The mother or the teacher who bases her instruction in this matter on the assumption that pretty clothes of necessity breed vanity and all its attendant evils is merely sowing the seed of her influence upon stony ground when once the girl discovers her belief.  Nature is telling the girl to make herself beautiful.  It is not only useless but wrong to set ourselves against this instinct.  Instead we must show her what beauty in clothes means, and how to attain it without paying for it more than she can afford, in money, in time, or in sacrifice of her spiritual self.  The school does its share when it teaches the general theory of beauty, with practical illustration in study of line and color schemes.  The individual teacher and the mother have to impart the far more delicate lessons concerning influence and cost—­mental, moral, and spiritual—­in other words, the psychology of clothes.

Our girl must grow up fully cognizant of what her clothes cost.  When she desires, as she doubtless will desire, silk petticoats, and an “up-to-date” hat, and high-heeled shoes, and an absurdly beruffled dress, and a wonderful array of ribbons, she must discover what each and every one of these things costs and whether it is worth the price.  The high heels sometimes cost health; the conspicuous dress may cost the good opinion or the admiration of those who value modesty above style; the silk petticoat may be bought at the cost of mother’s or father’s sacrifice of something needed far more; the trimming on the hat may have cost the life of a beautiful mother bird and the slow starvation of her nestlings.  Nothing the girl wears costs money only.

She must also learn that fine clothes are out of place on a girl whose body is not finely cared for; that money is better expended for quality than for show; and, most of all, that clothes are secondary matters, when all is said.

Wisdom and sympathy and tact are never more needed than in this sort of teaching.  The principles of good dressing cannot be laid down baldly and coldly, like mathematical rules, for the guidance of a girl palpitating with youthful and beauty-loving instincts.  The mother who says, merely, “Certainly not.  You don’t need them.  I never had silk stockings when I was a girl,” is failing to meet her obligations quite as much as the mother who allows her daughter to appear at school in a costume suited only to some formal evening function.  There are mothers of each of these sorts.

The wise mother whose daughter has developed a sudden scorn for the stockings she has worn contentedly enough hitherto does not dismiss the subject in the “certainly not” way, however kindly spoken.  She treats her daughter’s request seriously, asks a few questions, in the answers to which “the other girls” will probably figure largely, and talks it over.