Evening star., 1937-12-27
w YHY do girls 90 wrong? That
M was the subject Of An all
w day discussion At . recent

M was the subject Of an all
w day discussion at . recent
Conference on Crime Con-
troll; for just as the usual boy crime Is
stealing, the usual girl offense Is sex
uel. Trying to answer this question,
the chief Of police Of one Of Our great
cities put the blame for delinquency
among girls partly on faulty sex edu-
cation and partly on lack Of general
training by parents. schools and
churches. He said that most fathers
and mothers have only themselves to
blame when their daughters are picked
up by the police.
I am . little weary Of the Victorian
theory that the reason girls get into
trouble Is because their mothers have
not told them "the facts OF life.'
What with the movies and the mag
azines and the thoroughness with
which scandals are exploited In the
papers there is nothing that every
child doesn't know about before 1t Is
IL years old, 30 when Mamie and
Sadie and Arabella take to the prim-
rose path it is not because they have
unwittingly stumbled on to it.
It Is because it looked gay and in
viting that they deliberately set their
feet on hell, as the fortnight old
biblical phrase goes. Only, of course
they dld1't intend to 60 quite 50 far
They thought there was a halfway
house where they could stop. That
was their mistake. There isn't.
RUT If mothers do not need to tel
- their little daughters at their
knees about the dear little bees and
the flowers, they do need to tell them
one cold, hard, inescapable fact oi
life-that every girls safety depends
upon her mastery Of herself, upon hel
self control. Every girls temptations
come from within and not from with.
out, and II she can hold her own emo.
tions and passions in check she car
walk unscathed among the wolves
dressed in Sleeps clothing who are
out to devour her. 1t is not men that
girls need to be afraid of. 1t is them
selves.
Mothers chief responsibility fol
their daughters wrongdoing. however
consists in not teaching them the
principles Of right living from the very
day they were born, and in not de-
veloping in them enough courage and
strength to resist evil instead Of fall
ing for it.
There are millions Of mothers who
are too fond, too occupied with their
careers or clubs, ambitions or amuse-
ments. or too lazy to give their per-
sonal attention to their children. They
do not teach their little girls any
modesty or dignity. or respect for their
own bodies, or any ideals of conduct
They just let them tumble up any
way and trust how they turn out to
luck. Then, when these weak, spoiled
self-indulgent girls, who are their
handiwork, 60 of Of the deep end
they vail and beat upon their breasts
and can't imagine how their petted
darlings ever did such 4 thing.
Judging from the thousands OF let.
ters that get on this subject in the
course OF year. should say thai
the three major reasons why girls &c
wrong are:
Il 4
EIRST. Desire for good times
Craving for excitement and ad-
venture. The modern girl wants to
be perpetually on the 60. She wants
to rush from one amusement to the
other. She wants loads of dates. She
wants to 60 to night clubs, to wild
parties, on mad automobile rides. an6
when she finds what the price is fol
being popular with men, she pays it