The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1938-04-21
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Proximity Best Ally to
Young People Who
Think They're in Loue.

IN EAR MISS DENE: / have only
II one daughter whom I have to
support. My work takes me all over
the country SO I am not with her
much. She Is sixteen now and has
fallen In love. The boy is perfectly
all right, and his family are de-
lightful people. I tell her that she
Is too young to marry. This is her
first love affair. The boys family
have suggested that my daughter
come to live with them for the next
two years. This will mean taking
her out of boarding school but 1t
will give her time to test her love
which I think is the most important
thing Mrs. d. B.
ANSWER-The trouble is that two
years of constant companionship
with her first love may simply al
low your daughter to slip into rut.
Proximity is Cupid's best ally when
boys and girls are young-and in
love with the idea of being in love.
There may be no earthly reason
why your girl shouldn't marry her
Romeo-but you think yourself she
should be given the chance to dis
cover whether she's experiencing
the genuine blue white emotion or
not. And I suggest that while she
lives with her fiance's family-who
will take care that she sees no other
boys and has no opportunities to
make other friendships-she isn't
going to get any proper perspec-
tive on her love affair at all.
Keep her at school and let her mind
keep on grotoing up. Let her be tchere
she tCiH hare opportunities to meet other
men. Let her develop outside interests
through her school life. In that tOGy
you'll be equipping her to be sound
minded so that one OF these days she can
depend on her otUn judgment and be
competent TO choose q husband for her.
self. You see most girls of sixteen tUould
like nothing better than to be aIrIOst-en-
gaged-to-be-married tcith both families
encouraging the romance as hard as posi-
bic. At sentimental sixteen zoe ask moth
ing better than that life should be one
long Lore story.
Fortunately few Of us attain this
heavenly state. Against our will
we are kept at school, we are con-
stantly lacked up to common-sense
standards-we are urged to cut out
foolishness and to pay attention to
the business of getting ourselves ed
ucated. We hate it at the time-but
in the end we find that we have been
saved from making mess Of our
lives. The very treatment against
which we rebelled has prevented us
from becoming serious about Tom,
Dick or Harry who is the first boy
who ever cast languishing glances
in our direction, and who might
easily have become our beau ideal
if we hadn't been rudely ridiculed
out of romance.
Now your daughter, Fond Mother,
is Just another sweet sixteen, all
wrapped up in her great love affair,
and probably purring with happi-
ness because Fate is propelling her
in exactly the direction she wants
to go.
Taken away from school she can
devote all her time to the business
of being in love-she can become
daily more absorbed in the hero of
her dreams who even if he doesn't
fulfill all her expectations, will soon
become a habit with her. Don't you
see that in allowing her to have
this experience, you are depriving
her of the discipline and the COM
nonsense which would make real
person of her-and give her opinion
and ideas of her own with which
to confront the world?
I honestly think you would be do
ing the kindest thing, in insisting
that your girl keep on with school
that she make new friends-and
that the engagement be postponed.