The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX, No. 993, January 7, 1899

AN ANTIQUE FÊTE.
From the Painting in the Salon by P. L. Vagnier.
Vol. XX.—No. 993.]
JANUARY 7, 1899.
ASPIRATION.
All rights reserved. ]
There is, perhaps, no word in the present day which has been more frequently used and abused than “culture.” It has come so readily to the lips of modern prophets, that it has acquired a secondary and ironical significance. Some of our readers may have seen a clever University parody (on the Heathen Chinee ) describing the encounter of two undergraduates in the streets of Oxford. One, in faultless attire, replies proudly to the other’s inquiry where he is going—
“I am bound for some tea and tall culture.”
He is, in fact, on the way to a meeting of the Browning Society, and when a Don hurries up to tell him the society has suddenly collapsed, great is the lamentation!
Probably the society in question deserved no satire at all; but there is a sort of “culture for culture’s sake” which does deserve to be held up to ridicule.
We find nothing to laugh at, however, but a very real pathos, in the letters that are reaching us literally from all quarters of the globe; and we long to help the writers, as well as those who have similar needs and longings unexpressed. “How can I attain self-culture?” is the question asked in varying terms, but with the same refrain.
Girls, after schooldays are past, wake up to find themselves in a region of vast, dimly-perceived possibilities: