Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 195, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1913 — Of Interest to Women [ARTICLE]

Of Interest to Women

A Rap at Girls* Fiaishiag Schools — The Word “Finishing," Applied to An Intellectual Training, is Unfit — Reginald W. Kauffman's Ideas —The Young Girl a Mystery to Hun.

Reginald Wright Kauffman in Hampton's Magazine is very hard upon the finishing schools tor girls. After reading what he says, we wonder why these schools should be called “finishing.” The word can hardly be aplied to an Intellectual training which seems never to have been begun. Whatever “education” may have been Imparted to her in the earlier grades has mage no Impression either upon mind or heart. She knows exactly what Is expected of her in the social game, and whatever remains over and above she Ignores: One student of my acquaintance has, after a three years* course, managed to choke down enough French to translate, if there’s a dictionary handy, the original Gallic phrases encountered in a popular novel; she knows w what the menu is trying to say, though, of course, neither she nor anybody else can translate that verbatim. If she would take time to complete it —but she never takes time to complete anything—she might be able to make a fair copy of a Charles Dana Gibson line drawing. She can recite certain chapters of the Bible by heart, but knows about as much concerning them as the average -actor knows about the lines of his part And as for literature, she has acquired the exact date of every great English author’s birth and death without having any conception of what any of them wrote, and without swerving one hair’s breadth from her allegiance to the contemporary marshmallow school of fiction. The ignorance of the average girl Is certainly appalling, and We may well wonder what she has done with her time during high school days. She has acquired books enough to stock a store, thanks to the entente cordials that exists between the schools and the publishers. But if we try to draw out any of this information we shall lamentably fail. She seems to know absolutely nothing that is worth knowing upon any conceivable subject. She has studied civics—or says she has —but she has no glimmering of an opinion upon any civic or political subject. She has ploughed her way through books on history, geography, mathematics, and literature, but she is entirely dumb when any Intelligent subject is on the carpet But there are some things, Mr. Kauffman tells 'us, that the girl does know: The last tim&>she was home I tried to talk to her; iwe used to make mud pies together and, later, she chewed the spitballs that I threw at the teacher In the fourthi reader; but now I am a mister to her 1 and she Is a mystery to me. Well, we talked, or rather she did, and what I ( received from her was simply a rapid running description of all the season’ll plays on Broadway. It appears that the school Is often taken to the theatre in a body, provided the drama to be produced Is not too serious, «. and that the whole student body go' as Individuals to Saturday matinees. Consequently, this girl has twenty photographs of Robert Edeson, each in a different pose, on the dressing table, which she used to call a bureau, and knows the private history and matrimonial tecord of all the; Idols of the stage. And this is the equipment for “society” and later ion, perhaps, for other and more serious things. It's rather Bad when one comes to think about it