Treat all girls as you would have boys treat your sister.—Until girls are sixteen and boys are eighteen, when thrown together, it is wisest and best for them to engage in plays and games as children without any thought of being sweethearts. Small boys should learn that it is not manly for them to squeeze the hand of a girl, tease, pinch or pull a girl’s hair and he should not think of such an ungentlemanly thing as to try to kiss a girl. The reason for this advice is, these relations tend to create in the mind thoughts that a true knight will not entertain. You would not want a boy to treat your sister in this way. A boy who would treat another boy’s sister as he would not want her brother to treat his sister, is not a true knight. Nature and God teach that man is woman’s protector.
The truest bravery.—The boy who would expose himself to danger and death to save a girl from drowning or being crushed by a street car, is brave and deserves much praise. But he is not as brave and does not deserve as much praise, as does the boy who defends the honor and purity of a girl, not his sister. To positively refuse to allow a boy to talk about a girl in your presence in a way that you would not allow him to speak to your sister, is the courage of a knight. The good name of a girl is worth more to her than money, houses and lands. It is so easy for boys, who engage in obscene language about girls, to invent and tell some story about some girl who is perfectly innocent, and, in this way, start others to talking about her. This is called slander. It is one of the most unmanly and cowardly deeds a boy can be guilty of. This is a very common sin among a class of boys. A boy cannot become a true knight who allows himself to have wrong thoughts about girls, much less to talk about them. All vulgar men were once vulgar boys. If you will cultivate a hatred for vulgarity while you are a boy, you will hate it when you are a man.
Bad company.—When hundreds of prisoners were asked, “What brought you to this?” they replied, “Bad company brought us to this.” No doubt that more boys go wrong through bad company than through any other agency. When a boy keeps bad company, it will be very hard for him not to do as they do. Many times he will do wrong rather than be called “baby.” A true knight will be interested in helping a bad boy to overcome his temptations, but he cannot run the risk of being injured by making a bad boy his companion. If he associates with the rude, listens to vulgarity long, he will become rude and vulgar.
Boys should protect girls.—The very thought of a boy’s insulting your sister causes a feeling of great hatred to rise in your breast. Why is this? Girls are not as strong as boys. They need protection. That feeling comes to you because you know that you are your sister’s protector. This is bravery. But the knightliest young knight, is the boy who will not speak an unmanly word about another boy’s sister and will bravely and kindly rebuke the boy who does.
The true knight has one standard of morals.—No young knight would play and associate with a girl who uses cigarettes, vulgarity or swears. Then, if he is a brave, true knight, he will not ask for better company than he is willing to give. The true knight of the twentieth century will have but one standard of morals. Ever since the days of savagery, when man could swap, exchange or sell his daughters in the same way that he could his property, society has been accustomed to a double standard of morals—purity and temperance for woman, do as you please for boys and men. In the days of savagery, the value of a girl on the marriage market was determined by her being pure. If she had been impure, no man wanted to buy her to become his wife, but she was stoned to death or forced to become a slave. Man was free. No one owned him. He could live just as he pleased. Woman could not do as she pleased. Her very life, the privilege of becoming a wife and a mother all depended on her being pure. Is it not strange that people have allowed this relic of savagery to pass down the centuries without correcting it. People take what is customary to be right. They do not try to decide whether a custom is fair, just and right or not. It is hard to rid our minds of this old custom. If you should see a girl or woman walking along the street of a city smoking you would condemn her as a bad woman. But there goes a man doing the same thing. Is he as bad as the woman? We judge that he is not. Unless we know him to be a bad man, we regard and treat him as a gentleman. On a street corner or in a hotel you hear a girl or woman swearing and using the most obscene language. You do not hesitate to believe that she is bad. You would frown upon her in society. You would scorn her association. Even the guilty man would not respect such a woman. This is because custom has biased our very thinking. The very best people are unfair to the girl and the woman. They forgive in man what they condemn in the girl and woman.
Will you enlist in the new knighthood?—There was never an organized effort to break down and destroy the double standard of morals until some twenty years ago. In England there are several hundred organizations of young men, in some of these there are several hundred members, and they have pledged themselves to live as pure lives as the girls they expect some day to marry. Every one of these boys and young men is a knight. These organizations are being formed throughout Canada, and there are some being formed in the United States. The world has never offered such a grand and great opportunity for boys to become knights as it does in this century. In the days of chivalry, the young man who gave his life to protect the honor of a lady was a truer knight than the man who gave his life on the battlefield to protect his country. It takes a higher form of bravery and manhood to protect the virtue of girlhood and womanhood than it does to face whizzing bullets, booming cannons, and exploding shells. The great purity movement of this age, with its ever-increasing army of brave, determined and self-sacrificing authors and lecturers, is enlisting and marshalling an army of knights destined to overthrow this monster of savagery. All over this country thousands of brave boys and men are enlisting. This great twentieth century crusade against vice is summoning to its ranks every chivalrous boy and man and every good girl and woman. Here is the chance to be a true knight. Will you enlist? We invite you. We welcome you to become a true knight.