What Women Might do with the Ballot: The Abolition of the White Slave Traffic

An American author living in Paris is quoted as saying: "The usual American girl of today is a half-sophisticated, wholly self-assured babe, with too much knowledge of the world before she is married, and not enough of it after she is married." It would seem that just the reverse is true. Most American girls have too little knowledge of the world before marriage, and too much afterward. Knowledge of the right sort has been veiled too much with mystery both for the boys and the girls. Mothers and fathers have inherited affected prudery, false modesty and hypocritical innocence. Casting all these aside is the greatest step forward to better morals and cleaner citizenship which the public men and women and the progressive educators of our time have made. Of course, education in this direction must be conducted along safe and intelligent lines. It may take generations to mould the habits and train the minds in the right channel. But it is possible of accomplishment. In the homes and in the schools and colleges the knowledge of life that young people deserve to know should be given them. Young men will then have a higher respect for womanhood. To boys and girls life and its wonderful development and its holiness should be explained in the right way and at the right time.