CONTINENTAL SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLGIRLS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 10765, 13 May 1911, Page 3 (Supplement)

CONTINENTAL SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLGIRLS.

In my wanderings through Europe in anv town in which I have made a stop, one of the 'sights' that I have always asked to be shown has been the best girls' school in the place," writes Miss May Baldwin, tho well-known story writer. Summarising her experiences in two interesting articles published in the new number of Chambers' Journal, she says that "one point which strikes an Englishwoman in Contential establishments —and this applies, more or less, to all European countries —is the status of the teacher. "In no country does she hold the honourable position which is hers in England. The French saying that a woman who leaves her home to earn her own living is declassee stills holds good to a great extent; though this prejudice is being weakened, thanks to British influence.

"Only the other clay however, n broad-minded Italian lady said to ine, with a shake of the head, 'lt may do for you English, who are so independent; but, in my opinion, for a girl to teach in a girls' public school —it is impossible. If she must earn her own living, let her go as governess into a private family, where at least she would he protected; and the average Frenchwoman of.the upper classes will sav the same thing. "The Germans andßussians are more advanced in their ideas; but even the latter nation, when seeking an honourable employment for the widows and unondowered daughters of their officers and Government officials, give them the charge of depots for the sale of vodka, the brandy of Russia, and a Government monopoly, which they sell from behind a wooden partition of tho depot, through a small window. "On entering a school abroad the first thing that an English pupil notices (and 'generally dislikes) is tho dress. "In all good schools on the Continent uniform is worn by the girls; and in Russia and Italy the teachers in the schools I visited all wore black—which is, I believe, obligatory in Italian Government schools. "Simple dresses of blue, grey, black or brown, with simply trimmed hats, are the rule for boarders; while in many day-schools the pupils wear black overalls —'to hide the ink-stains,' as a little .girl once confided to me; and English girls soon get used to their uniform, and like it as saving trouble. "German schoolgirls," says Miss Baldwin, "are very industrious. What they do they do-Well; and they do many other kinds of needlework than 'the cross-stitch which wc English used unfairly to say was their one idea of fancy work: though this is a very favourite way of ornamentationgowns, aprons, towels, linen, and antimacassars being elaborately worked in this maimer.

"The work may not bo beautiful or artistic, but it lasts for ever; and it teaches a habit of industry which makes tho German schoolgirl later the proverbial good Hausfrau. "But whether it be needlework, music (in which they-excel), literature, mathematics, or history, it is well taught and well and thoroughly learnt." •In an Italian convent school visited by the writer of the article "holidays spent at home were discouraged, and the girls only went homo for one day every half-year. "The argument was that they would have their minds filled with frivolous thoughts and distracted from their studies; so, instead of going home for the holidays, they spent them at school, and for the three or four months of holidays the whole- school migrates to a villa by the sea or in the mountains. "The intercourse of the girls _with their parents and relatives is restricted to. a visit once a week in-the. large reception room or pa'rlatorio of the convent, which is provided with a cushioned' seat all round the walls arid 'little groups of chairs' for each family. "It was with great pride' that the teacher nest showed me a number of bathrooms, which she supposed I had not expected to see in . Italy;. adding 'gracefully that .they had learnt their benefit from the English. The attempt made to introduce gymnastics with apparatus into girls' schools jfailed, as the feeling was, against :it; the girls confined themselves to simple drill." Among her stories of Russian schoolgirls, Miss Baldwin tells the following: —"My young friend yras fourteen, but her friend was older, and a revolutionary (so, she remarked jri parenthesis, was she); and at a students' -meeting which she, like many other Russian schoolgirls, attended, it was decided by the secret society to which they- belonged to kill the Governor of Moscow. "The elder girl was chosen, or may have offered herself, to drive round the town with the youth (he was not more than eighteen, I believe) who was to throw the bomb. Her presence, my friend explained, was in order to give the driv« an innocent appearance. "The bomb, as it happened, killed a sentinel: but this did not distress my informant. AVhat did was the fact that this escapade ended the school career of her friend, who was put in prison ; and I nearly imperilled our friendship by observing that it was the best place for her."