Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1922-03-21
PASSING OF YOUNG GIRLS
Restraint Of Other Days No Longer
Recognized.

Restraint Of Other Days No Longer
Recognized.
Twenty-Five years ago. when the
middle-aged woman Of today was a
young girl, there were no movies, no
automobile no jazz and there had
been no war with It's terrible con-
struction days, for a quarter of GEN.
tury. The girl Of that day ran on an
even keel. She was assiduously chap
eroned. Whether she needed It was
not the question. She was. and that
was all there was to It.
True she could sometimes escape for
a buggy ride, but II she came back
only q minute or two after dark she
found an anxious and perturbed moth
er wringing her hands at the front
door and frantically glad to see her
daughter.
The girl of that day was hemmed In
by conventions, and she obeyed them
to the letter. If she didn't she was
frowned upon as "the fast girl In her
set" She found other girls stunning
her little. Perhaps they had been
warned to shun her by parents or
chaperones. Even IL she were popular
with the boys and had a better time
Of 1t than some of her more careful
sisters, she couldn't be quite happy
over the sent coventry feeling that
they inspired in her.
Some OF the careful ones rebelled-
some times. They knew they were not
held to be responsible human beings.
Some one was constantly being re-
sponsible for them. They were al
lowed to enjoy themselves, to be hap
py and gay and bright; at least that
was what they were told. But the en-
joyment the brightness and the gaiety
was cut by pattern. They dared not
be original about it. They must fol-,
low the laws of the conventions laid
down for them.
Sometimes during the last six or
eight years the great upheavel came
for the young girl. What started It?
Was it the automobile? The movie?
The war? Nobody knows. The shack
les of convention were suddenly struck
off by some means. The girl was free.
Her freedom went to her head. It
intoxicated her. She. induIged in
every wild, madcap thing she, could
think of, pretending to herself all the
while that they were neither wild nor
madcap. She must live her own life,
she to herself, a life not cut out by
any save her own original and indi-
yidual pattern. She must think for
herself, decide for herself.
The first thing that went into the
discard was the chaperone. Chaper-
ones themselves had been growing
younger and gayer. The girl had no
longer any respect for them, or for
the ideas they so feebly represented.
They only wanted their chance, she
felt, to be wilder and more madcap
! than herself.
The experience of older women-her
mother, her aunts, her sisters-rr1eant
nothing to her as a lesson for 81 i'd
ance. No. she must have her own ex-
perience and not the preached results
of another's. Mothers say today that
they have no influence over their
daughters. They cannot make them
t6o; yl,t Off INT
ing, or buckle their Topping galoshes.
They cannot keep them from going
with young men wh9se names they
scarcely know, or prevent them from
taking long and late automobile rides,
and getting home at all hours of the
night. ...
1t is an equally mysterious matter
how the mothers came to lose their
influence or the whiphandle- their
daughters. But lost it Is, and gone.
Will it come back? Will the young
girl of twenty-five years ago come
back? Will she be content to come
back?
No, not she. She has passed and
gone. In her place Is girl of poise
and determination, a girl who feels
deeply her responsibility. A girl with
out sentimentalitY but with good
reasoning powers. A girl who may be
reasoned with but who cannot be bid
den. A girl who will rise to the oc-
caslon, who has a far and broad-vis-
ioned view Of life. A girl who knows
life, who hates shams and artificiali-
ties.
A girl who is the girl of the future.
strong, self reliant, four square to the
world. .' &c.
Give her room to grow.-Cally Ry-
land In Richmond NcMS- IPnlcr.