“SHELTERED” GIRLS

Taranaki Daily News, 23 December 1932, Page 5

“SHELTERED” GIRLS

BETTER TO HAVE KNOWLEDGE. ENGLISH JUDGE’S VIEW. Mr. Justice 'McCardie, giving judgment in a case in the King’s Bench Division, recently, said: “I doubt very much whether exaggerated importance is not attached to the desire to shelter girls who have reached the age of sixteen, seventeen or eighteen yars. My view is that to keep girls in ignorance does not help, and may do harm. I think it is better for girls of that age to have a knowledge of the world and of social evils and their risks.” " :’ The action was brought by Miss Con-, stantia Wicksteed against• Majpr V. D. B. Cooper. Miss Wicksteed, who formerly kept a finishing school for girls near Paris, claimed £124 as the balance of fees due in respect of Major Cooper’s daughter Ruth. Miss Cooper, who was then 18, was at the school during the Christmas term, 1930, but did not return after the holidays. ' . . Her father pleaded that he was justified in withdrawing his daughter, as Miss Wicksteed had not exercised proper supervision- over the* girls, particularly when 'they went to Paris. Miss Wicksteed replied that the supervision was ample and excellent, that when the girls went into Paris they were always accompanied by a mistress, and if they were going to meet friends the mistress handed them oyer when they met. Mr. Justice McCardie said he would assume that Miss Cooper had, as her father had stated, led a sheltered life. He then made the comment already quoted, and added: ‘‘To shelter a girl too much is an ill preparation for the life she may have to lead when she grows older, and when she has to visit technical and art schools and other institutions of learning.” In the present case what did the allegations all come to? There was a suggestion that one girl at the school collected the photographs of men cinema stars. That point vanished, because Miss Wicksteed at once stopped this proclivity. It was also said that'another girl went out from time to time by herself, but it turned out that her parents had allowed it. Then it was said that a third girl had received a letter from a young Frenchman asking her to lunch with him in Paris, and that she went out on the day he indicated. There was nothing to show, said the judge, that, in fact, the girl went with him or that he was not a relative. Mr. Justice McCardie continued: “Those who ;(have seen a great deal of the inner working of girls’ and boys’ schools, as some of us have, know that it is absolutely impossible, however rigorous the discipline, to avoid episodes of that sort, if episode it was. I attach to it no importance which could justify taking a girl away from the school without notice.”

With regard to handing over the girls to their friends when they went to Paris, it was impossible to treat girls of their age at though they were infants three years old. Judgment was given for Miss Wicksteed for £92 14s 2d and costs.