It is, on the contrary, an inborn, gift which is latent in every little gin. Notiling delights her more than to be allowed to help the housemaid to dust or the .cook to bake. And if only mothers would develop this natural bent they would not have to complain that as they grow older their daughters •are no helo to them. TEN IMPORTANT YEARS.

They would find it well worth the sacrifice of the little tune and the exercise of the little patience needed to Foster their small daughters’ domestic proclivities rather than to let the he literally stamped out by tying the child down to a desk for the ten most important years of her existence. The wider education ol women has •brought out the individuality of girls, and it ,is quite impossible to expect them ail to be thoroughly domesticated. Their special gifts and tastes should on no account be neglected. But at is just as fatal to err on the other side, as is so often done nowadays, and cultivate one special talent to the exclusion of the many arts necessary in the domestic sphere that in some form or other, and at some period of her life, falls to the lot of every woman. In taking up the matter of domestic education in the private schools the "rent difficulty to be met is the lack of time. The head mistresses already find it difficult to fit in all the subjects demanded by modern methods. Yet when the advisability of omitting one of those subjects is considered the educational value of each is felt to be too great for it to be pitted with willingly. Many people, however, are strong on the question that sports are overdone, though they have added so much to the happiness of the schoolgirl’s life that it would be a pity to curtail them. . Others again think that music might be omitted in tlie case of girls who show.no talent. Yet how helpless the woman feels who cannot even play a song accompaniment, or a polka for children to dance to! In the opinion of the writer, the mistake is for the unmusical girls to devote so many hours to practising. SUBJECTS NEGLECTED AT SCHOOL. Speaking fro.i recollection of her own school experience, the girls get .so bored that most of the time is wasted If they only had half an hour instead of an hour a dav the* would probably learn more, because they would not lose their interest, and three hours a week could be saved fo be devoted to a cookery lesson, lo •no other subject is such an absurd amount of time given as is spent on piano practice. . As a rule needlework is very nrneli neglected at the big private schools. This is often because the head mistress herself takes no personal interest m In one large private school where the head does happen to be a( good needlewoman the girls have a b:g parcel of the new* needlework sent down for them to choose from, and get very enthusiastic about doing tilings to take home to their mothers. This proves that the modern girl’s dislike of needlework is simply due to the fact that her natural. leanings are not as a rule fostered, for in many schools there is only olie term in the year in which any special time is given to sewing. At boys’ Schools it is the custom to choose masters for their success in sports. Why should not one governess at every girls’ school be elected because of her knowledge of needled aft; To realise how great is the need tor the coining alteration in the education of our girls one has only to hear them say, as they frequently do/ when they are’ going to get married, “Oh my mother lias chosen m v servants and all tlmt. I don’t know anything about lt- A very largely increasing number of brides do, however, show that they grasp tlie necessity for being prcperlv equipped for the responsibilities which They are undertaking by entering on a thirteen weeks’’ course cf training m household management at one of the big cookery schools. They go by the name of the Engaged Brigade”among the other _ students. Some wise parents send their girls to take the same course to finish theneducation directly they leave school; but very often by that time domesticity lias been dinned out of them by higher mathematics. THE GERMAN GIRL’S TRAINING. In Germany the girl who is just out, so far from requiring a domestic education, becoinse herself a voluntary teacher at the Madehen Horts. These schools were first started some years ago by a .prominent woman in Berlin. They open at 12 noon, directly the Board schools close, and form an excellent system whereby tlie daughters of well-to-do parents give cooking lessons to girls of. their own age in the lower classes. A great mistake a number of English girls make is to think that they cannot cook and be generally intelligent as wen. But, to quote only one celebrated instance to prove the contrary, George Eliot made excellent jam! —“Daily Mail.”

MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL IN ENGLAND.

After having been selected as the most beautiful girl amtvg 15.000 contestants, and thereupon receiving the title of the loveliest girl in England, and after refusing marital offers innumerable aud managerial temptatio.ns without end, Miss Ivy Lilian Close (writes a London correspondent on August 31st) is engaged to mar ry a plain, ordinary' photographer. Hus man of tho camera , ILlwin No a me, whose photographs of Miss Close won for. her the beauty prize. It?.was while photographing her that Noame,-foil in love with this beautiful snbjgfijL. and. now she has confessed that that love. Miss Close really owes much to Mr Neame, for it was Ins photograph of her that was picked by a, jury ot English artists as that of the most beautiful girl in England. The competition, started by a London daily newspaper, was to decide who _ among Albion’s daughters was fairer than the American girl who won the prize m a similar competition in England. Miss Close’s beauty is typically English, the tvpe being that which such artists as Stone and Millais loved to portray.