THE TRAINING OF THE HOSTESS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 788, 11 April 1910, Page 3

THE TRAINING OF THE HOSTESS.

The youthful hostess, with her dignity, charm, and capabilities,, her successful entertainments, and her abiding popularity, is.a welcome personage in our midst. ■ There are numbers of young wives who, during the Parliamentary and social season now beginning, will be called upon to play important parts as hostesses, and will assume their roles to the delight and probably to the amazement of many of their guests.' , ~ How have these, girls, some of them scarcely out of their teens, acquired tho necessary elements of their position? In the schoolroom only yesterday, by what magic have they developed to-day the ease and skill of practised hostesses? Their parties aro famous. By what means do they ensure success? A great deal can be done to gild an" entertainment' by the well-known extraneous agencies of splendid decorations, a perfect menu, the best music, and so forth. "But with an indifferent hostess as the presiding genius victory is incomplete, whereas the clever one has the glory of knowing that it is-.by her incomparable aid that every detail is' rounded to a perfect whole. That a. hostess cannot be made in a day everyone will admit. There must havo been, a long, if unconscious apprenticeship to make the young wife an accomplished entertainer at tho very outset of her married life. Tho ease with which she takes a prominent position proves that she conies to it quite ready, and with a thorough understanding of what is required of .her. .From-her earliest childhood tho modern girl is trained unconsciously to assume- a hostess's duties and responsibilities, mid -it is to this preparation : iiai EiMliit society . owes that most'

delightful aud joy irradiating personality, tho woman who can mako thoso who gather beneath her roof happy and at ease.

Bo her parties simple or stately, such a hostess is ever at her best, the ideal organiser and dispenser of hospitality, to each visitor consistently gracious and individually kind.

By. .Roping her girls perpetually in the background a mother encourages them to bo shy and self-conscious when at Jast they make their entrance into the groat world. It j s no t o f sucu gu .] s that successful hostesses are made. . rho agony- of fright the shy little wife suiters with her first party in prospect and the disappointment ' sho was .to,tho husband, who had hoped much from her appealing fascination to soften the hearts of obdurate fathers or offended and wealthy aunts was a favourite theme among novelists in tho days of daughters kept in tho schoolroom until they wero eighteen and married in their first season. Such brides wero portrayed racked with nervousness, making one mistake after another, -adding' to the fuel of the crusty old father-in-law's fire and alienating the money of tho stern old aunt still further, from her distracted nephew. 'The wonder freely expressed by thoso. relatives was how their son and nephew could have married such a —yes,, fool was the-epithet applied to the shrinking, shy, and sobbing little victim of a cloistered childhood. The modern mother's curriculum is very different. Her children are much" inore before tho public than she was at their age, but at the same time they are before it in a very rational and sensible manner. They are not shown off. . ... There is, happily, no such anomaly nowadays as the infant orator who, perched upon a chair or table, recites a poem, and luckily the singer of songs keeps his talent for the nursery! '-. But at every party at which children are a possibility they appear, and upon such occasions they are in miniature their father and mother, doing their best in tho most natural manner to entertain those present, handing them refreshments, helping them' to ,, find their way about, talking to them when talked to, 'and, in short, making a certainty of their success in time to come as good hostesses and hosts. ; Treated thus' rationally, the delicate reticence of childhood suffers no strain, and. JbJie Jaws of hospitality are i inculcated from tho earliest days.. The child who*--is an absolute distress to her mother because of her pitiful shyness is .the product of a mistaken plan of harbouring her'in close seclusion, excepting now 'and th6ii, when she is wrenched from her. niche and expected to:.shine in tho society she fears and detests. '■' '.'•■'' , Tho" old plea that- tho bloom of childhood was brushed away by a too early acquaintance with the world has been set aside. ■ And" what has been tho result? We have a generation of- littleboys and girlfc who aro quite as bqyi&h and 'girlish, as. those of the past, withal absolutely self-possessed, yet not the least egoistic, entirely delightful, and absorbingly interesting. ; < We meet them everywhere, travelling by sea and land, •in ocean liners, in railway-carriages, motoring, in hotels, and rarely, indeed, .does that ■prototypeof the objectionable child of other /times appear, tho spoilt, ill-tempered plague of a creature whom no one could tolerate with patience,. except perhaps the parents. Perhaps it is since tho grown-up individual became youngdr that the child, mind met with better understanding than used to be the case. '. As she grows older, the littlo girl who .is . qualifying for, .the! position of good hostess.finds other.nicane awaiting her of learning her part. Sho becomes a player-of games,, ajid absorbs all the <6xdellenl;M.lessoiis they teach..Sho learns tact, , that goodly possession of tho suc- : 'cessful hostess.; she Jearas .endurance, she learns tolerance, she,learns enthu- -...' ■-■-''.-,;■;■■'>''. '■•'■' > In-other ways the lines • laid down for her education are a preliminary of the greatest value to the; position she .will be called upon' to fill later in life. Instead of being moulded l in a groove, ■ the 1 modern girl's individuality is encouraged. Sho is permitted independence in many ways in which her mother was restricted to a very narrow line. Her personality is respected instead of repressed.—"Daily Mail."