The Vice of the Day.

Southland Times, Issue 14287, 2 March 1899, Page 3

The Vice of the Day.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —You deserve the thanks of" the public for calling serious attention to the state of morality indicated by recent trials in this district and throughout the colony, and the necessity of adopting more effective measures for the protection of youth from the vice into which it is so ready to be enticed. To apply the repressive influence of the curfew is certainly a step of the right kind, nor is there any just reason why it should be objected to. At any rate the reasons for it are much greater than any that can be urged against it. The nocturnal meetings of boys and girls as every corner and alley are an unseemly, and to every thinking mind, a distressing spectacle. The habit is a most pernicious one, and one from which unfortunate children should be otherwise protected, if parental control is not equal to the task. Children rapidly degenerate under its baneful influence. Under present arrangements, at all events, the schools are doing all that the schools can do, as pointed out by “ Bat,” and no one need doubt, I think, the integrity and zealous vigilance of the teachers in all that conceins the morality of their pupils. The unsavoury license of the streets on the other hand tends largely to neutralise the beneficent influence of the schools. The mutual influence of the sexes when taught together under proper management and supervision ia more of amoral antiseptic—on the whole a conservative of virtue, I firmly believe. There is a defect, however, in the education of our youths of both sexes, to which '‘Mater” refers in your issue of to-day (and she represents probably a good many maters). It is confessedly a matter not very easy to deal with, but one from which there should be no shrinking on that account, and is largely amenable to remedial measures. Children in the upper forms of our schools and children at the High Schools, are just emerging into the state of manhood and womanhood, and never a word of instruction or warning reaches them as to the new responsibilities and the new dangers attaching to the changing life. They ate permitted to enter blindly upon it at the mercy of every impulse and seductive emotion evolved in their consciousness, or insinuated from abroad. At the time they are most in need of enlightenment and guidance they are left without any, and chanced upon the sea of life. It seems cruel that young people in their ignorance should be suffered to drift upon these shoals and shallows without a word of warning from any one. Physiology is one of the subjects taught, more or les?, at the schools. The physical conditions of health are generally explained. But there is one part of the science that is always left alone. A man of tact and skill, such as one of our leading doctors, and probably most of our teachers, could impart in one or two lessons as much of that part of the subject that; is now ignored as would entirely convince young people of the supreme value of continence and purity, and of the unhappy results that wait upon the opposite conduct. In order to attain this result there would be no necessity of employing any language that would offend the natural sensibilities. There is a way of doing everything, and.no groundless squeamishness should stand in the way of the truth being imparted systematically to all the youth of the colony. What the elders are so sedulously ignoring the young all find out, and many of them by an experience from which it would be well indeed if they were saved. I can see no reason .why such a thing should not be carried out, while there is much reason why it should. These shoals of quack advertisements are evidence of that.—l am, &c., Pateb. TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—l agree with “ Mater ” that your leader on the recent dreadful cases which were before the Supreme Court was both able and earnest, and well worthy the attention of all sober-minded people. And the blame surely rests in measure with those parents who seem to have so lax an authority over their children and so little knowledge of what they are about. Still, if we knew all, there would be extenuating circumstances in some cases. It seems the chudren in these colonies think that no duty lies on them to obey their parents: no parent can begin too early to teach thtm to obey—then it becomes natural. There is no doubt but that evil companions and nothing to do, helps on the evil, for we all know the true saying : “Satin hods some mischief still for idle hands to do. So let us agitate for the Curfew bell to ring the bairns in at night, and then let parents bestir themselves to find work, or even entertainment, for them indoors. It would be irksome at first to those parents who seem always to think their children a bother, but in the end the good would repay the trouble. It is all very well for ministers or teachers to take the matter up for a time, but it seems to me that again the parents must undertake that duty. All these are remedial measures, but the only cure for vicious living is a clean heart and a pure mind, which can and will be obtained from the great loving Father of us all, by all those who will believe and trust in His Son Jesus Christ, the Saviour of sinners, through whose grace alone can poor fallen humanity rise up to the nobility of true manhood. I am, &c, Mater No. 2.