Pinning down the reason for our downfall

WHEN I think back I can always remember that my mother could put her hand on a safety pin almost anywhere, any time.
Perhaps that’s why I always carry a couple of safety pins in the depths of my camera case, just in case one is needed.
Yet only once in 40 years has that little service been called on.
But last month I attended a function and was given a name tag with a safety pin as a means of fixing it to my jacket.
My first thought was this beats the time a female doorkeeper slapped a sticky backed name tag on a new jacket with suede front panels; right on the suede, and the jacket was ruined after only three outings.
Then as I went about fixing the name tag with the safety pin, and wondered why it looked so easy when my mother performed the same task, I recalled an article in the Gazette dated Wednesday 8 December 1909 headed “The demoralising safety pin”.
This article said in part – and indicates a change in thinking over 100 years: “The safety pin is a most useful invention, but one which, when abused by overuse, becomes not only a physical, but moral danger.
“The ardent follower of the safety pin is, without doubt, slovenly in her habits. She has put the safety pin into the place that ought to be occupied by the needle. And she has got into the habit of bustling into her clothes without examining them beforehand to see that they are all right as to buttons, hooks and eye, etc.”
The story ended: “The little girl who is taught to rely on the assistance of a safety pin cannot possibly have the same inherent eye for neatness and correctness as her more fortunate sister whose judicious mother has overlooked her clothes and seen to any faulty point.
“The moral danger of the safety pin comes in when she accustoms her little girl to its use.
“Girls ought to be early taught to sew on buttons and do any small mending for themselves, and, above all, to avoid the safety pin as an article possessing dangerous functions.”
No wonder some of us guys can’t do these things. We were never taught, but then maybe we haven’t fallen into moral danger.