Given well-prepared food, whether simple or elaborate, proper service, a room not too warm and a current of fresh air that does not blow on any one, guests sympathetically chosen, the dinner can not fail to be a success. A young married belle of a western city who was visiting in a smart New York set was asked at her first dinner what people in the West did for after-dinner entertainment. “They talk,” she said. The people present looked at her as if they thought that a dull way of spending the time, and to a query of hers regarding their methods of entertainment, replied that they usually “had in” a professional or professionals of some sort for the amusement of the guests after the eating and drinking were over. To her taste this indicated an unenviable mental poverty, as it will to most sensible people. The best flavor of a successful dinner party lies not in the food, however grateful that may be to the palate, but in the talk. A dinner is the entertainment at which sprightly natural talk counts for the most; and this is probably the reason that the world over the dinner is considered the most elegant and distinguished form of entertainment.
CHAPTER X
THE EDUCATION OF A YOUNG GIRL
IS IT a good thing to send a young girl away to school, and, if so, shall one send her to boarding-school or college? are the questions that agitate many a household where the daughter or daughters are old enough to make these questions pertinent. Over-conscientious and fearful mothers sometimes decide that the risk is too great in sending girls away from home. They fear, with the loosening of home ties, a lessening of a sense of responsibility, while at the same time they doubt a girl’s power to get on without maternal supervision. The judgment and experience of the world is against this point of view. “Homekeeping youths have ever homekeeping wits,” is no more true of boys than of girls. Going away to school should be one of the richly vitalizing influences of life. To a certain extent a girl is thrown on her own resources when away as she would not be at home, yet the conditions in any school worthy of the name are such that she is guarded and protected. At home, her friendships and acquaintances have been made largely through the connection of her family with the community in which she lives. Away, she must make her own friends. At home, it is probable that mother, older sister or a kindly aunt have done her darning and other mending. Away, she must do these things for herself or they remain undone. In many ways the opportunity is given her by a year or two away at school to prove herself, yet to do so without danger, as the amateur swordsman fences with a button on his foil. Outside of these considerations one of the most important is the development that comes through delight in change. Novel conditions have charm for all ages, and in youth, much more than in age, they are a spur to endeavor. Happiness of a healthful kind stimulates the mind, and it is commonly true that the years spent away at school are pleasant ones.
WHAT SCHOOL TO CHOOSE
The advocates of the different sorts of training represented by boarding-school and college life are often hostile to each other. There is much to be said in favor of both educational methods, and the decision concerning which shall be adopted for a young girl should depend largely upon her own temperament, tastes and inclinations. The advocates of college life are too apt to assume that the texture of boarding-school learning is flimsy, which it sometimes is. The friends of boarding-school life assume that a college training means an absence of regard for the feminine graces; and it is true that some of its representatives are not social successes. But such comment goes a short way in helping one to a decision as to whether boarding-school or college shall be the destination of one’s daughter.
THE BOARDING-SCHOOL
The character of the girls’ colleges in our country is much more generally known than that of boarding-schools. The colleges are few in number, and to their proceedings is given a degree of publicity not accorded the proceedings of smaller educational enterprises. There are boarding-schools and boarding-schools. Investigation can not be too careful before placing a girl in one of them. The best offer advantages of an admirable kind. The courses of study, while not so diverse as those of college, are particularly adapted to feminine tastes, while the accomplishments which tend to make social life more interesting and agreeable are given a large share of attention. History, literature, the modern languages, music and drawing have perhaps the foremost places in the curriculum. Many of these schools are in cities where opportunities are given, under proper chaperonage, for girls to see the best theatrical performances and to hear concerts of value. In these schools girls come into more intimate relations with their teachers than is possible in a college, and they are also much more strictly chaperoned. Matters of form and deportment, details of manner, so far as they can be taught, are given thought and attention often with happy results. One may say that a girl should learn these things at home, but sometimes her surroundings there are not favorable and again she needs the impetus of just such criticism as she receives at a good boarding-school to make her aware of the value of form. The aim of a good boarding-school is to make of a girl an attractive member of society as well as to make her mentally appreciative. The stamp of certain admirable boarding-schools upon the manners of the women who have attended them is unmistakable. I once heard a man say that he could always “spot” a pupil of Miss Porter’s famous Farmington School within half an hour after introduction, by certain delicate formalities in her manner.