Editor Archibald Johnson of Charity and Children is in bad with a lot of school teachers in his town because he has criticized dancing, particularly the dancing of school teachers. Editor Johnson doesn’t think that a school teacher should use up her energy in dancing, but should conserve it, every bit of it, for the school room. And then he doesn’t think much of dancing anyway; he things these new dances are too absurd and indecent.
Editor Johnson is a wise old scribe, but he is wasting a lot of precious energy himself when he attacks dancing and criticizes the modern school “marm,” who usually isn’t a “marm” at all, but a miss with short skirts and a long eye. The young female school teacher doesn’t care a rap what an editor things or says. Most of them don’t bother their fair heads reading editorials or anything else that might contain an idea. The sort Archibald is criticizing would have you understand that teaching school is but an incident in their sweet young lives and anybody can have the job just as soon as they can get husbands. It is hard to persuade school teachers that a husband is not a more dependable meal ticket than a board of public school trustees, in the present state of county school finances in North Carolina.
But why should a country editor tear his hair about dancing? You can’t persuade a decent woman that her dancing is indecent—and you wouldn’t dare try. As for the other sort, they don’t care how indecent a dance may be, and never will.
From the editorial page of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., Jan. 20, 1922, W.O. Saunders, Editor
No comments:
Post a Comment