FATHER’S FIFTH TALK--THE TRUE YOUNG KNIGHT
=The true young knight.=--A true young knight is a boy, or young man, who
is strong, brave, ambitious, intelligent, gallant and pure. The knights
of the Middle Ages were strong men. They practiced athletics, took their
outdoor sports and were proud of their physical strength. In those days,
one with a weak, defective body could not be a knight. They were also,
brave men. They would die for what they believed to be right. They were
very gallant toward women. They would offer every courtesy and respect
to girlhood, womanhood, wifehood and motherhood. They had to be pure men
to be strong, brave, gallant and manly. A knight would die in defense of
womanhood.
The purpose of this chapter is to inspire you to become a true knight in
your social relations with girls and ladies. The proper social relations
of boys and girls, men and women, is one of the best ways of developing
the social side of our lives, of improving the mind and strengthening
our moral natures. God has made us social beings. He wants us to enjoy
life.
[Illustration: DEVELOPING KNIGHTHOOD]
=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.
FIFTH DIVISION
VITAL FACTS OF LIFE FOR THE YOUNG WOMAN, MARRIED OR SINGLE