Daily camera. [volume] (Boulder, Colo.) 1891-1928, 1900-05-25
FASHIONABLE PARIS.
The French and Their Training
from Birth to Marriage.
Essence of the System Ii ExcluAiOn
Of Everything COntam inatfng
to the Youthful Mind-Qaick
Transformation.

The training of young Frenchmen
and Frenchwomen Of the more pros
porous class is described with keen ap-
probation of its weaknesses from the
Anglo-Saxon point of view by Richard
Whiting. in Century.
"The training for trifles begins at
birth with the infant of fashion. 1t is
very much the business of his nurse to
see that light and air do not visit him
too roughly. His swaddling clothes
are a marvel of completeness as nom
conductors of the winds of heaven. AS
soon as he is old enough to understand
things, you see him toddling out with
his tutor, a grave ecclesiastic, who
watches over him at work and play,
and puts the right notions into his
mind The ties thus formed are never
wholly severed. The priests attend to
all the goings out and conings in.
When ball is the game, he is there to
see that his charge does not hurt him
self, nor hurt the ball. He makes the
lad gravely polite, and grounds him in
the secondary religion of the salute,
on the principle of no game of shuttle
clock without bow to your partner.
He also, of course, grounds him in the
humanities. AT this early age the child
is not sent to school. He is coached
at home by the priest, and taken once
or twice week to what is called "a
cour, an establishment where private
teaching is tested by public >examina-
tons. The cour directs the studies,
and determines proficiency in them by
question and answer. Tutor and pupil
prepare as best they can in the inter-
val.
"The essence of the system is the ex-
clusion Of everything from the boys
mind that ought not to be there. So
he is under the strictest supervision
from first to last. The priest takes him
again. When he goes to the lycee, or
public school, it is much the same. The
valet takes the place of the priest, and
fetches and carries, with due provi-
sion of muffler and umbrella for rainy
days. So it goes on until the time of
the great change, when perhaps, the
youngster is sent to Samur, the great
cavalry school. Then, for the first
time. he has to stand alone, and father,
mother. nurse, valet and priest have to
say good-by. 1t is always an anxious
moment especially so for the neo-
phyte.
''The bound from tutelage to the
very license of liberty, moral and in
tellectual, is a marked characteristic
of the French system. Marriage makes
the trembling ninny of girl finished
woman of the world. A first shave con-
verts the gawky schoolboy into the
ape of boulevardier, vices and all.
The transformation is as sudden as
anything in eastern magic. He was a
boy after his time under the tutelage
system. He becomes a man before his
time at Saumur, and he generally goes
through a stage of puppyism which is a
trial for his friends. This is The pc
rod of his first duel, a thing done on
the sly, and revealed to his Mortified
mother only after the scratch has
healed. By and by there may be other
escapades of more serious nature.
But the mother is still there TO find out
all about them almost before they hap
pen, and the watchful father is at hand
to see that they entail minimum of
scandal.
''At this stage his people begin to
think of marrying him, and here again
ali is provided for by the ever-watch
full system. 1t is the mother business
to learn the whereabouts of ingenues
doubly lowered with virtue and with
millions. The marriage is arranged
the term has more than usually deep
significance in France-and the pair
have chance of living happily ever
after. if they know how to make the
best of it, 1t is no bad chance. Though
the French marriage is not in the first
instance based Oh love, it is supposed
never to take place until liking, at
least, is assured. The rest Is expected
to come as matter Of growth.
"The wife has been still more care
fully brought up, in her way. Nothing
can exceed the more than Hindu sane
tity of know-nothingism in which the
mind of the young French girl is
shrouded from birth. At the convent
she has had the wall between her and II
wicked world. Her whole art of polite
conversation with a man is little more
than 'Oui, monsieur, Non, monsieur
After dance she must be safely and
swiftly deposited-a sort of returned
empty-by her mothers side, and dur
ing that brief tlutter OF freedom 1t is
not good form to take advantage OF
the absence of the parent bird. y few
observations on the weather and the
picture galleries are considered to
mark the limit of taste. 'Gyp' has as
sured us in many cynic page that
the ingenue is not half such a simple
ton as she looks. But it must not be
forgotten that 'Gyp' has largely in
vented type for her own business
uses. The real article, while it is not
exactly lamb in innocence, is still
happily unaware of most of the evil
going on in the world. Here, as mill
tary life was the great change for the
l>or iS the greater change