Evening star., 1922-09-24

Boys and girls of the average
well-to-do American family today
are helpless" when it comes to cop
ing with any difficulty and are: Char
acterless" in many Instances. accord
ing Ex-senator Arthur Capper. of
Kansas. chairman of the joint con-
gressionaf committee on the District
schools. In a signed article appearing
in Capper's Weekly. Senator Capper
publishes his article under the cap
ton Raising Too Many Butterflies.
The boys and girls. he says. are in
butterflies" and they abound in
eastern cities, and Washington has it's
share" His article says:
LAS a friend of all boys and girls, 1
am sometimes troubled about them
future. in which at no far-distant
day they will have an important part
to play,
reared boy and girl, and it is not due.
I'm sure, to mature years nor to lack
that worry me are matters of rather
common observation. and, as this is
again the school season. perhaps it
will do no harm to set down some of
them here.
Are Easily FlOOred.
There are almost daily evidences
in any community which show how
helpless is the present-day town or
city reared boy or girl of the average
| well-to-do family Co cope with any
difficulty. If you know such a boy or
girl you are aware that any situation
which disarranges their plans or that
I'd ial ia ir
part or that brings any real disap-
pointment, no matter how trifiins.
floors them completely. They seem
unabl to deny themselves any pleas
ure or any whim to which they TAX"
a fancy. They have little or nothing
apparently in their mental or moral
makeup with which to combat any
adversely. The fact is they are char
acterless. misfortune for which
their parents and not themselves are
to blame. They are butterflies. We
see them everywhere. even in Kansas.
but they abound in eastern cities. and
Washington has it's share.
The parents of these boys and girls
were brought up in no such namby-
pamby fashion. The boys and girls
Of forty or fifty years ago. in every
family. had certain daily duties they
perform. Not only were they expect
ed to go to school. but they were eX-
pected to get their lessons every day.
They didn't run around much. nor loaf
around soda fountains. They didn't
spend as much money in year as
the average boy or girl on the we'll
to-do family now spends in Il day or
a week and then asks for more.
They didn't go dressed like fashion
plates, more concerned over having
to wear an Out-of-Style coat or too
long or too loose skirt than anything
else in the world unless it was the
date of the next DANCE. Nor did they
feel they were inferior human beings
and go about in shame and humility
because the family did not own Il
motor car.
I'm the homes of the well-to-do the
present generation of boys and girls
are growing into men and women
with characters as uniformed as little
children because their parents have
spoiled them by overindulgence. They
have given them too much money.
gratified their every wish. given them
no character forming discipline. They
keep this up until the boys get to that
age where boys and girls are usually
more or less beyond discipline and
can scarcely be reasoned with. Then
for the first time these parents begin
to think they have made Il mistake
somewhere. They find their children
have no intellectual resources; that
they cannot have good time unless
they are spending money: that they
are bored to extinctionsaf there isn't