Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/623

 597 CHILDREN This section tells everything that a mother ought to know and everytb inc she should teach her children. It will contain articles dealing with the whole of a child's life from infancy to womanhood. | A few of the subjects are here mentioned : The Baby Education Physical Training Aniita«nent» Clothes How to Engage a Use of Clubs How to Arrange a Hoxv to Engage a Private Governess Dumb-bells Children's Party Nurse English Schools for Developers Outdoor Games Preparing for Baby Girls Chest Expanders Indoor Games Motherhood Foreign Schools and Exercises withotU How to Choose Toys What Every Mother Convents Apparatus for Children Should I o7U, etc. Exchange with Foreign Breathing Exercises The Selection of Story Families for Learn- Skipping, Books, ing Languages, etc. etc. etc. A C0TSLLOM FOR CraiLBR.EN'§ DANCES The Popularity of a Cotillon— Some Attractive Figures and Explanations as How to Arrange them— Careful Forethought is Essential to Success — Favours and other Accessories can Easily be Made at Home HThere are few gayer or more picturesque sights than a children's cotillon dance, and a number of the prettiest and most novel figures take trouble to prepare beforehand. A cotillon, as a rule, takes place directly after tea at a party given for small child- ren, while for bigger boys and girls it may begin towards the middle of the evening when the first half- dozen dances are over. The first general shy- ness will then have worn off, and every one will be prepared to enter merrily into the spirit of the revels. To begin the cotillon a ring of chairs must surround the walls of the dancing-room, and the boys are told each to choose a part- ner and sit beside her in the magic circle. They dance the first lance together, and Ihey sit out any very little time and „^ incy aan( I^H^hcy sit Fig I. intervals which may occur as the figures are being performed, side by side, but for the rest of the dances they are expected to exchange favours with children sitting in some other part of the ring, and not with their next-door neighbours. It is of the utmost importance that, once started, the cotillon should go with a swing from start to finish. The music must go with scarcely a break between the dances, and the two cotillon leaders — a boy and a girl — must be well drilled in their duties beforehand, so that figure may follow figure in swift suc- cession vsi'ithout a hitch. It is quite a good plan to have four leaders instead of the more customary two, and to arrange for I hem to lead alternate figures and to distri- bute trayfuls of favours in turn. The Chariot-driving Figure. The boys have a te*m of girls, and the girls a team of boyi
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