Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1889-12-26
HE SOCIAL oHAPERoNE.
A system of Espionage That Is Dead
Glveaway 10 our Girls.


system of Espionage That Is Dead
GlveaWay 10 our Girls.
Is il not rather nonsensical that a
young lady in Washington society must
have permanent appendage by way of
an elderly woman to accompany her on
her walks, drives and rides, and share
with her all the calls and attentions of
her gentlemen friends! This late limo
walton OF the chaperone is the aping OF
social condition wholly different from
our own. English society is based on
heredity and privileges of birth. En-
glish aristoeratie government divides
the people into classes. IL creates
castles, which we are supposed TO de-
Tpise. English social life from the cradle
To the grave is one unceasing effort to
maintain al the rank one is born with
and prevent those of lower caste from
crawling up step higher. This creates
English exclusiveness, which American
shoddyism loves TO initiate. This En-
glish idea of exclusiyeness is the secret
of home training for all who can afford
it. IL explains the tutor and governess
idea, the herding, as IL were, OF the
family under the ancestral tree. In
consequence the English girl grows up
with an unusual idea of the Importance
of her family. She is we'll instructed in
books and department, yet lacking the
confidence, ease and grace of a woman
who has been taught to lean upon her
own strength. She is innocent, awk-
ward and ignorant, Shy, gullible and ex-
,slt a a.
erone or guardian.
With our public school system and
mixed colleges, backed up by good re-
publican ideas OF equality, politically
and socially, our boys and girls come up
ON more natural idea of companion
ship. They are from infancy sharers
and partakefs in study and pleasure.
Both boys and girls are better for prop
erly regulated and guarded association.
Boys are softened, made more gallant
and less selfish; girls are less suscept-
ible, more graceful and more womanly.
A boy with good sister, girl with a
good brother, are not only better, but
more prudent and polished members of
society.
Nine out Of every ten American girls
now affecting chaperone come up to
the debutante age with a crowd of play
fellows and school-boy friends. If she
is a Western girl we will count the ten.
She played with dolls and at dolls with
them, jumped the rope, played tag and
blind-man's buff on the school play
ground She had her boy sweethearts,
too, and she will never find more
gallant knight than the boy who adored
her chiefly by glanccs, and caramels to
the extent of his income. She competed
with boys for school standing, and eX-
pended her sympathy on them when She
beat them. All along the line the
American girl is trusted till fortune
launches her into ultra-fashionable So
ciety, when the bars are put up and her
gentlemen friends must yield to bore
doom, espionage, and a double expense
for the pleasure of her society.
A chaperone in society here means
one of three things-that the girl is
badly trained or irredeemably silly;
that the men who visit her are ill-bred
or wholly vicious, or that she is victim
to foolish and unreasonable aifecta-
ton. The chaperone prevails in France.
Does that country show a higher level
of morality? Does the espionage system
any where increase feminine self-re-
spect? Does it elevate or degrade? Does
it make women strong or weak? Does it
prevent or encourage intrigue? Are
women stronger, mentally or morally,
when marriage cuts the chain?
The typical American girl is not a
wood violet. She dances, plays tennis
and swings on horizontal bar. She
studies philosophy and political econo-
my, reads Browning, Spencer and In
gersoll; has decided views of church,
state and marriage. She discusses suf-
frage and rherishes philanthropic
schemes; She has literary, musical and
artistic aspirations. The American girl
is, or should be, a thinking, self-re-
liant woman, to whom a hawk-eyed
chaperone is as unnecessary as the fifth
wheel to wagon. The chaperone in
American society is an affectation not
creditable to our common sense or a
wholesome civilization. = Washington
Post