The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 68
Our Girls
Our Girls.
My Dear Girls—
The editor of Zealandia has paid me the compliment of requesting me to address to you a few lines from month to month, touching upon such subjects as seem to me calculated to interest, amuse, or instruct you. May I hope that you on your side will help me a little by telling me of any new game, &c., or asking for information on any subject near to your hearts? If you will do this, I have good hope that "Our Girls' Page" will prove both acceptable and useful to those for whom it is intended.
This month I should like to bring before your notice the advantages of what are termed "Magazine Clubs," especially to those who live in the country, and yet do not like to feel themselves behind the times in general information and knowledge of what is going on in the great world around.
The idea is to form a society of girls; each girl takes in a magazine, and once a week—or oftener, if desired—the party meet at afternoon tea, to discuss, instead of scandal and fashion, selected articles from their magazines. Each member of the club makes her own selection from her own magazine, thus giving play to her own individual tastes, and training the critical faculties, which are of such value in teaching people to discriminate between the relative merits and demerits of literary work.
page 41The reading of every article is sure to suggest pleasant subjects for conversation, and sometimes for discussion; and the little social gathering can be made useful in other ways as a relaxation from home work, or the opportunity of plying one's needle for a Dorcas or other society.
Of course each club must form its own rules, guided by special circumstances of time and place. These rules should be as few and simple as possible, but when once made they should be strictly adhered to, as nothing is more demoralising than the habitual breaking of any rule, however trifling.
The magazines should be exchanged among the members at stated times, and for one year they should be the property of the club as a whole, and should then revert to the members who ordered them.
I have known of several of these magazine clubs at Home, and have heard of at least one in New Zealand. They are easily managed, not expensive, and calculated to give pleasure to a wide circle of friends; and I think that if some of my girl readers would try the experiment of starting one, they would probably thank me for the suggestion.
I append a list of a few suitable magazines, but the number is infinite, and others will occur to every reader.—Your sincere friend,
F. E. Cotton.
Roslyn.