PSYCHOLOGY OF THE BRITISH GIRL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14928, 28 February 1912, Page 10

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE BRITISH GIRL.

Is this month's issue of the Empire Magazine, Mrs. Cloudsley-Brereton takes up the cudgels on behalf of the British girl who, she declares, is now compelled to face a fiercer fire of criticism than any other individual in the community. Mrs. Cloudesley-Brcreton says that the faults commonly ascribed to the English girl are nat so much hers us faults of the age. "Tee English Girl's Difficulty,*' she continues, "in this year of grace seems largely to be to know what the rules ol the game are. The game of life seems to he altering so much and so rapidly. The fact is that the field for Life's game is visibly broadeningand the rules of one locality do not apply, except as to broad principles, in different portions of the field. The true sporting spirit, the will and the power to play the game at all costs, must always be there. The rest is a matter of local conditions. Sometimes the unfortunate player comes to griei by learning the prairie rules and finding herself placed in Mayfair. But let us look at the processes by means of which the British girl of to-day has been evolved. Passing over the savage stage wherein she fought and worked and bore her children in privation and hardship side by side with her menfolk down through the Middle Ages and days of chivalry when her training was largely that of the cloister before marriage, and sjiil imbued with the cloisteral idea even aftey marriage; we come gradually to our own day, when the primitive sportswoman and the cloistered scholar are united, in varying degrees, in one healthy, human being. For, ii asked to describe the average girl of to-day of the middle, upper, and aristocratic classes, the first impression is of a strong, well-built, wellbalanced young animal, the counterpart of what her young brother has been for generations past when emerging from his public school. She may at times run the risk of being too boyish; she may have in her a little too much of the young lioness rejoicing in her strength. But this matters little unless in later development she becomes 'mannish' where she should become 'manly.' For she compares favourably on the whole with tho young miss of a past generation, who considered it vulgar to have a bright colour or a bright eye; who supposed it correct to faint or simulate consumption in order to be elegant."