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 rightful attitude of guardians of the purity of the home.  We women cannot know anything about the inner secrets of men’s lives, or know whom to exclude and whom to admit to the society of our girls.  This ought to be the part of the brothers.  God knows we do not want to make a pariah class of men on the same lines as are meted out to women.  The young man who wants to do better we are bound to help, and no better work can be done in our large cities than to open our homes to young men in business or in Government offices, etc.  But men who are deliberately leading a fast life and who are deeply stained with the degradation of our own womanhood,