Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1917-01-17
Places Ban ON, Dancing and
Moving Pictures.

The following taken from the
News and Courier is the copy of a
letter addressed to the patrons OF
the Bishop England High School
by Rev. Joseph L. 0'Briep, the
director:
My Dear Parents: The matter OF
this letter may be of interest to you
and it may not bet is just as you
look at the question and apply it to
your own sons and daughters. Yet,
/ would not be true to the posi-
tion l occupy as director of the
Bishop England High School, were
l to let this letter go unwritten.
You have placed your children
under my direction and in a way |
assume part of your responsibility.
And in all frankness, / confess that
my interest in them does not die
out when their days lessons are
recited. Hook deeper into their
future and in the end it is their
souls that concern me. The Bishop
England High School is seriously
occupied with the task of training
men and women for the future-but
it is much more seriously occupied
with the bringing up of souls for
the Kingdom of God. I have many
of the Catholic boys and girls of
this city under my direction during
their most impressionable years,
and unless parents cooperate with
me canpot strengthen them
enough to resist the spirit of the
times.
The age is amusement mad; and
not mad on healthy amusement; and
. boy or girl who is going to re-
aist this spirit must have an excel
lently formed character. I have
exceptional opportunities of OBJ
serving your son or your daughter
in the class room, on the reorea-
ton grounds and elsewhere. / keep
in close touch with them after
school hours. And l am in position
to detect tendencies which may es-
cape your eyes.
To come to tho point there are
two great dangers which confront
your son and your daughter
great dangers which have already
undermined the moral nature of
many boys and girls, and your boy
or girl may be the next. And both
you and I will fail in our duty un-
loss we shield them by word and
example. What are these dangers?
Dancing, for boys and girls who
are at the formative ages; and NOV
ing pictures, which are poisoning
their imagination and visuslizing
refined sin before their eyes. AL
ready / hear objections. But if
you and I hope to win out we must
smash down these objections.
For three months ] have been
closely examining into the question
of boys and girls between the ages
of fifteen and eighteen going to,
dances and dancing schools, and |
have come to this enthusiastically
after careful study-dancing is
proximate occasion of sin to the
normal boy or girl between the ages
mentioned. Now we know what the
Catechism teaches on the occasion
of sin.
Dancing is in it's very nature
sensual-and the less we have to
say on some modern dances the bet
ter it will be for modestS. Once the
dancing craze gets its hands on a
boy or girl, lessons and duty quick
ly fade away and virtue is in dan
ger. You ask my opinion or my So
luton to the problem? Absolute
prohibition of dancing to every boy
and girl under twenty-one years of
age.
Hard-is it? But then a soul is
valuable-and you are the custodian
of the souls loaned you by God to
be returned to Him. There are more
boys and girls in this city today
dancing themselves into the very
pit of He'll than you imagine. And
your boy or your girl, for whom
you have made so many sacrifices
and are making them, may be among
them. In school | shall carry on a
cam paign against dances for adol-
escents, and if you assist me by
your home influence I have no fear
of the outcome. Boys and girls are
very unreasonable, but eventually
good common sense Wins them
over to the proper line of conduct.
,@r1h