Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-11-27
GUARD TEE GIRLS.
LIBERTY AND LIBERTINES-PAR-
ENTS WARNED AS TO DANGERS.
PHYSICAL and Moral Health Consid-
cred by a Physician-Persona
Freedom Must be Limited.

Freedom muSL Ue llliultcu.
A recent paper read before the Mime
apolis College of Physicians and Surgeons
created quite sensation. Its title was
1.-THE Physicians as related to Physical
and Moral Health" The main part of
the paper related to the dignity and re-
sponsibility of the physicians work, with
remarks concerning the ability and char
acter needed to do it full justice. After
passing in review the causes why there
had been degeneracy in the profession,
DR.. Brown alluded to some evils in the
community which should attract the atten-
ton of parents and make them at once
investigate affairs in reference to their sons
and daughters. DIR. E. J. Brown is Secre-
tary of the Society for the Suppression of
Vice, and claims that his startling state
ments are the result of actual investigations
and that the indifference of parents is only
to be accounted for on the ground of their
ignorance The closing portion of the
paper was as follows:
We naturally expect vicious develop
ments in such children of the poor as are
exposed from their earliest infancy to indie
cency and obscenity, but we have COM
monty believed ourselves justified in ex-
pecting better things of children of the
well-to-do and wealthy, who, for the most
part, have had the advantage of religious
and moral instruction in the family or Sab
bath-school, and been carefully guarded
xyioi ina
ences. When, however, young girls in the
they have no companions who do not
habitually and persistently indulge in
vicious talk, when graduates oil the
public schools admit personal knowl-
edge of a large amount of actual
vice among children and youth, when
moreover it is considered that these state
ments relate most especially to children
coming from the better class of American
families, the truth is forced upon us, how
ever unwilling we may be to receive it.
Ignorance on the part of parents and others
may be in some measure excusable, but
not indifference. A lady teacher told me
that when she had brought such facts
relative to their own children to the
notice of parents, the greater part had
either refused to listen or been utterly in
different. Parents blind themselves to
facts and believe that their children are
proof against temptation, when in fact no
mans child is safe, except at the cost OF
eternal vigilance. If these things are true
of children, it is easy to see what are the
sources of the corruption found among
adults. A corrupted youth is unlikely to
develop into pure manhood or woman
hood. AS the twig is bent, the tree is in
clined.' There is probably no question in
the minds of persons who have given in
telligent thought to this subject, that vice
is far more prevalent among the so-called
better classes of society than it was fifty
years ago, and there seem to be
abundant causes for this prohigacy in the
growing idleness and luxury Of the
wealthy, with consequent neglect and mis-
management of children, in the growth of
a cheap and pernicious literature, not
merely obscene books whose number and
influence are necessarily limited, but es-
pecially of such literature as forms the
Staple stock of the news dealer, and in
cludes also the greater part of the novels
of the day. Another cause is to be found
in the unrestricted freedom of American
girls. Our writers are accustomed to
feiicitate their countrymen upon the
superior grace, beauty dignity and char
acter of American girls, and to ascribe
these delightful qualities in considerable
measure to that freedom from restraint
which so largely and peculiarly obtains in
this country, and which throws our girls
upon their own resources. While | am
faithful and loyal admirer of American
girls and women, I wish to utter my pro-
test against a system which | know to be
attended with such lamentable conse-
quences. If grace and dignity cannot be
developed in our girls without their being
subjected to such terrible risks of moral
contamination, they had far better remain
bashful and awkward. While | am no
advocate of the duenna system of France
and Spain, l admire the good sense
of people who recognize certain social
facts and take definite and syste
matte action with reference to them. While
l would not advocate system of espionage
which looks upon every woman with sus-
picion, | protest against a system which
ignores the we'll established fact that, under
the same system of discipline and training,
girls are at least as greatly exposed and as
susceptive to temptation as their brothers,
and which allows to girls the utmost free
dom of association with class of men,
large proportion of whom are habitually
licentious and too many of whom have no
hesitation in besmirching the regulations
of girls belonging to their own set.
''And not only are girls subjected to the
unavoidable. dangers of such freedom, but
too many women have never learned to
appreciate the importance of that womanly
reserve, that dignifed self-respect, without
which they can never command the
respect of men. So long as large pro-
portion of respectable women will en-
courage their male friends in overstep-
ping the boundaries of propriety, so long
as even professedly Christian women will
indulge in conversation that would shame
a crowd of bar.room loafers, so long may
we distrust that poetic fiction which has
called woman half human, half divine
and so long may we expect not only that
women will scornfuliy desert those mem
bers OF their own sex who havebee unfor-
tunate in their SHINING, but that they will
condone as well as encourage the sins OF
men. Women as well as men should re-
member the words of Fothergill: Clean
illness of mind is as important as cleanliness
of body, and chastity Of thought as conti-
nence Self-respect is incompatible with
rags, and health is equally Incompatible
with moral beggary.' Filthy conversation
is a pretty sure indication not only OF an
impure mind, bat of rotten character.
Among the other causes Of vice there IS
one more, which l must mention, which
is of peculiar interest to medical men,
and one which I believe 10 be not only
productive of much vice among women,
but to be in its prevalence at the present
time sort of index to a sensual DISPOSE
ton, especially prevalent among women
who are addicted to idleness and luxury.
refer to the practice of male magnetic
healers among women. Most of these
are ignorant and unprincipled and many
are capable of anything that is evil, and
yet the wives and daughters of intelligent
citizens are permitted to go to such Great
ures and to be subjected TO the most indie
cent treatment. One of these men, whose
rooms are crowded with the elite of the
city. whom l called upon and questioned
!. ! . !.