East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1910-03-31
DANCING NOT A SIN.

There are people who him music
was invented by the devil.
There are others who consider. a
game OF cards played for recreation
a sin in the sight of God.
There are others who call dancing
one of the cardinal sins.
All these people are morbidly in
sane.
Listen to this TRADE from a mis-
taken fanatic:
IF we are trying to inspire our
girls with the thought Of having their
price far above rubies'-or our boys
with the sacredness of their relation.
dare we as fathers and mothers, as
public school teachers, as leaders in
our religious organizations, place them
in the way of temptations of the mod
ern dance?
Under the guise of innocency it
creeps into our homes, which should
be the bulwark of purity. and insid-
iously steals the bloom of modesty
from the cheeks of our girls and un-
dermines the chivalrous principles of
u boys. so that instead of treating
women as one too sacred to be rude
ly touched treats her as a plaything.
as one to minister to his desires or
crafty his lust.
"In the majority of our high schools
the dance has entered-not content
that older ones should be its victims;
that those of uneducated classes
should be its devotees, but it must
get the cream of our young men and
women and endeavor to drag them
down into its clutches of impurity.
do teachers, superintendent.
school boards. fathers and mothers
realize what it is doing? Surely not,
or they would arise en- masse and
stamp it out of existence instead of
resting and saying young folks must
have their fun, and that is innocent
What is it about the dance that
will cause the sweet young girl to
have that unusual flush on her cheek,
to throw aside her maidenly reserve
and too many times that cloak of
modesty n hen eXclaim, 4 would
rather dance than eat?' Is it simply
because of the exercise? Why, then,
does she not dance with the girls
every available momen if the mere
exercise is so delicious?
"Ah, we know that it is the sex re-
lation that brings a quickening of the
pulse. As her hand is placed in his,
his arm about her waist, his breath
upon her cheek-under the influence
Of music, laughter. Softened lights.
can she be a girl and not feel her
pulse bound within her?"
The woman who wrote these words
needs a nerve specialist. She needs
association with good, wholesome
minded girls n boys and with good
men and m who love the dance
and who have been educated in it
from childhood.
She needs to purify her W mind
from its unclean imaginings. She
writes like a woman who is ~sexually
starved and whose mind creates a
false condition and is consequently
filled with morbid concepts on that
subject.
IN needs to study the world and
human nature and cause and effect
a little more carefully, and she will
discover that instead of being a mem
ace to purity. the dance, properly en-
joyed under right conditions, is a nor
ma outlet for superfluous vitality and
a protection to its participants in pro-
ducing healthful fatigue n dream
less sleep. 1t stimulates the circula-
ton by a perfectly natural and nor
NAL process-that of an agreeable ex-
ercise.
Dancing. however, should never be
participated in by young girls in
common public halls. Like any 9TH
er pleasure. it should be regulated by
rules of good breeding, selected asso-
ciates and right environment. The
home is an eminently proper place for
a young girl to enjoy dancing or a
club where older people can act as
c~haperones.
No man or woman car acquire ABB
solute grace n ease of department
without some acquaintance with the
rudiments of dancing.
Dancing combines all the arts.
1t is music, poetry, sculpture and
painting all in n Social dancing
is one Of the elements which keeps
the world young. 1t is an ingredient
in the elixir of youth.
I would have a daughter instructed
in dancing rather than in arithmetic
If the choice had to be made.-Ella
Wheeler Wilcox in the Examiner.