their dresses up to keep them from getting soiled and wet as they
danced.

This is usually the result of teaching the child to dance and then
restricting them to home dancing. If they once become fascinated with it
they must and will, by some means, fair or foul, have more of it than
their homes afford.

There are professing Christians who condemn the sale of liquor, advocate
the closing of saloons, and frown on Sunday picnics and other
amusements, who allow their own children to attend so-called select
dancing parties.

In these places are taught the rudiments of an education which may make
them graduates of the saloon or the brothel.

I do not say that it _always_ does, but I do say that it _often_ does.

The safe side is the best side. Keep them from taking the first step to
ruin, and they can never take the last.

Where did the majority of the drunkards take their first drink? Where
did the gambler play his first card? Where did three-fourths of the
women, who are to-day living a life of shame, have a man's arm about
them for the first time?

Let me answer.

The first drink of the drunkard was just a social glass.