The St. Johns herald., 1901-03-09
FASHIONABLE PARIS.
The French and Their Training
 from Birth to Marriage.
Essence of the System Is Exclusion of Everything COntaminating to the Youthful 5iind-Quick
 Transformation.

pISCldliOu OI US NSdhASSSCS II OAAA NAN AngloSaxon point of view by Richard Whiting, in Century.
 "The training for triaes begins at birth with the infant of fashion. It IS very much the business of his nurse to see that light and air do not visit him too roughly. lis swaddling clothes are a marvel of completeness as non 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, ard 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 bim 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 a week to what is called cour. an establishment where private teaching is tested by public examina- tiona. The cour directs the studies, and determines proficiency in them by question and answer. Tutor and pupil prepare as lest 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 to the cour and fetches him away 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 yourgster 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. It 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 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 a boulevardier, vices and all. The transformation is as sudden as anything in eastern magic. He was boy after his time under the tutelage system. He becomes q man before his time at Saumur, and he generally goes through stage of puppyism which is trial for his friends. This is the pc riod 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 a 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 all is provided for by the ever-watch- fuI system. It is the mothers business to learn the whereabouts of ingenues | doubly lowered with virtue and with millions The marriage is arranged the term has a more than usually deep significance in France-and the pair have a chance of living happily ever after, if they know how to make the 1 best of it. It is no bad chance. Though the French marriage is not, in the first instance. based on love, it is supposed never to take place until liking, at least, is assured. The rest is expected to come as a matter of growth.
 "The wife has been still more care 1 fully brought up, in her way. Nothing l can exceed the more than Hindu sane i 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 wicked world. Her whole art of polite conversation with man is little more than 'Oui, monsieur, Non, monsieur After a dance she must be safely and swiftly deposited-a sort of returned empty-by her mothers side, and dur ing that brief flutter of freedom 1t IS not good form to take advantage of the absence of the parent bird. A few observations on the weather and the picture galleries are considered to mark the limit of taste. 'Gyp' has as- sured us in many a 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 1t IS not exactly a 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 boy. marriage is the greater change for the girl. She passes at once into a sphere in which she is considered far game for any allusiont to anything with in the bounds of good breeding. She rises to her opportunity, or to the
 stern duties of her station, whichever way you choose to put it. and in sur
 prisingly short time comes out as the finished woman of the world. This IS
 the French way. neither blame 1t nol defend it; I do not even try to account
 for it. simply say what it IS.
 Pntavoufa'z Future,