heir name denotes, with purity and a high ideal of
life--not with the sewer, but with the fountain of sweet waters.

Should your boys be so inclined, you might suggest their joining that
band of modern knights, the White Cross Society.[30] It is a great thing
to give a young man a high ideal to act up to, and the White Cross would
certainly give him this, as well as save him, with its definite
obligations, from evil that is incurred from sheer thoughtlessness and
animal spirits, enforcing a respectful and chivalrous treatment of
women, even when by their fast ways those women show that they have no
respect for themselves. But more especially is this the case with regard
to the second obligation, to discountenance coarse jests and allusions
and the by no means nice sort of talk that often goes on in
smoking-rooms, and by which, I am convinced, more than by any other
agency the mind and conscience of young men is gradually deadened and
defiled, but in which they are apt to join from sheer thoughtlessness
and sense of fun. Their White Cross obligation might screw up their
moral courage to utter some such pointed rebuke as Dr. Jowett's to a
lot of young men in a smoking-room, "I don't want to make myself out
better than you are, but is there not more dirt than wit in that story?"
or that other still more public rebuke which he administered at his own
dinner-table when, the gentlemen having been left to their wine, a
well-known diplomat began telling some very unsavory stories, till the
still, small, high-pitched voice of the Master made itself heard,
saying, "Had we not better adjourn this conversation till we join the
ladies in the drawing-room?" At least they can keep silence and a grave
face; and silence and a grave face are often the best damper to coarse
wit. Why, I ask, should men when they get together be one whit coarser
than women? It is simply an evil fashion, and as an evil fashion can and
will be put down as "bad form."

I think also that joining the White Cross will make young men more
active in trying to influence other young men and to guard and help
their younger brothers, with all the other priceless work that they can,
if they will, do for our womanhood among men, but which, from shyness
and reserve and the dread of being looked upon as moral prigs, they are
apt to let go by default.

But whether you agree with me or not with regard to your sons' joining
an organization, see that they assume their rightf