Part 8

I want to say that the men and women who indorse, sustain, and advocate kindergarten work in San Francisco are among its most thoughtful, philanthropic, and far-seeing citizens--men who seek to crown with ceaseless blessing the destinies of this western world, men and women whose better nature is always within call, and who, with a rich and mellow spirit of humanity, determine to leave the world better than they found it, happier and nobler for the legacy of their fruitful lives; men and women who are always devising generous things, and who go through life like a band of music; men and women who live to develop the resources of a great State--citizens of the world made by the time to make a new time. Such are the men and women who, by their generous gifts and pleading earnestness, help on this great work in San Francisco. Noble, far-seeing men and women! I love and honor them, every one.

Dear friends, I believe with all my soul that the shortest cut to permanent victory in the great and glorious cause of temperance is through the training of very little children in ways of virtue, self-government, and self-control, by the proper cultivation of the heart, as well as the head and hand, in the kindergarten. Only such schools as these, moulding and shaping character by careful habit and training, will ever build up a vigorous, healthful, virtuous national life. Only such schools as these will make poorhouses, insane asylums, penitentiaries, and like institutions unnecessary. Do they cost too much? Think of it! $50,000,000 invested for asylums, poorhouses, hospitals, blind, deaf-mute, and insane asylums in the State of New York alone, with an annual outlay of $10,000,000; and this does not include houses of correction, penitentiaries, prisons, jails, and the like. Even a portion of this money expended in kindergarten schools would make these penal and corrective institutions unnecessary in a few years.

If the civil authorities cannot and do not attend to the needy, neglected children that go to swell the great lists of crime, pauperism, and insanity, then Christian philanthropy should do it. Christianity, thank God, is coming to be more and more practical in its aspect and work. We are coming to feel more and more that a religion that has everything for a future world, and nothing for this world, has nothing for either. A religion that neglects this present life is a mother who neglects her infant, with the expectation that manhood will make everything right. There is a class of persons who spend their lives in trying to _be_ good. There is another class who spend their lives in trying to _do_ good. Genuine goodness is something more than a mere self-seeking for eternity. It is something more than that sort of pious living which means little else than a safe and sagacious investment in the skies. It is a working together with God in this world for the uplifting and advancement of the human race. It is a seeking to lessen the pains and burdens of life among the toilers and the strugglers. It is a reaching out after the little children of poverty and want--the hapless little ones who have been hurled prematurely against the life-wrecking problems of existence. Help that can run to help the helpless, and comfort the comfortless, always keeps closest by the side of God. Intensity of life is intensity of helpfulness. The great waiting world understands good actions far more readily than abstract doctrines.

Perhaps we shall find at last, in the day of final disclosure, that the deepest and most far-reaching influence that we ever exerted was the influence that we exerted over the helpless and neglected little children of the streets. Perhaps we shall find it to be the best work we ever accomplished. At all events, it is well to live well. And he lives the longest who lives the best. He is great who confers most of blessing on mankind.

CORROBORATIVE TESTIMONY

"Skilled employment must be taught to boys and girls alike, at the earliest age consistent with educational claims. Labor must, however, never be drudgery, but a delight to the young workers; and to insure this, not only must the most effective teachers be secured, but the tastes and capacity of each child must be carefully studied, so that the industry chosen shall in each case be congenial, and not repugnant.

"Religion must occupy no secondary position in such a Home. Its principles must be taught and its precepts practiced with that deep and loving enthusiasm which shall secure for it ever after a sacred place and a mighty influence in the hearts and lives of the children."--_Thomas J. Barnardo, F.R.C.S., Ed., Founder "Dr. Barnardo Homes," London._

CORROBORATIVE TESTIMONY

OHIO STATE BOARD OF CHARITIES.

ASA S. BUSHNELL, Governor, Prest., Ex-officio. ROELIFF BRINKERHOFF, Mansfield. WILLIAM HOWAND NEFF, Cincinnati. W. A. HALE, Dayton. CHARLES PARROTT, Columbus. M. D. FOLLETT, Marietta. HENRY C. RANNEY, Cleveland. JOSEPH P. BYERS, Clerk.

MANSFIELD, OHIO, August 17, 1898.

MR. HORACE FLETCHER, Chicago, Ill.

_My Dear Sir_: Yours of the 15th inst. received; also proof sheets of your forthcoming publication, which I have read with great pleasure.

I heartily agree with you in the opinion that the children must first be cared for if we are to make any great progress in reducing crime.

In nearly all that I have written or spoken during the past twenty years upon this subject I have taken this position.

Five years ago, when I was in San Francisco and spent some days with Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper, with whom I had had correspondence for several years, and with Mr. Crowley, Chief of Police, I was profoundly impressed with the power for good of the kindergartens as there administered.

The only way to make good character and good habits a foundation in the lives of growing children, which is the aim of the kindergarten, universal, is to make the training a part of our common school system, and I think that accomplishment must be our objective point.

You quote what I said about the results of kindergarten work in San Francisco, and in the main, correctly, but just what Mrs. Cooper and Chief Crowley said you will find in Warden Hale's address, at Saint Paul, Minn., in 1894, which you will find in the Annual Report of the Saint Paul National Prison Congress.

Mrs. Cooper said that in fourteen years, out of about 16,000 kindergarten children, they had the history of about 9,000, and of these not one had been arrested for crime. Chief Crowley said that out of 8,000 children arrested in San Francisco, but one had been trained in a kindergarten.

Warden Hale for many years has been in charge of the great prison at San Quentin, near San Francisco, and his testimony is valuable.

Your book is timely and will be a valuable aid in educating a healthy public sentiment. In the hasty reading I have been able to give it I see nothing to criticise. Personally I believe that the religious element in teaching should, at least, have equal prominence with the industrial and intellectual. Instead of the three R's of first importance in old-time teaching, I am in favor of three H's, in the following order: The Heart, the Hand, and the Head.

I give you God-speed in your good work, and if I can at any time give you a helping hand please command me. Very sincerely yours,

R. BRINKERHOFF.

AND A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM

"Suffer Little Children to Come Unto Me, and Forbid Them Not, For of Such Is the Kingdom of Heaven."

"For inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the Least of These, even so have ye done it unto Me."

"A New Commandment I give unto you, that ye Love One Another."

"Do unto Others as ye would that Others should do unto you."

AND A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM

Of the recorded utterances of Christ about children the most direct prophecy is the caption of this chapter.

It is no disrespect to the holy mission of Christ in the world to say that He was the first Great Kindergartner.

It is in the love and solicitude for children that the view of Christ differs greatly from all the great teachers whom the world reverence or worship.

The utterances of Christ are few, but the Golden Rule and references to children stand out clearly as among the important themes of His mission.

In the light of our present interest, and in behalf of our especial quest, the prophecy of Christ is a burning tower of hope that men and women will some time see Christ in the light that Froebel saw Him, and as many of the enthusiastic followers of the Froebel method of missionary work now see Him. May they gather to the support of our cause, to the support of a Perfect Social Quarantine that shall not permit any child of the community, of the nation, nor of the world, as far as possible, to escape the mandate of the Golden Rule and the solicitude that Christ expressed for them.

* * * * *

Will any great number of those who have been blessed with children deny that one of the most potent influences in their life, next to that of mother, has been desire for the respect of their own children?

There are many parents who shape their lives, consciously or unconsciously, so as not to be a bad example to their children. Society, public opinion, self-respect and law have a due measure of influence or restraint, but at the bottom of the best of conduct is the influence of the little child, for the prophecy is true, "And a little child shall lead them."

* * * * *

Not only in the family, but in the State, and in all the walks of life, the attention given to children is productive of the most profit.

* * * * *

"And a little child shall lead them!"

SUMMARY

"He is at once admitted to the school, where in most cases the influences of cleanliness, decency, and home surroundings, transform him in a few weeks from a homeless, dirty waif, ragged, hungry and hopeless, into a bright, well clad, well fed lad, with the opportunity before him of receiving a good education and learning a trade which will give him an object in life. The Training School is in no sense a prison, and has neither bolts nor bars nor corporeal punishments. The boys are governed by love and kindness; and, although they are taken from the street and gutter, it is surprising as it is gratifying to find how short a time produces an entire change in their appearance, manners and conduct."--_Oscar L. Dudley, Secretary and General Manager of the Illinois School of Agriculture and Manual Training for Boys, before the National Conference of Charities and Correction._

SUMMARY

The author believes that character-building and habit-forming institutions should be appreciated and supported as _fundamental bases of government_, in that they are _nurseries of good citizenship_, and not simply as minor branches of education, as at present classified, and that no intelligent effort should be spared to make them available to the _Last Waif_ in a community as well as to the most favored.

* * * * *

Character-building and habit-forming institutions, as here meant, include the crèche, the kindergarten, domestic science, manual-training schools and parental farms of demonstrated usefulness; the special usefulness consisting of supplying nourishment for infants necessary to supplement that received at home, teaching suggestions from which to absorb self-respect, and also respect for thrift and order, and the provision of ample opportunities for the discovery of that talent or preference for some useful occupation with which every normal human being is equipped at birth--the one occupation that every person would rather pursue than do anything else, or be idle,--if only it can be found.

* * * * *

The moral effect of saving The Last Waif from neglect would, in itself, be much greater than the saving of hundreds of stray waifs by less thorough means, and the beneficial influence of a moral wave, such as the establishment of Perfect Social Quarantine would produce, would be felt in raising the average efficiency of family instruction in character-building in the same proportion that a complete thing is superior to anything that is weak in some of its parts. A resultant effect would be the establishment of Dirt Quarantine and Sanitary Quarantine Measures on lines of parallel efficiency, as already proven by the influence of kindergarten work in slums, for cleanliness begets cleanliness as surely as dirt begets dirt.

* * * * *

The wave of humanitarian sentiment that demanded freedom for Cuba cost the American people more than a million of dollars a day, and without hardship to any except those who endangered their lives in fighting for the cause.

The cost of saving the helpless neglected ones at home, and the establishment, for all time to come, of that first requisite of civilization, a perfect Moral and Social Quarantine, would be but a tithe of the cost of war with Spain, while all the outlay would be returned to the people and devoted to _Construction_, instead of being wasted in _Destruction_, as is necessary in the case of war.

* * * * *

The gaps of neglect in the present partial attempts at character-building and habit-forming for children, which are the bases of moral and social quarantine, are not very wide, as compared with what has already been accomplished for protection, but they are as dangerous and expensive as would be an open seaport during a season of yellow fever epidemic. These gaps can be closed by the judicious placing of a few more character and habit institutions where they are needed to supplement those already established, especially in the midst of the slums of great cities, where idleness, disorder and crime are wont to breed in neglect.

These institutions would, of necessity, have to be scattered about in such a manner that no child (apprentice citizen) in need of them could escape the influence of their profitable suggestions with which to supplement or counteract the influence of suggestions received at home.

* * * * *

A perfect cordon of care is of utmost importance during the period of life following earliest perceptions, until character is beginning to crystallize, and this is the season of present neglect.

* * * * *

Public institutions should not be intended to replace family influence, but to furnish intelligent models and supplement family teaching. At the same time they would supplement sectarian Sunday schools with unsectarian every-day instruction.

* * * * *

The cause of child-culture appeals to the everyone; capitalist and estate-owner on account of ultimate economy; to Sociology on the score of duty; to humanitarians on the plea of pity; to womankind in response to the mother impulse of protection and care; and to Christians by order of the mandate, "For inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, even so have ye done it unto Me."

* * * * *

One-tenth of the present cost of guarding against disorder and the punishment of crime, applied to the intelligent care and training of children from the time of dawning perceptions until the average of ten years of age, by methods that already have been proven to be effective, would save to a community, within a single short generation, many times the amount of the original outlay, besides adding enormously to the equipment for production.

* * * * *

An immediate effect of character-school influence that is not yet sufficiently appreciated is its power to ameliorate present conditions of hopelessness and to tame and reclaim vicious and degenerate parents with insinuating ease, whereas fighting them with law and restraint at the front of their offending, and in the face of their full fledged and angry strength, only excites their antagonisms as the color of red excites the fury of bulls in the arenas of Spain.

* * * * *

Our appeal and argument are made with the hope of inspiring organization with the aim of closing all remaining gaps of neglect, so that no helpless soul, mind and body can escape intelligent care in which to properly develop the God-given equipment that is entrusted to our keeping.

The members of such an organization might appropriately be known as _Quarantinists_, in contradistinction to those who, being indifferent to neglect of children, would, with equal appropriateness, be known as _Neglectists_.

* * * * *

Every infant mentality that is born into the world is a seed from the Creator, folded in a tiny human casing, but bearing an important Divine Message relative to the progress of human civilization towards God-like ideals.

The environment Society provides for these Divine Contributions, so that they shall develop their best possibilities, is the measure of Man's duty towards their development.

Every seed is important, for some wise purpose, or the Creator would not send it, and the germ of a great soul flower may be wrapped within a humble and altogether improbable and unexpected individuality, to grow powerfully perverse, if warped at the beginning of world-life, or potently strong for good if started aright.

Society fails to do its duty to these God-sent Messages unless it endeavors to interpret and develop _each and every one_ of them with the ripest intelligence known to the Science of Child-Life, and each unit of Society fails of his duty to his Creator and to himself and to his own unless he works with his utmost strength to aid in the cultivation.

* * * * *

Child-training and child-saving experiments, within the past twenty-five years have proven by results, that there is no necessity of a Have-To-Be-Bad class of citizens, and that such a class of non-producing depredators in a community is the result of neglect, whose cost of prevention would not be a tithe of the present cost of futile attempts at correction by punishment.

* * * * *

Man reads the messages of Creation in its works, and has proven by centuries of experiment with his mental and physical equipments that while God creates all things capable of harmony, or good, Man is the one expression of His creation to whom is delegated the power of selection, direction and cultivation. God gives the force and the material, but man is given the unique capacity to aim, select, direct, cultivate and harmonize. Even the lightning, in the hands of Man, is applied to harmony and _construction_, and is diverted from discord and _destruction_.

In Man's ceaseless experimentation with his growing mental and physical equipments, and with the exterior forces of Nature, he has discovered that he can gather and direct the lightning; cultivate a skimpy wild flower into the imperial chrysanthemum; care for the elemental horse of his earliest discovery until it has developed into the "Black Beauty" of the present day; and, "last but not least," within only one brief quarter of one brief century, he has discovered that his greatest possibility of happiness lies in his power to make good and useful citizens of all his family.

Happiness is _the evidence and fruit of conscious usefulness_. Usefulness in adding to the sum of usefulness is, therefore, the best fruit of effort, and _child culture produces such fruit in abundance_.

* * * * *

God reveals, therefore, in His Work, what is not contradicted in His Word, when interpreted aright, that He creates all things good, subject to the possibility of Man to cultivate and harmonize and points out, as of first importance, a plant which has stored within it possibilities of endless further cultivation, of itself, and all else in Creation--the plant which we call a child.

Shall society do its duty to _all_ of these or only such as chance has favored with superior parentage?

Have we not arrived at the point of concrete intelligence when we should assist in the fulfillment of the prophecy, "And the Last Shall Be First," coupled with that other prophecy of the Master of our Christian Civilization, "And a Little Child Shall Lead Them."

* * * * *

And finally, the way?

_Ninety-eight per cent. of the condemned and neglected "Hopelessly submerged ten per cent. stratum"_ of cruel tradition, have been _reclaimed_ by present methods of care, and one hundred per cent. _can be saved to useful citizenship by means of prevention_ instead of correction. _One one-hundredth_ of present incomes of one-half the people saved from waste and applied to thorough quarantine will prevent the causes which now result in ten times the amount being swallowed up in futile attempts at correction by means of punishment, and which do not give either security from assault or protection from the curse of unsafe, unsanitary and uncleanly conditions.

* * * * *

The right way is the easy way and the way to work aright is to begin aright. The child is the key to the solution of the problems of social disorder or of social harmony and the kindergartners have proven themselves to be the locksmiths by whose intelligence and skill the key has been made to fit all heretofore-closed avenues leading towards hoped-for ideals.

* * * * *

Let us bless Saint Froebel and his apostles, "The Angels of the State," and the blessed institution they have reared; and by saving our waste for our waifs, give them the means needed for the regeneration of the Infinite Good and the eradication of the evils which now beset us and mar the happiness which is our natural inheritance, and without which, we know that we are bodily, mentally, morally and spiritually inadequate, and therefore, ill.

LOGICAL SEQUENCES

It is universally recognized to be the inherent right of all groups of men, beginning with the family, and holding its inviolable sacredness in the municipality, in the State and in the nation, to protect themselves against immorality, disease and disorder; but it is only when purity and harmony exist within the gates that the gates are effectively closed to that which is bred without.

There is little use to establish national or State seaport quarantine, either sanitary or social, if what is quarantined against is breeding and flourishing within the boundaries.

It is of little avail to exclude the Chinese, on account of their dull moral sense, which, it is said, precludes the possibility of good citizenship, or paupers, imbeciles and insane persons, while we are cultivating crops of similar defectives with an indifference of neglect which shows as dull moral sense among ourselves as that attributed to the Chinese, or as imbecile or insane lack of attention to first principles as could be exhibited by the leering and gibbering refuse of Europe which we turn back from our shores.