make a legitimate exception, and
it also involves some temerity. It is like gathering mushrooms;
perhaps they are edible, perhaps they are poisonous; for the various
fungi look very much alike. If it happens to be right, it is right; if
it happens to be wrong, it is sheer disaster.

A social code that borrows no artifice from foreign lands and
institutions, but which, true to the spirit of our own country, guards
the liberty of young girls on the one hand, while on the other it
shields them from license, will be welcomed by all thoughtful people.
The American chaperone is the coming woman. The girls of the next
generation will rise up and call her blessed.

THE AMERICAN CHAPERONE

The question of the chaperone in America is peculiarly perplexing. The
consternation of the hen whose brood of ducklings took to the water is
a fit symbol of the horrified amazement with which an old-world
"duenna" would be filled if she attempted to "look after" a bevy of
typical American girls, with their independent--yet confused--ideas of
social requirements in the matter of chaperonage.

In Europe, where social lines are distinctly drawn, a young woman
either belongs "in society" or else she does not. In the former case
she is constantly attended by a chaperone. In the latter case she is
merely a young person, a working girl, for whom "society" makes no
laws. In our country there is a leisure class of "society women," so
recognized. If these alone constituted good society in America, we
might simply adopt the European distinctions, and settle the chaperone
question by a particular affirmative referring to these alone. But we
reflect that our thoughts throughout this little volume are mainly for
those who dwell within the broad zone of the average heretofore
referred to. In this republican land no one can say that the bounds of
good society lie arbitrarily here and there; certainly they are not
marked by a line drawn between occupation and leisure. The same young
girl--after leaving school, at the period when society life begins--may
be "in society" during leisure hours and in business during working
hours. It is accounted perfectly lady-like and praiseworthy for a
young woman, well born and bred, to support herself by some
remunerative employment that holds her to "business hours." She may be
a teacher, an artist, a scribe, an editor, a stenographer, a
book-keeper--what may she _not_ do, with talent, training, and