Part 13

She will do her part of the school work cheerfully and thoroughly, that she may know how work should be done, and how to train others--her children, perhaps, if so favored.

The colored girl beautiful will be taught the value and use of money, and the relative value of character, education, and other things, which money cannot buy. She will be taught the care and cleanliness of the body, simplicity of wearing apparel and appropriate becoming inconspicuous costumes for church, school, street and home.

She will be taught that fine clothes can not cover up bad manners, nor take the place of good character; that it is foolish to buy what one can not afford; that the expenditure for clothes especially should be gauged by one's salary and should be appropriate for her particular plane of life.

The laws of proportion in the scheme of life must be the hobby of the school for the colored girl beautiful.

She will be taught that it is unforgivable not to walk erect, to talk in good English and in a soft tone of voice.

As many girls fall into book ignorance after graduation she will be taught that the aim of education is to give good habits of reading along with book-knowledge--or else the school has failed to educate a colored girl beautiful.

The colored girl beautiful will not aim for book education alone. She will select a school which will fit her to grace her home from parlor to kitchen, a school which has thoroughness for its motto.

She will be taught how to make her dresses and hats, to prepare for the time when perhaps her allowance for clothes must be divided among several. Dressmaking is a science as well as an art and enough can be learned, by those not apt, to save many dollars--especially in the home that fate favors with children.

She will be taught a trade, or some means of earning a livelihood, that she may be prepared, if circumstances should force her into the business arena.

The school of the colored girl beautiful will so educate her that motherhood will be her highest ideal in life, the glory of colored womanhood.

The Home of the Colored Girl Beautiful.

The Home of the Colored Girl Beautiful will reflect her. She will help her parents to buy a home that it may give her family more standing in the civic community. Taste and simplicity will rule, for the home will harmonize with the girl. If her parents are not particular about the trifles in the way of curtains, fences, and yards, then it must be her special task to make the home represent the beautiful in her, the God, for all that is beautiful and good comes from God.

Windows generally express the character of the occupants of a house. The day has passed when soiled or ragged lace curtains are tolerated. The cheaper simpler scrims and cheese cloths which are easily laundered are now used by the best people.

The Colored Girl Beautiful, will study the possibilities of her home and will attempt to secure the restful effects for the eye. Too much furniture is bad taste. The less one has, the cleaner houses may be kept.

The ornate heavy furniture and the upholstered parlor sets are passing away because they are no longer considered good taste, besides they are too heavy for cleanliness and are harmful to the health of women who do their own work.

Furniture of less expensive model, with simple lines and of less weight are being selected. These may be paid for cash instead of "on time," as has been the custom of many people in smaller towns and in the country districts.

The furniture sold by the payment houses always shows its source in its heaviness and shininess.

The wall paper should be selected as one would select a color for clothes, to harmonize with the color of the skin in all lights, and, for service Color schemes in decoration are being followed and we have no more stuffy parlors, often closed for days. Instead we have living rooms, with cleanable furniture, strong but light, entirely suitable for winter, and cool in summer. No one has a parlor now-a-days. The best room is generally a living room for the whole family. No more do we see enlarged pictures which good taste demands should be placed in bed rooms and private sitting rooms. The ten cent stores have done a great deal of good in educating the poor white and black alike. These stores have every where sold small brown art prints of many of the great paintings, to take the place of the gaudy dust ladened chromos and family pictures.

Pictures are hung low that they may be thoroughly dusted, as well as to give a near view of the subject.

Expensive carpets are also things of the past. Painted and stained floors with light weight rugs are more generally used. These may be cleaned and handled without giving the backache to women. Many colored girls boast of having painted their own floors and woodwork. Much of this has been learned in the boarding school.

A tawdry home expresses its mistress as do her clothes.

Next to the kitchen a fully equipped bath room is now the most important room in the house. Health and sanitation are the topics of the hour and a colored girl should know how to put a washer on a faucet as well as her father or brother.

A house without books is indeed an unfurnished home. Good books are the fad now. They are everywhere in evidence in the up-to-date colored home. They are exhibited almost as hand painted china was. In every inventory or collection one finds a Bible, a dictionary, and an atlas.

The times are changing and the colored people are changing with the times. Cleanliness and health are the watchwords, and "Order" is Heaven's first law.

The Colored Working Girl Beautiful.

No one should ever scorn a colored working woman. She has been the bone and sinew of the race. She has built the churches, helped the schools and has made the race what it is. The pioneer colored woman in most instances has helped to make the wealth that many colored families enjoy, today.

In my travels, on entering Southern towns early in the morning, colored women are the only women seen on the streets, and sometimes the only persons. They hurry along often with insufficient clothing in cold and rain.

One thinks of the little ones at home who dress themselves and perhaps, younger children, all without a mother's care, until night when the tired woman's return to her home to cook, to wash and to iron for her family after a hard day's work, in service.