ABSTRACT
Less change is to be observed among girls in the provincial towns, and of the lower middle class. Little girls are taught from their earliest years to help their mother entertain her friends, and many ladies take their children with them when they pay their calls. The German girl of the middle classes has always enjoyed a certain amount of personal liberty. In the twentieth century the German girl in large towns is almost as free as the English girl, and her years before marriage are no longer devoted exclusively to housework and sentimentality. The Swedish girl of the upper-middle class is allowed far less liberty than is her sister in Finland; her characteristics and training resemble those of the German girl, and like the latter she devotes much of her time to fancy work. The personality of the Norwegian girl is far more marked than that of her Swedish sister, and her independence has something almost mannish about it.
