The Morning Star And Catholic Messenger

AMERICAN PET NAMES

[St. Louis Watchman.]

Last week we took occasion to discourse some good advice to the gentlemen graduates of our Catholic colleges. We forewarned them of the dangers against which we have them forearmed, and encouraged them in the pursuit of courses which would bring them peace and honor, if not distinction and wealth.

We have received a note signed "A Convent Graduate" asking for a share in our interest and a modicum of wholesome counsel. The writer is evidently unaware of the grave responsibility to be assumed when one essays to advise a young lady. It is one of the unwritten laws of this great nation, and one which in this centennial year should not be violated with impunity, that American ladies are to be petted always, advised never. Among men it is admissible to speak of praise and blame, for they run the gauntlet of the virtues and vices. Not so is it with our ladies. In them there is nothing to blame, nothing to challenge censure. They differ from each other only in the measure of their goodness. They cannot even be confronted with the proprieties, their conduct is always admirable and cases of difference are but instances of variety in loveliness and degrees in that indefinitely comparable adjective "sweet."

We are thorough democrats, it is true, but we have our queens of society, and most devoutly do we believe that our queens "can do no wrong."

But we may presume that our correspondent belongs to a class just out of their short clothes and really anxious to become some day, not pets of society, but sensible, well-behaved, industrious and matronly women. If such be the case we gladly volunteer advice.

The bane of young American maidenhood is an almost universal disposition to undue familiarity. Not that they are not scrupulously proper; they are even fastidious in their choice of acquaintances. But to see a couple of our young ladies promenading one of our public thoroughfares of a fine evening, you would imagine that they wished to greet every one of the thousand young men they meet on the way. Loud and incessant laughter, constant twisting of the head and rolling of the eye, glances so coy and furtive that they almost invite a recognition, mark the street etiquette of our American young lady. Changing a little well known quotation, we can say that she "can smile and smile and be" a lady. This propensity to undue familiarity is apparent even in the first introduction to a new acquaintance. A young lady of twenty, who should have more taste, if not more sense, will permit herself to be introduced to a man she never saw before as Miss Lulu Lumpkins, Miss Hennie Titmouse or Miss Beckie Bigfeet, without once suspecting that she is making a laughing stock of herself and surrendering every safeguard of distance and dignity which propriety would everywhere except in America throw around her. Every young lady must have a name ending in "ie;" but they little know that this arises from a conspiracy of men, who wish so to designate young women, solely because the word rhymes with "ninny."

This habit we are sorry to say is encouraged in our convents, and we venture the assertion that our anonymous correspondent's first name appears on the catalogue with an "ie" at the end. Lord Dufferin, Viceroy of Canada, delivered an address to the graduates of the Ursuline Convent at Quebec the other day, in which he took occasion to animadvert on this abominable nuisance of American society:

"I observe that it is an almost universal practice upon this continent, even on public occasions, in prize lists, roll calls and in the intercourse of general society, for young ladies to be alluded to by their casual acquaintances, nay, even by newspapers, by what in the old country we would call their "pet" names, that is to say, those caressing, soft appellations of endearment with which their fathers and brothers and those who are nearest to them strive to give expression to the yearning affection felt for them in the home circle. Now, it seems to me to be a monstrous sacrilege, and quite incompatible with the dignity and self-respect due to the daughters of our land, and with the chivalrous reverence with which they should be approached even in thought, that the tender, love-invented nomenclature of the fireside should be bandied about at random in the mouths of every empty-headed Tom, Dick and Harry on the street, whose idle tongue may chance to babble of them. For instance, in the United States, before her marriage, I observed that Miss Grant, the daughter of the occupant of one of the most august positions in the world, was generally referred to in the newspapers as "Nellie," as though the paragraphist who wrote the item had been her playmate from infancy; and even Lady Dufferin, I see, has become "Kate" in the elegant phraseology of a United States magazine, though how Kate could have been elicited from her Excellency's real Christian name I don't know. Of course, this is a small matter to which I have alluded, but it is not without significance when regarded as a national characteristic. After all, the women of this continent are ladies as refined, high minded and noble-hearted as are to be found in any country in the world, and the sooner we get rid of this vulgar solecism the better, and the first place where the correction should be made is in our school lists, which are official documents, where young ladies ought to be entered in their full Christian names, and not in their nicknames, as I have often seen done.

Another great wrong which society in this country inflicts on our young women is forcing them to act the fool on all occasions. Some young ladies rebel against the degrading nuisance, and speak sensibly and elegantly, laugh only when something funny is said, and in all other respects conduct themselves as persons not pets. Young ladies should work and read more than they do. Three hours a day is too much to spend before a mirror, and five hours entirely too long to talk and meditate upon dress. In work there should be no discrimination against plain sewing, and in reading a little of Thomas a Kempis should be interspersed.

Lastly bear in mind that the last end of a woman's creation is not to get married. All women outside of Turkey are supposed to have souls, and girls must begin the work of self-sanctification when they arrive at the use of reason. If a young lady of fifteen exhibits no marks of devotion she will never be devout, and will never make a Christian mother. Catholicity is propagated by our Catholic mothers, and it is an axiom that none can bestow what he has not himself. This holds good in education. If the mothers of our faith are indifferent to the practice of religion, the children will in all probability grow up to be infidels. Young ladies, be dignified, be sensible, be devout.