Bathing Beach Behavior by MRS. I. H. E.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 6, 1916

Bathing Beach Behavior

By MRS. I. H. E.

THE lure of the swimming hole is felt by the small boy almost before the leaves are out in spring, and it is so “catching” that practically every one not physically disabled, who can reach beach or river, lake or pool, succumbs before the hot weather is over. This fondness for the water, getting into it and conquering it, is a healthful sign. Swimming, considered simply as a recreation, heads the list of muscle-toning, body-defending exercises. It is a good thing for boys of all ages to learn to swim, and just as good for their sisters.

They will learn, too,—no need to urge where “ought” so closely parallels desire; but we do wish to say a word concerning certain proprieties which of late years seem to be rapidly disappearing from the public bathing beach.

First, as to the matter of clothes. Our sense of fitness is often outraged at the pictures of the advanced styles in bathing costumes shown spring after spring in the fashion sheets, often photographed on living models.

But though most of us are not likely to visit the fashionable resorts where such styles prevail, have not all mothers of young daughters a manifest duty to perform in seeing that their garments are of suitable material, modestly cut, and so well made that they will withstand hard usage?

It is asserted that a woman’s character is unerringly revealed by her dress; her clothes are a mirror of her mind and heart. Have you ever stopped to consider how the characters of the young girls seen at bathing resorts—yours, perhaps, among them—would be estimated, judged by this standard? Indeed, if it were not for the fact that their innocent intent is taken into consideration, how could they be placed?

But the mothers are held responsible at the unsparing bar of public opinion. “What is that girl’s mother thinking of?” is a question often asked, and one that shows plainly enough where the burden of blame is placed. “It is nothing short of a crime to allow an unthinking young girl to wear clothes that, when she goes out into the world, are the very signals of danger,” says an editorial in the Good Dressing Magazine. “She doesn’t know. How could she? But her mother does, or her father, or her brother or sister. Some older person is responsible for allowing the dangerous dress, and that some one will be directly responsible if danger comes to the girl and she goes under.”

Many of the plain, everyday people of this country have been slow to obey the social law that would provide a chaperon for every group of young people who go off for a day’s pleasure without their parents or guardians. Sometimes when chaperons have been provided, they have, as one young girl recently said in my hearing, “acted worse than the worst ones there.” This is unfortunate. Nevertheless, all are coming to agree that it is not wise, even if it were safe, to allow a company of young persons to go off by themselves on picnics or excursions, automobile rides or moonlight boat trips. A casual walk around the decks of any summer pleasure craft shows plainly why.

But suppose the young people are properly looked after,—and this does not mean as a gang of convicts herded from one place to another, but under the care of those who enter into their pleasures heartily and sympathetically,—suppose the girls are modestly and becomingly dressed, quiet in voice and ladylike in manner, is the mother’s duty done?—No; fathers and mothers who have themselves visited popular bathing beaches in recent years will agree that it is only begun. The utter unreserve, the lack of common courtesy, the freedom from all the laws that are observed when in ordinary garb, the familiarity of contact, the boldness with which young men accost girls whom they do not know, and vice versa,—all these improprieties, and more which can hardly be told, should lead mothers and fathers not only to warn their children, but to watch over them.

One word more: We see lately the “beach costume” as distinguished from the bathing costume—the former being described as more “daring” than the latter. It is undeniable that the beach does make for carelessness in dress, with its inevitable lowering of other standards of propriety. Is it, therefore, unwise to suggest that, instead of “burying one another in the sand,” lolling about on the beach, sitting under umbrellas, or strolling up and down in front of the “amusements” or along secluded paths, in swimming garb, your young people shall, when they come out of the water, put on their ordinary clothes, even if they intend to “go in” again at a later hour?

It is too late to lock the barn when the cattle are stolen; too late to insure when the building has burned; too late to inspect, and pass laws, and sound warnings when the boat with its living freight has gone down. If you would have your sons pure, your daughters modest, keep up the bars; guard against the indecent dressing that courts danger, the careless companions who corrupt, the laxness in manners that brings laxness of morals in its train. Do not take too much for granted, but, having prepared a good defense, watch lest it be overthrown.

MRS. I. H. E.