The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1882-08-05
Slang i'm the Family.

Where does all the slang come fromp
Why is it such a growing vice? Why
should anybody use slangP What good
can there be in it? Who is not belittled
by using it?
Where does it all come fromp We have
been watching closely for twenty-five
from, and are very sorry for the discov-
cry. For it comes from the place of all
others that it should not come-from the
family. tits not fungus growth of the
season or the street. 1t is used there.
But they are the academies and colleges
of slang, the primary school of it is in
the family. 1t is not born with children.
God never sent a slangy child into the
world; He thinks too much of the child
and the world to do that. But the little
fellow finds slang here when he comes,
and finds his parents teaching it to him
among his first words, and from the time
he can first lisp on till he is grown, or till
college drill has cured him of the vice; or
till he has grown old enough to see him
self what slovenly, mean habit is, it is
constantly taughthim. Why? The Lord
himself doesn't know. For why father
and mother should constantly teach
their children so homely and disfguring
vice is beyond the comprehension of
men or angels. No parent lives who, if
not educated and cultivated himself,
does not desire and in some degree ex-
pect that his child will be some day.
And yet how few are the parents who, by
using slang themselves, do not constants
ly teach their children this most slovenly
of all intellectual or verbal habits
Children learn nearly everything they
know by imitation, and he has to be a
most repulsive father who is not taken
by his child for a model. How can q
slangy father or slangy mother expect
any other result than slangy children
and how can they expect otherwise, when
they are people of even moderate sense.
than that this vice will have to be cured
in school at great cost of time to the
pnpil and effort to the teacher, or else
that the child will all his life be dis
figured and belittled by it. Why, then,
should any parents be so careless of their
childrens interest or their own pride as
not to think of the harm they are doing
them by using slang before them-or
why, if they do think of it, are they so
cruel as knowingly to teach them in the
vice?
This is why it is such growing vice,
because it is so constantly and almost so
universally taught in the family. If it
were cut off in the family nearly its
whole growth of vile and noxious weeds
would be nipped in the sprouts and
killed; indeed, the most of them would
never even be terminated. Why do not
parents think of this? They fight the
big and little foxes of nearly every vice
but this, and guard their BARNS against
anything which will either contaminate
or weaken. But this they let in by all
the doors and windows and popularize
and encourage by using it themselves.
If all the fathers and mothers of this
country should stop using slang them
selves the next crop would die-and the
vice, which is purely an American vice,
would soon cease to be, and thus soon
relieve the American people of dis
graceful habit for which they are now so
justly ridiculed by the whole world. 1t
is said in the old country, "You can tell
Americans, and especially American
women, by their use of slang We all
know how true this is, disgraceful to us
as it is. 1t is a national vice and a ma
tional disgrace. -IoVa State Register.