Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 February 1912 — HAPPENINGS IN THE CITIES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HAPPENINGS IN THE CITIES

Vanity Class Is Feature In School

NEW YORK.—A vanity class, it was revealed recently, has been started among the girls'in Erasmus Hall High school, Brooklyn, as a part of the hygiene and gymnasium courses. It was originated by Catherine Turner, assistant principal, as a means of teaching the girls to take greater pride in their personal appearance and of impressing on them the fact that a girl who has plain features may make herself unusually attractive by displaying taste in dress, care of her teeth and hair, her complexion, carriage of shoulders, and the like. The pupils are urged to give heed to all those things, and they are examined in them just as they take examinations in algebra, arithmetic and English. . J/\ Miss Turner, who is active in evolving the new course, is a stanch believer in gowns. She insists that girls’may be just as attractive in simple frocks as in silks, provided they pay attention to many other things and make it a point to appear

neat To the girls she has made it a point to explain the many things that are required to look fetching. She has given lectures on the care of the person, on harmony in dress, taste in the selection of materials, and on many other things. The opportunity for giving more attention to those things has come because of the inability erf all the classes to get as many hours, as set in the schedule, in the gymnasium every week. As the exercises are intended primarily to aid girls in improving their appearance, it waK decided to devote an hour to the vanity class. The girls are gathered in the auditorium. Five of the most attractive girls are selected and sent on the stage in the full glare of the footlights. They are lined up and the students in the auditorium are asked to study the appearance of each of the girls, her teeth, her complexion, her figure, her hair, her feet, her dress, her method of standing and other details. . Aid is given to the observation powers of the girls by the teachers, who call attention to various parts of the girls' dress. After that has been done the pupils are required to vote on the appearance of the girls. The main points considered are the figure, teeth, hair and feet. .♦ Different girls are inspected every week.