Of the last two preceding chapters one was devoted exclusively to advice
and instruction to boys, the other being written expressly for girls.
Now we have a few words in conclusion for boys and girls together. It
is of the greatest importance that our boys and girls should be in every
way improved as much as possible. They are to become the men and women
of the next generation, when their fathers and mothers have retired
from active life. Twenty years from to-day the world will be just what
the present boys and girls shall make it. Boys who are chaste, honest,
obedient, and industrious, will become useful and noble men, husbands,
and fathers. Girls who are pure, innocent, and dutiful, will become
honored and lovely women, wives, and mothers.
Boys and girls are placed in families together, and thus are evidently
designed by nature to associate together, to obtain their education
and preparation for life together. When secluded wholly from each
other's society, both suffer a loss. But while this is true, it is also
true that certain evils may and often do grow out of the association
of the two sexes of young people, so serious in character that many
wise and good men and women have felt that the sexes should be reared
and educated apart as much as possible. These evils are the result of
too intimate and improper associations of boys and girls. Associations
of this sort must be most sedulously avoided. Boys and girls who are
in school together must be extremely careful to avoid too close
associations. On all occasions a modest reserve should be maintained
in the deportment of the young of both sexes toward each other. Too
early friendships formed often lead to hasty marriages, before either
party is prepared to enter into the married state, and before the
judgment has been sufficiently developed to make either capable of
selecting a suitable partner for life. These facts are usually learned
when it is too late for the information to be of any value.
Parents and teachers are especially responsible for guarding these
early associations and giving timely warning when needed. The youth
should always be ready to take advice on this subject, for with their
inexperience they cannot know their wants so well as do their elders.
Nothing is more disgusting to persons of sound sense than youthful
flirtations. Those misguided persons who encourage these indiscretions
in young people do an immense amount of injury to those whom they ought
to be prepared to benefit by wise counsel. We have seen promising young
people made wretched for life through the influence of one of these
mischief-makers, being most unhappily mated, and repenting too late
of a hasty marriage for which they were utterly unprepared.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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