Some one frowned, actually frowned, over the beauty contest the other day - and he was scarcely one of the "unco guid" either.
"It will make the girls conceited" he said, in an accent that held more than a suspicion of Doric.
Yet it ought not to have needed affirming that a "guid conceit" is as essential to the success of a girl starting out on her career of love and life as it is to a young man entering business. What is called "conceit" and "vanity" and "pride" is closely allied to "self respect", as is evidenced by the mother's injunction to the daughter in such a phrase as: "Have you no proper pride, girl?"
A girl should early be taught how beautiful she is - how desirable she is.
She should be taught what wonderful power her beauty puts in her hands, for her own pleasure and for the good of her fellows.
She should be made acquainted with the snares that are set for beauty and the need for circumspection for the protection of her own character and reputation and happiness.
Beauty is as much a gift as intellect - it come from the same source.
It should be recognised. Men and Women should be taught to know it when they see it.
The cultivation of beauty should be one of the high aims of the human race; it is an important feature of eugenics; it is an integral part of hygiene. Ugliness is the misshapen ill-begotten son of Vice; Beauty is the fair daughter of Virtue.
Though there are the naughty fair, and the virtuous plain, and though it might sometimes appear as though nature intended them thus to consort, a wider view ill show that the virtuous races are the beautiful races and that th emost vicious are the most hideous.
If the Mildura Grand Carnifal Beauty Show helps the people to ever so small an extent to recognise and appreciate physical beauty, it is doing an ennobling thing; and if it also teaches the fair ladies themselves that their beauty is above the ordinary, it will be teaching them at the same time to put a high estimate on themselves, and will incline them to look high and - let us hope - to choose intelligently when they proceed to select their life mates.
The beauty show is right and good in itself, and it is being conducted for the benefit of one of the noblest of causes.