A Pair of Schoolgirls: A Story of School Days
By Angela Brazil
Avondale prided itself considerably upon its institutions. It is not always easy for a day school to have the same corporate life as a boarding school. Still, Miss Tempest, despite this difficulty, had managed to inaugurate a spirit of union among her pupils and to make them work together for the general good of the community. She wished the College to be not merely a place where textbooks were studied but a central point of light on every possible subject.
She encouraged the girls to have many interests outside the ordinary round of lessons and, with the help of various self-governing societies, to learn to be good citizens and to play an intelligent and active part in the world’s progress. A Nature Study Union, a Guild of Arts and Crafts, a Debating Club, a Dramatic Circle, and a School Magazine flourished at Avondale. The direction of these societies was in the hands of a select committee chosen from the Fifth and Sixth Forms.
Still, so that the younger girls might be represented, a member of the Upper Fourth was elected each year as “Warden of the Lower School” and was privileged to attend some of the meetings and to speak on behalf of the interests of the juniors. Naturally, this post was an exceedingly coveted honour: the girl who held it became the delegate and mouthpiece of the lower forms, an acknowledged authority, and the general leader of the rest. It was the custom to elect the warden by ballot on the afternoon of the reopening day. Miss Tempest selected six candidates, and the members of several Third and Fourth Forms divisions voted for these.
Genre: Fiction And Literature | Young Readers
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Angela Brazil
Angela Brazil (30 November 1868 – 13 March 1947) was one of the first British writers of “modern schoolgirls’ stories”, written from the characters’ point of view and intended primarily as entertainment rather than moral instruction. In the first half of the 20th century, she published nearly 50 books of girls’ fiction, the vast majority being boarding school stories. She also published numerous short stories in magazines. Her books were commercially successful, widely read by pre-adolescent girls, and influenced them. Though interest in girls’ school stories waned after World War II, her books remained popular until the 1960s. They were seen as disruptive and a negative influence on moral standards by some figures in authority during the height of their popularity, and in some cases, were banned, or indeed burned, by headmistresses in British girls’ schools. While her stories have been much imitated in more recent decades, and many of her motifs and plot elements have since become clichés or the subject of parody, they were innovative when they first appeared. Brazil made a significant contribution to changing the nature of fiction for girls. She presented a young female point of view that was active, aware of current issues, and independent-minded; she recognized adolescence as a time of transition and accepted girls as having common interests and concerns that could be shared and acted upon.
Angela Brazil
