Los Angeles herald., 1892-04-05
TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 1892.
OUR BOYS AND GIRLS.

OUR BOYS AND GIRLS.
Madame Adam has contributed to the
April number of the North American
Review very interesting article on
French girls. She laments the changes
which have been brought about by the
intercourse of the feminine youth of
France with English and American
girls, and particularly with the latter.
These have been in the direction of
greater freedom. The French girl of a
generation ago would be horrifed at the
idea of going about unaccompanied by
her mother or other recognized chaper-
one. The sight of American and Eng
lish girls rushing about in pairs, and ac-
cepting the escort or attentions OF male
friend, or careering through ballroom
in the arms of chance acquaintance,
would have filled the soul OF the French
maiden of thirty years ago with horror.
Now she not only tolerates this conduct
on the pert of her insular and
transatlantic sisters, but initiates
them. She no longer consents to
be treated as a hothouse exotic,
as to which contact with the open
air would be fatal. Madame Adam
comedies that there are certain advan-
tages in the new departure, but claims
that it is destructive of the sacredness
of the family, which has been peculiarly
distinctive of the French life in the
past. In proportion as the French
girl has thrown off the conventionalities
which formerly hemmed her in there has
been decadence of the old time defer
ence for her parents and elders. The
poetry has been eliminated from the
French household to great degree, and
the only compensation, if any there be,
accrues exclusively to the girl herself.
The effects would not be so alarming,
Madame Adam says, if the Frenchmen
were like the English and American
men, and had been brought up to take
the same views OF such matters as pre-
vail in England and the United States.
But they are not. While the head of
French family no longer receives the
unquestioning obedience and devotion
of his daughters, he is still expected to
subject himself and his family to great
privations to provide his daughters
with dowers.
There is great force in these reflections
OF Madame Adam. The joyous freedom
of our girls is accepted in the United
States as matter OF course, and it is
doubtful if any real evil results. Under
ctpoir oI of
Queen Dido, there resides in the Ameri-
can girl great ability to take care Of
herself. II she has not all the charm OF
French ingenue. she in general pos
sesses a robust individuality and in
tuitlve purity that protect her from
serious dangers. She may not be afraid
OF her parents, nor stand in awe of their
authority, but she generally loves them,
and her obedience springs from the
heart and not from an iron prescription.
We do not think the parental influence
ia much weakened iii this country as
respects our girls. With freedom have
come the virtues which it breeds, self
reliance, candor, courage. OF course
there are multitudes OF loud talking,
masculine, slangy girls to be found in
America, but the parents themselves
are directly responsible for these un-
pleasant creatures, who are, after all,
very small minority as compared
with the immense mass of our fem-
ninity of the younger generation.
They are merely the exceptions which
10 A vic
higher than its source, and if the par
ents are vulgar and injudicious their
offspring can scarcely fail to suffer from
such an untoward environment. But it
may be said truthfully that in the
United States, an alert, charming and
self-reliant womanhood, characterized
by unusual beauty and vivacity, is
growing up on all hands. The feminine
standard of intelligence is steadily ad-
yancing, and any serious grounds for
disquiet are not apparent.
We wish as much could be said OF our
boys. They are falling lamentably short
of the standard exacted and realized
thirty years ago. At the outset every
wocdenheaded little imbecile is taught
to consider himself a prodigy. If he
have caught up few slang words al
most before he is out of long clothes, the
silly parents are tickled to death. Be-
ginning under such auspices, it is only
natural that the blooming youth should
grow up into hard citizen, and it
is only by unusual good luck that he fails
to do so. OF course he sets about to
make it hard for the individual whom
he calls the "old man" or "Guv." Such
thing as respect for the authors of his
being never seems to enter into his COM
position. About the time the "old man"
reaches period when, in Europe, per-
son begins to really enjoy life and attain
some significance in the world, this
gracious product of a misdirected system
thinks the "Guv" ought to be shuff1ing
of this mortal coil, in order that young
hopeful may dissipate the hard earned
money which the parents may have laid
up by frugality and industry, qualities