The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1883-02-27

ders and the sentenflOus assertion
''workmen out Of q job" No such
solution is at hand in the present case
1t scarcely complicstes the inquiry
bur it undoubtedly does add to it:
interest, to know that among the fire.
quent cases are to be found these OF
girls born at the top of the social lad
der, as well as others of humble par
entage.
Now, setting out with the assump'
| ton that human nature has not un
derYone a change, and that men are
no more vicious nor women any more
weak than they were in DAYS gone by,
there remains the fact. attested by
the dispatches in every morning pa.
per, and by the published stories OF
what takes place in the city itself
that Our girls do 60 astray more often
than of old. Now and then q daily
paper comments on this fact. and moi
infrequently the reader finds a lea,l-
ing idea reproduced by the several
writers. 1t is this That our sys.
TENS of home training and Of educa.
ton are responsible to very large de-
gree for calamities Of this kind. Is
this truei The question is one of 10.
finite importance, for it affects the
peace of hearth and home, to secure
and maintain Which every form of
government, from national to munic-
pal, and every law enacted since the
settlement of the country, was devised.
1t is the home around which every
thing else revolves.
1t is hardly to be disputed that the
youth of both sexes are freed from pa.
rental restraint loo sUon. Girls and
hoys take on the manners of men and
women at q time when they should
be under the watchful care 0fthought-
full parents. Undoubtedly this tends
to the encouragement of ideas to which
they should be strangers and when
an idea is formed, q desire created,
in the unframed mind, who is to pre-
dict the consequence? Let it be sup
posed that the desire il sinful
in short, not to mince matters, that it
is the very one under consideration.
The young girl, accustomed to think
and act for herself, too much at liber-
Nv to choose her own associates, too
of en- goes astray. Some one has said
in discussing the various phases Of our
social life, that We are irretrievably
committed to this freedom, which it is
claimed is responsible for such deplor-
able results. But is this really the
cases IF the charge that it has an
immoral tendency can trutbfully be
laid against the most distinctive fea-
lures of our social intercourse, must We
Of necessity keep on in this same
course? Is this thing the only one
thing in the world that it resllv ard
truly is too late to mend, No one
will dispute that the task would be
difficult. The emente of an hour may
overthrow an empire and change the
political destinies Ct a continent, but
social reforms are brought about slow
ly. and almost always imperceptibly.
Yet they do occur, as may easily be
proved to bis own satisfs ctiOn by q
student of history. So far as the thing
under discussion Is concerned, it would
seem that q step in advance could be
taken were determined and
united effort made to better
the education afforded our
girls. This is SAID without the least
reference to the branches of learning,
the graces and accomplishments they
are supposed to or actu. lily do acquire
at school. They may or may not be
all that they should be. But the men,
tai education, the character making of
the future wives and mothers of Amer
lea should be taken out of incompe-
tent hands. 1t is too often the case
that at ages when they are most i'm
presslonable girls and boys attend a
school presided over by q mistress who
is herself uniformed, and therefore can
no more form the characters of her
scholars than she can read Sanscrit.
This statement, if it be true-and it is
open to contradiction if it can be con-
tradicted-goes. it would seem, to the
very root Of the matter. 1t says a
great deal for the innate good of hui
man nature, that it is only compar-
tive few of the young people SO i'm
perfectly trained who do wrong.
Is there no way to try the effect of
sucn a reform as is here indicated?
1t is not put forward by the Herald as
complete solution of the question,
nor is much originality claimed for
the idea but it is at least advanced
as an honestly meant suggestion
of one means that seems to promise
good results.