SOCIAL AND PERSONAL

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1158, 20 June 1911, Page 9

SOCIAL AND PERSONAL

The Training of Girls, The Auckland correspondent of The Dominion" telegraphs that in the course of a lecture betorc the Women's Branch of the Auckland District Educational Institute, Miss Butler, B.Sc., headmistress of the Girls' School, urged that during the most impressionable years of a girl's life,. between seven and fifteen years of age, it was most undesirable that' any but' a woman should control and develop the expanding feminine natures She urged that every girl should have physical culture daily under skilled direction and where fresh air was abundant. She opposed the dual system strenuously, contending that' it led girls to overstrain their strength and also to lose refinement unless ideals had been indelibly stamped upon her. The greater liberty of our modern lifo must lead to undesirable thinking, reading, and action. Mechanical teaching might turn out small encyclopaedias and winners of scholarships, but the ideal prerogative of the teacher was to turn out worthy characters who would leave the world a better place for their hiving lived therein. The ideal for every girl was to emulate the vestal virgin of classic times in the sacred duty of tending the hearth fires. Those fires' should bo kindled by goodness and purity.

Nothing New. ' 'There is nothing- new under the sunnot even the hobble skirt. In a lecture on Ancient Assyria, given at Killara (New South Wales), Professor Harper showed a lantern picture of the ancient god Bel and his consort, figured about five thousand years ago, and the audience broke into a ripple of laughter at tho sight of Mrs! Bel in a hobblo skirt. Except for its head, the figure might have been drawn any day in Pitt Street, so exactly was it's outline like that of tho ultra-fashionable woman of to-day. But that we owe something iu our millinery also to the ancient Chaldeans was shown by pictures of men wearing head-cover-ings exactly like the white crochet capo which are to be seen upon every other girl's head to-day.

Mrs. B. J. Dolftri (Napier) whose husband is standing for the Napier seat at the coming general election, is visiting Wellington. During the Hawke's Bay Jockey Club's winter meeting, Miss Elder (Wellington) will be the guest of Mrs. F. Armstrong. Mrs. John Bidwill (Pihautea), Miss Marchaut, and Mrs. Roy Barton, "left Wellington on Saturday for Auckland, eiv route for the South Sea Islands. ■ .. .iNii'i/i, / Miss Lois M'Gregor (Masterton) is visiting Waihi, where she is the guest of her sister, the matron of the Waihi Hospital." Miss Marryatt (Opaki) and Miss Grant (Woodville) are at present staying in Napier. Miss Munro (Masterton) is spending some days in Wellington. Mrs. and Miss Tuckwell (Hamua) aro visiting relatives in Wellington. Miss Eeynolds, who has been spending some time with Mrs. Leslie Eeynolds on the Terrace, is now staying at Mi«s Morton's, Golders 1 Hill.. The Star Boating Club's annual ball takes place in the Sydney Street Schoolroom this evening.

Wednesday, at Palmerst'on North, the marriage of Mrs. K. Gibbons, widow of the late Captain Gibbons, with Mr. Richard W. Cassidy, Napier, was celebrated in St. Patrick's Church, tho Rev. lat'her Costello performing the ceremony. The bride was given away by her in-law, Mr. F. Thurston, and was attended by Miss T'acon (Petane) and Miss Thurston (Palmerston) as bridesmaids. Mr. Robert Cassidy was the best man.- ■