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.