The Ladies Column.

Otago Witness, Issue 1242, 18 September 1875, Page 19

The Ladies Column.

TO THE GIRLS ENTERING THEIR * TEENS.

You are no longer children, no indeed, but getting ready to become young ladies. By this time you are quite through arithmetic and geography, and are studying algebra and natural philosophy, trying perhaps to write poetry now and then, and thinking what kind of women j'ou will be six or seven years from now. That ia a very good thing to think about ; and while you are thinking what you will be and do when you are 18, and 19, and 20, let your minds run forward and try to think what you will be and do at 30 and 3c. " Why, then we shall be old married women," you say, '* and begin to think about wearing spectacles." Very true, doubtless, in many cases, if you all live ; but what kind of " old married women " do you intend to be ? Girls that are pretty at 16 and 20 — pretty and nothing more — by the time they are 30 and 35 are usually not pretty at all, but faded, disappointed, and unhappy. There's nothing that wears through the yeara and doesn't wear out, but grows brighter and better the longer it lasts, like sweetness of temper and intellectual culture, it will be a great thigg for you, girls, by and by, that you are perfect now in algebra, in history, in philosophy, and, of course, in reading, spelling, and arithmetic ; perfect in all your studies. "At thirty-four," writes a mother, "I find myself unable to help my children in their studies, and suffer painfully at times from early disadvantages." Her May time was clouded with rain and chilled by frost, and you all know, how hard it is to plant seed in July and try to get a good return from it — in fact most people tind that it can't be done. This is your May time, it will some time be July, and August, and November with yon. What kind of women will you be then ? Old, wrinkled, ugly, tedious, uninteresting i Mrs Sumerville was beautiful to extreme old age because she was so intelligent— because her May and June were so diligently employed in planting in her mind the seeds of all knowledge. Mrs Barbauld, Miss Mitford, Mrs Joanna Baillie, Mrs Montague were as interesting in their age as in their youth. Though they grew in years, they grew in knowledge and favour, because the seed time of their lives was sedulously improved. That's a big word, but look it out in the dictionary ; hunt out all the words you don't know the meanings of ; hunt out all the places in the geography whose location you are uncertain of, and if you have a biographical dictionary, read up all the characters spoken of in your sciiool and reading books. Of course you will play, and sew, and help your mothers about the housework, learning how to do everything ; but when you go to school, don't waste yo^r time ; when you study, don't dawdle over your book, but study in earnest, and with a purpose to learn. Ia a f ewy ears from now, when you are grown, there will be intelligent men looking for intelligent wives. You all know that . women who are both amiable and cultivated, even if their faces are plain, needn't be old maids unless they choose to be. One word is enough here. You know, too, that bright, gifted, intellectual men and women are rarely descended from stupid, ignorant, unaspiring parents. Now, girls, try and see how much and how thoroughly you will learn your lessons this Fall and Winter, and what excellent little women you will be.