“I discover a thousand traits of softness, delicacy and sensibility in this excellent man’s character. How amiable, how respectable, how worthy of every token of my attention has this conduct rendered a parent, a father, to whom we feel due even a resignation of our opinions.”
Did you ever? Just try to put yourself at the view-point of a girl who could calmly sit down and analyze her father, as a naturalist would disjoint a rare beetle. Think of a daughter referring to her father as “this excellent man,” and classing him “respectable”! Think of a daughter dutifully conceding, in writing, that her dad is “worthy of my attention” and “even a resignation of our opinions.”
And, after all, she jumped from the sublime to the ridiculous by marrying a man named Smith!
But she has restored my confidence in the girl of the Sunday school book. Lucy did appear on this planet in the flesh; and when she talked and wrote her style was that of little Abigail Adams. Marielle was not an impossibility, nor was Lucretia. Even that obnoxious Good Boy was true to life—if John Adams’ description of his son John Quincy is not too highly colored by paternal pride. After reading said paternal description I can understand how it was that, while Henry Clay made friends out of those whom he refused, John Quincy Adams made enemies by his manner in granting favors.
But no matter how many Lucys and Rollos existed prior to our War between the States, it would be mighty hard to find a Lucy or a Rollo now. Times have changed, manners have changed, types have changed. What is responsible for the bold-eyed girl—the girl of loose speech and loud manners? What is responsible for the irreverent boy—the boy of the cigarette and of the look which undresses every handsome woman that he meets? These are the boys that greet girls with a “Hello!” and a leer that should offend. These are the girls who shout “Hello!” to the boys, and who lie prone by the side of young men during a “straw-ride” at night. Are all such maidens the daughters of mothers who drink and gamble? Are all such youths the sons of men who have no morals? By no means. Our whole social and industrial situation has changed, and the people have changed with it.
Would that I could believe that our Public System is guiltless in this matter. Use your eyes as you pass a crowded academy and note the conditions which make against common decency—to say nothing of that deference and respect with which every properly trained boy should treat members of the other sex.
But there are causes deeper, more universal than the promiscuous mix-up in the Public Schools. The centripetal power of class legislation is drawing capital inward to the small centre of the Privileged. To the masses is left a constantly smaller proportion of the nation’s annual production of wealth. In turn, this law-made and abnormal condition of things over-crowds the cities. In fact, rural life has become so unattractive that the trend of population is from the farm to the town. Every village has its surplus—the men and boys, white and black, who have no visible means of support and who can not be persuaded to work. In every town is the girl who hardly knows why she’s there,—but she’s there.
“‘Oh! Look,’ cried Lucy.”