It is the parents' right to decide the girl's
amusements and determine her social life and when one sees the length to
which parents permit and even encourage their daughters to go, he knows
that the _thou shalt not_ might well be said to _them_. When parents do
not care what their girls do, or are too careless and ignorant to
realize danger, when the girls are without friends and unprotected, then
the teacher of religion must without hesitation, forcefully and with the
arguments of _fact_, teach them to say "no" to the things which she
believes can bring only harm, which weaken the power to resist other
evils and which are unhealthy for the growing girl. One may teach with
feeling and power the "_thou shalt not_" in which she believes without
uttering bitter words of condemnation of those who differ with her.
Religion and the law together have the right to say to the unprotected
girl, lacking wisdom, without discretion, eager for fun and adventure,
ignorant of danger, _thou shall not_. The words should be written over
every unchaperoned or inadequately chaperoned high school dance, over
the public dance hall, over the cabaret, over the vaudeville where the
vulgar hides behind a mask, over every place which by its very nature
opens doors of temptation and lowers powers of resistance.
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