THE MODERN GIRL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1189, 27 December 1913, Page 4

THE MODERN GIRL.

“TOO MUCH LIBERTY.”

SCHOOL MISTRESS’ VIEWS

The extent to which so-called liberty is granted to the schoolgirls of to-day was referred to by the headmistress ot the Auckland Girls’ Grammar School (Miss Butler), in her annual report, which was read at the prize-giving ceremony.

Miss Butler said:—“Much is said nowadays about the independence and freedom ot the modern woman from her cradle onwards, aud I, for one, am glad to think that in the majority of cases she proves herself worthy of her new liberty. But there is a period in one’s life when so called liberty is only license, and it is grevious to think of the number of young girls who are allowed to go out when the} like, aud with whom they like, and go where they please- By all means encourage and foster self-reliance in a girl, but it cannot be done at the expense of her womanliness and uiceuess. I greatly deplore the liberty given to schoolgirs in going out at night—and of wandering about places ot public amusement without any of their elders with them.

“I have taken this opportunity of calling parents’ attention to this need of discipline, because I feel that it is an exceedingly unwise and careless proceeding to allow our young girls to go as much as they do to such public places at all hours of the day, unattended save by sisters and brothers of their own age. Apart from the loss in niceness, and the tendency to rowdyism, which is always the result of such indulgence, it surrounds the girl in an atmosphere of spurious and very undesirable excitement, which is exceedingly detrimental to her physical, her mental, and her moral development. “Many overlook the fact that out of school boms girls are not under school control, aud that careless, unladylike behaviour in public places reflects not only on the school, whose hatband the culprit wears, but also upou the home from which she comes, 1 do beg ot parents to curtaU the opportunities for such behaviour, and in the future interests of their daughters, as well as in their present ones, to see that their pleasures are wholesome and tern perate, aud to guard them from the over-iudulgeuce of those pleasures eveu more strenuously than they guard them from the evils of over-work, We would do well to remember that childreu are the fairest aud teiiderest of the Creator’s flowers, aud they were meant for the open spaces of the world, where Nature could teach them iu her own happy way ; but the struggle for existence has closed the open spaces, and, therefore, it behoves us to extend a greater protection and a much more tender care over them, to guard them from the contaminating influences of the cities.

“I feel a little nervous iu mentioning this matter,” added Miss Butler, “for I greatly dislike infringing on parental control, but, although I know the majority of our girls are most carefully looked after, there is a minority, and no negligible minority either, which suffers from this lack of parental control, and it is for the sake of these girls that I speak, and I trust that my appeal will not fall on deaf ears.”