THE WAR GIRL

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 261, 23 July 1918, Page 3

THE WAR GIRL

I have had the magazine of one of the great girls' schools in my hands to-day.

I think these school magazines are among the most interesting of war publications. They tell the story of the birth of the working girls of the better-to-do and upper classes whose brothers are public-school boys. The renaissance of a nation's soul is in these girls; they are uational, patriotic, steady workers for their country's life. The headmaster of a boys' public school said to me the other <lay, "You know these boys do. not remember when there was no war. Four such years wipe out the acute memory of previous years in most boys' lives. The boy now goiDg into the Army, not fourteen when war broke out, did not bother about tho history of his time. His brother of thirteen now is a giant in comparative knowledge; he learned to read from the war news in the payers." Girls and boys, they aro all the same children of the war.

In the "News of Old Friends" section of their "mas." >'°« may rend that Ella is still doing Bed Cross work at a base in France, where she has. been since October, MM; she has the Mons ribbon, slto often sees .May ami Joan , who are V.AJVs, and that very many other "old girts" are on hospital work; and one of their number has told tho "Daily Hail" tho story of tho torpedoing of a hospital ship in which she was working.

"AVa — is an assistant controller in' the W.A.A.C.," starts another paragraph. "Muriel — is in a munition factory, Kate — and her sister in an engineering factory in the north."

Other girls, good linguists, have found confidential work in the Intelligence Department. Celia, and Alice, and Grace, and Margaret, and Elizabeth are in positions of authority and in minor positions—they control numbers of other girls or just drive a tradesman'* motorvan.

There ari) girls driving in the A.S.C., in the Koyal Air Force, and in other units. They are in the Women's Legion, the Land .Army, the Forage Corps, and among the Timber Cutters. Thev work everywhere, these public-school" girls. One of their number going for a passport was told to apply to the "officials" in the next room, and there found two girls of her own term installed in state!

Others have married fighting men. Some aro already widows.

And the "mas;." tells also of how the younger sisters are workim;. of their sciiool distinctions in work and games— and you know that these war girls, like their older sisters, can never live the careless lives we elders did. While they (ire at play and as happy as girls cnn be, all the while thev dread the telegram which* the head mistress'holds in her hand for what it nnv sar of fnihoy or brother.—Grace Ciirnock. in'the "Daily Mail."