OUR NAUGHTY GIRLS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16493, 7 March 1914, Page 8

OUR NAUGHTY GIRLS.

A SOCIAL PROBLEM. (By MRS CUNNINGTON.)

First let me apologise for the title. I t sounds. rather a flimsy and flighty one to attach to a social problem. But what other adjective shall 1 prefix to the type of girl of whom I wish to write? All the other qualifying adjectives have (something objectionable about them. “ Our Bad Girls” is simply horrid. It has such a severe scolding cruel tone about it. Besides it is not true. “ Our Wicked Girls?” Well, that is worse. It is too condemnatory, too harsh and also untrue. ‘‘Our Immoral Girls?” Shocking. The adjective is too defined and therefore totally inaccurate. The moment one labels so complex si thing as a human being with a defined label one is hopelessly misleading.

The word “ naughty ” has a certain general kindliness about it and I wish to be kindly and genial in dealing with a subject that has in it so much that is pathetic and pitiful. Also the vagueness of the adjective permits of wide interpretations, l an advantage when discussing women. In the study of any social evil there are three points to be, carefully considered. Firstly, does the evil really exist; secondly, what arc its causes (direct, indirect and contributory); thirdly, what are its possible cures? Now at the outset nf this present inquiry we are met with the disappointing fact that we know very little about the whole subject. Untrained loose observers tell us what they think about this problem; hearsay talkers make terrific statements, but the very people who come closest to the facts can only provide us with insufficient data. These people, generally officials, have never been instructed how to collect, compare and classify facts in order that substantiated and valuable conclusions mav bo deduced.

For a long time past, it has been urged upon the authorities to institute in our prisons, reformatories, asylums, homes, etc., a systematic study of the life histories of the inmates. But so far nothing has been done by really scientific methods. We British are a slipshod folk. We do not yet understand one of the first principles of sociology; that facts are always significant if a long train of causes behind them. Each social evil lias, its life history just as much as physical diseases hare theirs, its predisposing factors, its “ nidus.” its symptoms, its effects (present and subsequent’! upon the social body, its cures and its extermination forces.

The medical profession ha.s long since ceased to believe in “ muddling through to victory over death and disease. Then why, in the name of all that -is reasonable, should we leave so grave a social disease as the moral deterioration of young womanhood lo the same abortive ineffectual “ muddling through” process? Undoubtedly the trouble demands our most serious consideration.

The first point in the inquiry is: Does tbe evil really exist in the dominion? Yes, it docs. We have from our Chief Justice the cheering statement that juvenile crime is on the decrease. On the other hand, we hear from all reliable quarters that juvenile vice—quite a different tiling—is on the increase. All the reformatory homes are full to overflowing: the Police Courts are frequently busied with the wretched stories of vagrant and disorderly young girls, and our streets give full testimony to their presence. There can be no doubt that a. most undesirable type of voting womanhood is growing up in our large towns, and it is my belief that much of the avowed increase of venereal complaints is due to this painful fact. Now, there are three marked characteristics common to the whole genus or group of “ naughty girls.” First, lack of self-control; second, self-absorp-tion ; and third, lack of moral sense. Lack of self-control may manifest itself in various ways. The unfortunate girl is “the hopeless pupil of many masters ” —sex impulse, anger, jealousy, acquisitiveness, destructiveness, vanity, vindictiveness, revenge. Such a person, as a great student of brain pathology remarks, “is sadly weighted in running the race that is set before her, since she lias an enemy in her camp and a traitor in her own nature which is ever ready, to conspire with external adversities" to effect her downfall. I am fully, aware that the superficial onlooker regards such girls as objects of bewilderment and disgust, as “bad,” “ion.” “ wicked,” but they are far more truly the subjects for our pity and forbearance.

.The second characteristic of the type is self-absorntion, or egoism. Its development in the girl is truly abnormal. Everything in life, parents, relations, friends, are only so many agents towards the girl’s own selfish demands. No discipline is acceptable to her; no authority is in the least binding or sacred. Life is of no interest to tier except as a means to the reckless gratification of her own morbid desires and cravings. The third salient feature in this curious human study is lack of the moral sense: it is either dormant or entirely non-existent. This want of moral sense is largely due to the girl's lack of sympathy or comprehension of other people’s feelings and needs, and this is due again to self-absorption, which makes her anti-social. There are exceptions to this broadly outlined description and there are degrees of degeneracy, but in the main these characteristics are common to the whole group. Now, what are the causes that have produced this pitiful typo of girlhood, a type that sooner or later must have a baleful influence on the- race? The causes are deep-seated and complex. After many years of careful study, I am convinced that a large number of girls who go to our industrial homes are not the products only of merely faulty and careless upbringing. The causes assuredly lie deeper, far deeper than that.

Of course, I write under the disability of the lay mind and am subject to correction, but I am inclined to suspect that the two most potent contributory causes are alcoholic and syphilitic hereditary taints working their subtle and insidious effects upon the brain cells of their victims. Let us search the ancestral history of these young people and we shall probably discover some such solution of the problem.

Where the casual observer fails on his diagnosis of this type of girlhood is in regarding her as an isolated human unit. She is in reality ‘‘but a link in the long chain of Nature’s evolution.-''

Now, when we realise this fact that “ the unborn nature constitutes the foundation upon which all the acquisitions of development rest,” we are approaching some intelligent conception of where to look for the cures of this social deterioration in our midst. Every builder knows that if his foundations are faulty his superstructure will he. a failure, more or less. In the upbuilding of our human race the thing of genuine importance is this foundation upon which all the acquisitions of development rest. Stop alcoholic and syphilitic taints and the prisons, reformatories, homes, asylums, etc., will be more than half emptied. I ain aware that this sounds like “a twice-told tale,” but the application of the tale to real life has hardly yet been accomplished. To convince the public wc must bring more and more facts before it; we must trace back the. history of the institutions’ inmates; we must g» deeper and deeper into the study. We must learn to regard the unhap-

py girl as a source of danger to the community, morally and'physically so. We must learn not to stupefy our conscience and our activities by merely bringing art and science to bear upon her reformation, hut to remember the appalling truth that, the potency of germ cells flows- in- an-endless stream from one generation to another. The only way to stop the type is to dam up the forces that produce it.