DEVELOPMENT OF OUR YOUNG WOMEN. 217 



THE SYMMETRICAL DEVELOPMENT OF OUR YOUNG 



WOMEN. 



By C. E. BREWSTER. 



WHILE reading an earnest paper upon Conversational Im- 

 moralities, by Mrs. Amelia Barr (North American Re- 

 view, April, 1890), I came across the following sentences : 

 " There are bad people in the world, but young girls should 

 never be near enough to them to be aware of the fact"; and 

 "Women of whose lives young girls should, at least, seem to 

 be innocent, are topics of conversation." 



Now, while I am in full sympathy with the general tenor of 

 this article, deploring as deeply as the author the increasing 

 flippancy of speech of both old and young on this, the gravest 

 question of the day, the sentences noted above, together with 

 some others scattered throughout the article, move me to offer 

 to your candid consideration a few pertinent facts aiming to 

 prove that, where the reverse principle obtains, the highest good 

 inevitably results to all who come within the radius of the pure 

 young woman's intelligent interest and sympathy. 



After comparing, for years, the general influence of the purely 

 innocent woman with that of the pure and morally intelligent 

 young woman of our day, I am so thoroughly convinced of the 

 more abiding influence of the latter class that my earnestness 

 impels me to try to show you a little more clearly the moral 

 standpoint and resultant work of this unobtrusive but most 

 potent factor in the refinement of society. Undoubtedly in this 

 work, as in every other field of life, numberless opportunities 

 arise for the sensational and supersentimental to gain (in the 

 guise of philanthropy) the notoriety dear to their hearts. Not 

 infrequently the novelty of the work appeals to many a young 

 woman who, through immaturity and excess of zeal, brings upon 

 herself condemnation where she sought elevation, failure where 

 she sought success. But shall we therefore be discouraged ? Shall 

 we change our point of view simply because the few imprudent 

 fall short of the good which they hoped to gain, because the few 

 sensational pervert and distort the cause which we are trying to 

 uplift ? Shall the good actually accomplished by the greater 

 number be tabooed because of the failure of the few ? 



A system which aims to conceal vice, rather than to suppress 

 it by full knowledge, in reality fosters its existence. High ideals 

 invariably beget correspondingly high realizations. For exam- 

 ple, in many European cities it is considered not merely a 

 daring breach of etiquette, but a social challenge, for a young 

 woman to walk the streets unaccompanied by a protecting person. 



