FINISHING SCHOOLS FOR GIRLS

Evening Star, Issue 22636, 30 April 1937, Page 11

FINISHING SCHOOLS FOR GIRLS

IMG RICH SUITORS Finishing schools which teach a girl that the goal of her existence is to snap up a wealthy husband . . “ fond ”• patents who lavish their money on their debutante daughters—merely as an in* vestment . 1 . Stripped of its surface of glamour, the society marriage racket has come under the lash in Britain. ■ Bishops, school chaplains, young clergy, a deaconess—-for three years they have been probing the nation’s social and industrial life. They have found girls’ colleges where pupils lose their “ manners and morality they have found, “sexual dissatisfaction and - unrest ”; they have found a nation in political muddle—a nation which “ elevates material possessions to the rank of deities.” The church itself has not'been spared.“Confusion is worse confounded.” the investigators say,“ by the church’s undeniable complicity in the order of society which regards dividends with greater respect* than human souls.” Their report was submitted to the Church Assembly by Dr Ingram, Bishop of London. Though there were several' dissentient voices—the Archbishop of Canterbury for instance, said he did not agree with the “vivid language ” of the report— the assembly agreed to receive it “ for attention and consideration.” Some of the more telling points are: “Many girls go to the university. Hera they meet people of all classes and' types, with standards of morals and manners which vary from the best to the worst. “ Here for the first time, perhaps, they see behaviour which either shocks them or which they come to consider they must copy, if they are to have a good time and be in the swim. WEALTHY MARRIAGES. “ Other girls are sent to so-called ‘ finishing schools ’ abroad, where instead of true culture they acquire a; sense of the value of wealth and social position, and are impressed with the fact that the goal of their existence is a wealthy marriage .... “ The life of a debutante is intended to be a round of social gaiety, parents considering money so spent as a good investment. Girls go from one party to another dancing into the small l hours, and have no time or energy for Christianity and all that it implies. ; “They may go to church, but th* teaching of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man is ignored. _ “ The sacramental aspect of marriage is entirely neglected and finally disappears altogether in the pomp andi ceremony of the fashionable wedding.” l Of society generally, the report says: “ The present idea of the vast majority, of people is a life of pleasure, a luxury life dependent on the paid labour of Others. Seriousness is taboo and flippancy is the rule of society, from, tha millionaire and those who sponge on him to the proletarian football and filmi fan. “ In this mechanised world only a! tiny majority can get much satisfaction out of their work. The new social order must include a wider distribution of the monotonous jobs—for it is bad eyeu for a mental defective to become* an automaton. , . . .” : The report makes certain Recommendations ; a revision of the system of god-parents, declared to be an anachronism ; examination of parents before) their children are allowed to be confirmed, with insistence that at least ono parent should have been confirmed; complete reorganisation of Sunday school methods; abolition of the system; of paid choirs; and— most important—the application of Christianity to everydav life for the creation of a new social order.