The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1881-12-15
Our Beys and Girls.

Mrs. Elizabeth Cakes Smith has 10.
Gently published letter in the SPRING
field (Mass.) Republican,, in which she
argues that such cases as that of Jennie
Cramer might be prevented by calling
halt and returning to the manners and
customs which prevailed in this coun-
try when she was young some fifty
years ago. At that time Il was recog-
nized a. necessary to keep young girls
more in the house than now, and it was
deemed highly immoral and imprudent
to allow them even to sit alone with
young men who CHANGED to visit them,
and much more 80 to go out driving
with them unaccompanied by one Of
their parents. Girls were taught that
honorable marriage was the goal of
their earthly existence. whereas in these
days Irritation merely for flirtation's
sake is the rule rather than the excep-
ton, and is not looked upon as special
~ disgraceful. though its inevitable re-
suit is to deaden pure affection and
render the heart callous, while it also
arouses the passions. Fifty years ago
the average American girl was quiet,
modest and retiring maiden, content to
live at home in the station of life to
which she was called, to he obedient to
her parents, and to aid them cheerfully
In the management of the household.
II she had dreams they were not of es-
Gaping from q modest home to find ex-
element in the whirl of society, but of
leaving her parents r0Oftree to become
the wife of some honest, handsome and
industrious young man. of whom she
was to be the partner in prosperity and
the stay and support in adversely. She
had her one lover, to whom she gave
her whole heart without thought of wish
ing for ''other strings to her bow" and
when she became wife she was single
hearted and her mind was not full
of vagrant fancies and half regrets for
what Knight have been.' In a word.
although she may have been a trifie
dull, she was bright and good enough
for human natures daily food and
made an excellent domestic wife and
mother. Divorce. which is not now
looked upon as specially disgraceful.
was then considered wholly Shameful
and was thought of only with shud-
) der.
AS regards the boys of that golden
age of America, they were not the in
tractable, self-assertive, staggering
beings that their descendants are. They
were brought up under rule and strict
discipline; when they deserved fog
cling they received it roundiy where It
would do the most good, and then did
not 60 out and hang themselves, as we
now continually read that boys do be-
cause they are too proud and sullen TO
bear the disgrace of the rod. They
worked hard, and did not early learn
to drink and smoke, and what reading
they did was wholesome and instructive,
Or innocently amusing, their books of
fiction being Robinson Crusoe'' and
SANFORD and Merton" such trash as
"The Boy Detective" "Butfalo Bill"
and the whole dime novel sort of litera-
ture not being then in existence. In q
word. both boys and girls were then
reared with greater regard to religion
aud morality than they now are, and
Mrs. Smith insists that a return to the
sort of training given to them is abso-
lutely necessary if we are not content
to see them 60 from bad to worse until
reformation shall DO out of the ques-
ton.