THE HIGH SCHOOL GIRL.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2596, 2 March 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE HIGH SCHOOL GIRL.

We all know her. How, indeed, can we help it, seeing that she is übiquitous ? We meet her in the morning as we go down to the railway station, on our way to the office or the Stock Exchange, with shin} morning face and a satchel ; wheu we enter the railway carriage she is there before us—two or three of her proclaiming her opinions on all things. It is one of the peculiar characteristics of the high school girl that she is never at a loss for an opinion. If she has not got one ready made, she can produce it at the shortest notice ; she lays down the law on all matters, from the " Is marriage a Failure ?" questiou to Sir Morrell Mackenzie's treatment of the late Emperor Frederick; and she is quite " up" in the latest deveiopement of Anglo-Buddhism. She is always and under anycircumstance serenely assured that she is the right girl in the right place. She is a curious mixture of boy and girl. She has not the uupleasing frankness (some are rude enough to call it " cheek") of the British schoolboy, while at the same time she is quite ready to abhor knowledge, which the British boy never is. It was a high schoolgirl who burst iuto her mother's drawing-room one day when there were two or three curates assembled —her father was the rector— with a half-eaten apple desplayed in her hand. " Maud," said her eldest sister severely, " how can you munch fruit like that ? Don't you know that ' He pares his apple that would cleanly feed ' ?'' Don't like 'em peeled," retorted tho damsel ; " spoils their flavour. I prefer to eat them in parte naluralibn-s."

People in search of a new sensation cannot do better than go and watch a girls'cricket match. If nature shudders] when a girl tries to throw a stone, whit phenomenon ought we to expect when she attempts to heave a cricket ball ? Once upon a time there was a picture book entitled ' The Little Minxes.' and among other awful examples for good little girls there was a tomboy. In one of them that abandoned young person was depicted playing cricket with her brother, with a straw hat stuck jauntily on the side of her bead, unbraced hose, and a frock with a very full skirt, all rags anil tatters; her face was garnished with numerous pieces of black sticking plnister. Minus the rags and plaistcr, she was the " born image" of the high school girl pursuing her pastimes. But then those were dark days, when ' Mnguull's Questions' and deportment formed a farge portion of the curriculum in the ladies seminary of the period: when the backboard was a torture not unknown and particular attention was paid to th* use of the globes ; and when all the science a girl was expected to imbibe was filtered through a medium called " Brewer's Questions, considered a very advanced book tweiity-lh r e years ago. The young ladies' pastimes of the day were naturally mild and unexciting, like the. school books. Autre* temp*, nnt-res mreur.i. But the high school girl is not contented with her brothers for an audience, as was the little minx of the former generation. She issues invitations to all her friends, who come and lend their countenance to the proceedings, and if anybody called her a tomboy she would elevate her eyebrows, turn her back, and remark in an audible whisper, that "poor Mrs is so dreadfully behind the age, you know, poor thing/' There is an old song beginning ' Here's to the maiden of kii-.liftil fifteen.' Presumably, they used to look bashful in those silly old days when that song was written, but whatever knowledge girls may have acquired in other respects in these modern times, the blush of bashfulness may he ranked among the lost arts. On the other hand they have gained the knack of looking you straight in the face with a frankness that is not boldness. There is no puling sentimentality about the high school girl. She is intensely, not to say somewhat painfully, matter of fact—she would say rational. If you were to quote to her " lie good, sweet maid, and let who will bo clever," sue would ask you at once, and very pertinently, " And why cannot I bo both? Have dull, stupid people a monoply of goodness '! .Most well informed girls necessarily have a screw loose somewhere ?"

She has a distinctive manner. She possesses it to such an extent that it is designated " the high school manner," ,i■ >■ 1 the initiated can detect a high school girl at once, by a certain something not to be observed by those who are less well informed. Whether it is in her gait, or in her eye. or whether it arises from ■-. certain stayless appearance—it is there. But she has a natural enemy. He is the schoolboy. She jeers at and flouts him, and ho hates her with lively hatred. She knows all tho vulnerable points iu his armour aud goes for them ; she has no pity, the torture is applied in various ways, of which tho following may be taken as a specimen. Two apple-cheek girls are coming up the ro'.l wi'.h satchel on their road to school. Ouj apple-cheek boy ii going down the road also on his way to school, with a satchel in one hand and gloating over the marbles which he holds in the other. He is at present absorbed in his pursuit, but suddenly scenting danger in tho air, looks up. He sees two faces wreathed with sarcastic smiles, two elbows squared simultaneously for a knowing nmlgc ; and he drops all his marbles on the ground. As he stoops to pick them up, crimson witn shame and ho does'nt know what, he hears the word " baby" audibly pronounced as they pass him. He turns round to watch their retreating forms, his bosom swelling with a variety of conflicting emotions, and he sees their shoulders shaking aud hears a faint " He he," which dies away in the distance. If that boy does not take it out of the next small boy he meets he is more t.ian mortal.

Our girl looks clown upon tlio male; intellect generally. If you tell her that there never was a great woman a musician, or sculptor, or inventor, or painter (with one or two rare exceptions), she will tell you it i.s the fault of man—self-seeking man j that after women have receirod a liberal education for a certain number of generations there will ilawn an age of undreamed of art, when the old sculptures will ho merely considered as damaged curiositiivi, and when the loveliest erea tion will abound—all the productions of woman's genius. She has a most profound belief in her future. In fact, when you hear her holding forth about what women are going to do, and the places which they are destined in her mind to fill, the harrowing old question comes unbidden to your mind—What, then, is to become of our boys ? Her answer is ready. " Let them take their proper place, and work out the curse of Adam." —London Exchange.