The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1881-02-23

oi our society that the reading OF our young
people is an alienation of trashy novels and
Harper's Bazaar, and that the latter production
forms the staple of their conversation; that
compared with Boston woman, Richmond
girl is a simpleton.
/ The writer in the Standard puts it that
our remarks were aimed at Richmond,
and says "it is impossible to estimate
the damage done to this community"
when In fact we were speaking of the
country at large, and when in fact we
make an exception IN favor of Richmond.
We remark that 1--WE suppose that euen
here m Richmond there are very few la
dies who have read Sir VIM. Hamilton,
and not one who has read Kant or Schop-
enhauer." We suggest that Richmond
is superior in this respect to most points,
and single it out as place where, if any
where, such works are likely to be read. +
We then go on to speak of the young la
dies generally throughout the country,
and even then not in the strong language
attributed to us by the Standard.
Neither were we complaining that the
ladies do not read Kant or Schopenhauer.
We should be very sorry if they did read
them. The sarcasm was at Boston the
allusion being to the strong minded fe-
males of that metropolis referred to in
the previous part of the article.
Neither did we intend to convey the
idea that there are not bright and intel
lectual and cultivated women in all our
cities. 1t may be frivolous and worldly
minded age, and women may be bent on
pleasure and on fnery and on possessions;
but it does not follow that there is no
cultured class, though it be a minority,
like the seven thousand who had not
bowed the knee to Baal.
Everything is relative in this world,
and people look at things in different
ways. There are some who may think
that there is not bit too much frolicking
and carousing, and frivolity and extrava-
gance; we do not agree with them-that's
all. There are some who may think our
young people are sufficiently serious and
sufficiently studious; we think different
ly-that's all We were attempting
in our article to write against the new
practices of society, and to revive the
memory of the most lovely women the
world ever knew-our mothers and
grand mothers, especially here in Vir-
ginia.
Well but, some one will say Are there
no sober matrons in the United States in
our day? are there no holy women in the
Church? are there no serious, earnest
minded girls, who think of more impor-
tant matters than the wearing of gold"
or putting on of apparel? Certainly,
there are; great many of them. There
was never so much Christian effort in the
world before. There were never so many
devoted Christian women before. There
are hundreds of them here in Richmond.
But as Mr.. Weller said about his owls
ion, our space was limited Gas it is now),
and we could not explain and give all
the exceptions and qualifications to every
sentence as we went along. We thought
everybody would understand, and we do
not see now how wescould have been mis-
understood If we had been writing
Review article we should have guarded
every point.
We come back to the main thesis of the
article, which was this: This is frivol-
GUS age; it is an age bent on excitements
and pleasure-seeking; it is an age when
the mass of our young women do very
little serious reading it is an age when
the conversation among the mass of our
ladies is taken up almost exclusively
with parties, hops, theatrical perform
ances, furniture, and the like. Isn't this
true?
Somebody asked us, But why didn't
you say something about the Young
Men? Well, simply because we were
writing about the young women. We
are limited in a newspaper article to a
certain space, and one topic at time.
We will merely add that we were a
little startled to see the name of one of
the editors of this paper mentioned in the
article in the Standard.