Life, 1914-01-15 · page 8 of 40
Life — January 15, 1914 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page critiques proposals to militarily train English girls, inspired by Sir Robert Lucas-Tooth's £250,000 donation for boys' military training. The article sarcastically argues that girls—not boys—should receive discipline, claiming young women waste energy on frivolous activities like "dancing the tango and reading modern sex novels." The author suggests redirecting this "horse-power" toward useful training. The cartoon below ("Preference") mocks American attitudes toward modern art: it contrasts refined European appreciation of the Mona Lisa with crude American pragmatism—Americans allegedly only admire art if it belonged to a millionaire or has a certificate of authenticity, missing the point entirely. Both sections satirize class pretension and gender assumptions of the Edwardian era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Ho! for the Girls sk ROBERT LUCAS-TOOTH, a philanthropic Eng- lishman, has given two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to start a training fund for English boys. The idea of Sir Robert Lucas-Tooth’s donation is that the young men of England shall be properly trained to defend their country from invasion, and to acquire a kind of discipline which will act as a national bulwark. This is admirable and should serve as a suggestion to some American philanthropists. We are aware that there is already a movement on foot in this country to provide our boys with military training, but our idea is that it is the girls who should be disciplined. One of the great difficulties of the present day is the fact that young women are developing so much superfluous energy, and this en- ergy, like the heat in your furnace fire, is largely going to waste. If our young girls, instead of spending their time in dancing the tango and reading modern sex novels could be disciplined along the lines suggested by Sir Robert Lucas- Tooth, by the time they got to be forty or fifty years of age they could break loose in some definite direction which might result in good for all. We do not object necessarily to the volume of energy which results in the blowing up of buildings or in parades from New York to Washington, but we believe this same energy could be expended in other kinds of horse-power which would produce better results. Specific * RS. PETERBY says she believes in all the modern home virtues.” “TI suppose she refers to playing bridge, neglecting the children and quarrelling with the servants.” Lady of Uncertain Age: HAVE YOU ANY SMALL WAX CANDLES? TO-MORROW: IS MY BIRTHDAY AND I WANT TO PUT THEM IN THE CAKE. Diplomatic Grocer: Yes, MA’AM., ABOUT TWO DOZEN? Preference NEVER read a modern book, I never care to see one, But if I were obliged to look, I'd rather see than be one! The Difference ROM reports published in the papers at the time the Mona Lisa painting was discovered, it is said that when it was carried into the Uffizi Gallery all of the artists, journalists and others present upon that occasion in- stinctively uncovered as the picture went by. Imagine a group of Americans tak- ing off their hats in the presence of any picture, unless, of course, it hap- pened to be a picture of a millionaire, “SAY, PUMPERNICKEL, IF YOU AND I CARRIED ON LIKE THAT a bond or certificate of stock! THEY’D PUT MUZZLES ON US” comichooks.com