A PLEA FOR THE ILLUSIONS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 64, 22 April 1914, Page 4

A PLEA FOR THE ILLUSIONS.

In this present-day craving for educational progress, when our talk is of sex hygiene and of eugenics, etc., when, for the purpose of "practically" educating our boys and girls in matters physiological, we propose to tear asunder the veil of convention; and do away with the mystery attached to sex, when the modern cry becomes more and more "to reveal" —are there none of us yet old-fashioned enough left to cry a halt, and raise. our voices in feeble protest, and plead for at least "some" of the sweet old illusions? asks ' 1 E.R.,'' in the 'Sydney '' Daily Telegraph." • It might be said (in the words Madame Swetchine), "Our,age is so evidently an age of signal' frankness that the apothecaries do not gild their pills." We have passed the period when every age had its characteristic. Docility, that of childhood, whose whole moral code, like that of the world in its infancy, was comprehended' in the precept of obedience. "Youth, was distinguished by self-devotioty ■ maturity by strength, old age by dignity. Here were the full statistics of human life.

Now, no doubt, our lives are fuller and have a wider outlook, the child does no longer blindly obey; he questions and is wisely answered. But youth! It is for the tender illusions of youth that I would raise my voice. "Youth is the loveliest flower on earth," says an old Breton .song. Then let us be careful, in our eager desire for its welfare, that we do not wither a little some of the petals of this beautiful flower. The budding girl of 20 years ago .was a tender sight,, like a tree when winter is past, and the branches are beginning to blush a faint pink at the thought of the kiss of spring which •is awaiting them just round the corner of the year. Knowledge may not rage with the force of a hurricane and destroy the flower of youth; but, on some, it will blow as a hot wind and shrivel the more delicate leaves.

In our eager clamourings for "our" rights let us not forget the "rights" of our young girls. The right to their ideals, to their pretty romances, and their sweet mysteries. The emancipated girl of to-day may be very different from her docile sisters of the fifties and sixties, so. content to wait for their wooers and do only the feminine things. She may not be that tender, superior, delicate creature of blushes and •sensitiveness to be touch reverently like a peach. But, though to-day she is considered a real good fellow, and a man does not bother much about his manners when he is with her; though ?she may ride her bicycle without parent or chaperone; belong to her hockey or cricket club, look forward, and know how to use her vote. Yet, the heart and mind of a young girl to-day has the same beautiful dreams, the same beautiful faith, the same romantic hopes, that the girls of any bygone age enjoyed. Then let us lead our precious girls to the brink of with the same tender care that our dear, oldfashioned mothers led us. Instead of instructions on the hygiene .of sex, and the good to be derived from the study of eugenics, let us teach them above all self-reverence, nobility of mind and purpose; and, yes, let us foster tlieir i omances, their ideals, and their dreams, for we can ill afford to be without the picturesque in this prosaic and progressive world of ours.