Should the Dance Be Abolished?
There are many good people who would like to abolish the dance, and because of the ignorance of the larger number of people who engage in this amusement, I think I would join with them, but in all probability we will never be able to do it, so long as people love music and instinctively keep time to it.
It may be in our zeal in this matter we are making a mistake and taking a wrong view of the question and by vicious, and sometimes senseless, attacks upon many good young people and this particular form of amusement in which they engage, doing both them and ourselves an injustice and keeping many of them out of the Kingdom. Of this I am sure, if young people are to dance they should have proper chaperonage and a right knowledge of the possible dangers and how to avoid them. No greater mistake could be made than to allow young people to attend public dances.
May I close this little message then, which goes out with a prayer for God’s blessings to rest upon all who read it, that it may be a helpful message to them; by urging frankness and candor upon the part of you, the parents, with your children, and if you are uninstructed inform yourselves and put such books in the hands of your children as will give them pure, wholesome information upon this most important subject in all the world, and God will bless you and them, and in joy and thankfulness you will see them grow up in the purity and nobleness of strong, helpful men and women. Be assured of this, if you do not educate them the streets will.
Transcriber’s Notes:
Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.