That Last Waif; or, Social Quarantine

I tell you, friends, we do not half comprehend the importance of looking after the unfortunate children of our streets. What said the great and good Teacher on this subject? "Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of My Father who is in heaven." And when I see the neglected, sad-faced, prematurely old, weary-eyed little ones, in the purlieus of vice and crime, there is just one thought, that comes like a ray of sunlight through the rifts of cloud, and it is this: There is not one of these uncombed, unwashed, untaught little pensioners of care that has not some kind angel heart that is pitying it in the heavens above. Parents may be harsh and brutal, communities may be cold and neglectful; but the angels must ever regard them with eyes luminous with tender pity.

What shall we do with these children? Good people everywhere should combine to care for them and teach them. Churches should make it an important part of their work to look after them. The law of self-preservation, if no higher law, demands that they should be looked after. How shall they be looked after? By establishing free kindergartens in every destitute part of large cities.

Said a wealthy tax-payer to me recently, as he paid me his monthly kindergarten subscription: "Mrs. Cooper, this work among the children is the best work that can be done. I give you this aid most gladly. I consider it an investment for my children. I would rather give five dollars a month to educate these children than to have my own taxed ten times that amount by and by to sustain prisons and penitentiaries." This was the practical view of a practical business man—a man of wise forethought and of generous, genial impulses. Many needy children have been turned back into the street, to learn all its vice and crime, who could not find accommodation in the different charity kindergartens. I tell you this is a fact of momentous import to any community. Remember that from a single neglected child in a wealthy county in the State of New York there has come a notorious stock of criminals, vagabonds and paupers, imperilling every dollar's worth of property and every individual in the community. Not less than twelve hundred persons have been traced as the lineage of six children who were born of this one perverted and depraved woman, who was once a pure, sweet, dimpled little child, and who, with proper influences thrown about her at a tender age, might have given to the world twelve hundred progeny who would have blest their day and generation. Look at the tremendous fact involved! In neglecting to train this one child to ways of virtue and well-doing, the descendants of the respectable neighbors of that child have been compelled to endure the depredations, and support in almshouses and prisons, scores of her descendants for six generations! If the people of this country would protect the virtue of their children, their persons from murder, their property from theft, or their wealth from a heavy tax to support paupers and criminals, they must provide a scheme of education that will not allow a single youth to escape its influence. And, to effect the surest and best results, these children must be reached just as early in life as possible. The design of the kindergarten system is to prevent criminals. And what estimate shall be placed upon an instrumentality which saves the child from becoming a criminal, and thus not only saves the State from the care and expense incident to such reform, but also secures to the State all that which the life of a good citizen brings to it? Think of the vast difference in results, had there been twelve hundred useful, well-equipped men and women at work in that county in New York, building it up in productive industries, instead of twelve hundred paupers and criminals tearing down and defiling the fair heritage! We have but to look at this significant fact to estimate the value of a single child to the commonwealth.

The true kindergartner proceeds upon the principle asserted by Froebel, that every child is a child of nature, a child of man, and a child of God, and that education can fulfil its mission only when it views the human being in this threefold relation, and takes each into account. In other words, the true kindergartner regards with scrupulous care the physical, the intellectual, and the moral. "You cannot," says Froebel, "do heroic deeds in words, or by talking about them; but you can educate a child to self-activity and to well-doing, and through these to a faith which will not be dead." The child in the kindergarten is not only told to be good, but inspired by help and sympathy to be good. The kindergarten child is taught to manifest his love in deeds rather than in words; and a child thus taught never knows lip-service, but is led forward to that higher form of service where their good works glorify the Father, thus proving Froebel's assertion to be true, where he says, "I have based my education on religion, and it must lead to religion." The little child, after all, is the important factor in this universe.

When the old king demanded of the Spartans fifty of their children as hostages, they replied, "We would prefer to give you a hundred of our most distinguished men." This was but a fair testimony to the everlasting value of the child to any commonwealth and to any age. The hope of the world lies in the children. The hope of this nation lies in the little children that throng the streets to-day. Is it no small question, then, "What shall we do with our children?" It seems to me that the very best work that can be done for the world is work with the children. We talk a vast deal about the work of reclamation and restoration, reformatory institutions and the like; and all this is well, but far better is it to begin at the beginning. The best physicians are not those who only follow disease, but those who, as far as possible, go ahead and prevent it. They seek to teach the community the laws of health,—how not to get sick.

We too often start out on the principle that actuated the medical tyro who was working, might and main, over a patient burning up with fever. When gently entreated to know what he was doing, he snappishly replied: "Doing? Why, I'm trying to throw this man into a fit. I don't know much about curing fevers, but I'm death on fits. Just let me get him into a fit, and I'll fetch him!" It seems to me we often go on the same principle: we work harder in laying plans to redeem those who have fallen than to save others from falling. We seem to take it for granted that a certain condition of declension must be reached before we can work to advantage. I repeat again what I have said before—we do not begin soon enough with the children. It seems to me that both Church and State have yet to learn the vast import of those matchless words of the great Teacher Himself, where He said, pointing to a little child, "He that receiveth him in My name receiveth Me." He said it because, with omniscient vision, He saw the wondrous, folded-away possibilities imprisoned within the little child.

Now, I do not propose to go into the rationale of the kindergarten system at all on this occasion; but I do wish to emphasize a few salient points; and, first, that the kindergarten aims at the cultivation of the heart. As its great founder himself declared, its regnant aim is to guide the heart and soul in the right direction, and lead them to the Creator of all life, and to personal union with Him. As I before said, the kindergarten is the paradise of childhood, the gate through which the little children may re-enter Eden. The law of duty is recognized by the little ones as the law of love. Froebel recognized the Divine Spirit as the true developing power. His theory was that the human heart can only be satisfied with the consciousness of the love of a personal God and Father, to whom we can pray and speak. He said religious education was more than religious instruction. It was his aim to lead the little ones to their heavenly Friend. He taught them to love one another, to help one another, to be kind to one another, to care for one another. No one can love God who does not love his fellows. Froebel grieved over the criminal classes. We say again, the design of the kindergarten is to Prevent criminals. And what estimate shall be placed upon an instrumentality which saves the child from becoming a criminal, and so saves the State from the care and expense incident to such reform, and secures to the State all that which the life of a good citizen brings to it?

The State begins too late when it permits the child to enter the public school at six years of age. It is locking the stable door after the horse is stolen.

One of the most distinguished writers on the law of heredity, Doctor Maudsley, says: "It is certain that lunatics and criminals are as much manufactured articles as are steam-engines and calico printing machines, only the processes of the organic manufactory are so complex that we are not able to follow them. They are neither accidents nor anomalies in the universe, but come by law and testify to causality; and it is the business of science to find out what the causes are, and by what laws they work." A republic that expects to survive, and to increase in power and greatness, must see to it that she does not carry within her the seeds of her own dissolution. It remains forever true of nations, as of individuals, that ignorance and crime breed dissolution and death.

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

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

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

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.

Care begets care as surely as carelessness begets carelessness. A house-wife who presides in a tidy home will hasten to close all openings when there is a dust storm raging without. This is too axiomatic to enlarge upon, but the illustration is strong. It is only when we have perfected the character of our own Apprentice Citizens, by giving them every chance to develop whatever qualities they bring with them from our mutual Creator, by the best methods known to the Science of Child-Culture, that we can appreciably feel any good results of closing our ports to the defective and neglected children of China or Europe. It can only be when we are ourselves free from expressions of criminal neglect that we can preach to the world except in the form of a paraphrased adaptation of the saying of a political economist of the saloon persuasion to a solicitor for a waif's home, which was as follows: "Let the blokes as breeds vermin look out for their vermin. I ain't got no sugar for the kids of such."

It will only be when we have attended to our own national first principles—our Cadet Citizens—that we can notice imported dullards and perverts among us by contrast with our own product.

When we have applied the thoroughness demanded by our highest intelligence in character culture we can close our gates to the bad characters of all the world, and say, with good grace and effect: "No! No! friends. We respect the sacred title of 'Brother,' we believe in brotherhood, and hope for the time when the mandate of Christ shall be fulfilled in the establishment of a Universal Brotherhood of Man, but let us begin to accomplish it in the right way. We have learned how to cultivate the children the Creator sends us in such a way as to make perfect chrysanthemums of good citizens out of the skimpiest little wild flowers of waifs that have heretofore languished in neglect on stony wastes, unnourished and uncared for. We have yet some little gardening—kindergartening—to attend to before we are ready to open our National Character Exposition, and in the meantime we will ask you to excuse us from the usual conventionalities of old-time methods while we start the brotherhood idea to propagating right here at home where we can watch it. It will take about three or four years to organize a Mother Branch of Government, raise and drill a sufficient army of "Angels of the State" and make them efficient kindergartners, and five years more to get rid of the criminals and perverts of the present time, either by conversion under the warmth of a new point-of-view that will throw a mantle of charity over their past ill-doing, or by certain death which will seek them as victims within that time, if they are helplessly lost to reform.

"Let us see—four years and five years are nine years. We have just cleared the home, as well as the foreign, atmosphere of certain impurities, of lack of respect for us on account of our granger and commercial habits of prosperity, as if by a flash of lightning, so that we may work in peace and have plenty of time in the next decade to prepare for the exposition which we will offer to the world under the name of United States and Canadian Character Exposition and Peace Jubilee. When we have opened our exhibit and given our object lesson, after the manner of the kindergarten, we can say to the world: "Come and see what we have done with material gathered from all your lands and nations. Not one race or national ingredient has been omitted from our brew. What God makes is good and within the power of man to cultivate into usefulness, and here is the proof of it. Now go home and do likewise within your own national boundaries, and when you have produced good material for brotherhood send it to us and we will welcome it, but until then, the purity of our own establishment demands that we refuse your neglects who are already too set in perversion to be easily reformed.

"Good friends of China and of India and of Africa and of the Islands of the Sea, or any of the so-called semi-civilized or uncivilized peoples of our earth, we will send you missionaries and show you how to cultivate what you have as well as the quality of the material will permit, and we will supply all the world with an object lesson, but we cannot take your defectives as boarders in our family."

As a logical sequence of a Strict Social Quarantine it is possible for any civilized nation to make such an exhibit as given in the illustration in ten years, for the area of neglect is very small in which idleness and disorder and criminality breed, although the area of disturbance caused is as wide as the world. We say ten years as a measure of possibility on the authority of proved results, but fifteen years is a most reasonable time to settle as an aim if attempted by a majority co-operation.

It has been said that God never hurries. This is true when the contrast is made between our unit of time and our idea of eternity, but when His pure atmosphere has been encumbered with intolerable inconsistencies, He flashes the lightning, and calls the attention of the world to it by loud thunder.

In our opinion it is time that lightning should clear our social atmosphere. We have been shown the way and the fuse has been put in our hand. There is no difference of opinion as to there being impurities in the social atmosphere, and methods of purification have been proven to be effective and have been approved by social chemists who have intelligently investigated. No creed, no political party, no class interest, no selfish interest, nothing! opposes the giving of babies a chance to develop their best possibilities, while the cost of it, lavish though it may be in the beginning, is a better investment than any other, not only to the Commonwealth, but to each contributing unit; to you, and to me, and to our children.

Fellow Citizens, do you not see and smell and feel the impurities in our social atmosphere? Do you not realize, even if you are indifferent yourself, that your children are breathing and are being morally and spiritually asphyxiated by this atmosphere? With the fuse placed in your hand and the promise of the Master of our Civilization that "Of Such is the Kingdom of Heaven"; the heaven that we are seeking, can you resist applying the fuse? Do you not think it is time to lighten, when we know that the bolt of destruction will consume only the evils which now environ us and our own children? Are we not agreed? Yes! We are agreed! Then touch the fuse and let the lightning strike! Some children are now perishing, and we know it, and the means of rescue are at hand. The responsibility now is ours. Then, again, our responsibility demands it, IT MUST LIGHTEN!!

APPENDIX

  IT HAS BEGUN—DEDICATION

IT HAS BEGUN

Since the foregoing pages were electrotyped two incidents of the utmost importance and of the greatest significance are reported. That relative to disarmament at the suggestion of the Tzar of All the Russias is startling and most gratifying, but it is of no greater significance to the progress of civilization than the revival of interest in first principles in elementary education in the United States. There is activity in many directions and several cities have quietly made important additions to their facilities for the training of little children, even while popular interest has been absorbed in the excitement of war.

The example of the city of Chicago, the city of rapid change and of great results, in securing the services of a very distinguished educator from the head of a university to take charge of her public schools and the expressed attitude of this master of "higher education" toward elementary education "from the kindergarten up," may be given as a typical illustration.

Dr. E. Benjamin Andrews, in assuming charge of the Chicago public schools as superintendent gave free expression of his opinion relative to the problem he was called to solve. One report is as follows:

"Doctor, will you please give, for publication, your ideas concerning the schools as you now understand the question?"

"Certainly, and with pleasure. In the first place, and of first importance, I understand that rapid growth and a somewhat unsettled population has found the city unprepared for the care of all the small children. There are twenty thousand children of primary school age for whom there are no seats in school. I believe in applying first and unremitting effort to starting children right in their life career, and this must be done by especial care for elementary education from the kindergarten up."

"Do you consider French, German, drawing, manual-training, domestic science and other uncommon branches to be 'fads' of some educators and not suitable or necessary departments of public education?"

"I do not. All branches of learning are useful, and should be available to any who seek them, but none of the other branches should be supported at the sacrifice of the elementary branches."

During the preparation of this appeal for a Perfect Social Quarantine which shall allow no child to escape intelligent care, the early galley proofs of the work were sent to a large number of persons, representing many different points-of-view, who are engaged in educational, correctional, political and business affairs in this country and in England for criticism and suggestions. The responses have been generous and much of the argument, as it stands, is based upon this testimony. While the book is in press, however, further responses are flooding in, which show the interest of all persons in the thorough aim appealed for. Those who have diverse ideas relative to grown-up questions of competitive interest are of one mind relative to giving babies a chance to develop the best there is in them. It is recognized that, under present conditions of neglect, there are children born who "have no show on earth" to be good and useful citizens. It is also recognized that while one such example of neglect remains or is possible a nation has no good title or claim to the distinction of being called a civilized country. She can only be classed as "partly civilized," while there is one known case of neglect.

Of especial importance are the suggestions and data collected and sent to the author from London by Julian Ralph, Esq., and promise of "a substitution of a heavy backing of easily obtainable facts for the appeals, which would render them unnecessary," from Prof. Graham Taylor, of the University of Chicago, and of the Chicago Commons Social Settlement.

These must form a separate book, for they are too extended for the present volume, although their evidence adds valuable support.

The history of child-training and child-saving in the United States is that of a discovery and wonderful development of latent forces, whose cultivation or neglect produces more happiness or more unhappiness, as the case may be, than any other source of power.

Child-saving, in this country on an extensive scale, was inaugurated by Mr. Charles L. Brace, of New York, followed soon after by the Catholic Protectory under the care of the Paulist Brotherhood, and child-training was introduced from Germany into the United States by Elizabeth Peabody, of Boston.

About the same time Dr. Thomas J. Barnardo, of London, established the "Dr. Barnardo Homes," whose chronicles during thirty-two years show only 1.84 per cent. of failure to make good children of the worst product of city slums.[9]

The world owes these altruists, and all who have followed in the development of their work, a debt of happy gratitude.

The title of "Angels of the State," given to kindergartners, is borrowed from a charming little book by the Rev. Frank Sewall, of Washington, D.C.

 [9]

Within the past twenty-six years nine thousand five hundred and fifty-six trained boys and girls, the flower of my flock, have been placed out in situations in the Colonies, and have been continuously looked after and supervised ever since by a company of devoted and experienced men and women. Results recently tabulated in reports to and from the Government of Canada show that the failures among these emigrants is less than two per cent. (actually 1.84 per cent.) of the whole."—Thomas J. Barnardo, F.R.C.S., Ed., founder of the "Dr. Barnardo's Homes," London, England.

  DEDICATION

Auditorium Annex,
Chicago, August 16, 1898.

Miss Amalie Hofer,
Manager Kindergarten Literature Company,
Woman's Temple, Chicago, Ill.:

Dear Miss Hofer:—In searching for the best means of distributing my new book—"That Last Waif; or, Social Quarantine"—my attention was called to the decree on the cover of your magazine—"Pledged to Make the Kindergarten Free to All Children."

Further inquiry reveals the fact that your stockholders are deeply interested in kindergarten-propagation work; that your profits are dedicated to that cause, and that you have over four thousand correspondents who are enthusiastic workers.

Inasmuch as I propose to contribute the profits derived from the sale of the book to form the nucleus of a fund with which to champion the establishment of Character-Building and Habit-Forming schools or institutions to meet the needs of all Apprentice Citizens, and for the advocacy of the creation of a department of the Federal Government to promote and guard Citizen-Training (especially during the period of tenderest and strongest impressions), it seems to me that your organization and I should co-operate.

The kindergarten has been the means of demonstrating the efficiency of character-training, and, while it is only one branch of elementary character education, it is the parent of all which have come into existence as a result of the success of the teachings of Pestalozzi and Froebel. You may, therefore, consistently extend your interest to all phases of the work.

If the Child-Crop of a nation is the source of all its strength or weakness—happiness or trouble—why should there not be a strongly-equipped department of the national government to minister to its interests, as there are departments of State, Agriculture and others, whose heads form the Cabinet of the Executive.

I send you herewith galley proofs of the book by which you may learn if you are in sympathy with my presentation of the case.

Respectfully yours,

Horace Fletcher.

INDIVIDUAL CO-OPERATION
OR
What Constitutes an Active Quarantinist

Advance copies of That Last Waif; or, Social Quarantine, were sent to a large number of persons in different walks of life asking for suggestions relative to practical individual co-operation in promoting a social quarantine worthy of Twentieth Century Ideals, to be in active operation (started), with the complete aim, at the opening of the coming century, January 1st, 1900.

The time has been too short since the mailing of the advance copies to remote points to give the entire consensus of opinion. Sufficient suggestions have, however, been received to formulate a plan of individual co-operation, and to suggest the grouping of individuals into organizations for the purpose of a thorough quarantine campaign.

The most hopeful signs elicited by the call for suggestions come from the least expected sources. Persons who are themselves under the ban of social disapproval through participation in occupations that are classed "not respectable" by social decree, jump to support the movement, because they best know that cruel conditions of persecution and neglect do exist. They not only have felt the neglect or persecution themselves, but are in touch with it and with the children who now "have no show on earth to be good." This is due to the neglect of society to provide children an opportunity to choose between the good and the bad by supplying adequate infant and progressive character schools as recommended in our appeal.

FORMULA