in the woods; tutor the feeble-minded sons of the rich; tramp and
bicycle over Swiss mountain passes; sail their catboats through the
island-studded reaches and thoroughfares of the Maine coast, and grow
brown and hard under the burning sun. They are the hope of America. They
can carry a canoe or a hundred-pound pack over a forest trail; and in
the winter they set the pace in the scientific, law and medical
schools. Their heads are clear, their eyes are bright, and there is a
hollow instead of a bow window beneath the buttons of their waistcoats.

The feet of these young men carry them to strange places; they cope with
many and strange monsters. They are our Knights of the Round Table. They
find the Grail of Achievement in lives of hard work, simple pleasures
and high ideals--in college and factory towns; in law courts and
hospitals; in the mountains of Colorado and the plains of the Dakotas.
They are the best we have; but the poor rich girl rarely, if ever, meets
them. The barrier of wealth completely hems her in. She must take one of
those inside or nothing.

When, in a desperate revolt against the artificiality of her existence,
she breaks through the wall she is easy game for anybody--as likely to
marry a jockey or a professional forger as one of the young men of her
desire. One should not blame a rich girl too much for marrying a titled
and perhaps attractive foreigner. The would-be critic has only to step
into a Fifth Avenue ballroom and see what she is offered in his place to
sympathize with and perhaps applaud her selection. Better a year of
Europe than a cycle of--shall we say, Narragansett? After all, why not
take the real thing, such as it is, instead of an imitation?

I believe that one of the most cruel results of modern social life is
the cutting off of young girls from acquaintanceship with youths of the