Society girl

“ That society is insincere to you you will hardly deny, if poverty, sickness, or any misfortune thrust you from it. But society we must have. Why not, then, do your part to make it nobler, friendlier, truer? Much depends on the effort every girl makes to improve the social condition of the community.
Though you are so often indiscreet, fickle, ungenerous in your friendships, girls, I believe in them. ”

“ Every young girl knows that she will, in a few years, have to take her place in society as a woman. Let her look at her mother and her mother’s friends, and see how much the well-being and happiness of others are dependent upon the retention of their lives and the preservation of their health. ”

“ What can home, school, and society in general do for the adolescent girl, that her awakening may be sweet and sane, that her future usefulness may not be impaired or her life embittered by wrong choice at the brink of womanhood? ”

“ When it has thought about her at all, society in general has supposed, until recently, that in a free country, a glorious land of opportunity, the girl has her rights—the right to work, the right to play, the right to secure an education and to enter the professions, the right to marry or to refuse, the right in short to do as she shall choose. ”

“ Social custom is so arbitrary that it might be, and doubtless would be, a reckless and inconclusive thing for any one to assume that the American girl in society is actually so radical as her reputation in other avenues might suggest. ”

“ It isn't that we girls are brought up so differently from our parents, or that they get modern ideas into their heads from mixing with society girls or from reading of them. It is in the air we breathe—the desire to come out of swaddling clothes and take a stand for our individual rights! ”

“ As a child the girl should receive the advantages of the public education of the young, and later, if it is necessary, she should be entitled to complete support, either in her parents' house or in a separate home of her own. Society should look upon it as a disgrace if any woman, young or old, beautiful or ugly, should feel the pangs of want in any civilized community. ”

“ If she now forms a society for the girls in her village so that the strength of each individual girl will be multiplied by the braiding together of their efforts, to the end that better social enjoyments and more intellectual and more ethical ideals [Pg 218] may become habitual, it may be that the years filled with these high activities will result in a state of things in that community that will make higher things the rule and lower things impossible. ”

“ But her elders know, looking on, that our American girl, the comrade of her parents and of her brothers and their friends, brought up from babyhood in the eager talk of politics and society, of religious belief, of public action, of social responsibility—that this typical girl, with her quick sympathies, her clear head, her warm heart, her outreaching hands, will not permanently be satisfied or self-respecting, though she have the prettiest dresses and hats in town, or the most charming of dinners, dances, and teas. ”

“ Dame told me that it must be a sister society to that organization, for its object is to awaken within the girls a desire for healthy, outdoor activities, as well as a broad and useful life along many lines. I am sure in these days, when girls are so shallow and artificial-looking, and have no higher thought than getting all the pleasure they can out of life, that it is something which is sadly needed. ”

“ The boy who studies, works, and plays in the society of girls learns gradually to respect and help her, and the girl reciprocally; whereas, if they are educated separately, and the boy is told that the girl is not a good companion and she is worse than he, the boy will not respect women when he is a man, and will regard her as a subject or a slave, and that is the position in which we find women. ”

“ The average girl is in many ways the most important member of society, for what the average girl is, that society is. Society cannot be more generous-hearted, pure, altruistic, content and happy than its average girl. ”

“ She's going to revolutionize young women and make of them useful members of society—not frivolous butterflies—and it will be carried into the poorer classes and teach girls who have never had a chance, so that they may become good cooks and housekeepers and love beautiful things. ”

“ Girls go to so many different kinds of homes that it is unlikely that they will meet the same sorts of difficulties. There is the girl who goes into the society home, where it is impossible for her to carry out her ideals without conflict with its social standards. On the other hand, there is the girl who goes into the very simple home where all the stress is upon the domestic side of life. And there is the girl who has to provide part of the family income. ”

“ Social custom, both here and in Europe, has fixed the time for a girl’s formal introduction to society as between the ages of seventeen and twenty. Abroad, the daughter’s début means much more than with ourselves, and the launching of a clever and prepossessing young girl into the fitful sea of social life is quite an important function. ”

“ And what kind of a name have these girls now? What future have these women to look forward to? Generally the world's cold, nipping scorn, combined with ill-health and destitution. A girl would much rather work in a factory, or a 'saloon,' because she can be called 'Miss,' dress finer, and imagine she will be thought a lady! Poor girl! It is this delusion, this false pride, that crowds the streets nightly with pretty young girls, some of whom count only twelve short summers. ”

“ Three girls belonging to different classes in society; each illustrates the false philosophy on which woman's character is based, and each in a different way, in the supreme moment of her life, shows the necessity of self-reliance and self-support. ”

“ As Frances Willard said, the greatest discovery of the century is the discovery of woman. We have emancipated her, and are opening countless opportunities for our girls outside of marriage. Formerly only a boy could choose a career; now his sister can do the same. This freedom is one of the greatest glories of the twentieth century. But with freedom comes responsibility, and under these changed conditions every girl should have a definite aim. ”

“ It is the intangible, esoteric philosophy which permeates the households of thousands of American families, where the mothers are the companions and confidantes of the daughters. It is an understood thing. You would be surprised to know how young some girls are when they have thoroughly mastered this wonderful tact with men. And what is it that makes the American girl so dangerous for all the other women in the world to compete with? It is because she studies her man. ”

“ For the individual life is only half the life; and even that cannot be the rich and full and glorious thing it might be, unless it is enlarged on all sides, and rests on a wide social sympathy and love. [Pg 53]
But how is it for girls when they leave school? It is distinctly harder for you to find lines of united action. Society tends to individualize young ladies; its ideal for them is elegant inaction and graceful waiting, to an extent infinitely beyond what it is for young men. ”

“ American girls with their independent ideas of social requirements mock the idea of a chaperon to the theater or dance. And this is especially true of the many young women who are planning careers for themselves, who intend to be more than social butterflies.
We are proud of the ideal American girl. We do not mean, of course, the self-esteemed, arrogant young miss who derides all conventions and calls herself "free." ”

“ But from all the lessons and from all the morals, one truth stands out most clearly—the fact that age and country, time and surroundings, make but little change in the real girl-nature, that has ever been impulsive, trusting, tender, and true, alike in the days of the Syrian Zenobia and in those of the modern American school-girl. ”

“ But one would wish that the educators of the rising generation of women should, basing themselves upon these foundations, point out to every girl how great is woman's debt to civilisation; in other words, how much is under civilisation done for woman by man. ”

“ What we have to think of is the necessity,—in all justice, in all honour, in all humanity, in all prudence,—that every girl's faculties should be made the most of, as carefully as boys'. While so many women are no longer sheltered, and protected, and supported, in safety from the world (as people used to say) every woman ought to be fitted to take care of herself. ”

“ Those who wish to redirect young human life may find a practise lesson in this example of nature. To make faulty habits or low ideals or dangerous inclinations disappear, bring in new life. And experience teaches that new life can be imparted in no way more effectively in the field of girl-life than through good noble girl associates. To associate girls under some noble banner that will assure their enthusiasm and loyalty, will therefore be one of the most direct means of lifting their standard of living.
This Association more than any other has taken to heart the problem of the Country Girl. ”

“ Extend the picture to a houseful of girls, linked together by a common knowledge, a common family, and a common social life, and give these girls the right to say who shall be privileged to join them, what chance for equal dealing has the outsider, or even a less closely organized group of outsiders, against their united social attitude? The fraternity girl may not feel snobbish, but if the barbarian is snubbed, the result is much the same. ”

“ The definite stand of such a group of interesting girls, easily leaders in school and the social life, made a decided difference in the standards of the young people of that community. The community as a whole, and the parents of the girls especially, owe to that teacher a very real debt for her part in the character building of those girls, who before they came in contact with her had had only vague and hazy ideas of a girl's duties and privileges. ”

“ In yielding to the impulses of her heart, which in her inexperience may be mistaken, has a girl the right—from a purely rational point of view—to set herself against, nay, to destroy, the long-cherished ambitions of her parents for a brilliant social career for her, founded upon social traditions of success? ”

“ Of all the passions which take possession of the female breast, a passion for society is one of the most inimical to domestic enjoyment. Yet, how often does this exist in connection with an amiable exterior! It is not easy to say, whether we ought most to pity or to blame a woman who lives for society—a woman who reserves all her good spirits, all her becoming dresses, her animated looks, her interesting conversation, her bland behaviour, her smiles, her forbearance, her gentleness for society—what imposition does she practise upon those who meet her there! ”

“ Flaming with enthusiasm for this ideal, over a hundred national secretaries are carrying on the work among nine hundred local societies in this country, and over thirty are sent to Turkey, Japan, India, China, and South America, that the girls of other lands also may learn to know the good that girls can do for girls.
For this association follows the theory that "every girl needs help, and every girl can give help." The declaration strikes to the bottom of things psychological in girl-life. Girls need each other. No one can help a girl like a girl. ”

“ If the privileges of a host’s roof are liberally construed by the English girl, the American girl takes a candid and undaunted view of a hotel and a public ballroom; and under conditions which in any manner detach her from the immediate presence of formality, she falls back upon her individual preferences, her personally developed methods of meeting situations, with a readiness and sureness that carry their own vindication. Because she can have a developed individuality yet be no rebel, the American girl can grasp and enjoy liberty without despising authority. ”

“ Not for her own sake alone does any girl strive. All she does lifts everywhere as well as in her own valley. And these beneficent influences will reach out and include other and still other circles of girls who repose under the protection of the republic. ”

“ It has specially affected the middle classes, who have been thereby enabled to enter with perfect freedom into the world of letters, to follow professional and business careers—in a word, to carve out for themselves an independent course. A new conception has arisen of what is woman’s place in society. ”

“ The girls would soon begin life for themselves, and it was well that they had this little glimpse of really good society before they left the shelter of home to choose friends, pleasures, and pursuits for themselves, as all young women do when once launched. ”

“ That is, she must recognize the justice of and sympathize with the aspirations of society for a broader humanity, and she must recognize and be a party to the responsibilities placed upon her own sex by the process of emancipation. Now, if ever, is the opportunity for woman to show what she is made of. ”

“ The objection to the public schools for a girl is that the unwritten constitution of this country declared years ago that every woman was a born lady, and that manners and nice perceptions were in the national blood, and required no cultivation for their production. ”

“ Social life centers about Church and Grange. There are enough girls to have societies of their own and though they live widely apart, it seems that this girl with the spirit of a leader is able to draw them together. ”