The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1899-10-19
FOR MOTHERS TO WATCH.

Many reprehensible and offensive
habits Of speech and manners have in
these later years crept into youthful
society. and are so closely allied to
unsafe or immoral license that par
ents. and mothers particularly, can
not be too quick or peremptory in re-
straining the least approach to any
such liberty. II unrebuked at first,
says a writer on the subject, and ap-
parcGtly unnoticed, parents may very
Unwisely imagine that their children
Will soon see the folly of it and turn
from it in disgust That is q grave
mistake. Once allowed to take root,
the evil ripens into fixed habits. soon
beyond parental control, and will be a
great blemish on their children
through their whole lives.
Mothers should from their earliest
hours shield their children, and par
ticularly their daughters, from the
danger that win surely come from low
associates One Of the first evils that
viii follow on such acquaintance will
be the low expressions, the slang
phrases now so common. The free
and easy way Of talking among
strangers, in the streets or in stores.
viii next be used at home. If girls
especially are permitted to use such
language, other unfeminine traits will
soon follow. accompanied by a coarse,
unretined manner, instead of the
graceful ladylike carriage which in
dicates mOdesty and good taste. When
we see girls in the street with their
hands deep in their ulster pockets
talking and laughing loudly and walk
ing with masculine strides, none can
be surprised if the rude, rugged little
gamins in the street take infinite salts
faction in running after them crying.
i say, miSterr 1t is not strange that
they make such girls lawful victims for
their insults.
This kind Of vulgarity may have a
seductive fascination for young. un-
trained minds, but even if it leads to
nothing worse. it tends to moral de-
formity-and that is bad enough,
Such evils are at first, one would hope.
disgusting, but
Yet. seen too oft, familiar with her face
We first endure then pity, then embrace.
Boys, naturally outdoors in the
street more than girls, and less under
their mothers influence and super
vision. unfortunately more readily
acquire the coarse. rough ways of the I
boys they come in contact with and |
are therefore in danger of having bad |
habits fixed before it is suspected at |
home Temptations not resisted or
repelled when first encountered find |
easy victims. If a boy yields To the |
temptation of using low or foul Ian
guage, he finds profanity is near of
kin.
Girls never acquire habits of pro-
family but If not under proper re-
straint at home too often indulge in
acts and speech far from being lady
like or refined, and which, not many
years ago, would not have been toler-
ated. But of late, whether at home,
making or receiving calls on the
street, or in cars, this loud, rough,
free -and-easy behavior is painfully
noticeable. When boys and girls.
young men and maidens fail into the
lbsuTditieS OF low. foolish. meaning
less talk it seems to dwarf them in
.ellectually: they find nothing Of in
crest or importance to say, and so
make up for their lack Of sense by
illing every sense with needless
eXaggerations or mis-
used adjectiYes. II requires patience
% be compelled to listen To half a
iozen young people and hear their
strange, Inappropriate use of Ian :
,uage.
If young people could now and then
be- placed where-themselves unseen
they We're obliged to listen to u
laM hours conversation about .
lothing at all and hear all these adler !
ives forced into a conspicuous position
IA every sentence and in every topic :
f conversation, their real meaning !
nd legitimate use being entirely dis )
1t might result in their own :
or they might feel like !,
he gentleman who heard in Delmon- =
,U'S the conversation Of "a charming :
title lady and her 'dapper little beau" :
here almost every other word was I,
awful" :
confess it sorely puzzled me to think t
what they could say
something really awful were TO hap
pen in their way:
or 1 am sure with simple English they
would never be content.
ut their thoughts in foreign eXpletives n