Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 216, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 September 1910 — SCIENTIST ON FLIRT [ARTICLE]

SCIENTIST ON FLIRT

Girl Is Not Normal Who Does Not Use “Safety Valve.” Professor Joseph V. Breitwisser, Pathological Expert at Columbia College, Agrees With Stanley Hall of Clark College. New York.—'"A girl is not normal who does not use the safety valve of flirting once in a while. At the age when girls flirt (in their teens), they •re at an age when nerves are unsettled and not stable. A new world Is opening to them—a rAw world of throbbing life—and unless they used the safety valve they would become morose and perhaps have a physical breakdown that would ruin their health." Thus spoke Prof. Joseph V. Breitwisser, one of the psychological experts at Columbia college, inventor of the chronoscope, a wonderful instrument that measures thoughts and all mental activity. He was discussing with a reporter what Stanley Hall, president of Clark college, had said •bout flirting. ' “I think that Dr. Hall has made an •pt simile when he calls flirting a Ctrl’B safety valve. She would not be •nd is not normal if she does not flirt a little. “It is a development that holds true, not only In the girl’s life, but in the bistory of the race. In the modern development of the race the flirtation has come to be expected from the woman. It is the way she has of exhibiting her charms to the one whom her heart seems to pick out as its possible mate. ‘ “In primitive times men took the wives they chose hy force. The wives were mere captives, held by their husbanda But today she has more voice Jr the choice of her mate, and while •ociety has not yet given her the privilege in such matters as in . business control, she has to use her charms to .attract the one whom she believes she ■cares for. “It Is the same in religion. There •re many expressions of religion that •re either direct physical expressions mr perversions. Take the ascetic —he persecutes his normal life and becomes a devotee to some fixed idea.

Take Simeon Stylites as an example. He stood upon a pillar until the worms ate him up. Monks and nuns who isolate themselves from society and their fellow men get substitutes for this in their wonderful faith. They miss nothing of the world. “The Increased freedom of women is beginning to be expressed In various ways. If freedom reaches the place where woman has just as much freedom as man, flirtation may lose some of its picturesqueness, but the feeling of contentment in love and home would not be lessened in the least "I disagree with Dr. Hale when he terms flirting rudimentary paranoia. Paranoia is a form Vof perversion, and flirting, Instead of being perverted, is a normal thing, to my way of thinking. At a certain age a girl, or even a boy, awakes to certain facts. These make strong mental impressions. Then it is that the novelty of jpascullne admiration appeals to them and they just flirt. “It does not harm them, it does them a world of good. You can better understand this when you realize that in so doing they ere assuming a freedom that after a time is not new, nor a novelty, and thus cannot Injure them. For instance, take girls who have been shut up in boarding schools and denied the

pleasures of a little social life hnd also girls who are tied to their mothers’ apron strings. They are always the worst if given a taste of worldly life.”