Dress Reform.—A Reply to Edith Searle Grossman.

Otago Witness, Issue 1851, 17 August 1893, Page 35

Dress Reform.— A Reply to Edith Searle Grossman.

TO THE EDITOB.

Sm,— Coming into closer quarters with Mrs Grossmann's paper we feel throughout that the reading of our pamphlet has been very painful to her. It has not been a labour of love, and our little book has yielded to her not much even of its liberal meanings and still lesß of its plan and scope. It is a collection of notes on not merely dreßS form, but also on what dreßS reform implies ; and when Mrs Grossmann says we speak of many other things besides she merely shows her view of the subject will readily admit of enlargement. Eational dress for women will exert its benign influence down a hundred different channels, and deeply enrich the social tone. Is not dress a good deal the outward sign of the inner character ; and if dress reform reinforces, as it does, the hold that reason has upon our minds, will not strong levers thereby be applied to overturn those "disgraceful laws " and remove those " social crimes and miseries " which Mrs Grossmann deplores. Mrs Grossmann informs us that "dress does not make the soul!" "Whether or not the soul is unaffected by skirt ,or knickers we cannot pretend to say ; but from observations of actual life we see that men do not wear gowns for athletic sports, nor indeed do they wear gowns or anything of the kind when they are at active work, and from this we infer at least that dress has a very great influence on bodily training, and that if this bodily training is to be worthy, however so little, of the name, it necessitates legged clothing. It is of these two things— muscular skill and legged clothing—that there appears in MtS Grossmann ahabelike innocence when she states -that "knickers confine the legs more than a skirt does." Physical skill, we say, forms an important part of a person's total capacity, and, by the healthiness of manual labour, by the independence and feeling of power and resource it creates, and by its direct aid to securing livelihood, it certainly has a deep and direct influence on character. Want of that physical skill which is acquired by all-round use and trainingof the muscles probably gives aclueto the fact that women as a class show a sameness and lack of individuality. Education and a thoughtful life makes one woman differ from another, as De Foe, the champion of women's education, wrote two centuries ago :_ " Women, in my observation, have little or no difference in them but as they are or are not distinguished by education." It U of course at once deduced that man's more marked individuality is helped not only by his mental, but also by his all-round physical, education. Mrs Grossmann has probably read more on the physical training of girls than she has on the new dress reform, but even in that subject we feel she is a good way enveloped in that " Cimmerian darkness" which, according to a lady quoted in the current Keview of Reviews, shrouds English people on this subject, despite the advancesmade in fjirls'montal education. Wemiss, with deep regret, in our critic's paper the feeling of good animal spirits, of the joy of living, of muscular Christianity. Contemplative sestheticism and the adoration of drapery have their good effects no doubt, but we strongly object to their shutting the doors against knickerbockers and physical excellence. We recommend to Mrs Grossmann's study the leading article in the Press for July 10 last. It was a review of the state of women students in the New Zealand University, and showed that at the beginning of the university course the men and women students stand on about equal terms ; but that after three year 3 of hard work a^laring inequality enters, the men taking five times as many senior scholarships as the women. The Press proceeds to say, University work following upon several school competitions must resolve itself largely into a question of physical endurance. H&re it is only too probable that the 'neglected physical training of women would be most needed." We ask every reader to ponder this editorial judgment. Shall we advise 20 per cent, extra marks be accorded to lady students, on account of the skirt hindrance, in all university examinations where men and women compete, or shall we let things go on as they are, and the beating become more decided every year, or shall we encourage girls to a robust physical education, and send them on to the uni-

versity assured that they will share the honours with the men ? If the latter, then we wish to point out that knickers or legged clothing is essential to success. If, however, university work is merely a modern patch or addition put upon ordinary feminine habits, then drapery and apparel are of as much consequence to lady students as are mind and body, and the spirit of woman's emancipation must sink far deeper yet into the common sense of the people ere men Btudents will be equalled by their Bisters in mental work.

Now let us turn to Mrs Gros3mann's main idea, expressed in the title of her paper. "Rational Dress or Male Costume, Which Shall we Have ? " and backed up by profuse charges against us that we Wish to make women like men— that in fact this is what we mean by emancipation, that we have a ' lurking contempt for wp.men, that we have a secret belief in woman's inferiority." To these charges our pamphlet can itself speak. Our business here is to refer to " male costume." It is not the bad grammar itself that annoys us.but tho spirit that deliberately chooses male instead of masculine. With the term knicker costume so often repeated in our pamphlet, we cannot accept Mrs Grossman's statement that she chose the term male as describing our aims with "nearest approach to accuracy." There is a sting in the word, and our critic must simply have given way to bad feeling and worso logic. If a costume is male it must either have been made for a male or be in the style that men have by long usage become possessed of a right to claim as their own. The latter will probably be Mrs Grossmann's ground, and proceeding upon it we ask her to justify her "male" education. It is but lately. that women have been admitted, to the universities— those institutions that men by the usage of centuries on centuries have become possessed of a right to consider their own. Yet Mra Grossmann broke through this right and enjoyed a " male " education. Why? Because progress needs intellectual culture for women, and this culture is not a privilege of sex and is best obtained at the university. We are similarly breaking through the male right to legged clothing. Why 7 Because progress needs physical culture for women, and this culture is not a privilege of sex, and is best obtained by using the knickerbocker costume. Similarly we might say our women doctors practice "male" medicine, and that we hope soon to see New Zealand women exercising 'male" suffrage. If Mrs Grossman thoroughly gripped the parallelism of these cases why did she use a word to mislead the public, and why does she in so many places accuse us of wanting to make women like men ? We do not need her profound assertion "No woman should become a man," as we have her assurance that " dress does not make the soul," and that sex difference is too "inherent" to need "artificial barriers." If these statements are true a woman in knickers is a woman still, and in our opinion very much better in body and mind than before.— We are, &c, The Authors of' " Notes ok Dress Reform." Christchurch, August 11.