Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 March 1877 — Tuscan Girls. [ARTICLE]

Tuscan Girls.

You are doubtless well aware of the low standard of women’s education In n Italy. There is, in place of mental cul . ’re, an extreme attention to the perfec!r -i of fancy work. Among the lower ea in Tuscany this application to or- ***** ’taf work, inculcated by the system 1 in Government schools, is' very 1 carried often to extremes by teachers and pSreftts. Three ’hadhere an amusingexam’essnoss of this system of edEi.rtnn u no meanß limited to loWer Claßß 01 010 P 6 opened, and reveale, \ endu to the There were di l worked in colors, wonderfo. excruciating heraldic &nnt> without end, painful imitations ® ' known chtf d'auuret in our pictux 'f h ies—all worked with the most smat ,Tj perfect stitching that could be imagi f th '

Parents beheld their children’s work w» pride, compliments poured in upon th. industrious maidens, and prizes were, awarded. The practical use of such work was demonstrated to me a short time after. One damsel had been especially anxious that her friends should see her “ Palazzo Pitti” worked in colored silks and exhibited. It had been the labor of months. The girl’s sister was shortly after married. The despair of the author of the Pitti Palace (in silks) was almost comical, ‘‘Oh! Palmyra, what Shall I do when you are gone?' Whenthe mending and the accounts have to be done I shall be obliged to send for you, for I cannot sew a stitch, and yen'know I have never learned to make accounts!” Palmyra had been educated at home, as the parents of these young girls were not able to afford first-class instruction to more than one daighter. The Tuscan women look old before their time, are sallowcomplexioned, and their appearance as well as their mode of life is very different from that ot the natives of the Bbmagna. There the women are splendidly developed, vigorous, healthy, and possessed of extraordinary muscular power. They present a contrast to the men, who leave all the hardest work to them. You see along the Roman road' leading from Ravenna to Forli, parties of women coming; laden with heavy weights of cut wood. They walk erect, and their handsome faces show no sign of .fatigue. • By their side walk the men of the party, carrying the little baskets which contain their utoner. As to the children’s education, what is'more fascinating than to hear little lads and lassies of nine and ten repeating “ Ariosto” with a self-possessed air, moving their little arms with the cadence and lisping the rolling periods and the “ tnumorato oblio" till one’s gravity is tried to the uttermost? These I speak of are peasant children. Their verses and some plain sewing is all that school teaching affords them, and their health is certainly not affected by over-study.— Florence Oar. Philadelphia Telegraph.