THE APPEAL OF YOUTH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 307, 28 December 1935, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE APPEAL OF YOUTH.

TO every girl at school in time it comes—the desire suddenly to grow up. And while it lasts this desire can be very real—it almost seems tremendous, and something akin to a revolt against school rules, and plain gym. frocks, homework and long black stockings, eats into the heart of the would-be grown up. In comparison gay frocks and pretty blouses, high-heeled shoes and silk stockings, open up a world of possibilities positively too exciting to dwell upon, while make-up and the things that go with it appear a realm to be explored at the earliest possible moment. All this is understandable. It is exciting, of course. Anything that is very near, yet just out of reach, always is. The little girl toddler, trotting patiently round the house at mummy's heels, longs passionately to go to school; the small boy lives for the day when he will march off with the bigger boys, his bag slung carelessly over his shoulder, looking every inch a man. And when the day does finally come—what then? Deep down in two babyish hearts, isn't there the tiniest wish to be home once again, playing hopscotch in a sunny backyard, or running races with a doggy pal r

The high school girl goes through much the same experience. We will say she is a normal happy girl, living a normal happy life at school. School, she admits, isn't such a bad place, but the grown-up world with its grownup pleasures holds for her a fascination not to be denied—dancing and the theatre, suppers and outings surely combine to make up a life of variety and excitement? So at sixteen she exchanges a youthful attractiveness

for another attractiveness which is worlds removed, and is all too often. fraught with pain and little worries.

She gains—if it is a gain—a newer and more sophisticated appearance, newer and older friends —the satisfaction (fleeting at the best) of being a school girl no longer, but a modern young lady. She loses—what she losea is tremendous. She loses companionship, for once a girl truly ventures into the grown-up world it is the death-blow to her former friendships. She loses a natural charm associated with school days—soft hair and a fresh skin, high spirits and a sweetness of disposition. She finds she must wave her hair or endure untold discomfort sleeping in "pins"; she must pluck her eyebrows, varnish her nails, and powder and rouge with care. Sometimes, and hopelessly it seems to her, she is expected to be eternally gay; she must dance tirelessly, and, more important, she must dance well.

All too soon the school girl who has ventured so gaily and confidently into the grown-up world is a nervy young person, pale and very tired of life. Disillusionment has come, the price paid, and the world laughs and goes on.

So wait a wee bit longer. Wait until you can, with greater confidence, take your place as an equal and not as an imitation, beside older and more sophisticated girls; don't cast aside too sbon your schoolgirl charms. Be natural and bright, sleep and eat and tramp and swim; guard your health and your appearance, and sometimes, when you think of it, remember that the entrance into the j grown-up world at~ the right time holds infinitely greater joys and happiness in store for you than just a round of gay and passing pleasures.