The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-07-04
CHILDREN'S TROUBLES.
Social Distinctions Which Lead Them
Into Snobbery.
Harper's Bazaar.

Children are susceptible to many pains
Wnlch we escape as our knowledge in
creaSes. To them the fact that the friend
who sat all winter at an adjoining desk
without suggesting great differences in con-
dltlon is, on a first appearance before an
admiring public, able to suddenly outshine
them in splendor, arouseS a pain all the
more bitter because in it's origin it is mis-
understood The laws of cause and effect
so mQch study and so much gain, so much
application and so many good marks-have
been those by which they have been guided
taught to measure their everyday progress.
But here on a platform, where the fruits of
all their la borS are supposed to be displayed
where for the first time the world is ad-
mitted in judgment-here for the first time
SuperioritieS which, so far as these chill
dren can see, bear no relation whatever
either to individual excellence or endeavor
and which, though arbitrary and seemingly
artificial, are as subtle and powerful in
their influence as those which owe their
origin to virtue.
1t takes us who are older a long time to
get our bearings among the shoals of So
cial discrepancies. What wonder then that
effort! The boy unders lands the pain of
the effort as well as the girl, though he will
not often confess 1t until he has boy of
his own TO guard. Then, and then only. he
confesses what were some of these agonies
OF his youth.
One cannot but applaud the wisdom and
tact of these public school teachers. The
problem they are trying to solve is a diff
cult one, and cannot be easily settled. For
day, JudtciouS as they are, are not the
rules which the scholar can profitably carry
into the rest of his life, unless there goes
with them an understanding of principles
invOlved-the. principles of taste, for in
stance, of general fitness, which is but an
other word for the same thing. and of mod
modesty and kindly consideration.
For the requirements of life vary with
varying conditions, and one is as stupid not
to obey them as one is vain in obtruding
individual advantages. Not to dress prop
erIy for great function is as vulgar as
to overdress for a small one. And defiance
or convention and taste is often but an
other form of expression chosen by a spirit
that is vain. For the vanity of opinion is
subtle in its suggestions for display as
the vanity of person,
1t is a difficult task TO make the young
understand fine distinctions. To teach them
certain we'll established ways Of doing
things-of eating, walking, moving. for in
stance-when their own ways or those of
an lnJudicious acquaintance are preferred;
to so train them in the uses of fine ap-
pOintmentS that they are at home among
them, and so cease to be self-conscious
awkward in their presence; to ipstil into
them a sense of proprletteS without which
they are in danger of being Vulgar-to do
these things and while doing them TO help
cultivate in the mind of the child a con-
sideration having no touch of condeScen-
sion in it for those who have not had the
same adVantages-to do all this requires an
ability a delicacy and refinement, to which
we owe all honor.
worse snobs than grown-up people. A lit
tie girl in a carriage on ner way &c dane
ing school last winter saw a friend also
going TO dancing school, get into a stage.
any more" said the child in the carriage TO
her mother. She goes TO dances in omni-
buses" You will go that way yourself for
the rest of the winter" the very wise moth
err remarked And at great Inconvenience
10 herself she made the child so in stages
for the rest of the year