e gradually made. Every spring and autumn let an advance step
be taken, and in order to do this an American fashion commission or
bureau should be established, under the auspices of the dress reform
committee of the Women's Council, which at stated intervals should
issue bulletins and illustrated fashion plates. If the ideal is kept
constantly in view, and every season slight changes are made toward
the desired garment, the victory will, I believe, be a comparatively
easy one, for the splendid common sense of the American women and men
will cordially second the movement. _Concerted action, a clearly
defined ideal toward which to move, and gradual changes_--these are
points which it seems to me are vitally important. One reason why the
most ridiculous and inartistic extremes in fashion have been generally
adopted is found in this policy of gradual introduction, a fact which
must impress anyone who carefully examines the fashions of the past.
First there has been a slight alteration, shortly becoming more
pronounced, and with each season it has grown more marked, although
perhaps not for four or six years has the extreme been reached. At
every step there have been complaints from various quarters, but
steadily and persistently has the fashion been pushed until it reached
its climax, after which we have had its gradual decline. This was the
history of the hoop skirt and the Grecian bend, and has been that of
most of the extremes which have marked the past, and we can readily
believe that in no other way could womanhood have been insnared by
such supreme and criminal folly as has characterized fashion's
caprices in unnumbered instances.

[Illustration: _From copyrighted photo by Falk, N. Y._ MISS MARLOWE AS
VIOLA.]

(2.) Another very essential point is the proper education of the girls
of to-day, for to them will fall, in its richest fruition, the
blessings of this splendid reform if it be properly carried on, and if
they be everywhere instructed to set health above fashion, and seek
the beauty of Venus de Medici rather than the pseudo beauty of the
wretched, deformed invalid, who at the dictates of the modern Babylon
has trampled reason and common sense, health and comfort, the
happiness of self and the enjoyment of her posterity under foot. Teach
the girls to be American; to be independent; to scorn to copy fashion,
manners, or habits that come from decaying civilizations, and which
outrage all sentiment of refinement,