THE MODERN GIRL

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 181, 2 May 1925, Page 15

THE MODERN GIRL

CONFIDENT REPLY TO HER CRITICS DAYS OF GREAT OPPORTUNITY. “0 “That the modern girl is not a distinct improvement on h§r mother” was the timidly worded motio 1 debated at the Forum Club (says a writer in the “Manchester Guardian”). Yet the debate was interesting because the attack was opened by Lady Barrett, who certainly has a wide experience, and countered by the Hon. Emily Kinnaird, who perhaps has a wider and more understanding knowledge of the modern girl than any other woman in England because, veteran as she is, she will always be a girl of the dav. Dr. Louise Mcllroy presided, .but as chairman took no part in the debate beyond suggesting that speakers might have considered the effect of women’s enfranchisement and that many of them concentrated their attention on the London society girl, forgetting that the modern girl lives also in other parts of the country and in all classes of life. The modern girl, said Lady Barrett, has numberless advantages which her mother did not enjoy. She has an education that constantly moves to bring her into touch with real experience, her games bring her into competition with other girls, and with boys. She may have friendships with men free from emphasis of sex. She has a hundred different choices of work with adequate rewards and always the possibility of striking out in sonic new line untouched before by man or woman. It was ah most impossible to believe .that she should not reach some higher level than the previous generation had reached, and indeed some of to-day’s girls must arrive at places far beyond what any woman had yet reached. 1 But the very fact that the modern girl reaped the .fruits that other women had toiled for placed her at a disadvantage, for it .was eff< rt that developed consciousness" and strength. “Does not the girl of to-day,” asked Lady Barrett, J.Tack vision, and is she not therefore less keen,' less dependable, less devoted to work as work, and is not her sense of values false ?” ' Befor.e the W">r it was the young women who volunteered for pioneer work, and who stuck to it. To-day they would eagerly promise to help, but they would not stick to it if something more amusing came their .way—a dance they wanted to go to or some other diversion that would not have allured the pre-war girl'. They had a false sense of values, and to-day in the professions one found* that girls would rot work merely for experience. They wanted something that paid. Miss Kinnaird rose valiantly to the challenge. “If the girl has no vision,” she told her audience, “many of you have no vision of the girl of to-day. Your vision is clouded by the difficulty of getting servants. You rorget that she is so splendid in her desire to help the country that'.she is coming into industry and’ cotr. merce instead of scrubbing floors and cleaning grates. She faces life courageous'y. She does not want other people to solve her prob-

lems for her, but to face her difficulties for herself. We grudge the money that would enable a girl to keep on with her education till she is sixteen, and when we take her from school just as her intelligence is developing we complain of her flippancy and love for kiuemas. The wonderful thing is that leaving school so early she does so well. “Wherever' you go in the business world nowadays the cleverest men nearly always direct you to their women secretaries. In the old days I used to be directed to a man secretary or a clerk, and he never knew anything. Many business men have said to me, ‘I don’t know what we should do without our girls.’ ” Miss Kinnaird declared that the manners of the girls h.-.d improved, and quoted a woman doctor who, on returning 1 to England after many years’ absence, said it was delightful to meet the English girls, they were so’polite. The doctor had been visiting women’s colleges, and found that where the mothers of the present generation used to discuss problems the college girl today had no time for abstract discussions; they wanted to discuss the tasks that lay ahead of them. One great thing the modern girl had learned was to be less ronscious of class. She had a sense of wider sisterhood and a genuine interest in the lives- of other girls. She might address her mother, by he. Christian name; she might even- call her “old bean,” but she had an independence of thought that was bound to lead to good.

TRENCHERWOMEN “She is a good trencherwoman” is a phrase we shall be able to apply literally, if , the present vogue for wooden tableware progresses as it threatens to do. Inspired bv the fashion of furnishing in old cottage oak designers are providing all manner of wooden bowls and patterns fashioned on the lines of the mediaeval trencher. They look very effective when displayed on a refectory table or ah antique gate leg of farm house type. Little circular dishes for the breakfast rolls are made in a variety of woods, from those of light ash to others of dark hickory., Flafters trenchers of oak are more highly priced, but, considering that they cannot be broken or dripped, and that they represent practically everlasting wear, their cost is quite reasonable. Large fruit bowls prove a welcome variant on china dishes for dessert, especially if they are lightly coloured round the brim. But, for the most part, the modern wooden bowl or. dish scorns the use of colour; it,suggests only the peasant trencher ware of past centuries, and is equally remote from the' painted variety. ’ To go with the wooden trenchers there are candlesticks in plain unstained, unvarnished wood. The great attraction in this ware is its reliance on the beauty of. tint and grain for its-effect, which, in its simplicity and directness, is far less wearying than that of an elaborately decorated article. Glass- for flowers fit neatly into simple wooden stands that are used on the table where the wooden trenchers have their place; thev look very charming filled with gay blossoms and foliage. The vogue for wood certainly makes for reposeful effects.—“ Age.”