Let us consider two bits of practical evidence which refute the
hideous assumptions of Buckle, Malthus, and even the latter-day gloomy
philosophers.
The examples are but echoes of the information from all directions
where intelligent effort at character-building has been put forth. No
one will deny the universality of the application and corroboration of
this evidence without confessing inefficiency behind the effort that
has failed of its purpose.
The following is an extract from a letter written by the Hon. William
J. Van Patten, President of the Kurn Hattin Homes Farm School at
Westminster, Vermont, to the author, in answer to a question as to the
results of the New England experiment. The Kurn Hattin institution
cares for children from all over New England, but receives most of its
charges from the congested districts of the city of Boston.
President Van Patten writes: "It has been a surprise to me ever since
we started this work to find that the boys who were taken from the
worst homes, and who had, until they were rescued, been under
deplorable conditions, were readily changed to thoroughly good lads,
with no trace of the evils that came from their former environment.
This certainly carries out your thought in respect to social
quarantine, and shows that, properly done, it can be made very
effective."
The other evidence chosen is that of Chief of Police Crowley of San
Francisco, whom the author knows to be a careful observer and
conservative judge of his observations. General Brinkerhoff, of the
National Conference of Charities and Correction of Canada and the
United States, is authority for the statement of Chief Crowley, which
was in effect as follows: "I have not known of the arrest of a single
person who has had the advantage of a good kindergarten training, and
I believe that it is perfect protection against criminal
tendencies."[1]
[1] See corroborative testimony page 221.
Now here is the evidence of a distinguished philanthropist and also of
an honored and successful officer of the corrective branch of
government from widely separated communities, one of them the most
mixed in its constituent parts of any city of America, and where
frontier development has offered extreme temptation for criminal
tendencies, coupled with the fever of speculation.
In the "Report of Committee on History of Child-Saving," now
unfortunately out of print, which was published in 1893 by the
National Conference of Charities and Correction, we find a
contribution, based on the San Francisco character-building work, by
the revered, the late Sarah B. Cooper.
We esteem the paper of Mrs. Cooper so highly, as being a most
convincing argument for social quarantine, that we have begged
permission to print it as a chapter of this brief. It carries words of
burning truth that should not be "out of print," but on the contrary
should be graven deep in the memory of all citizens for whose common
good Mrs. Cooper labored in the field of practical Christian
experiment.
Mr. Hastings H. Hart, general secretary of the National Conference of
Charities and Correction, who is in close communication with six
hundred correspondents who are especially interested in child-saving
work, assures us that if there is no obstruction offered to the free
choice of children, and facilities are available for proper training,
practically all can be made useful citizens, and that by coöperation
to attain that aim, social quarantine is possible. The present
headquarters of the National Conference of Charities and Correction is
in Chicago, in the Montauk Building, 115 Monroe Street. The Conference
is doing a great work in stimulating and organizing reforms. The
annual subscription--$2.50--entitles members to the published
proceedings of the Conference, which are an epitome of the history of
progress towards social quarantine. There is no more profitable
coöperation than by means of membership in this association.
We wish to say further with reference to the comprehensiveness of Mr.
Van Patten's evidence, that his range of observation is, like that of
Mr. Hart, as wide as the country. His activities include both the
church and the political fields. He has twice been mayor of
Burlington, was the first president of the United Society of Christian
Endeavor, and is still a director; is president of the Congregational
Club of Western Vermont, as well as of the Kurn Hattin Farm School. He
was instrumental in establishing kindergarten work in his home city,
and also a Social Mission, where he and other Christians meet the
laboring people of the community on the basis of friendly and citizen
equality. But Mr. Van Patten's evidence and Mr. Hart's is the same as
that of all who have entered personally into the sympathies of
unfortunates, especially by the way of giving their children the means
of proper training, and they are as one in the belief that thorough
measures, which would effect a Perfect Social Quarantine, would rid
society entirely of the "hopelessly submerged" class, and sift out of
its present mass the diseased and incompetent, who should have the
care of an asylum instead of the curse of a prison.
One evil that follows in the wake of such a wicked assumption as that
carried in the idea of a Have-To-Be-Bad class is that it is not only a
loop-hole for willing indifference, but is a blinding influence cast
about those who are not willingly indifferent.
Under such a general assumption an earnest philanthropist or a
would-be altruist may pass expressions of deplorable misery, want or
neglect with doubt, if not with calm unconcern, under the belief that
they are of the Have-To-Bes, whereas, if there were even an attempt at
Perfect Social Quarantine no case of distress nor neglect could show
itself in a community without its becoming the business of everybody
to enquire why the social quarantine officers had not attended to
their business.
In this manner the professional beggar, the tramp, the Need-Not-Be,
and all that tribe of parasite humanity who prey upon the credulity of
unorganized charity would be discovered in their true light, and would
shrink out of sight or would be forced to seek useful occupation, if
it were to be had, or would then hold just title to public assistance
if no occupation were available.
It is well to bear in mind when considering the question of the
Have-To-Be or Need-Not-Be classes that concrete society has to care
for them in one form or another anyhow, whether they work or whether
they are idle or steal. They bring nothing with them and must live off
the land. If they do not work they live off the workers. In infancy,
the cost of caring for them in a manner supplementary only to home
care is very little, but the profit of that care increases in value in
geometrical ratio as does also the cost of the neglect of right
training.
And also, in answer to a question often asked by those who are not
informed about kindergarten efficiency, relative to securing the
willingness of parents to accept outside care for their children: The
question of voluntary or compulsory compliance on the part of parents
or children need not be feared during the earliest character-forming
age, for until the child is old enough to earn money no selfish
objection can be offered, and the greater the need, as stated
elsewhere, the more easy is the compliance accorded. As this is the
period of present neglect, as well as the time when all students of
child-life agree that the character of the adult is moulded, the
vexing question of parental control need not be raised.
The duty of social quarantine is to seek out the children of the
greatest need first and work back through the strata of misfortune to
those of fortune, in the same way that a process of cleansing should
first use a shovel, then a broom, and finally a wash rag and a
polishing cloth.
The habit-of-thought of a community aiming at quarantine efficiency
will become impregnated with the idea that there _Must-Not-Be_
unwholesome units in their midst as soon as it has been delivered of
the evil suggestion of the necessity of a Have-To-Be-Bad class, for it
is wonderful what the mere change of a point of view will effect.
On the question of the virtue, or merit, of Strict Social Quarantine,
there seems to be no difference of opinion about the desirability of
the aim, and the efficacy of available means to accomplish it has
already been established.
We have heard it said that the kindergarten method is splendidly
adapted to the children of the poor but not to the children of the
rich in America, because rich children are petted beyond endurance,
and have toys in such lavish abundance, that even instructive
amusements and wholesome care are but a burden when added to home
superfluities. This may easily be so, as there is a point of surfeit
in everything, even in the best of nourishment, but it is proof of the
wisdom of a wider distribution of the effort so as to really nourish
instead of causing a surfeit of care.
It is not the rich and the strong and the healthy that need the direct
care of social quarantine, but its rescues from among the presently
neglected and warped defenseless ones would create a wave of average
improvement of ideals that would be felt in the most luxurious homes
to the benefit of the pampered possessors of fortune's birth prizes.
At the present moment, the summer of 1898, there rests in the custody
of the mayor of Chicago, Hon. Carter H. Harrison, 2nd, a report of a
special commission appointed by him to recommend changes in the
educational methods of the city of Chicago and the county of Cook,
that are intended to bring them up to the level of the highest ideals.
Among the recommendations it is advised that an ample kindergarten
shall be attached to every school, and that there shall always be
school facilities so that every child of school age shall have a seat
at his disposal. The recommendations relative to the higher branches
of education do not concern our present argument, but the suggestion
relative to extending kindergarten facilities is of the greatest
importance.
The mayor and a majority of the aldermen are believed to hold the
welfare of the community they govern in earnest care, so that it is a
good time to strengthen their hands to do the best and completest
thing in the way of reform while changes are being made, and to insist
on nothing less than Strict Social Quarantine to protect all the
children of tender ages in order that the work of reform may begin
_now_, at the root, and insure a generation of eager students and
workers to use the splendid facilities, already supplied, when they
arrive at school age.
It is not necessary to wait for the construction of fine buildings,
and there will be ready for any need a competent army, if required, to
take up the work of training.[2]
[2] In the city of Saint Louis, at the end of the 1896
school-year, there were seventy-one volunteer
kindergartners, and the length of the waiting list of the
training schools precluded promise of even volunteer
appointments for three years to come. This is but an
illustration of the trend of interest in the direction of
character-building school employment.
Many young women are beginning to learn that _true happiness is the
evidence and fruit of conscious usefulness_, and that the work of
the kindergarten and industrial schools, in producing conscious good
results, creates much happiness and enthusiasm in their devotees, and
they are being drawn to appreciate, and will eagerly participate in,
so pleasurable an occupation,--the only one that quite satisfies the
mother impulse within them.
It is also a recognized fact, as an outgrowth of the development of
character-school training, that no other preliminary experience is so
good in fitting a young woman for the duties of married life as a
course of kindergarten study; and, furthermore, there is no part of
the kindergarten work that is not useful, in its simple
suggestiveness, to anyone, of no matter what sex or age.
This is not, however, a plea for any particular system of pedagogy,
although the method of Froebel seems to merit all praise, but for the
recognition of the fact that Character-Building and Habit-Forming
schools should be appreciated as the _most important branches of
government_ and not as minor branches of education, and that _they
should be supported as becoming the nurseries of good citizenship_.
Don't wait for fine buildings; any habitable room in the deepest part
of a slum, cleaned and whitened to suggest Godliness, such as have
already been used effectively for mission kindergartens is better than
nothing, and sometimes better than the best, for the initial work of
redemption.