The whole social problem, as regards pure living, home-making, and
domestic comfort, depends on how young people, as such, shall deport
themselves toward each other.
Some good people have seemed to suppose that, provided the children were
converted, everything else would take care of itself, so that any
specific instruction in “_manners_” must be superfluous, if not foolish.
This is a fallacy of the same order as that which assumes that if a man
is called of God to preach the gospel he needs no education or
preparation, only to stand up, open his mouth, and give his vocal organs
a chance to play, leaving God to do the rest; when the fact is that God
will make good use of every faculty, and all the culture that is
provided for him, but of _no more_. The name Christian should stand for
the very best that is possible in education. Many a Christian man has
brought reproach on the name of Christ, not because his heart was bad,
but because his manners were. Many a woman of pure purpose, who would
not have committed a gross act for the world, has alienated her husband,
made her neighbors suspicious, and lost her good name, just because she
did not know what things were of good report, and therefore what must be
of evil report. And these disasters resulted from lack of proper
training in the early home on some points that seem too trivial to think
about twice, and which, doubtless, many will feel have no place in a
dignified discussion anywhere. And yet since these small things concern
so much of weal or woe, so much of honor or shame, we may well afford to
take time for their consideration.
One of the things most commonly seen, and about which all the world
smiles, is a boy and girl standing on opposite sides of the gate which
opens toward her home. They have walked from school or church together,
she has entered and closed the gate, and paused a moment for another
word; he has taken this as an invitation to linger, and so they stand
laughingly or seriously chatting, sometimes long after dark. The world
calls it coquetry, but the young people do not mean it as such; to them
it is probably far removed from every evil thought. They are innocent
and honest; but you can not make the world, that is looking for evil,
believe that they are not consciously flirting. It will estimate them
accordingly, and soon begin to say, “That girl knows quite as much as
she ought to;” and the good Christian people of the community will grow
afraid of her as an associate for their daughters, even if those same
daughters do the same thing.
These children have seen older young people, perhaps mother and the
minister, stand and talk and laugh in the same way. Some may ask, “Well,
why not?” Because it is not _good form_, because a bad social savor
attaches to it, because, no matter who does it, unless they are very
aged, or are, like Cæsar’s wife, absolutely above suspicion (and who can
venture to assume such a thing for himself), they will lose in dignity,
suffer in reputation, become the butt of some sly joke from the class of
people who need the help that can only be given by men and women who do
not “allow their good to be evil spoken of.”
If children and young people form the habit of stopping to talk at the
gate, they will do it as men and women; and by doing it, draw the evil
eye, and invite gossip. Teach your boy and girl that good form requires
that when they arrive at the gate, if they wish to continue the
conversation, both should go on into the house together; or that, after
he has opened the gate and closed it after her, she should promptly say
“Good morning,” or “Good evening,” and he should as promptly lift his
hat, and walk away. If they enter the house together, good form requires
that he, if he be young or old, should receive a family greeting, and
that the members of the family shall be free to come to the parlor or
sitting-room to which he has been taken, to remain and share in the
conversation if they wish, until the call is ended.
Two young people should never suppose that they must sit in a parlor
with closed doors; that father, mother, and every one else must be kept
out of the way because Nellie’s friend (never call him a beau) has come
to spend the evening. They should never consider it possible to extend
that evening into and past the large hours of the night. This is one of
Satan’s most fruitful wrecking devices, of which the young people will
never think, themselves, unless their training has tended to push them
off away from their natural social guides, and keep bad social models
before them.
When the boy, or young man, comes to spend an evening because you have a
daughter, give him just as much of yourself as possible; make yourself
so indispensable to the young people that they will naturally come to
you wherever you prefer to sit, rather than try to entertain each other
without you. This is not an unheard of thing, although one will
sometimes hear Christian people answer to this teaching as if it were
very extreme indeed.
“How then will a young man be able to say anything special to the girl?”
To which it may be answered that if he is not able to find some way
which is perfectly consistent with every principle of decorum, he is not
worth listening to; and if that is true of him, it will be because he
did not have his share of the right sort of home life and training.
In the social world, where Good Form is as binding as the Decalogue is
to the Christian, fathers and mothers have made it impossible for a
young woman to think of entertaining her young man friend shut away
alone with him. Strange to say, it has been the modest home, the
Christian parent, who has allowed Satan to set this trap for unwary feet
by leaving the young daughter, without one word of instruction, to
entertain some young man, perhaps a stranger, who passed as her lover,
shut away in the “parlor,” while everybody was given to understand that
no one must disturb the mysterious solemnities of “keeping company,”
even if they should continue into the small hours. And as a result of
this disregard of simple good form, which is as a fence against
recognized danger, untold sin and sorrow have resulted.