MODERN GIRLS DEFENDED

Waipa Post, Volume 32, Issue 1783, 15 July 1926, Page 5

MODERN GIRLS DEFENDED

HOME TRUTHS FOR MOTHERS.

TIME TO BESTIR TMEMSEUVES. "Our flapper girls are very beautiful; they have many excellent qualities; and I am sure they will make wonderful mothers," said Mrs Niblock (wife of the Rev. A. M. Niblock, at one time viCar of St. John's, Te Awamutu), in a spirited defence of the modern girl at the annual meeting of the Mothers' Union in Auckland yesterday. "While we admire their beauty of form, their shapely legs, and sensible way of dressing, however, we need to teach them that there is something more than external training for physical culture. There is that inward culture which it is also necessary for them to strive for; how to posisesis their bodies in honour, and to build up a noble personality; to mould a character that will stand the tests of to-day."

To keep harking back to the days " when we were young," continued Mrs Niblock, was a false move, and betokened a narrow oultlook. There was just as much good in the world to-day as there wals then, and it was for the older women to bring it out by working with, and not against, the young people, this attitude adopted it Would not be necessary to worry about dance halls and other questionable places of amusement. '" Let us bestir ourselves, and again chaperone our young pe6ple," said the speaker, "and make the home and church life the attraction it should be. We have been caught napping, and in the meanwhile our young people have been growing and developing, and have got ahead of us, but I feel sure that if we adopt a right attitude they will reispond." ' ' iDealing with the formation of the Mothers' Union, fifty years ago, Mrs Niblock said, the type of women that the founder of the Union (Mrs Sumner) had to deal with in those days was vastly different from that of the present day. If the Union were to reach the young mothers of to-day it would have to change its tactics and get a new vision. The young mother of to-day was better educated, andl had an enlightened understanding of nuny things of which their own mothers were kept in ignorance. She was independent, resourceful, and had a strong love Of life and all that appertained to it. "She is free where we were imprisoned; she is independent where we were afraid; she is true to her ideals; andl she hates sham and pretension. We often deplore the wilfulness of our young people, but w e must not forget, we who are mothers, that our daughterte are the product of our thought and upbringing. "They are only expressing our repressions; they do the things.we would have liked, to do, but had not the courage! We were too closely watched and guarde'd; and, while we submitted we resented it. and- it has reacted in our childiren. They have come from under the iron yoke, of bondage into a glorious life of freedom. And the pity is that, because of lack of home training, many „of. the young people have regarded this freedom a s license, and have' gone alstray."' The basis of the appeal to the young mothers of to-day, concluded Mrs Niblock, must be'along intelVSctual lines, and due account must be taken of the •things that conuted in their lives. Appeal must be maide through every evenue of expression. One thing that might be done was the drawing up of a syllabus of lectures to be given by experts in such subjects a s physiology, home nursing, hygiene, mothercraft, literature, and travel. Most important of all,- however;, w"as the religious aspect. The sanctity of home life andl the the influence of prayer must be 'brought home to the younger women, and if some of the older wonien would, take up this work pf intercession it. would be a splendid thing. _________