The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1882-07-22
Blind Leaders OF the Blind.


NE, rises up in his place, and with a
proud heart and tremulous knees, reads
an essay on 1.-THE Dignity of Labor"
vi because another boy, seventeen years
Old, who hasn' read newspaper in ten
weeks and has little more idea of what
Is going on in America than he has of
What is going on in Heaven, delivers an
Grafton on the g Perils of the Republic"
Or because the 8 loudest' dressed girl
IN the class, with voice like man and
lace OF brass, reads an essay on "Mod-
esty the True Sign of Merit" Or be-
cause some other girl, sixteen years old,
VINO eats four meals day and has never
known a care or sorrow all her days,
reads an affecting and mournful essay
about 4" The Discipline of Affection"
all about people who are born to blush
unseen and wander heart-broken and
lonely down the neglected paths of Life
with big L. We are apt to laugh at
all these things, because we think the
young people are considerably beyond
then depth, and we know that some day
they will laugh over their essays as we
do now.
But more laughable than all this is
tne spectacle of a man of some forty
eight years, a clergyman in the great
city of New York, who has recently been
standing up in his pulpit, preaching a
ssries of sermons on "Courtship and
Marriage directing his discourses es-
pecally to the young people, and tell
ing them how to conduct their courtship
and now to conduct themselves toward
each other. The poor, misguided man.
Why, do you know, this man of forty
eight years actually assumed to know
more about these things than the young
people of his congregation. He says:
'There is too much sickly, silly senti-
mentality among the young people,"
o, is there, gray-haired teacher of court
ship? And how did you find it out?
We wot the young folks of your fold sit
not upon your lap to do their soft but
rather pleasant spooning. OF truth,
there must come back to him some
echoes OF the mushy sweetness of his
own callov days of unfledged mashful-
ness. lovers talk too much" the
good man says; ''this palaver of lovers
is worse ttan the purring of cats All
man, we can stand the soft purring of
the contented cat; it is the yowl of the
ambitious champion of the woodshed
that we account distasteful. And this
palaver of lovers" why certeS, it is but
sounding brass and tinkling cymbals to
the ears Of married man forty-eight
years old, who has to buy shoes for eight,
but bless you, the young people who
make the palaver like it, and it is in
tended for no other ears than theirs
alone. If you don't like it. don't listen
to it.
He "dmounces this senseless twaddle
that is row always called courting"
And what did they used to do, visit We,
when this severe teacher went ''court-
ing?' Come, we hold the caviler to the
record and conjure him to answer,
straight and to the point, under oath and
in the dead of the wheel and rack. Put
his wife on the stand and make her tes-
tify, while he stands up and listens to
the story of his mash in open court.
Ay, bring out his old love letters and
read them aloud, and let him carry out
his own sentence upon himself, while he
slowly burns to miserable death in the
consuming fire of his own bushes.
''Twaddle" is it? All, brethren, be-
ware of that man who tells you that the
young people of this day talk twaddle,
white the young folk of his own younger
days talked sense while they ''courted. !"
Away with him! "This gable" says
the good man, sis an evidence of empti-
ness of the head" Well, what if it is?
When the heart is so full it runs over in
soft nothings and kisses, what if the head
be empty? Let her stay empty. What,
does man 60 love-making with his head?
Now, marry, Heaven forbid. The i'm
mortal gods forbid that any man should
go logically battering his way into the
affections of the dearest girl in the
world, with his head, like goat. Good
parson, people don't fall in love in pre-
else, logical, scholarly way in these days.
Nor did they in yours.
ga man." continues the dominic,
Fought to straighten himself up, and sit
like a gentleman, when conversing with
the lady he hopes to make his wife,
treating her with as much studied and
formal respect as he does other ladies Of
his acquaintance. This closes the dis
cussion. A young fellow, ''clear gone"
as the original hath it, on the sweetest
girl the stars ever shone ON, is to sit up
straight and say ''yes, mom," and mo.
mom,' and ''thank we, mom," when he
is alone with that angel, sitting far
across the room on straight back chair,
while she sits in the opposite corner on a
dainty bit of tete-a-tete barely big
enough for one and a half. Why, we
don't believe now this man is married.
We don't believe he was ever in love
with anybody. We don't believe he ever
went "a courtin'." Why, if he had his
way he'd ruin the business entirely.
We believe he is fifty-three years old
and never went to church, picnic or fes-
tival with girl in all his life. We be-
lieve. he is opposed to carpets, stoves and
organs in the house of worship.
There is an old Spanish proverb:
"Never talk Arabic in the house of the
Moor" That is, don't talk what little
you know before experts. The good
dominic has forgotten this. He cannot,
at his age, teach young folk of twenty
how to go ga courtin'." All, no, they
can 90 without teacher, and they can
give him points in the business, poor
man. He is doubtless an able preacher,
good man, and wise scholar. But
when he tries to tell his children how TO