The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-12-22
CHURCH DANCING SCHOOLS.
Mr.. See Gives Reasons Why They
Should BE Encouraged.

To the Editor of the indianapolis Journal:
And now comes the popular rector of
Episcopal Church and announces from his
pulpit that he will open, cause to be
opened under his personal supervision,
dancing school, and he urges his parish
toner's to patronize it instead of the nom
church dancing schools. Why not? People
will dance and it is claimed for dancing
that there is a science, art. accomplishment
or skill in it that can best be acquired
through a competent teacher. This makes
dancing schools a necessity, if dancing is to
be done properly and this justifies, if 1t
does not as much require parochial dancing
schools as parochial schools of any kind
and for the same reasons. There may be no
pressing necessity for strictly denomina-
ticnal dancing schools, and this is probably
not to be so exclusively an Episcopal schooi
that Methodists and other 'sects" will not
be admitted ii they happen to belong to the
set that is presumed to be its chief sup
port any more than they are excluded from
other parochial schools. and for the same
reasons.
a little bit Observation-Disclosures If you
please-may prefer that their children are
not brought into too close companionship
with many children who attend our public
schools, even without the compulsory edu-
cation machinery. There is no way OF keep
ing those Objectionable associates from the
public schools; hence the establishment
of private schools = select schools is
better name for them-becomes necessity
in some cases, now a hundredfold more
necessary, if the incorrigible arabs of the
streets are to be crowded into schools for
children who must as certainly eaten moral
and so ial diseases from them as they would
diphtheria or the itch. Give us select
schools for our children if the present sys-
tenn obtains and these moral lepers are to
be compelled to enter our public schools
and our children are to be forced to asso-
| cate with them on the terms of equality
| - f1n1 in INV al
the sooner the move the better. For the
same reasons give us select dancing schools
and, if they can be had in no other way let
the churches separately or by combining
! maintain and control them.
1t seems to me we grow away from old
notions very slowly. but we do grow away.
I But woe to the man that gives us boost
this Episcopal rector has done. In the
minds of those who are slowly Flooding
| away from the dead and dying past he de-
serves unmeasured anathemas, and they
| hasten to give them But wherein does tnls
unreasoning and unreasonable sentiment
against dancing differ from the sentiment or
| the same class of good men fifty years ago
! against the violin? In 1S43 DR.. w. II. Mil
| burn the blind chaplain of the United states
| Sanate was ssnf 10 q circuit in central ILL
nois as a young Methodist preacher, with
Peter Cartwright presiding elder. He had
learned to play well on a flute. and took
| his instrument with him to his circuit. At
/ his first quarterly meeting he essayed
few tunes upstairs while his presiding elder
was in the paror below. When the young
man came down his superior in office greet
ed him sternly: well. Brother Milburn,
have 1 lived TO hear Methodist preacher
play on q fiddler"
cit wasn't fiddle; 1t was flute" the
frightened young man answered.
That's no difference. A flute IS as bad
as a fiddle. and the sooner you leave or
playng il the more souls you will save"
said the stern presiding elder and he has
never played on the flute from that day TO
! this And yet that same Peter Cartwright,
| less than twenty years later, when a guest
| of Alfred Harrison in this city administered
| NJ N n9rlOr Sc1tltnR
| reproof for his hostility to the introduction
| of instrumental music into old Wesley
! Chapel. If such character as Peter Cart
wright can be converted from prosecuting
| soul into q defender of Instrumental music,
| even in churches. there is hope for the
wicked By many good people fifty years
| ago to even hear violin as it is now TO
| attend a dance or patroniZe dancing
| school, yet fiddles and flutes and stringed
and wind instruments OF all sorts now are
| heard every Sunday in all churches that
! can afford them. Dancing is q little be-
| hind In the procession: that Is all. Instead
/ of anethamas this Episcopal rector deserves
/ commentator for his effort to rid II or
some of it's Objectionable accessories ana
fifty years hence the present popular preJu-
| dice against dancing and dancing schools
| will provoke "a smile as much as the pre-
| siding elders preipdice against nddles or
| and fiddles as to their relative moral char
| acter.
| Belonging TO the same family is the SEN
| tinent among good people about theaters,
! but as that straw has been threshed over
| and over again of late, and the threshers
have abundanty threshed each other. will
not refer to II further than to say that