month of this wild life makes him a little less fit to keep his place in
the community. He has had his last chance.”
Yet there was one ray of hope, for James lived in and out of Boston,
which is fortunate in having the Newton Technical High School. Here let
me say, by way of explanation, that the Newton Technical High School
is a part of the school system presided over by F. E. Spaulding,[1] a
veritable wizard in the organization and direction of educational work.
Among his many “queer” ideas, Mr. Spaulding believes that children of
high school age should be in the high school, whether they have passed
their eight years of grade work or not. An absurd theory? Well, perhaps;
but the first year he put this theory into practice, Mr. Spaulding
transferred seventy fifteen-year-old boys and girls from the seventh and
eighth grades, where they had learned the art of failing, to the high
school building, where they were to be taught success.
Grouped in special classes, these “grade-floaters” devoted more than
half their time to technical work—cooking, sewing, shopwork and machine
work—and the remainder to academic subjects. So prepared more than
two-thirds of the youngsters entered the high school on probation in the
same class with their former seventh and eighth grade school-fellows, who
had spent all their time the previous year at academic work. Here was the
test—could these children who had been devoting three-fifths of their
time to technical activities keep pace with children from the regular
grades?
At the end of the first quarter, when the marks of all the pupils in the
school were analyzed, it was found that the 800 scholars had an average
of .54 of one failure for each pupil. The twenty-seven girls who were
promoted on probation had .17 of one failure each, only a third as many
as the school at large. Of the seventeen boys promoted on trial, only
one failed and in but one subject. The probationers had therefore made
records which were, as a whole, far superior to the records made by the
average pupils in the high school.
These facts, pretty generally known in educational circles in and around
Boston, led James’ custodians to propose to the judge that he give James
one more trial, this time in the Newton Technical High School. The judge
agreed to the suggestion, and James, a dismal eighth-grade failure,
entered the Newton Technical High School in one of the special transfer
classes.
James began life badly. His mother died when he was young, and his
father, a rather indifferent man, boarded the boy out during his early
years with an aunt. She first spoiled him through indulgence, and then,
inconsistently enough, hated him because he was spoiled. Growing up in
this uncongenial atmosphere, James became entirely uncontrollable. He was
disagreeable in the extreme, wild and unmanageable.
The people with whom James was boarding grew tired of his continued
truancy, and he was placed on a farm near Boston. There, too, he was
discontented, dissatisfied and disobedient. Time after time he ran away
to Boston. He went from bad to worse, falling in with vagrants, learning
their talk and their ways, acquiring a love for wandering, and a distaste
for regularity and direction. Taken into custody by the juvenile court
and placed on probation with a family outside of Boston, James again ran
away, mingling with a crowd of his old associates in Boston. It was at
this point that the court decided to send him to the reform school. Then
it was that an understanding friend took him in charge, found him a home
in Newton, and started his life anew in the Technical High School.
That was how the record stood a while ago. How does it stand now?
Promoted to the regular freshman class on trial, James has renewed his
interest in education and shows an entirely new trait. He does not
exactly dote on all his work, but he is doing it and doing it well. He
hated school before. The new deal is different, he even likes it at times.
He has found something to interest him. The boy was just bursting with
the need of expressing his self, his personality. The street gave his
worst half its chance. Now the better stuff that is in him is getting its
opportunity and he is taking it.
Good and evil are always contending for the boy as for the man, and the
function of education is to give the good the better chance. If there be
stale pedagogues who do not understand, let them take notice, for after
all the boy is the one to be considered.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See One Dollar in the Educational Market, THE SURVEY for May 24, 1913.
BOOKS
THE NECESSARY EVIL
By Charles Rann Kennedy Harper and Brothers. 110 pp. Price
$1.00; by mail of THE SURVEY $1.08.
THE BLINDNESS OF VIRTUE
By Cosmo Hamilton. George H. Doran Co. 127 pp. Price $1.00; by
mail of THE SURVEY $1.07.
Charles Rann Kennedy has again in The Necessary Evil given us a strong
though unpleasant play. It is an appeal to the young girl growing into
womanhood to consider what the desecration of that womanhood means, and
a demand that she refuse to allow herself to be sold either into the
prostitution of the street or that of a moneyed, loveless marriage.
John Heron, a composer, living in his music, his daughter and in the
memory of his wife, is a man apart from the problems of the day. His
daughter, just entering womanhood, has been for years an invalid, living
in her father’s music and her books.
We meet them on her birthday. They are waiting for her brother’s return
from the outside world in celebration of the day. The girl, filled
with wonder at the beauty of life, with thankfulness for her recovered
health, stands looking out of the window while her father plays Brahms’
Intermezzo Op. 118, No. 6. A woman passing in the street attracted by the
music looks up and their eyes meet. In the woman’s eyes is the misery
of all the fallen women since the creation, and it seems to the girl to
carry a direct appeal for help. The music stops, and to her questioning
the father tells her of her mother’s life of sacrifice for these erring
sisters and of her death from a broken heart. It is the girl’s first
knowledge of evil. Just here her brother comes.
In her joy over his return the woman is forgotten, but while they are at
the birthday supper the woman comes in with her message of the misery of
the lives of her lost sisters; her plea for a union between man and woman
that is mental and spiritual, beyond the physical, and her demand for the
love and pity of the girl’s innocence for her companions.
Were this scene handled by any less masterly hand than Mr. Kennedy’s it
would be impossible; but in his messenger we find again that same note
of mysticism that has characterized his other plays. We cannot, however,
but sympathize with the girl’s brother in his indignation that his sister
should have the veil so ruthlessly torn from her eyes. Surely we can
teach our girls the sanctity and beauty of marriage without taking away
their joy in living.
Approach the problem, however, from whatever road we will, it always
comes back to the one fundamental question—What right have parents to let
their children grow to manhood or womanhood without the knowledge that is
their right?
During the past few seasons we have had many plays on sex problems. Some
of them have been strong, virile, excellently written, from both an
acting and a literary point of view, but they have failed to waken in
their hearers any sense of personal responsibility towards the problem
presented. This is due mainly to the fact that they have dealt with
unusual situations or a too sordid group. The average listener feels
sorry for the victim with the same impersonal feeling that is aroused by
the reading of similar horrors in the daily press.
But this is not so in Cosmo Hamilton’s strong play—The Blindness of
Virtue. The scene is laid in the vicarage of a small rural parish outside
of London—but it might as truly be outside of New York. The Reverend
Harry Pemberton and his wife, lovable examples of the broad human element
of the church, in their zeal to do their duty by God’s unfortunate
children are leaving to a very lonely life their one child, a girl just
reaching womanhood, anxious to try her wings, to be doing, to be helping,
but sheltered by her parents from any conflict with the world and its
problems.
Into this household comes young Archie Graham, sent down by his father,
the minister of education, to read with the vicar. Archie is given
a thoroughly bad character by this father, who has been too busy
legislating for the education of the masses to have had time to help in
the development of his motherless son.
By the second act a charming love interest has developed between the boy
who, under the warmth of the vicar’s trust and companionship, has grown
every inch a man, and the girl—unconscious on her part, realized on his
as something to be worthy of.
In this act, Mary Ann Lemmins, a village girl, who was lost eight months
previous, comes to see the vicar.
_The Vicar_: “Why didn’t he marry you, Mary Ann?”
_Mary Ann_: “’E ’a got a wife. I was to blame fer this, ’e
said. Me knowing nothing—’e explained it all right to me—Me
knowing nothing, and what it all meant—brought it about. If I’d
a bin told when I was old enough to understand I should a sent
him away ’e says, double quick, and saved ’im and me and the
little one. ’E says as how if we was taught to think, and knew
as much as the man, there’d be very little of this ’ere trouble
fer us. It’s the mother first, ’e says, and then us, who is ter
blame.”
With his eyes opened to what a parent’s responsibilities should be, the
vicar calls his wife and begs that she give Effie the knowledge which
would protect her. The mother brings every old-time argument behind which
false modesty has hidden for years to prove that Effie should not be
told. “Girls must learn for themselves. My mother never told me.” Only
when he insists that if she does not tell Effie he will, does she agree
to do so that night. She delays, however, and a few mornings later the
father finds Effie in Archie’s bedroom, quite innocently come to hear
of his trip to London the previous day. The vicar, refusing to believe
that his daughter, knowing what he thinks her mother has told her, could
have come to the room voluntarily, accuses the boy of having enticed her
there. A violent quarrel between the two men ends the act. But in the
last act the vicar learns that the young people have acted innocently,
and it all ends happily.
The play is beautifully written, the characters so human, so lovable,
that one feels grateful to Mr. Hamilton for having introduced us to them.
It is by far the strongest and most convincing appeal for sex education
that has yet been written for the stage. One cannot imagine any parent
who has been blind to his duty, as had been the vicar, not crying with
him, “My child might have been Mary Ann.”
The Blindness of Virtue should do much good. It might be considered the
cause to effect as shown in Brieux’ Damaged Goods.
OLIVE CROSBY.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR VOCATIONAL TRAINING IN BOSTON
The Women’s Municipal League of Boston. 300 pp.
Some excitement has been aroused in the ranks of those who are interested
in vocational guidance to youths by the conclusion of several students
of the subject that young people between fourteen and sixteen need to be
guided into further training rather than into gainful occupations. If
this conclusion be correct a distinct service will be rendered by listing
and analyzing existing opportunities for vocational training. Without
committing itself to either point of view, the Women’s Municipal League
of Boston has pioneered by compiling a handbook of such opportunities in
that city.
For the purposes of this book vocational training is defined as “any
education the controlling purpose of which is to fit for profitable
employment.” It is obvious that in any attempt to analyze and
discriminate among agencies offering vocational education, the value
of the work will be determined largely by the manner in which it is
conducted. The investigations for this treatise were done mainly by
students from Harvard, Radcliffe and Wellesley Colleges, from the School
for Social Workers, and from Boston University. Their work, says the
preface, was closely supervised. A tentative chart made from the written
reports of the students was subjected to the comparative scrutiny of the
heads of all the schools concerned. Before the final charts were made
conferences were held with experts in each type of education listed.
Besides an alphabetical list of 292 subjects taught in vocational schools
and classes in Boston, the book contains classified information regarding
professional schools, commercial schools, industrial schools and schools
for training in the household arts. Both public and private schools are
included. Among industrial schools are included pre-vocational, manual
training, trade, technical and other improvement schools. With regard
to each school the book tells briefly its purpose, courses, admission
requirements, tuition, season, and what the school undertakes in the way
of placing its students.
A supplement lists organized opportunities for training for the
physically handicapped in Massachusetts, opportunities for vocational
training in settlements and other social centers and organized
opportunities for finding employment.
WINTHROP D. LANE.
SOCIALISM SUMMED UP
By MORRIS HILLQUIT. The H. K. Fly Co. 110 pp. Price $1.00; by
mail of THE SURVEY $1.06.
THE TRUTH ABOUT SOCIALISM
By ALLAN L. BENSON. B. W. Huebsch. 188 pp. Price $1.00; by mail
of THE SURVEY $1.10.
SOCIALISM AND DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE
By SAMUEL P. ORTH. Henry Holt. 352 pp. Price $1.50; by mail of
THE SURVEY $1.62.
MY LIFE
By AUGUST BEBEL. The University of Chicago Press. 343 pp. Price
$2.00; by mail of THE SURVEY $2.14.
FURTHER REMINISCENCES
By H. M. HYNDMAN. The Macmillan Co. 545 pp. Price $5.00; by
mail of THE SURVEY $5.20.
THE LARGER ASPECTS OF SOCIALISM
By WILLIAM ENGLISH WALLING. The Macmillan Co. 406 pp. Price
$1.50; by mail of THE SURVEY $1.63.
The chapters of Mr. Hillquit’s summary of the principles of Socialism
and the industrial conditions, which, in his opinion, make its coming
inevitable, appeared in the _Metropolitan Magazine_. As its name
indicates, this little book of 110 pages makes no original contributions
to the subject; in it one of the best known of American Socialists
presents in a style which, though dry, is easy to understand, the
forces that have made Socialists; their aims; the program of practical
reform through legislation favored by the party; something of the
accomplishments of international Socialism; and a short resume of its
history in America. Socialism, as presented by Mr. Hillquit, is a purely
political movement. The best presentation of its immediate aims and its
methods of accomplishing them is given in the chapter entitled Political
Program.
* * * * *
Mr. Benson’s book, The Truth About Socialism, covers the same ground as
Mr. Hillquit’s and was written originally for _Pearson’s Magazine_. It is
more picturesque and readable in style, as Mr. Benson is magazine writer
even before Socialist, and deals with the subject less methodically.
An introductory chapter covers the general principles of Socialism and
succeeding chapters deal with the objections to Socialism. Further
chapters take up its bearing on the vital questions of the day and
contrast the radical and the Socialist plans of meeting these problems.
As for the practical method of attaining the industrial commonwealth,
Mr. Benson appears to favor compensation for industries taken over by
the government and the payment to employes in these industries of wages
commensurate with their services.
Neither Mr. Hillquit’s nor Mr. Benson’s book are intended to cover the
subject thoroughly or to do more than is the legitimate function of
magazine articles—to arouse the reader’s interest so that he will himself
attempt to learn more.
* * * * *
Mr. Orth in Socialism and Democracy in Europe, has presented a good
review of the accomplishments of international Socialism under the
dominance of an opportunist parliamentarian policy. He has well presented
the relations, conscious and unconscious, of the practical evolutionary
Socialism of today with the radical or liberal movements of the various
European countries. The mass of facts which he has gathered together
into small compass bear careful study. They cover the development of
radicalism, political Socialism and syndicalism in France; of the
co-operative and political sides of the Belgian Socialist movement as
well as their frequent use of the direct action of the general strike
to gain political rights; the development of the German Socialist
movement in the political field and the German trade union movement;
and the history of the Independent Labor Party and of the liberalism of
Lloyd-George in England.
Such a book as Mr. Orth’s tends to confirm the more inflexible theorists
of the class struggle in their contention that Socialism should, if it is
to retain its separate existence as a revolutionary movement, be able to
suggest the rough outlines of an industrial commonwealth of the future
which shall be convincingly different from the bureaucratic “Socialistic”
state toward which Mr. Orth evidently believes the Socialist and radical
movements of the various European countries are moving. Constructive
Socialism has, up to this time, meant the outlining of the successive
steps in a program looking toward the Socialist state. Now that many of
the “immediate demands” of Socialist platforms have been taken over by
other parties, the next step for Socialists is to show what is the social
structure toward which they are working.
* * * * *
In My Life, the first volume of his autobiography, August Bebel, the most
prominent figure in the German Socialist movement, covers in Germany
practically the same period that the first volume of H. M. Hyndman’s
reminiscences, reviewed on this page, covers in England. It stops in
1878 with the beginning of the persecution of Socialists and with reform
legislation by the government, dictated by the ideas of the Socialist
Lasalle and prompted partly by the fear of Socialism, then at their
height.
Autobiography is not history, but it throws an invaluable sidelight
on history. Supplemented by the compact review of the history of that
period of German Socialism in Professor Orth’s book. Bebel’s life
becomes absorbingly interesting. It tells of his own development, of
his practical work in the non-Socialist German labor movement and of
his conversion to Socialism. Last of all comes his subsequent part
in the struggle between the opportunist Socialism of Lasalle and the
revolutionary Socialism of Marx, ending in that compromise between
the two wings in 1875 which made the modern German movement. Equally
interesting is the story of the first acts of Bismarck’s bitter
persecution of Socialism, which had much to do with bringing these two
wings together and which gave its greatest impetus to the growth of the
party’s membership in Germany.
Some of the details of the persecution are worth repeating. In 1878 two
attempts were made on the emperor’s life. Neither was by a Socialist
but they were used, nevertheless, as an excuse for persecution. The
first effort to suppress Socialism by legislation was a failure, but the
government found other means of making it undesirable to belong to the
party. Under laws of _lese majeste_ and other laws, in the first half of
1878 the prison sentences of Socialists arrested in a certain section of
North Germany amounted to 500 or 600 years. Bebel gives the following
general account of conditions:
“Thousands and thousands of workers who were known to be Social
Democrats were summarily dismissed. The newspapers published in
their advertisement columns declarations signed by working-men
who engaged themselves for the future not to join any Socialist
organization, not to buy or read Social-Democratic papers,
not to pay contributions for Social-Democratic purposes. This
terrorism on the part of the employers became so violent that
our papers advised members to sign anything they were asked to
sign, but afterwards to do as they liked, because, in face of
such terrorism, they were not bound to keep such pledges. This
terrorism even went farther; patriotic houseowners gave notice
to their Social-Democratic tenants, and restaurant-keepers who
for years had been only too glad to have Social-Democrats for
their customers asked them to keep off their premises.”
The pre-Socialist period of Bebel’s life is no less interesting than his
part in the movement. His vivid account of the bitter poverty of his
childhood—the days when his “highest ambition was to be able to eat his
fill of bread and butter”—is almost enough to account for his subsequent
development into a revolutionary Socialist. Throughout almost the whole
period covered by this volume, indeed, Bebel combined a bitter struggle
for the livelihood of his family with a keen and unrelenting fight to
establish a state of society which should do away with poverty.
* * * * *
The second volume of the memoirs of that old warhorse of English
Socialism, H. M. Hyndman, is as delightfully readable as was the first,
published a year ago. It is not, like Bebel’s life, an orderly record of
his activities as a Socialist propagandist, for this is but one, though
the most important, side of Hyndman’s life. From the time he lost his
hereditary fortune because of his espousal of Socialism he has been a
hard working but unfortunately not a very successful business man and at
the same time an indefatigable Socialist agitator.
In his judgment of people and events he sometimes shows flashes of
insight; though he is by no means judicial but always dogmatic,
“opinionated,” and not infrequently wrong-headed. In his facts, though
he has a marvelous store of knowledge—frequently indeed, inside
information—he is often inaccurate.
In no affairs but those of America, however, are his facts fundamentally
wrong, and this complete and amusing ignorance of American affairs he
shares with a large part of the English press. Of those few American
Socialists whom he happens to know personally his characterizations are
interesting. Among them is William D. Haywood, who in his opinion is the
“most thorough-going and one of the most determined working-class leaders
I have ever met, and I have come across a good many.”
An illustration of Hyndman’s tendency to be “opinionated” is his
attitude toward the worldwide movement of which Haywood is the American
representative. “Syndicalism,” he says, “is scarcely worth criticizing,”
and his whole criticism of the philosophy of the new labor movement
runs in this vein. Nevertheless, he is appreciative of the personality
and influence of the leading exponent of syndicalism in England, Tom
Mann, whom he regards “as the boldest, most vehement, and most stirring
agitator and organiser” he has ever known.
In the great English strikes of the last two years Hyndman was evidently
less impressed than most observers by the solidarity of the workers, and
he even appears to criticize the democratic control of those strikes
which was their other distinguishing characteristic. Perhaps this is
because he himself has always been somewhat autocratic in his leadership
of the Social-Democratic federation, and thus tends to regard leaders as
unduly important.