TEACHING THE CHILD
PATRIOTISM

	TEACHING THE CHILD PATRIOTISM BY KATE UPSON CLARKE Author of "The Dole Twins," etc. With a Frontispiece by HARRIET O'BRIEN THE PAGE COMPANY BOSTON               MDCCCCXVIII

CONTENTS

[1]

TEACHING THE CHILD
PATRIOTISM

CHAPTER I

To some of us who have brought up children, this startling statement came like a bomb. If history is to be used, as it certainly is used, in many of our "best schools," in the teaching of political economy, sociology, philosophy, psychology, biology, religion and nearly everything else, why should we not use it also in teaching a child the value of his own country, how dearly it has been bought, and his duty to serve it?

When anybody undertakes to prove that a child who hears, for instance the story of the six "leading citizens" of Calais offering their lives for the redemption of their city, does not feel a deeper sense of patriotism after it, he must prove[3] that the children whom most of us know are exceptional.

See the widening eyes and working features of children listening to a spirited reading of "Horatius at the Bridge," or "Hervé Riel," or the story of Nathan Hale.

Your "educator" may say that all this means merely an "emotional spasm." What is that but interest or enthusiasm? And what is more potent in moving the will?

Most of our intelligent mothers can testify that there seems to be nothing which more rouses a child's loving consciousness of his own land, and more enkindles a desire to do something for it,—even to die for it—than listening to these fiery old tales of exalted patriotism.[4]

In an eloquent panegyric upon the influence of a knowledge of history, President Woolley of Mt. Holyoke College says: "It is a circumscribed life which has no vision into the past, which is familiar only with present conditions and forms of government, manners, customs and beliefs. Such a life has no background, no material for comparisons, no opportunity to learn from the mistakes of others, nor from their achievements."

And, in re-inforcement of the contention that much besides general culture and useful information is gained from the study of the past, and especially from the study of the classics, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge during a recent session of the New York Latin Club uttered a strong plea for[5] the study of Latin and Greek, as an incentive to patriotism.

"It is impossible," he said, in effect, "to read of 'the brave days of old,' of Marathon and Salamis, of Martius Curtius, Lycurgus and a hundred others of the heroes of Greece and Rome, without a sense of the glory of living and dying for one's country. All children should be made familiar with them, and especially with the ringing lines and sound patriotism of the Iliad. They not only teach patriotism, but many of the other higher virtues, and in such an interesting way that children want to hear the stories over and over. Thus their lessons become indelibly impressed upon young minds."

But one of the hard truths which should[6] be taught in connection with these tales of heroism, is the fact that by far the greater number of splendid sacrifices for one's country are never heard of. Cincinnatus, Hector, Ajax, Pheidippides, have come to fame, which is generally considered reward enough for any hardship; but most of the world's heroes are unknown or forgotten. Every soldier can relate courageous deeds which he has witnessed but which live only in his memory or in those of his comrades. In fact, we are told that heroism is so common in the present war that almost every soldier deserves a medal.

An interesting instance of obscure heroism is quoted by Miss Repplier from Sir Francis Doyle:

"Dr. Keate, the terrible head-master of[7] Eton, encountered one morning a small boy crying miserably, and asked him what was the matter. The child replied that he was cold. 'Cold!' roared Keate. 'You must put up with cold, sir! You are not at a girls' school.'

"The boy remembered the sharp appeal to manhood; for fifteen years later, with the Third Dragoons, he charged at the strongly intrenched Sikhs (thirty thousand of the best fighting men of the Khalsa) on the curving banks of the Sutlej. And, as the word was given, he turned to his superior officer, a fellow-Etonian, and chuckled, 'As old Keate would say, "This is no girls' school,"' and rode to his death on the battlefield of Sobraon, which gave Lahore to England."

Thus does the true hero lay down his[8] life, cheerfully and unrewarded, for his country.

The anonymous hero, so numerous and so grand, is well typified also by Browning's "Echetlos," "The Holder of the Ploughshare." This can be so read that even children of eight or ten can take it in.

One wishes that a real historical event were commemorated in Browning's "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix"; but it has the heroic ring, and fires the young imagination as well, perhaps, as "An Incident of the French Camp," which is said to be true,—another story of an unnamed hero.

It will interest those same children to hear Browning's ballad of "Pheidippides," who did[9]

The story should be told before the poem is read.

It is a pity that Napoleon III proved to be such a small man; for Mrs. Browning made some wonderful lines about him, which might well be read to children for the promotion of patriotism. In "Casa Guidi Windows" occur some of the finest lines for the awakening of true patriotism, that can be found in our language, yet they are seldom mentioned by writers on this subject. The best should be read, a few at a time, often in the family circle.

From the history of the Crimean War many striking tales of patriotism can be culled, such as incidents in the life of Lord Raglan and the careers of the wonderful[10] Napiers, who were connected even more closely with the Peninsular War. Girls will especially find joy and inspiration in the story of Florence Nightingale. Boys and girls alike will revel in Mrs. Laura E. Richards' charmingly written "Life" of that heroine.

It is the fashion to speak rather slightingly of the patriotic poems which were thundered from the old lyceum-platforms by our forefathers, but many of them naturally possess the spirit of the first patriots, and thus are of especial value to our children. It goes without saying that every child should early become familiar with the lives of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Show them that such men "set the pace" for America, and taught us what true patriotism really is.[11]

Washington's Farewell Address should be read often in every American Family, and portions of it should be known by heart to every American child. So should Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, as well as portions of his other great speeches. The stories should be often rehearsed to them of Joseph Warren, Israel Putnam, John Paul Jones, Decatur, Marcus Whitman, Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Lee, Jackson and our other heroes of war and peace. Many of their achievements have been celebrated in worthy verse. The great orations of Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison and others, and the magnificent state papers of Woodrow Wilson, are well calculated to stir the spirit of true patriotism in the hearts[12] of noble children, and they should not be ignorant of those splendid compositions.

A year or more before the great war, a young man was speaking lightly one evening of "all this sentimental rot about 'love of country'"; how it showed "that a man hadn't traveled," and is "provincial." He spoke in the tone affected by a certain class of blasé, hypersophisticated youths, who might well be punished by the same means that were used for Edward Everett Hale's "Man Without a Country,"—another book which all older children should know.

The boy had recently returned from a long sojourn abroad. His mother was horrified to hear his words, though she had detected an unsoundness in his views[13] ever since he had come back. Still, she said nothing at the moment. She wanted to think it over.

One evening shortly afterward the family were assembled on the broad porch. Several guests were present. It was warm, but a soft breeze blew in from the moonlighted Hudson just below them. Some one suggested that it was just the time for poetry. Why should not every one recite his favorite poem?

They began. One gave Rudyard Kipling's stirring "Song of the English." Another followed with a portion of Tennyson's "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington," beginning with the familiar words,

[14]

By this time, the party of eight or ten cultivated people were all plainly affected. The one who sat next said, "I was going to recite 'The Antiseptic Baby,'—and, of course, that is always good, but it doesn't seem to chime in with our mood to-night. I used to know Daniel Webster's great speech on the Constitution. Maybe I can recall it," and slowly he rolled forth the stately words.

When the mother's turn came, she begged them not to groan if she should give them a very well-worn selection, and started out upon Walter Scott's, "Lives There a Man with Soul so Dead."[15]

There was some derision in the laugh which greeted her first words, but all were soon caught in the swirl of the great sentiment, and when she came to the line "Unwept, unhonored and unsung," there was long applause, the blasé youth joining in most heartily of all.

"That's an old corker, isn't it, mother!" he cried. "I'd forgotten that it was so lively. There's a lot in it."

She knew that his ideas were being cleared.

All of this heroism and love of country is represented by our flag. Its meaning should be explained to our children. Teaching them to salute it, and to repeat the words which go with the salute, becomes a mere form unless they understand its deeper significance. Henry Ward[16] Beecher once gave a noble interpretation of it, which has been amplified by Secretary Franklin K. Lane in an address to the employees of the Department of the Interior. Only a few words of it can be given here, but your children should hear or read them all.

The Flag seemed to say to him: "The work that we do is the making of the Flag. I am not the Flag at all. I am but its shadow. I am all that you hope to be and have the courage to try for.

"I am the day's work of the weakest man and the largest dream of the most daring. I am the Constitution and the courts, statutes and statute-makers, soldier and dreadnaught, drayman and street-sweep, cook, counselor and clerk. I swing before your eyes as a bright gleam[17] of color, the pictured suggestion of that big thing which makes this nation. My stars and stripes are your dream and your labors. They are bright with cheer, brilliant with courage, firm with faith, because you have made them so,—for you are the makers of the Flag."

This is no mere sentimental fancy.

The thrill of the flag is best understood by those who have seen it on a foreign shore; but the deepest thrill of all comes on beholding the flag which bears the marks of shot and shell.

A little boy of six, who had been considered in his family as unemotional, was one day riding with his mother past a public building, gaily decorated with bunting. Among the unstained banners above the entrance hung a cluster of old[18] battle-flags. The child gazed at them with the greatest interest. Then he turned suddenly to his mother.

"Which do you like best, mother?" he asked. "The bright new flags, or the old, ragged flags that have been in the battle?"

"Which do you like best?" she said.

"Oh," he replied, while his little lip quivered, "I like best the old, ragged flags that have been in the battle,—don't you?"

This child had been brought up from infancy upon the stories and poems of the patriots of the past, but he had never shown before such a marked effect from them. This effect grew with his years.

The most stolid and selfish child can be made into a fervid patriot, I firmly believe,[19] by a proper use of the great patriotic literature.

Until within a short time, some of us have deprecated the idea of filling the minds of our children with visions of killing and of killers, however brave and noble. But we have learned that, as long as there are barbarians in the world threatening to overwhelm civilization, the arts of war must still be practiced. History has described civilizations as good as ours, perhaps better, which were destroyed by barbarians, physically stronger than the gentler races which they attacked. So long as powerful tribes exist, covetous of the wealth and the territory of their neighbors, and willing to trample down everybody and everything else to get them, what can we do but fight?[20]

That means, in the terms of to-day, that we must still sing to our children the glories of war. Americans properly hate war. It is antiquated, out of date,—utterly opposed to the spirit of the twentieth century. We should bring up our children to see that it is just that, and that we are fighting now simply because otherwise barbarism would overspread the world,—a barbarism which includes autocracy and militarism as its chief features, two elements which are intolerable in a world of democracy.

And yet war is often a purifying fire. It has its noble and uplifting side. This is the side which is emphasized in the heroic tales which have been mentioned,[21] and which makes for the development of patriotism in the child and in the man.

[22]

CHAPTER II

But when men are staying at home,[23] with comfort beckoning; with the government jogging along and getting the main things done somehow or other, under the guidance of professional politicians; and with one's personal affairs requiring apparently the application of all one's mortal powers,—then patriotism needs a spur.

It was of such "piping times of peace" that Goldsmith wrote:

The task set forth before the conscientious citizen then is to keep alive in himself the clear torch of patriotism,—which simply means the duty to sacrifice as freely, in proportion to the need, in time of peace as in time of war.[24]

It is the difficulty of this task, seldom yet accomplished, which has led to the many eloquent panegyrics, in all languages, upon war as necessary to the very existence of a nation. Several entire books have been written to prove that sordidness and selfishness always possess and soon destroy a nation which does not have frequent wars. The philosophy of Nietzsche is largely founded upon this theory. Treitschke and Bernhardi follow him closely. Even De Quincey, Ruskin, and others from among our best English writers, subscribe to this monstrous doctrine, and it is true that there is plenty of support for it in history.

But we Americans have always believed in brains rather than brawn for the settlement of international as well as personal[25] controversies. The duel has been banished from our country as an antiquated means of adjusting the quarrels of individual men, and logic requires that a similar course be pursued toward quarrels on a larger scale. Because we have been obliged to lay aside temporarily our convictions in order to save ourselves and the right, from a mad dog of a nation, which threatens to overthrow civilization, does not mean that we have given up our ideals. If the American nation stands for anything, it stands for peace, though we can and will fight if liberty and right are threatened.

In the study of the Iliad which has been suggested, the words which Agamemnon speaks to Hector should be especially commended to children:[26]

But in the face of the almost universal testimony against it, all of us should realize that extraordinary pains must be taken to inculcate the truth, and live it, that high patriotism can be kept alive in peace as well as in war.

Precept alone goes not very far in any line, and less, perhaps, in this, than in any other. The study of history and a little of the most modern literature, helps. Classical literature, in all languages, preaches with frightful unanimity, the necessity and the nobility of war. In the religion of Rome, Mars received ten times[27] more homage than did Jupiter. The book and the precept must not be neglected, but your chief weapon in teaching your child the patriotism of peace must be the deed. You must set a strenuous example, or else all your words will pass like the whistle of the wind.

In President Hadley's inaugural, he asserted that the main object of education is to make good citizens,—which is, perhaps, only another way of saying that the chief object of education is to make patriots.

He was talking of the education of the schools; but Emerson somewhere says, in effect, that though we send our children to the schoolmaster, it is, after all, their environment which does most of the educating.[28]

Emerson speaks of the shop-windows along the child's way; but it is his home which forms the most influential factor in his environment; and the part of the home usually dearest to him is his mother. It is a common saying, especially in our cities, that fathers see their children only when they are asleep, leaving them at breakfast-time, and returning after they have gone to bed. Up to the age of twelve, or thereabout, children should retire shortly after eight o'clock. During the next few years, even though they sit up later, they generally have to study. Thus, during their formative period, it is upon the mother that the home training of the children chiefly devolves.

A distinguished clergyman in a public[29] address once eulogized his mother. He attributed to her every virtue and a wonderful mind. He was a violent anti-suffragist, and supposed that he was presenting a strong argument for his side when he said, "But though my incomparable mother counseled us upon almost every subject that could engage our attention, she never mentioned to us the subject of politics."

Had he not struck, perhaps, the main reason for the corruption of our politics? The fathers have no chance to instruct their young children in the rudiments of politics,—yet those children ought to be so instructed by somebody. They get little or nothing of it in school. If their mother does not teach them something about it, they will probably grow up ignorant[30] of many of its snares and its opportunities.

To-day the anti-suffragists are wiser. They say that women should understand civic duties and should canvass them thoroughly with their children. The sin and the shame come only, in their opinion, when women actually vote for the best men and women to fill the offices.

The case is as if a woman should furnish a house, supplying its kitchen with every facility for cooking and cleaning; fitting its dining-room with the proper linen, silver and china; arranging its bedrooms for comfortable sleep; making its parlors beautiful for guests; and then, though she has known so well the needs of a household and how to provide for them, she draws back from the responsibility of[31] running her model house, as if to say: "My sisters and I are not competent to manage this house. You men are far abler. Please make and enforce all the rules to govern it."

Let the men and the women work together, dividing the responsibility according to the fitness of each individual. There are stupid men and stupid women and there are bright men and bright women. Women are human beings before all else and all human interests are their interests. There is among us too much of cowardice and laziness, posing as hyper-refinement and modesty. Women as voters, "weavers of peace," as the old Saxons called them, are bound to be a helpful force in many departments, and especially in this great work of[32] establishing universal peace, and teaching men how to use it. They should begin with the child in its cradle.

For, let us repeat, it cannot be too strongly impressed that the underlying and fundamental principles of politics must be taught by the mother, if they are taught at all; and like everything else that is good, they can be and should be taught. It does not seem to be generally understood, but it is a fact, that a training in politics is possible, and if our great experiment in government is to succeed, such a training should be given to every child, and the mother seems to be the natural, and often the only person to give it.

A mother was one day walking along[33] the streets of the great city in which she lived, when she saw that a new liquor-saloon had been opened within two blocks of her home.

"Oh, dear!" she said to her little boy of eight, who held her hand, "Here is another saloon,—another place where men will spend their money foolishly and perhaps become drunkards,—and so near our own home! We have never had one so near before."

As she spoke, two men staggered out from the saloon-door and made their way unsteadily along the sidewalk. The child had never seen a drunken man before. His eyes widened with horror and an expression of utter disgust settled upon his eager little face.

"Why do they let 'em do it!" he burst[34] forth. "Aren't there any Christians in Congress?"

It was plain that ideas of law and restraint, and of the difference between good government and bad government, were struggling for form and coherence in the child's mind.

The mother seized her opportunity. She explained briefly some of the evils of the saloon; the meaning of "high license" and "prohibition," and something of the arguments on both sides; how most good people agree that the saloon, as at present conducted, is a cancer on the body politic, and how the chief disagreement is concerning the best ways of controlling or suppressing it; how the liquor men are active in politics, while the temperance men are so busy with their own affairs,[35] and usually so contemptuous of legislatures that they do not look carefully after the laws; how voters are often bribed; and as many more details as the boy seemed to want to hear.

He listened closely and asked many intelligent questions. He had received a lesson in politics which he did not forget, as his chance remarks showed for months afterward. He talked the matter over with his younger brothers, and they, too, began to ask questions. During the next few years that mother gave her boys brief talks on arbitration, the tariff, public education and its bearing on democracy, street-cleaning, road-making, silver and gold money, and many other topics of current politics. She was careful never to force them, for she knew that it is only[36] when the mood is upon him that a boy likes to discuss serious subjects. The terms she used were of the simplest; and her husband, who was deeply interested in her efforts, and helped her whenever he could, supplied her with many illustrations, such as children could understand. Especially did she impress upon her children's minds the true and striking saying of a great Frenchman, that "governments are always just as bad as the people will let them be"; and that, as a part of the people, it was their duty to see that the government was made and kept good.

By "line upon line, precept upon precept," knowing that opinions are formed

[37]

Many of us feel that more upon the subject of politics,—again we should remind ourselves that politics and patriotism are very nearly the same thing,—might easily and properly be taught in our public schools; for the foundation principles of politics are only those of ordinary ethics. In this way, morality, which is far more necessary than book-learning for the perpetuity of our institutions, would take that dominant place in our educational system, so strongly advocated by that prince of educators, Horace Mann. "Among all my long list of acquaintances," he says, "I find that for one man who has been ruined[38] for want of intellectual attainments, hundreds have perished for want of morals. And yet we go on bestowing one hundred times more care and pains and cost on the education of the intellect than on the cultivation of the moral sentiments and the establishment of moral principles." He insists that morals should be regularly taught, and not "left to casual and occasional mention."

Thus broad and clear ideas of perfect honesty, with Abraham Lincoln and other good and great men as examples, form the foundation of clean politics, and should be impressed upon the children in our schools. The daily papers often describe shining instances of this cardinal virtue.

Suppose that a theater is burned and[39] many lives lost. Laws may have been passed for the safeguarding of theaters, but the manager of this house disregarded them in order to save a few dollars. There is a chance to impress regard for law and its enforcement.

Or suppose that bribery is under discussion. Here is a true story of the way in which its devious methods were impressed upon the mind of a small boy:

He was stopping with his mother in a country town, when the tailor of the place, in speaking of the day's voting, remarked: "I don't gen'ally vote, but I did to-day, because they sent a carriage up from the Center for me. It takes time to vote and 'tain't much use. What does one vote amount to anyway? But when one of the bosses is anxious enough to come an' git[40] me, why, then I'll vote, or if they'll give me my fare on the cars."

"Why," said the boy quickly, "isn't that bribery?"

"Lord, no!" said the man, shuffling about uneasily. "That jest pays me for my time an' trouble. I don't git nothin' for my vote."

Sophistries like this should be immediately made clear to the child. It would probably be impossible to show them to that tailor.

"Our Revolutionary fathers," said Horace Mann again, "abandoned their homes, sacrificed their property, encountered disease, bore hunger and cold, and stood on the fatal edge of battle, to gain that liberty which their descendants will not even go to the polls to protect. Our[41] Pilgrim Fathers expatriated themselves, crossed the Atlantic,—then a greater enterprise than now to circumnavigate the globe,—and braved a savage foe, that they might worship God unmolested,—while many of us throw our votes in wantonness, or for a bribe, or to gratify revenge."

This is a terrible indictment. It is not as true now as it was in the time of Horace Mann. Still, the lesson contained in it should be impressed upon our children.

[42]

CHAPTER III

This is terribly true, and the child should be made aware of it. A dazzling outside may cover a black heart. Illustrate this fact to him by the story of those beautiful flowers whose sweet odor is laden with death. Tell him of William M. Tweed, whose gigantic thefts almost bankrupted a great city, yet who read a chapter in his Bible every day, and who possessed many kind and even noble qualities. Many other public men of ancient and modern times will afford equally striking examples of inconsistency.[44]

A certain excellent country gentleman, who did not realize the possible deceitfulness of the outside, went down to the capital of his state to see about some bills which vitally affected his business. He had written to the Senator from his section that he was coming and had asked for an appointment to meet him. He had never met this man, but the papers had criticized him severely, and our friend was prepared to encounter a mean and churlish creature.

"Instead," he reported upon his return to his home, "I found him a perfect gentleman. He met me at the train and took me to my hotel in his own automobile, and invited me to dine with him the next day. He lives in a beautiful home. I was surprised to see what kind of a man he really[45] is. You would think by the way the papers go on about him that he had horns and hoofs, but," he repeated, "he was a perfect gentleman."

Yet this man was one of the most dangerous "practical politicians" in the state—one of those who believe that the Ten Commandments have no place in politics, and who scrupled at nothing which could benefit himself and his friends. He simply could not understand a man who could "swear to his own hurt and change not."

"Unlike the old-time villain," says Mr. E. A. Reed, "the latter-day malefactor does not wear a slouch-hat and a comforter, and breathe forth curses and an odor of gin. Fagin and Bill Sykes and Simon Legree are vanishing types. Good,[46] kindly men let the wheels of commerce and industry redden rather than pare their dividends, and our railroads yearly injure one employee in twenty-six, while we look in vain for that promised day of the Lord, which shall make 'a man more precious than fine gold.'"

And, again, "The tropical belt of sin into which we are now sweeping is largely impersonal. The hurt passes into that vague mass, 'the public,' and is there lost to view. Hence it does not take a Borgia to knead 'chalk and alum and plaster' into the loaf, seeing that one cannot know just who will eat that loaf. The purveyor of spurious life-preservers need not be a Cain. The owner of rotten tenements, whose 'pull' enables him to ignore the orders of the Health Department, fore-dooms[47] babies, it is true, but for all that, he is no Herod.

"Often there are no victims. If the crazy hulk sent out for 'just one more trip' meets with fair weather, all is well. Briber and grafter are now 'good men,' and would have passed for virtuous in the American community of seventy years ago. Therefore, people do not always see that boodling is treason; that blackmail is piracy, that tax-dodging is larceny. The cloven hoof hides in patent leather, and to-day, as in Hosea's time, the people are destroyed for lack of knowledge."

Let us see to it that our children are not so destroyed.

In the old abolition days, Mr. Emerson wrote: "What an education in the public spirit of Massachusetts have been the[48] speeches and reading of our public schools! Every district school has been an anti-slavery convention for these two or three years last past."

Special policies cannot often be taught like this in the modern public school, but the broad principles of pure politics can and should be.

For instance, a lesson in Civil Service management may be given without once uttering those words, simply by teaching the sentiment well uttered by Ruskin: "The first necessity of social life is the clearness of the national conscience in enforcing the law,—that he should keep who has justly earned."

Children can be taught the dangers, not only to their principles, but their worldly fortunes, of office-seeking and of making[49] a profession of politics. The child of wealth should be especially instructed in his duty to look after the affairs of his own town, county, state and nation. The man whose powers are strained to the utmost in order to support and educate his family, can of necessity give little time to the searching out of civic wrongs and their remedies. The well-to-do citizen must give all the more to make up for the limitations of his poorer neighbor.

Children can be taught, too, something of the protean forms of bribery, the schemes for trading votes; the duty of every voter to vote and do jury-work; the need of looking at every question from both sides; of avoiding blind partisanship; and much of the rest of the elementary ethics of politics.[50]

And, again, it is upon the mother that this patriotic duty must chiefly devolve. As with all of her training, she may often feel that the work is slow and uncertain, but she may well take to heart the encouraging words of the poet:

Jacob Riis used often to say that the apparent corruption of our politics was largely due to crass ignorance. There are, too, many human beings who are born moral idiots, who cannot be made to understand ethics, any more than intellectual[51] "subnormals" can be made to understand proportion and international law. But we know that up to the ability of every being he should be taught. We know that the appalling illiteracy of Mexico, Russia and China renders a stable republic in any one of them almost impossible. Education is a slow business. Generations of it will be required to make those countries what they ought to be; but it is the desideratum to successful republicanism. Therefore it is vital that we guard our public schools.

But again it must be emphasized that though school discipline should be of the best, yet the real education of your child depends more upon his home than upon his school.[52]

What newspapers are lying around there? What magazines? Do you patronize salacious plays? Do you exalt in your conversation the prize-fight and the automobile-race? What sort of people visit your home?

What sort of conversation goes on at your table? Is wine or beer served there? Is the air in your parlor or study often thick with tobacco-smoke?

The father who wishes his children to become pure-minded and unselfish patriots, must ask himself many questions like these. Remember that the boy is influenced by your words only to a certain degree. Our seer of Concord never uttered a more impressive truth than when he pictured a youth as demanding of his father, "How can I hear what you say,[53] when what you are is thundering so loud in my ears?"

You can bring very near to your boy and your girl, the responsibility of us all for good home government, by mentioning often to them the burning issues in their home town. In many of our towns and villages, one part of the city or township is jealous of another part, will not vote for improvements there and is generally suspicious and contrary.

Explain to your children how contemptible such an attitude is. Weigh for them the arguments on both sides, and make them help you to decide justly how you ought to vote. Make the girl, especially, form an opinion. On her may devolve the future political training of influential citizens. In fact, she may herself[54] be a Member of Congress or a United States Senator!

Are the roads bad in your town? Are the taxes improperly collected? Are the schools inferior or managed by politicians? Is the town poorly policed? Are the back yards unsanitary? Are the town officers inefficient?

Explain to your children how the taxes are laid,—how a town has to spend a good deal to keep itself up, so to speak; and how important it is that its tax-money should be carefully spent.

Particularly should we impress it upon our children that if a town is a slipshod, ugly or unhealthy place, it is not the fault of a vague, formless thing, called "the town" or "the city," or "the state," but of each and every one of us; and especially[55] of every separate voter who fails to be on hand at the town-meetings or caucuses, and to try his best to get good men elected and good measures passed.

An American was riding in a cab through the streets of Vienna, some years before the war, reading his mail. As he finished with certain letters, he tore them up and threw the fragments out of the cab-window. The driver soon began to notice what was going on, left his box and picked up the torn papers. Then he put his head in at the window, and cried, with a passion which seemed to the careless and untidy American quite uncalled-for, "What do you mean by littering up our beautiful streets in this way? Where do you come from? Have your people no[56] pride in their country? Do they wish it to look all over like a slum?"

He actually reported the matter to the police. The man was thereupon haled to court and had to pay a considerable fine.

Although some of our cities, as well as foreign ones, carry civic pride to an almost ridiculous extent, it is a good fault. Children should early be taught to regard the neatness and beauty of their town.

If they complain that these matters are hard to remember and to do, give them to understand that patriotism is not easy. Few virtues are easy to practice, and perhaps unselfish patriotism is the hardest of all.

A young man graduated from that great American university where it is said that citizenship is most strenuously[57] taught, and where he had certainly imbibed a lofty desire to do his duty by his country. He lived in a great city and presented himself in due time after his graduation at the door of his ward political organization. There he met with an experience something like this:

A gentleman, plethoric and red-faced, welcomed him, asked his name and address, and gave him "the glad hand." At the same time, he showed a spice of suspicion.

"Are you a Republican?" he asked.

"Yes."

"I suppose you have always voted the straight ticket?"

"Well,—I have been voting only a year or two. I think I have voted the straight ticket so far."[58]

"And I suppose you intend to vote the straight ticket right along?"

"I may or I may not," said the youth, with some spirit. "I reserve for myself the right to vote for the best candidate, especially in local affairs."

"Then,—ahem—perhaps you haven't got into just the right place. This is a straight organization, you know. Maybe you can find an 'independent'" (pronounced with scorn) "organization somewhere in the ward. I rather think that is where you belong. We have found these 'independents' a sort of obstruction to the transaction of business,—a kind of kickers, you know, though of course, you might not turn out so. Still,"—with decision,—"you really don't belong here."

"I was mad clear through," said the[59] youth, in relating the story later. "I was disgusted with the looks of the man and with those who were in there with him. I just turned on my heel and left, and I haven't darkened that door again."

Was that patriotic? Was not that boy deliberately turning over the government of his city to "boodlers" and "grafters"?

"But," you may say, "should he have stayed on where he was not wanted?"

Certainly he should. He had a right there, as any citizen had. He should have taken time to find other voters like himself, which he could no doubt have done, and together they could have maintained themselves. He saw that this man and his companions were not proper persons to have control of an organization of his party, and he should have done his best,[60] even at the sacrifice of considerable time, to oust them and get better men in. He was no patriot.

[61]

CHAPTER IV

Not that nearly every other nation may[62] not have some one or more points of superiority, which should be acknowledged and emulated; but your worshiper of the foreign usually makes a blanket indictment of America.

One such man was a guest at a certain table just before the war. He had recently returned from a long stay in Europe, where his great wealth and important commercial and social connections gave him access to many of the circles which largely control the life over there.

"How are the people abroad thinking of us nowadays?" inquired his hostess rather lightly. "Do they despise us as much as ever?"

"Yes, indeed," replied the great man emphatically.[63]

"But I hope you stood up for us?"

"I wish I could say that I did," he had the effrontery to reply calmly; "but how could I? They consider that the corruption of our government is so bad that it cannot possibly continue very long. I couldn't deny it, could I? I agreed with them entirely that we were nearly at the end of our rope."

"Really?" gasped his hostess. "Are you in earnest?"

"I never was more so in my life. Look at the condition of affairs in Blank and Blank and Blank,"—naming several states in which legislative scandals had been lately unearthed,—"How long do you think that things can go on like that and a government survive? I had to admit that a democratic form of government[64] is a failure. Of course, it was a great dream of the fathers, but it has proved to be as impracticable as a good many other rainbow visions. Sometime the world may be ready for it, but it evidently is not now."

"And what do you think will follow?" asked his hostess, holding on to her temper with difficulty. "Are you in favor of an autocracy like Germany, or of a limited monarchy like Great Britain? Or do you think an oligarchy a better form? And if we decide on a monarchy, where should we get our royal family? Should we elect one from candidates that present themselves? Or should we request Europe to send us one?"

"Now you are making fun of me," he commented with some feeling.[65]

"Oh, no, not exactly," she laughed. "But really, if Europe is unanimous in thinking our republic a failure, there must be 'something in it.' You have been in many countries and have met the leading people, and you know what you are talking about. If we are truly on the verge of a revolution, it is to the men like you, our foremost and ablest men, that we must turn to save us. Therefore you ought to be thinking of ways and means. Here is a nation of nearly a hundred million persons. If its government is so rotten that it cannot last, what should be done?"

But he declined to continue the discussion. He merely laughed rather weakly and some one just then introduced a new topic.[66]

Strange to say, during the next few months several other men were encountered, who also bemoaned the "failure" of our institutions.

Our children must be taught how to meet such pessimists. They would probably, in the light of recent developments, say that they repudiate the doctrines of Nietzsche, but they are really endorsing one of his prime tenets, namely, that democracy is bound always to be a failure; that the "masses" should be kept down; that all attempts to elevate "the herd" are folly; that they should be made to observe that strict morality, from whose shackles the "supermen" are free; and should submit unquestioningly to authority. Women, even in the "super" class, are made in Nietzsche's opinion, simply, as[67] Milton says, to serve by "standing and waiting."

One would think that men who hold such views as this traveled guest, had never studied democracy. They surely do not understand its deep and splendid meaning. They should be made to see, as our children should be, by every means that we can devise, the tremendous advance which a democratic form of government shows beyond any other that the world has hitherto known. They should have impressed upon them Elihu Root's definition: "Democracy is organized self-control."

Especially should they be told that universal education and unselfishness of patriotism are the only conditions under which a democracy can be perfected; and[68] that no nation has ever yet been sufficiently educated and unselfish to arrive at perfection, and probably will not be until the millennium.

We all realize that our government has many defects; but most of our critics stupidly fail to recognize that our public officials, instead of being our masters, are regarded by us, and in no Pickwickian sense, as our servants. We are all so criminally busy with our personal affairs that we allow our government to run along almost anyway, often knowing that grafters are in charge of it; but feeling that it is cheaper to let matters go until they become unendurable, than to take the trouble to keep close track of them. After awhile, we say to ourselves, we will have a regular cleaning-up, turn the rascals out,[69] and put in a new set of officials, who, we hope, will do better.

Our children must be taught that this is a wicked way to do. They must devote some of their time to following public affairs. They must understand also that, while low salaries must usually be paid to public officials, in order that offices may not be too eagerly sought, yet that patriots must be willing, when they can possibly afford it, to accept these low salaries, if their country is to be well and honestly served. In this war, we have seen many noble men resign large incomes in order to serve the nation. We must learn to do that in peace as well as in war.

And we must all understand too, that these officials do not really represent the[70] governing power of our country, which is undoubtedly that intangible thing called Public Opinion. It is as subtly invisible as electricity or gravity, but in this nation as powerful.

In China, in India, and in most of the other oriental countries; in Russia also, as the recent upheavals there have proved, there is nothing which can properly be called organized Public Opinion. In France and in Great Britain, there is much. In our country, it is everything. It dominates our whole social and political system. Our press is sometimes said to create it. Oftener the press says that it follows Public Opinion,—while a considerable section of our population declare that the press and Public Opinion are the same thing.[71]

In any case, the child should be made to understand that in a truly and nobly democratic form of government, no czar, no kaiser, no caste nor clique controls, but the people themselves, who, as Lincoln said, can be fooled by their leaders part of the time, but whose sober second thought usually sets them ultimately on the right side. The child should be made to feel that since he is one unit in this controlling mass, he should form his opinions with care.

One of the most frequent accusations against us among foreigners, is that we are wholly and ineradicably sordid. As outsiders often put it,

"All that Americans care for is the dollar."

Most of us, when we hear this, share[72] the sentiment of a bright High School girl, who took part in a debate in 1913 on the comparative excellence of foreign and domestic manners.

"I have just come back from a summer in Europe," she said, "and I found there, on the whole, much worse manners than we have here. For instance, in nearly every country where we went, we had relatives and friends, and they were constantly saying, and very rudely, I thought, 'Oh, yes, we understand your America. All you care for over there is the dollar.' But I don't care for the dollar and my father and my mother, and my uncles and my aunts, and our friends,—hardly anybody I know, in fact,—none of them care for the dollar,—not half so much as they do over there,—and I told them so!"[73]

Her passionate plea brought forth equally passionate applause from her young hearers,—for it was true. Human nature is inherently selfish and grasping. We have only to read the book of Proverbs to see that it was so in ancient times and it will probably always retain something of that meanness; but Americans are the most generous people in the world, and, as a whole, are the freest from miserliness and avarice. Look over the marriage notices of a century or more ago in any English periodical, and you will probably find mentioned there the amount of the bride's dowry. We all know how invariably it has to be ascertained nowadays before a foreign nobleman takes an American bride. Among ourselves, there is almost nothing of this sort.[74]

One reason, perhaps the principal one, for this universal accusation, is not far to seek. All foreign nations have their leisure classes. The great nobles and gentry often do not even manage their own estates. Some "factor" or "agent" does it for them. As for working for money, the very idea would shock them unspeakably. A woman who works for money is especially scorned over there. It is seldom that such a woman has any social standing whatever.

Utterly different is the American estimation of merit. Here we have a leisure class, but it is so small as to be negligible, and it is commonly despised. All of our men are expected to work for money, or, as we put it,—to earn their living, though many of our rich men often contribute[75] freely much time and labor to public affairs and to philanthropy. A woman who earns her living over here is quite as likely as not to rank among our most respected citizens.

As a well-known snob once said, "Even in our first circles, you once in a while meet one of these writers or painters, who expects to be treated as if he were one of us."

Thus Public Opinion controls our social as well as our political life.

[76]

CHAPTER V

"Where are you going so fast, my little man?" he asked.

"I'm going to the Bible House," replied the boy promptly. "You see the Morning Star,—that's the missionary ship, has just got in, and I paid a penny to get that ship, and so it's part mine, and I'm going down to hear all about it."

The gentleman who told this story was old, and the incident had occurred in his young manhood, but he said he had never forgotten it, for it illustrated better than anything he had ever seen the effect upon[78] the mind of a personal share in any enterprise.

The child who has worked in a garden is likely to watch its growth and progress with an interest which he could not otherwise feel. In the same way he can be made to appreciate his home better if he has daily light tasks to do in maintaining its order and comfort; but these tasks should, if possible, be made regular ones, and their performance should become a habit. If they are done only now and then, they are much more likely to be felt as a burden.

The maintenance of the ordinary home requires great labor and expense. Without unduly distressing them, children should be made to understand this, and that it is only fair that each member of[79] the family should do his part in keeping it up. In the households of the rich, such a course is hard to manage, for servants do all the work; but in the average home where but one servant, or none at all, is kept, a little ingenuity on the part of the parents will accomplish it, without "nagging" or tiresome repetition.

In one family of five children, where there was no servant, but where the standards of the mother were high, there was naturally an enormous amount of work to do. The eldest child was a girl of twelve, the next, a girl of ten. Then came a boy of eight, and so on down. The older ones were in school, but all helped cheerfully in the household work as far as they were able.

The boy of eight, who may be called[80] Chester, was a thoughtful little fellow, and when he saw his mother rising at four or five o'clock every morning to wash or iron or cook; then, all day long cutting out little garments, running the sewing-machine, tending the teething baby, or engaged in the never-ending task of cleaning the house, his tender heart was deeply moved.

He was a great reader and the lady who superintended the village library came to know him well, and often had long talks with him. From his extensive reading, coupled with a naturally rather "old-fashioned" way of expressing himself, his remarks were often of a nature to amuse her, but she never laughed at him, and so was able to keep his confidence.

One morning Chester appeared with[81] his weekly book, and as the librarian was alone, he sat down for a little talk. His face was long, and as he dropped into his chair, he sighed heavily.

"What is the matter, Chester?" she asked kindly.

"My mother is sick," he replied dejectedly. "She is sick in bed. My father got the breakfast, but he isn't much good,—and we children helped, but we ain't much good either. Not anything goes right when my mother is sick."

"But she will soon be well. Probably she has been working too hard."

"Yes, that's it," agreed Chester wearily. "My father says so. He tells her to let things go more, and she says she tries, but she wants the house to look so nice,—and see how well she mends my stockings,"—rolling[82] up one of his knickerbockers, "and it is work, work, work for my mother from morning to night. Oh, Miss Smith," concluded Chester in a tone of anguish, "the lot of woman is very hard."

Miss Smith had never had such difficulty to control herself as when she heard this monumental sentiment from the lips of this diminutive urchin, but she managed to utter steadily, "Still, it must be a comfort to your mother to have so many good children to help her," to which Chester gravely assented.

There are not many children who so fully appreciate their mother's responsibilities; but it is well that, without complaint or whining, the mother should, in such circumstances as those which have been described, make her family understand[83] that her "lot" needs all of the amelioration that they can supply; and they will love and value their home all the more, the more they do for it.

The same thing is true of the affairs of your town or city. If you do nothing for it, you are likely to care nothing for it.

In Miss McCracken's interesting book, "Teaching Through Stories," she tells of a little girl, who, from reading the story, "The Microbe Which Comes Into Milk," became convinced of the importance of pure milk. In this tale, emphasis is laid upon the rapidity with which milk deteriorates, if it is left standing in the sun, and the harm which often comes to babies in consequence.

A little later, a neighbor, who had a[84] small baby, reported that this child rang her bell early one morning, about ten minutes after the milk-man had brought the baby's milk, and said anxiously, "Your milk-bottle is standing out on the piazza in the sun. Aren't you afraid it will spoil if you don't put it in the ice-chest?"

It is but a little way from an interest in the pure milk of an individual baby to an interest in pure milk for all babies. This little girl will probably grow up to see that laws are enforced for pure milk, and for the cleanliness of cows and stables. Even though she may never develop an enthusiasm for any other branch of politics, it is a good thing to have one woman working hard for pure milk.

All children can be taught to see that good laws for such matters are a part of[85] patriotism; and that a man who does not try to help to get such laws, even though he may shout for political candidates and hang out flags in front of his house, is not a true patriot.

It is not often that one person can work in many different directions; but if each one will choose some reform in which he is particularly interested, and hammer at that until it is accomplished, he will have done something fine for his country. He may meet with all kinds of discouragements, but let him hold on. Again, he must be reminded that patriotism is seldom easy.

Even after you have succeeded in getting your ordinance passed, you may have trouble in having it enforced. Worst of all, the clever rascals on the other side[86] may manage to get your hard-won law repealed,—and there is your long task all to do over again.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty just as much now as ever. Look across the ocean, and you see what it is costing the nations of to-day. You think that our fathers gained it for us in the Revolution, and that, however others may have to fight for it, it is secure for us; and all that we have to do is to sit back and enjoy it. On the contrary, some form of tyranny is always just around the corner, waiting to devour us. It is not impossible that a wrong issue of this war may force us to fight on our own soil again for it.

In any case, there are plenty of social and commercial tyrants only waiting to[87] lay hands on us. Sometimes it is a rich corporation, stretching out shrewd tentacles to entrap us. Its managers may be philanthropic and courteous, even religious, tyrants,—but despots none the less. It may be a company of racetrack gamblers, defeated for a while by a fearless governor, but stealing back to power as soon as his back is turned. Different states may have different tyrants,—or an arrogant party of socialists may "tie up" the whole country. There is almost every minute some movement going on, calculated, if it succeeds, to hamper or destroy our liberty. Mr. D. L. Moody once said, when he was commenting upon this phase of our national life: "Anything that is going to hurt this nation we ought to fight. Anything that is going to undermine[88] this grand republic or tear out its foundation, you and I ought to guard against with our tears and our prayers and our efforts."

Explain this often to your children. It will strengthen their determination to defend their country.

One of our young reformers in a public address lately pleaded for a wider recognition among the people of the good work of honest officials.

"There are enough among us to find fault when things are not done right," he said, "but there are few who will take the trouble to commend the man who does well. He keeps on with his efforts, whether he gets any praise for it or not, but he is often immensely cheered and refreshed by an appreciative word. If[89] his morality is not of the heroic kind, he may fall away and cease to put forth any special effort to do his work well, just for lack of encouragement."

He illustrated his point with the story of the small boy who was sweeping the sidewalk when some ladies appeared to call upon his mother. One of them asked pleasantly, "Is your mother at home?"

His rather rude reply was laden with significance.

"Do you suppose," he growled, while a slight twinkle broke through his scowling eye, "that I would be sweeping here if she wasn't at home?"

In spite of the fact that a well-fed, well-clothed and well-educated people, like the Germans, for instance, will bear an autocratic government, which kindly[90] does everything for them, but gives little opportunity for individual initiative; it cannot be compared, in its salutary effect upon its citizens, with one which calls forth the powers of judgment and decision in every one, and feeds self-respect, discouraging toadyism and caste, like a republic. An autocracy, if wisely administered, undoubtedly means greater order and efficiency, until the democracy has mastered its new problems and its people have become thoroughly educated. Rough working of new machinery is almost inevitable; and the modern democratic idea has not, even in our own country, in the absence of the votes of half the people, been allowed proper space for expansion, though England, France and Switzerland are hewing at it also. A[91] hundred years longer will show what it can do, if demagogues do not overturn it. If our republic fails, another will arise upon its ashes, for the noble principles upon which it was founded are the highest yet conceived by man, and are immortal.

This truth cannot be too early or too strongly impressed upon our children. There are enough men, like our distinguished capitalist, who do not believe in it. Their plausible arguments may undermine the convictions of our young people, unless we furnish them with solid reasons for our higher belief.

As Mr. Benjamin C. R. Low has recently written in a fine poem, "America is so new!"

We are new. We realize that we are[92] an experiment. Whether this experiment, the greatest the world has ever seen, is to succeed, depends upon the kind of patriotism that is instilled into our children. They must be thoroughly inoculated with the truth that both peace and war make incessant, expensive and personally sacrificial demands upon every citizen, and that these demands must be met by them, or else America is lost.

There must be no "slackers" in this everlasting conflict.

[93]

CHAPTER VI

Many other indictments are brought against us in this line, most of which, if the ardent accusers would only think of it, might be brought with equal justice against every other civilized nation.

Thus, excessive alcoholism, in which we have been said to be second only to Great Britain, evidently applies somewhat to other countries, in which the new prohibitory laws are declared to have worked a social and industrial revolution. Drunkenness must have prevailed there to a considerable degree, since the condition[95] of the people has been so much improved by a prohibitory law.

We are all ready to concede, even though prohibition has won to its support so many of our states, that there is still room for improvement in the public opinion of a large part of the country, regarding the merits of "wet and dry."

It is stoutly maintained in certain social circles that the daily presence of wine upon the family table is more likely than its absence to promote temperance there. This theory does not commend itself to most of us, and our position is strengthened by the facts recently proclaimed by science, which go to prove that not only do drunkards abound among the families which serve wine upon their tables, but that the use of any alcoholic beverage lowers[96] efficiency and is distinctly injurious to health, in spite of exceptions. We always hear of these shining exceptions, while of the vast army of those who have succumbed, no records are available.

Dr. Eugene Lyman Fisk, in one of his interesting articles, states that recent scientific researches have proven that "alcohol has been found to be a depressant and a narcotic, often exerting, even in small daily doses, an unfavorable effect on the brain and nervous functions, and on heart and circulation, and lowering the resistance of the body to infection."

The testimony of the Life Insurance Companies and of the managers of athletic "teams," is also conclusive as to the deteriorating effects of alcohol; and the[97] motive of patriotism will be found of great assistance in impressing the desirableness of total abstinence upon the young.

We should all like to have our country called the healthiest in the world. To that end we drain our marshes, protect our water-supply, make innumerable laws for tenement-reform, street-cleaning, pure food and so on. But all these measures are bound to be more or less ineffective so long as we cram our systems with chemical poisons.

Make this plain to your boy and your girl; and that, as the famous story has it, as every deed was done by the early fathers, "In the name of the King"; so, in what might seem to be irrelevant, though really germane and vital, we[98] should all do the right thing in the name of America.

We all know well the absolute slavery of men to fashion. The average man would rather be racked on the wheel of the Inquisition than to "appear out" in a coat or a hat different from those that "the other men" are wearing. Boys, large and small, are quite as sensitive. Mothers encounter angriest protests and even floods of tears if they strive to impose on their young sons any detail of costume different from that worn by "the other fellows." Women have long borne the imputation of being the chief sinners in this regard, but they are not. Their brothers are even more tightly bound in the meshes of the merciless despot, Fashion.[99]

This fact must be taken into consideration in all efforts at social reform among men, as a class. The independence which can defy a hurtful social custom is very rare among them. Many a man who would "go over the top" without quailing, lacks the courage to oppose a popular social movement, though he may know that it is of dubious benefit to the race.

But true patriotism, to say nothing of other motives, bids us discard every habit and stamp out every malady which lowers the morale or impairs the efficiency of the people.

One of the most subtle foes of our national health, and only lately dragged out of its secret lair for the open contumely and united attack of all good men and[100] women, is the most terrible of sex-diseases, which is said to be frightfully prevalent.

Mr. Cleveland Moffett, in McClure's Magazine, pleads for specific sex-instruction in our educational institutions. He says: "The youth of America are taught everything, with the exception of the most essential of all, the great secret of life. One result of this inexcusable neglect is seen in alarming high school conditions reported in various cities."

He advises home instruction in these important and delicate matters, but admits, what we all know, that few parents are qualified to give it. Those few should do so; but if the most terrible disease known to civilization, and probably, in a more or less virulent form, the most[101] common, is to be successfully combated, such instruction should be imparted. Under the circumstances, it must be done, apparently, by regular teachers, who should be high-minded, tactful and thoroughly trained.

This instruction should be given to each pupil separately and when alone with his teacher. Two or three interviews, of perhaps twenty minutes each, ought to be sufficient each year. It should be possible to arrange that number in every school in the land.

There is another great curse which operates especially against the health of our girls.

A well-known woman is in the habit of saying, "I have scarcely a woman-friend who either has not just had an operation,[102] or is not having one now, or is not going to have one soon."

This statement always raises a laugh, but is no joke; it is a solemn, awful fact.

Now why are so many of our splendid women, well-fed, living largely in the open air, busy, educated, passionately devoted to the study of hygiene and sanitation, inevitably destined to be cut up on the operating-tables of our hospitals?

Why,—it is so commonly expected, that we hear of these operations now without a quiver, even though we know they are likely to be fatal. We accept them as though they were decreed by an inescapable Fate, and there was no remedy.

Is it reasonable that the Creator should have made woman to be a natural invalid,—to have powers and faculties which she[103] could never fully employ and enjoy? Of what use are our hard-won educational advantages, if they are going simply to a band of sickly, half-dead girls and women? It is a monstrous and blasphemous thought that our Maker designed women for such a destiny.

Huxley says that nine-tenths of the impediments to women's health are not inherent, but are due to her mode of life.

She was made to be strong and helpful. Her body is wonderfully wrought and fashioned for motherhood, and for the accomplishment of the high spiritual mission to which the woman-soul aspires. One is driven to the conclusion that at the root of her physical enfeeblement is the costume which has been imposed upon her by the false ideals and hyper-refined[104] standards of past centuries, and of nations which have admired most the class of women who do not prepare themselves for motherhood.

The costume which women wear is intended chiefly to give an impression of slenderness. It is not suited to the hard work of the busy housewife, nor to that of the cramped and confined office- or shop-worker, nor to the life of the schoolgirl. A hard-working man, dressed in the modern corset and in the usually closely-belted blouse of the girl and woman of to-day, would fail physically and resort to the operating-table as universally as do his wife and sisters. That so many of them survive the ordeal and are able to perform some useful work in the world is, says one prominent physician,[105] "one of the wonders of our time." "Pauline Furlong," in a recent issue of a widely circulated journal, begs that the corset and the closely fitting costume of the present be discarded, and replaced by something light, loose and hung entirely from the shoulders.

The recent remarks of Mr. Edison upon this subject are sound. He says, "There should be no pressure upon any part of the body, if the organs within, which require perfect freedom in order to do their work efficiently, are to perform their functions."

We shall never have a strong and healthy nation, though we may make volumes of sanitary laws, until there is a radical change in the dress of women. That, just as a girl is approaching the[106] age when she is likely to marry and bear children, the organs of motherhood should be subjected to strong pressure and largely deprived of activity, so that the delicate milk-ducts are often atrophied, and the muscles most needed to support the child are weakened; while the chief organ of all is frequently displaced, leading to painful and sometimes fatal complications;—all this is so discreditable to the intelligence of our people, that future ages will doubtless look back upon our period as one of densest ignorance regarding eugenics.

You may ask, "What do you advise to take the place of the present mode of dress?"

Only the experts in such matters can answer this question. It seems likely[107] that some combination of the best points of the oriental costumes offers the best solution. The new dress should be perfectly loose; light in weight; should depend entirely from the shoulders, like a man's, thus bringing no pressure to bear upon the important but loosely hung organs of the abdomen; and the legs should be allowed the utmost freedom.

Women who have long depended upon a corset for support will doubtless find it uncomfortable, or even dangerous, to lay upon their enfeebled muscles alone the task of upholding their bodies. Girls who do not wear corsets will not "look well" (according to our modern distorted ideas) in any but the prevailing costume. The dancers say that if a truly hygienic mode of dress is introduced, the modern[108] dance will have to be reformed,—which may not be the least of the benefits of such a mode!

These are some of the objections raised to radical changes in women's attire. But the health of our girls, and especially of our mothers, is a vital matter, and must be made paramount. There will always be causes enough for illness; but it must be emphasized that we shall never have a strong and healthy nation, in which but a small percentage, instead of the enormous one of the present draft, is rejected for physical defects, until the motherhood of the nation is properly equipped for motherhood. Neither will our girls be ready to fulfill nobly their new political duties.

Nature is strong, and she manages to[109] circumvent, to a certain extent, the obstructive devices of man. There are apparently many healthy children born of tightly corseted mothers. The outer flesh and blood of the child are made in the obscure laboratories of the body more easily than the later and highly refined fabrications of brain and nerve. Are the low average brain-power and the weak nerves of our people, leading in so many pitiable cases to moral and mental degeneracy, largely due to our criminal neglect of the conditions of free and splendid motherhood?

But, if we want to become a healthy and powerful people, what is more necessary for us than strong and healthy mothers?

The child should be taught that any[110] tampering with health is immoral. The most conscientious observance of its laws should be impressed upon every boy and girl. Especially must we guard the health of our girls, for their function in the state is just now of vital moment, and yet it is not so much regarded apparently as that of their brothers.

[111]

CHAPTER VII

In an illuminating sermon, Dr. Lyman Abbott once treated of this subject. It was on the Fourth of July, and he began[112] by saying that the most important result of the Civil War, as he viewed it, was one that he had never heard mentioned. Having thus enlisted the keenest attention of his hearers, he continued in nearly these words:

"Before the Civil War, the man who worked with his hands was despised by the leading element in the South. Supplied with an army of slaves to wait upon him, the average planter was spared the necessity of exertion. He hunted in the season, raced sometimes and sometimes played an athletic game; but he held the theory, broadly speaking, that no man could be a gentleman (as most foreigners believe also) who engages in trade or pursues any mechanical occupation.

"The war changed all that. Many of[113] the richest planters had to go to work. Some of them had even to enter menial servitude in order to earn bread for their families. Then they found out that it was possible to preserve their scholarship, their refinement and their gentle manners, though they worked hard every day. It was an epochal discovery.

"From that time, the dignity of labor was established in the South, as the Pilgrim Fathers had long before established it in New England, and as it must eventually be established throughout the world, if the world is ever to rise to the full glory of the democratic ideal."

The chief, and almost the only argument of the advocates of Child Labor in our fields and factories, is that the children thus become early used to work,—a[114] habit which is productive of the best results in later life.

Carlyle's great essays upon work have inspired thousands; and in Professor Carl Hilty's wonderful volume called "Happiness," there is an essay on "Work," which every parent should read. He shows how laziness,—the inherent aversion to work,—has been a chief obstacle to progress in all ages; how hard labor was so universally relegated to slaves during early times that even to philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, any social system was unthinkable, which did not include a slave class.

One of Professor's Hilty's incidental remarks is worth mentioning. He speaks of the many excellent women who observe scrupulously the injunction in the[115] Fourth Commandment to keep the Sabbath Day holy; but who seem to fail to observe the opening sentence of the commandment, "Six days shalt thou labor"; often apparently thinking that one day out of the seven, or even none at all, is enough for that purpose. He feels that the progress of the world depends upon the combined and strenuous labor of every living man and woman for six days out of the seven,—with only occasional vacations!

We are all probably agreed that every citizen should know how to support himself.

One of our truant officers went to a poor home to find out why a boy who lived there had been absent from school for several days. The mother reported[116] that the father was in the hospital, and that her only support was the small pay which this boy received for holding horses, doing errands for the corner grocer, and so on.

The teapot stood on the stove, and the officer said, "But your boy will grow up ignorant if you keep him out of school like this. Don't you want him to know about tea,—where it grows and how it is prepared for the market?"

"Oh," responded the poor woman, with a practical common sense which disconcerted her hearer, "I'd a dale rather he should know how to airn a pound of it."

And in her desperate circumstances, it was far more necessary that he should.

But in well-to-do households, where there is not much work that a child can[117] do, especially in the city, how can he be trained up in habits of industry?

This is a problem which, as we have said, confronts thousands of conscientious mothers, who believe profoundly in Mrs. Browning's pregnant lines:

Country children can gather the eggs, cut feed for the animals, often have a pet lamb, chickens, heifers or colts of their own to care for. There is little difficulty in finding "chores" for them to do. But the city boy and girl are not so fortunately situated.

All that can be done for them is to devise errands, and to place upon them as much responsibility for small duties about[118] the house, as you think they can bear. They should spend as much time as possible in the open air, playing in their own yard or, under close watch, in the street,—the playground of most city children.

Every means that can be thought of should be used to make them despise the idea of idleness, and to love work.

A distinguished professor in one of our great universities taught his classes that work was one of the cardinal evils, and that a prime endeavor of life should be to get along with as little work as possible.

A mother of one of his pupils, who had brought her son up to believe that work was noble and honorable, and that it ranked with the four gospels as a means[119] of salvation from sin, has never forgiven that professor. He overturned in the mind of her son the ideal of the glory of work, which she had so painstakingly erected there, and it has never been fully re-established. No such man as that teacher should ever be given a position upon a college faculty.

When one reads of the childhood of the vast majority of our distinguished men it seems chimerical to hope that children brought up in comfort, with plenty to eat and to wear, should ever attain to high positions. Most of our great men appear to have struggled through seas of adversity, in order to get an education and a foothold in the world of literature or art or politics or finance. We recognize that it was the self-reliance and the[120] capacity for hard work thus developed, which brought them success. We know that it is a truism that poverty is the mother of muscle and of invention. Many wealthy parents have tried to supply this great motive by depriving their children of luxuries, and making them work their way through college, or "begin at the bottom" of some business. This has sometimes, but not often, resulted well; for, after all, artificial poverty is only a blind, and the child has ever the underlying consciousness that it is, and that there is no real need that he should much exert himself.

A lady who conducted a subscription class of society women in their own beautiful parlors, testified that their mental inertia was lamentable, and that the only[121] two in her class of fifty, who really seemed to have any capacity for keen thought, were women who worked for a living. They had to make their minds nimble and bright in order to keep themselves afloat.

In Professor Drummond's remarkable book, "Natural Law in the Spiritual World," there is a striking illustration of the deteriorating effect of disuse upon organs, in the highly organized crab, which, when it finds a rich feeding-ground, attaches itself to some convenient rock, loses one by one its feelers and tentacles and soon becomes a simple sac, fit only to suck up nourishment.

Many of the absurd opinions and nearly all of the sins of the so-called "society" people can be laid to idleness.[122] The mind, seldom used to its capacity, becomes dull and unable to reason, and the moral nature loses its strength of conviction. Nothing is worse for our country than the increase of our idle classes. Its salvation is the slogan that every man and woman should work and earn at least a living.

Our "leisure women" are realizing their plight, and most of them are entering actively into our great philanthropic and civic organizations. The war has given them a splendid opportunity and it is a good sign for our nation that so many of them have seized it. The idle woman, whom George Meredith calls, "that baggage which has so hindered the march of civilization," is coming to realize her responsibility as a citizen of a great democratic[123] nation. The leisure man among us is so rare that he is an almost negligible quantity, for which we may well be thankful. If we can get the child of America started well in the ways of industry, the man is safe; for one who has experienced the transporting pleasure of achievement, can scarcely help wanting more of it.

"The phrase, 'economy of effort,' so dear to Froebel's followers, had little meaning for Dr. William James," says Agnes Repplier. "He asserts that effort is oxygen to the lungs of youth, and that a noble, generous rivalry is the spur of action and the impelling force of civilization."

It is certainly the "cue" of every patriot who loves his country.[124]

The joy of work is well described by Cleveland Moffett in the article which has been mentioned. He says: "However disagreeable work may be, life without work is even more disagreeable. All who have tried it, no matter how rich they are, agree that enforced idleness ranks among the most cruel of tortures. Men easily die of it, as doctors know, who every day order broken-down neurasthenics in their middle fifties, back into the business or professional harness they have foolishly retired from."

The field of work for those women who are obliged or prefer to support themselves, is broadening hopefully. President Woolley of Mount Holyoke tells of seven of her recent graduates who took part lately in a symposium at the college,[125] all of whom were engaged in paying work, but no one of whom was teaching, though that has hitherto been the main dependence of the wage-earning girl.

One of these young women was a physician; the others were respectively: a lawyer; an interior decorator; an editor of the children's department of a well-known periodical; a county agent in New York State; a member of the staff of the Children's Bureau at Washington; and the Secretary of the American Nurses' Association.

Such incidents make us confident that the varied talents of our bright girls will soon find as wide a scope as that enjoyed by our boys.

And it cannot be too strongly emphasized that regular daily work in early[126] life is invaluable in establishing habits of industry.

A common expression used to be: "He has good habits," or "He has bad habits." We do not hear it so often nowadays, but the words are full of meaning. As a man's habits are, so is he.

"Could the young but realize," says Mr. Moffett, "how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state."

It is then that we mothers must mold them into the workers that we want them to be, and we must use the patriotic motive to quicken their love of industry. In certain states this motive is strengthened by laws compelling idle men to work.[127]

Robert Gair is the founder of what is now the greatest "paper-products" business in this country, and probably in the world. It is located in the Borough of Brooklyn, New York City. There Mr. Gair, on the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday, made an address to his employees, a portion of which, as reported in the Brooklyn Eagle, was as follows:

"No permanent achievement, whatever its form may be, appears to be possible without stress of labor. Nothing has come to me without persistent effort of the head and of the hand. Hard labor will win what we want, if the laws of nature are obeyed. Self-coddling and the fear of living strenuously, enfeeble character and result in half-successes. Hard[128] labor has no penalties. It is the loss of hardihood through careless living that brings penalties. Do the one thing before you with your whole heart and soul. Do not worry about what has gone by, nor what lies ahead, but rivet your mind and energies on the thing to be done now. Self-indulgence and late hours produce leaden hands and a listless brain, robbing your work of 'punch.'"

Mr. Gair cast his first vote for Abraham Lincoln. He enlisted early in the Civil War and saw hard service. Less than two hundred of the original 1,087 of his regiment remained to be mustered out at the close of the war.

Surely his wise and uncompromising words indicate one of the most necessary ways in which our young people, who desire[129] to show how much they love their country and wish to promote her glory, can contribute to it.

[130]

CHAPTER VIII

A certain mother once said, "I was always so fearful that my children would become bad men and women that I devoted[131] all my attention to making them good. Then I was shocked to find, when they had grown up, that though their morals were satisfactory their manners were not."

Perhaps most American mothers are like her. And that may be the reason why we have the reputation of being the worst-mannered of all the so-called "civilized" peoples.

Still, the outlook is encouraging. Observing critics have been heard to say that the children now growing up, in spite of many exceptions, have better manners than those who have preceded them. The public schools are more careful regarding such matters than they used to be, and so are parents. In fact, if it were not for our numerous importations[132] from the countries which most severely criticize us, our American manners, on the whole, might be called pretty good.

Have you not noticed how many laboring men remove their hats when apologizing to you, or offering a seat in a street-car? Or say, "Excuse me?" when it is proper. Instead of staring at a cripple or a deformed person, as people used almost invariably to do, in very many cases lately it has been remarked that eyes have been politely turned away and an effort apparently made to appear unconscious of the misfortune. Parents are teaching their children to eat more gracefully. More hands are neatly manicured. In fact, perhaps we are going almost too far in this direction. In one of the "Country[133] Contributor's" interesting articles in the Ladies' Home Journal, she says, "Don't let anybody tell you that a lady or gentleman must have nice hands. It isn't true." She means, of course, that useful work, which often spoils the beauty of the hands, must be considered far more important than the keeping of them immaculate.

Quarrelsome and ill-bred children are still to be found among us, even in pretty good families; but in spite of the large class always present, who are chronic complainers of the decadence of the times,—a sure sign of approaching senility,—it must be acknowledged that the manners of the children one meets nowadays are better than those of the last generation.[134]

It would be a confession of the impotence of effort if this were not so. Thousands of women's clubs and scores of women's periodicals have been hammering at "the bringing up of children," for, lo, these many years. Add to these, the thunderings of the pulpit and of the lecture-platform, and we must admit that the best ways that we know of imparting information and inspiration are useless, unless there has been within the last quarter-century an improvement in the behavior of our children. We must remember that civilization is a slow process, and one cannot readily believe that, even in the millennium, there will not be some silly mothers and some naughty children.

It is said that we behave better, so far as outward signs go, when we wear our[135] best clothes. Without fostering the love of dress, which is likely to be fully developed without help, especially among our girls, it cannot be too strongly impressed upon our children that they must never appear before others without being neatly and properly dressed. A principal of a famous Normal School used to instruct his students that they must always dress as well as they could afford.

"It will have a good effect upon your pupils," he said, "and it will help to establish the dignity of your profession."

One of the few compliments which foreign visitors generally paid us (before the war) was that we were a well-dressed people.

Perhaps this has had more effect upon their estimation of us as a nation than[136] have some of our more solid virtues. Perhaps it is really a sign of the possession of solid virtues.

But, again, it is example which counts more than precept in the case of manners, as in everything else. If you wish your children to treat your wife with respect, you must treat her so yourself. If you rise when she enters the room; if you hasten to place a footstool for her; if you apologize for passing in front of her; if you hasten to help her up and down the rough places; then your children will do it. Otherwise, all of her and your injunctions will have small influence. There are good citizens and good soldiers who are uncouth and awkward in their manners, but a graceful courtesy clothing the more substantial qualities will give[137] them far more weight in the community.

One impatient boy complained to his fastidious mother, who was bound to make him a gentleman in manners, no matter what else he might become, "Oh, mother, it is nothing but 'Thank you,' and 'I beg your pardon,' and jumping up to give people your seat, from morning to night—and I get so sick of it! When I grow up, I'm never going to say them or do them any more!"

Courtly and polished manners are said to be impossible among the mass of the people in a republic. Let us try to show the world that this is false. Distinction of manner is not one of the great qualities of a nation, but if we wish to impress upon a somewhat incredulous world the glory and beauty of our institutions, we[138] shall find the cultivation of beautiful manners a great help.

Dr. Lyman Beecher once said, "What a pity that so many of our finest and most self-sacrificing Christians have had rough manners! They have robbed their example of half its force."

The current ambition that our nation should be courteous as well as brave, is shown plainly in the questions which come by the hundred to the "household departments" of our periodicals, especially from mothers and young people. Points of good behavior and etiquette are expounded there so fully and so often that there would seem to be no excuse for any ignorance among us of the proper conduct in any situation.

The printed answers to these questions[139] do not always commend themselves to the judgment of the judicious; but, on the whole, they are satisfactory, especially when we consider that opinions of just what constitutes a lady or a gentleman have differed even among the best authorities.

Thus, the old English social doctrine was that a gentleman is born, not made, and that no amount of training could graft the gentleman on one of humble lineage.

Our own Admiral Sampson used to say that "certain specific advantages of training and education were needed to make a gentleman,"—implying that gentlemanliness is an acquired art; and so the famous, but profoundly immoral Chesterfield, would have defined it,[140] though he considered good blood essential also.

Steele, in the "Tatler," observed that the appellation of "gentleman" is never to be affixed to a man's circumstances, but to his behavior in them. Old Chaucer puts the matter thus: "He is gentil that doth gentil dedes."

The outside likeness to a gentleman or lady amounts to little, unless there is a kind heart behind it, for affectation and insincerity are in themselves bad manners. Huxley expressed it well when he said: "Thoughtfulness for others, generosity, modesty and self-respect are the qualities which make a real gentleman or lady, as distinguished from the veneered article which commonly goes by that name."[141]

Thackeray gives the best definition of all, though his own manners were harshly criticized by some of his contemporaries. It was, "to be a gentleman is to be brave, to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities, to exercise them in the most graceful manner."

There are laws which forbid us to teach in our schools any particular religion, but there are no laws, as has already been said in this book, against the teaching of morals. Let us quote again Horace Mann's strong words: "Morals should be systematically taught in our schools, and not left for merely casual and occasional mention."

Few text-books in morals are as yet supplied in our public schools, and little[142] time is provided in the daily schedules for lectures upon them; but one great avenue to their understanding and attainment is still open. In many schools there is a story-telling hour at intervals, and, as Miss McCracken and her co-laborers have proved, patriotism and every other virtue can be deeply impressed upon the youthful mind by stories.

For instance, one of the most necessary qualities for the development of a strong and noble personality is courage. Now courage is not merely not being afraid, as Miss McCracken shows, and as many of the anecdotes of the present war prove. It is going ahead and doing your duty, even when you are afraid,—as almost every human being is, when exposed to danger. Every one must have noticed,[143] in reading the innumerable war-stories in our books and periodicals, how many times the soldier confesses, "My whole frame trembled and my heart was like water, but I kept right on,"—and in several such cases we are told that some deed of extraordinary bravery was done by the faltering but determined man, which earned for him some medal or cross of merit.

To go forward, no matter how the body may rebel, is the great test of courage. This advice is especially needed by our girls. Upon women and girls have fallen many of the men's tasks in these days, and great moral and physical courage is needed to meet them. Among the other inspiring words of Robert Gair are some to fit these new circumstances.[144]

"Most of you have more quality than you know," he said. "Do not fear to put your ability to the test."

Governor Whitman of New York, in a recent address at Mount Holyoke College, quoted these beautiful words of Phillips Brooks, "Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks."

Our great task is to preserve this nation and its splendid ideals, so sacredly handed down to us by martyr-heroes. Our children must be taught that the task is great, whether peace or war befall us, but that God can impart the wisdom and courage to perform it, and hand it down unimpaired to their descendants.

Frederick the Great was brought up to[145] be courageous, but his was chiefly the courage of battle.

"Frederick the Great," said Mr. James W. Gerard, our late Ambassador to Germany, in a recent address, "is the hero and model of Germany. His example, coupled with the teaching of Germany's leading philosophers, has built up that ideal of force and dominion which has been the undoing of that great nation. This ideal must be entirely demolished before they can ever resume that place in the brotherhood of nations, to which their gifts and attainments entitle them."

As a model, Frederick the Great is repugnant to the soul of America. We may not all be Christians, but the claim that we are a Christian nation is justified by the fact that our ideals are the ideals[146] of Christianity,—of justice toward all, of the love of mercy, of equality of opportunity for all, and of fraternity among men, of all races and creeds. Peace is one of the grandest things on earth; but, as Dean Howard Robbins reminds us, it is only a means to an end,—namely, this end: the coming of the kingdom of God. If war is required for this end, then we must for a time sacrifice peace.

[147]

CHAPTER IX

"He came out of the dark, and into the dark he returned," said the old Chief. "Thus it is with human life. We come we know not whence. We depart we know not whither. If anybody can tell us anything about it, in God's name, let us hear him."

And thus came the missionaries into Britain and made it a so-called religious nation.

Our religious journals have discussed from many standpoints the possibility of making our own a religious nation. A formally "established" religion is especially[149] forbidden us. We all admit this to be wise, and that Church and State should be separate. Yet there are few thoughtful people who do not realize that each individual has his spiritual part, which must be fed and nourished, and that this cannot be done by culture alone. When a series of sex-films was on display in New York, and good people were wondering whether more of good than bad would result to the young who flocked to see them, one distinguished man said to another, "Knowledge alone will never make men virtuous,"—and no truer word was ever spoken, as the spectacle of highly educated Germany amply proves.

We are told that there are other forces than the love of God and the desire to serve Him, which may elevate and redeem[150] mankind. That old Gospel, we are told, is outgrown. By other means, character, the banishment of injustice and crime and the establishment of universal brotherhood can be just as well secured.

First, Science was to do it. "From Huxley's 'Lay Sermons' of 1870," says the Christian Work, "to the latest fulmination of Professor Haeckel, we have been hearing that Science was the true Messiah, the eliminator of all evil." Science was to be taught to our children in the place of the outworn fables of the Bible.

Then came the prophets of Education. Herbert Spencer and his followers informed us that education was the panacea for all ills. Educate the people as[151] to what is best and they will choose the best.

The prophets of Culture came next. All that was necessary to bring in the millennium was the diffusion of art, literature, music, philosophy. The mastery of the world by supermen was to be the religion that should create a strong and virtuous nation. Not meek men, not suffering Christs, but giant men, by force summoning perfect character and perfect efficiency out of erring humanity.

Economic Reform was the idol of the next decade or two. If we could get an eight-hour day, one day's rest in seven, a good wage, plenty to eat and model tenements, then religion, as the Church views it, would be superfluous.

During the last forty or fifty years, all[152] of these gospels have been given a fair trial. "Science," says Dr. Frederick Lynch, "has driven the classics out of our colleges, and has almost become the text-book of our Sunday Schools,"—and yet it has worked little improvement in our national morals, and is just now devoted chiefly to the inventing of machines and chemicals for the slaughter of mankind. Even airships have apparently been used mostly for dropping bombs on playgrounds and nurseries. Education was never more general. Education has stood next to the army in the consideration of Germany. Many of our principal cheap politicians and grafters are educated men.

Culture, too, is almost universal. Every town has its library and its women's clubs; and Chautauquas in summer[153] and courses of lectures and concerts in winter, are provided in our smallest villages. Germany has boasted of her culture, and we are proud of ours,—but it seems to have done little more than "to veneer the barbarian" in them and in us.

All of the high-sounding promises of Economic Reform have failed as utterly. Germany's fine insurance plans, England's old-age pensions, the higher wages, shorter hours and better homes of the working people, have proven but vanity. "Be happy and you will be good" is not the great slogan of redemption, after all.

Sects are vanishing, and that is well. But the great ideals of the Bible, the great Pattern of the life of Jesus Christ, these are and ever must be the inspiration[154] of the passion for righteousness which we long to instill into our children. Science, Education, Culture, Economic Reform—these are good and necessary things,—but they are, each and all, only parts of the greater Gospel, and that is what we must teach our children, if we are to make them good citizens; for, as a community without a church goes to pieces, so does character without religion.

Familiarity with the Bible is one of the essentials to this teaching. Besides its ethical and spiritual power, its stories, its poetry and its great essays furnish so much literary culture that a man thoroughly conversant with them is essentially a cultured being.

One of our distinguished statesmen wandered into a backwoods church,[155] where he heard a well-expressed, logical and highly spiritual discourse from a man who bore every mark in his outward appearance of having always lived in the locality. Upon inquiring where this remarkable preacher gained his knowledge, he found that he had always lived in an obscure hamlet and that his library consisted simply of his Bible and his hymn-book.

Abraham Lincoln obtained his wonderful literary style largely from his study of the King James Bible. Webster recommended it as a model of condensed, dignified and vivid expression. Thousands of our best writers and orators are indebted to it for the high quality of their style, and many have so testified.

The work of these writers, such as[156] Shakespeare, Browning, Mrs. Browning, Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Lowell, Longfellow, Bryant, Whittier, Sidney Lanier, are full of allusions and figures which cannot be understood by our young people unless they are familiar with the Bible. All of our greatest modern literature is permeated with its language and its spirit. Every child should know its stories, should be made to learn some of its grand poetry, and should have its ethics and its spiritual lessons deeply graven upon their hearts. We can truly say of it:

"The child," says President Butler of Columbia University, "is entitled to his[157] religious as well as to his scientific, literary and æsthetic inheritance. Without any one of them he cannot become a truly cultivated man. . . . If it is true that reason and spirit rule the universe, then the highest and most enduring knowledge is of the things of the spirit. That subtle sense of the beautiful and sublime which accompanies spiritual insight and is a part of it,—this is the highest achievement of which humanity is capable. It is typified in the verse of Dante, in the prose of Thomas à Kempis, in the Sistine Madonna of Raphael and in Mozart's Requiem. To develop this sense in education is the task of art and literature; to interpret it is the work of philosophy; to nourish it is the function of religion. It is man's highest possession, and those[158] studies which most directly appeal to it are beyond compare most valuable."

Theodore Roosevelt has recently given us a fair definition of religion. The New York Bible Society asked him to write a special message to be printed in the copies of the New Testament designed for soldiers and sailors. He sent the following:

"The teachings of the New Testament are foreshadowed in Micah's verse: 'What more doth the Lord require of thee than to do justice and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?'

"Do justice: and therefore fight valiantly against the armies of Germany and Turkey, for these nations in this crisis stand for the reign of Moloch and Beelzebub upon this earth.[159]

"Love mercy; treat prisoners well; succor the wounded; treat every woman as if she were your sister; care for little children; be tender with the old and helpless.

"Walk humbly; you will do so if you study the life and teachings of the Savior.

"May the God of Justice and mercy have you in His keeping!"

Mr. Roosevelt had evidently in mind the great prayer of George Washington for America, well-known to most Episcopalians, but not so familiar to members of other sects. In fact, it is rather shameful that so few know it. Here it is:

"Almighty God, we make our earnest prayer that thou wilt keep the United[160] States in thy holy protection; that thou wilt incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government; to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another and for their fellow citizens of the United States at large. And, finally, that thou wilt most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things we can never hope to be a happy nation. Grant our supplication, we beseech thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen."

This prayer may well be taught to[161] every one of our boys and girls, and be used by them in their daily devotions.

The Sunday School should be a nesting-place for patriotism as well as for religion. It is occasionally felt by some among us, some even who are truly religious, that the Sunday School accomplishes little good. Powerful evidence to the contrary, in spite of its negative form, was afforded by Judge Fawcett of Brooklyn, when he testified that of the twenty-seven hundred men and women brought before his court during the last five years, not one had ever seen the inside of a Sunday School. The Sunday School has never been developed to its right capacity. It can be made a tremendous engine for the manufacture of religious men and women, and enthusiastic patriots.[162]

For that is what we greatly need in this country,—enthusiastic patriots. Dr. Jowett dwells especially upon the value of enthusiasm.

"No virtue is safe," he says, "until it becomes enthusiastic. It is safe only when it becomes the home of fire. In the high realms of the spirit, it is only the passionate that is secure. The seraphim, those pure spirits who are in the immediate service of the Lord, are the 'burning ones,' and it is their noble privilege to carry fire from off the altar and touch with purifying flame the lips of the unclean."

Nothing will more certainly enkindle this life-giving flame than the study of the lives of great heroes,—first, those of sacred writ, the patriarchs, prophets and[163] apostles, of whom the world was not worthy; then the noble army of the martyrs and the brave men of the great Middle Age; then John Wesley, John Fox, Roger Williams, Whitefield, John Knox, John Huss, John Calvin,—how ignorant our children are of the thrilling heroisms of the past!

Agnes Repplier, in one of her brilliant essays, illustrates this disgraceful fact with this anecdote:

"American children go to school six, eight or ten years, and emerge with a misunderstanding of their own country and a comprehensive ignorance of all others. They say, 'I don't know any history,' as casually as they might say, 'I don't know any chemistry.' A smiling young freshman told me recently that she had been[164] conditioned because she knew nothing about the Reformation.

"'You mean—' I began questioningly.

"'I mean just what I say,' she interrupted. 'I didn't know what it was or where it was, or who had anything to do with it.'

"I said I didn't wonder she had come to grief. The Reformation was something of an episode. When I was a schoolgirl, I was never done studying about the Reformation. . . . We cannot leave John Wesley any more than we can leave Marlborough or Pitt out of the canvas. . . . History is philosophy teaching by example, and we are wise to admit the old historians into our counsel."

Walter Savage Landor devoted one of[165] his most eloquent paragraphs to this subject: "Show me how great projects were executed, great advantages gained and great calamities averted. Show me the generals and the statesmen who stood foremost that I may honor them. Tell me their names that I may repeat them to my children. Show me whence laws were introduced, upon what foundation laid, by what custody guarded, in what inner keep preserved. Place History on her rightful throne."

It is true that most of the great forward steps of civilization have been made by war. Our brave soldiers of 1776, of 1812, of 1847, of 1861, and of 1898, are rightly our most revered heroes. Our children should know the stories of their lives.[166]

But the heroes of duty should be even more emphatically impressed upon their minds. It is true that warriors are soldiers of conscience no less than others, but our children will, we hope, need chiefly the heroism of civil life, which, being less showy, requires more of resolution. Here is a tale of a soldier who kept his courage in another place than the battlefield:

Colonel Higginson was once asked what was the bravest deed that he ever saw done in the Civil War. He replied that the bravest deed he ever witnessed was not done in battle. It was at a banquet, where several officers had related salacious stories, and the turn came of a young lieutenant. He rose and said, "I cannot tell a story, but I will give you a[167] toast, to be drunk in water,—Our Mothers."

There was a hush of guilty silence, and soon the party broke up.

May our sons never be placed in similar circumstances, but if they are, may they show a similar bravery!

It may be remembered that a story almost identical with this was told of General Grant.

The lives of Livingston, of Stanley, of Paton, of Elizabeth Fry, of Florence Nightingale, of Julia Ward Howe, of Alice Freeman Palmer, of Anna H. Shaw,—of Wilberforce, of Judson, and of men like the late Joseph H. Choate should be made familiar to our young people and a desire awakened to emulate their example.[168]

Unfortunately the "path of duty" is not often at present "the way of glory,"—but it is a part of religion that the glory of an approving conscience and of the final smile of God should rank far above fleeting earthly fame. The Boy Scouts, in their excellent creed, embody this idea, and so do the Camp-Fire Girls. Both set up the right ideals, which is the main object of true education.

"The Country Contributor" to the Ladies' Home Journal, feels that our nation is suffering from a falling-away in this respect, and that our ideals and our strength to follow them are going to be improved by the great war.

"We shall have heroes to mourn for," she says, "not moral degenerates, not financial failures, not self-satisfied good[169] citizens, dying of slow spiritual decay. Maybe our men will wake up. Perhaps new-born men may flash upon our vision as Custer did at the Grand Review.

"During that three-days' march of the Grand Review, somebody flung a wreath of flowers from a window, and it dropped upon the beautiful head of General Custer, with his leonine mane of yellow hair falling on his shoulders. His horse was frightened and ran; so Custer rode, a wild, beautiful figure of young Victory, down the length of Pennsylvania Avenue. Or like Phil Kearney at Seven Pines, with his one arm still left and the reins in his teeth."

Alfred Noyes, in the Bookman, has pointed out to a scoffing man who has belittled our heroes and our history, and[170] says, "There are no ghosts in America," the fact that we have abundant romance and heroism within our annals, and names some of the men and events which stand for them, adding:

But the chief element in the child's ideal should be democracy. His idea of "classes" and of "masses" should be that a democracy has none.[171]

"Imagine!" cried a gaily dressed young woman one day, "that shop-girl is actually trying to be a lady!"—yet that shop-girl was gentle and refined and far more of a lady than the silly rich girl who so vulgarly criticized her.

"I wish we had more clearly defined classes here in America," remarked an apparently loyal American woman (she was wearing conspicuously an American flag brooch). "It is a much more comfortable way."

She represents a considerable section among us, who would like a return to titles and class decorations in our social system. You have doubtless observed that such people always expect themselves to be included in the gentry-and-nobility class. Our forefathers, with a vision and[172] a valor far in advance of their time, fought and died on purpose to abolish such distinctions, and may they never return! Some undiscerning ones insist that we are as truly "classified" as is any European monarchy; but they do not seem to realize that with us caste and class change with almost every generation. The great name and estate are not handed down by primogeniture from father to son.

"The only 'lower orders,'" said Horace Mann, "are those who do nothing for the good of mankind. The word 'classes' is not a good American word. In a republic there should be but two classes,—the educated and the uneducated; and the one should gradually merge into the other until all are educated."

He summed up the whole matter thus:[173] "The law of caste includes within itself every iniquity, because it lives by the practical denial of human brotherhood."

Teach your children this lesson thoroughly.

Pasteur defined democracy as "that form of government which permits every individual citizen to develop himself to do his best for the common good." We must come to recognize that "common good" means not only the good of our own nation but that of the world. May not Pasteur's definition be used as a basis for the great democratic principle to which we look forward as the security for the peace of the world?

The Athenian's patriotism was for Athens. The Spartan's was for Sparta, the Roman's was far more for the city of[174] Rome than for the empire. Ours should be, first, for our own land, but then for the world. It would be a traitor and a craven who would in a shipwreck save another man's wife before his own, if he could help it. So patriotism, like charity, begins at home. But equally true is what Lowell wrote:

De Tocqueville, years ago, reproached his own nation with being willing to fight only for its own liberty, while to the Anglo-Saxon the liberty of his neighbor[175] was also dear. Since then, France has developed. To her, also, is the liberty of her neighbor dear. May it ever be so to us!

Perhaps the whole content of this little volume is gathered up in Edwin Markham's splendid lines:

[176]

GO, GET 'EM! By William A. Wellman Maréchal des Logis of Escadrille N. 87 The True Adventures of an American Aviator of the Lafayette Flying Corps who was the Only Yankee Flyer Fighting over General Pershing's Boys of the Rainbow Division in Lorraine when they first "Went Over the Top." Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50 When a young Yankee athlete makes up his mind to play a part in the most thrilling game which the world has ever witnessed—war in mid air—the result is certain to produce a heart-thrilling story. Many such tales are being told to-day, but few, if any, can hope to approach that lived and now written by Sergeant "Billy" Wellman, for he engaged in some of the most amazing air battles imaginable, during the course of which he sent tumbling to destruction seven Boche machines—achievements which won for him the coveted Croix de Guerre with two palms. Maréchal Wellman was the only American in the air over General Pershing's famous "Rainbow Division" when the Yankee troops made their historic first over-the-top attack on the Hun, and during that battle he was in command of the lowest platoon of French fighting planes and personally disposed of two of the enemy's attacking aircraft. His experience included far more than fighting above the firmament. He was in Paris and Nancy during four distinct night bombing raids by the Boche and participated in rescues made necessary thereby; he, with a comrade, chased two hostile machines far into Germany and shot up their aviation field; he was lost in a blizzard on Christmas Day; he was in intimate touch with the men and officers of the Rainbow Division, and was finally shot down by anti-aircraft guns from a height of 5300 metres, escaping death by a miracle, but so seriously wounded that his honorable discharge followed immediately. Sergeant Wellman's story is unquestionably the most unusual and illuminating yet told in print.

[177]

THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF BROMLEY BARNES By George Barton Author of "The Mystery of the Red Flame," "The World's Greatest Military Spies and Secret Service Agents," etc. Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50 Mr. Barton first "broke into print," as the saying goes, with a mystery story entitled "The Scoop of the Session," which was published in Collier's a number of years ago, and has the reputation of having written more short detective stories than any other writer in the United States. In this new book Mr. Barton sets forth in absorbing fashion the Strange Adventures of Bromley Barnes, retired detective, but whose interest in the solution of baffling cases in public and private life is just as keen as in his days of active Government service. Worried and harassed Government officials, also perplexed and anxious private individuals, seek the services of the astute detective in national problems and personal matters, and just how the suave and diplomatic Barnes clears away mysteries makes a story that is mighty good reading.

[178]

DAWSON BLACK, RETAIL MERCHANT By Harold Whitehead Assistant Professor of Business Method, The College of Business Administration, Boston University, author of "The Business Career of Peter Flint," "Principles of Salesmanship," etc. Illustrated by John Goss, cloth, 12mo, $1.50 As Assistant Professor of Business Method in Boston University's famous College of Business Administration, the author's lectures have attracted widespread attention, and the popularity of his stories of business life, which have appeared serially in important trade magazines and newspapers all over the country, has created an insistent demand for their book publication. DAWSON BLACK is the story of a young man's first year in business as a store owner—a hardware store, but the principles illustrated apply equally to any other kind of retail store. In bright, pithy style the author narrates the triumphs and disasters, the joys and sorrows, the problems and their solutions with which a young employer, just commencing his career, is confronted. Relations with employees, means of fighting competition, and trade psychology in advertising are some of the important subjects treated. The hero's domestic career lends the "human interest" touch, so that the book skilfully combines fact with fiction, or "business with pleasure," and is both fascinating and informative.

[179]

THE MAN WHO WON OR, THE CAREER AND ADVENTURES OF THE YOUNGER MR. HARRISON By Leon D. Hirsch Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated by William Van Dresser, $1.50 Mr. Hirsch has given the public a novel decidedly out of the ordinary—a stirring story of political life combined with a romance of absorbing interest. In compelling fashion the author tells how Edward Harrison, recognized political boss, who had long controlled the affairs of a prosperous city, was forced to admit that his unprincipled political methods must give way to clean government, an exponent of which he sees in his son. Cleverly the author depicts Edward Harrison, the unscrupulous political boss; Jack Harrison, his son, who differs quite a bit from his father; Mrs. Harrison, the indefatigable social climber; and Alice Lane, a bright, lovable girl; and around these widely different characters Mr. Hirsch has written a vivid story of politics, ambition, love, hate and—best of all—of real life that grips the reader.

[180]

A new "Blossom Shop" story THE MT. BLOSSOM GIRLS By Isla May Mullins A sequel to "The Blossom Shop," "Anne of the Blossom Shop" and "Anne's Wedding" Illustrated, cloth, 12mo, decorative jacket, $1.50 In this fourth and last volume of The Blossom Shop stories May Carter and Gene Grey, who have won countless friends among readers of the series, come before them now as the center of interest. University graduates, the two girls come forth enamoured of the settlement idea, and proceed to carry it out at the mining and iron ore plant of their father in the mountains of Alabama, with the added interest of effort among the quaint mountaineers of the region. Things move at a lively pace from the moment of their arrival—things unexpected and gay and tragic, which put them on their mettle, but do not find them wanting. The girls are much imbued with the new independence of woman as well as with thought of her broadened sphere, and Cupid, who lingers near, is beset by various unyielding obstacles, but conquers in the end. The book has for an underlying thread ideals of the same high type which have characterized the former volumes.

[181]

THE MYSTERY OF THE RED FLAME By George Barton Author of "The World's Greatest Military Spies and Secret Service Agents," etc. Cloth, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50 Take the glorious red flame diamond from the museum at Rio de Janeiro, a wily Brazilian rascal, as conceited as he is clever, romantic as well as a rogue, a little-talking but much-doing American Secret Service man, a diamond merchant whose activities won't bear a customs inspector's searchlight, and of course a beautiful girl! Imagine them all interested intensely in the diamond and most of them in the girl. It is evident that these ingredients are ideal for the thrilling mystery tale, especially when the author is a newspaper man whose hobby is the study of crime and criminals. THE MYSTERY OF THE RED FLAME is the story par excellence to be read in conjunction with the shaded lamp, the arm chair and the open fire!

[1]

Selections from
The Page Company's
List of Fiction

Mr. Leigh Mitchell Hodges, The Optimist, in an editorial for the Philadelphia North American, says: "And when, after Pollyanna has gone away, you get her letter saying she is going to take 'eight steps' tomorrow—well, I don't know just what you may do, but I know of one person who buried his face in his hands and shook with the gladdest sort of sadness and got down on his knees and thanked the Giver of all gladness for Pollyanna."

When the story of Pollyanna told in The Glad Book was ended, a great cry of regret for the vanishing "Glad Girl" went up all over the country—and other countries, too. Now Pollyanna appears again, just as sweet and joyous-hearted, more grown up and more lovable.

"Take away frowns! Put down the worries! Stop fidgeting and disagreeing and grumbling! Cheer up, everybody! Pollyanna has come back!"—Christian Herald.

(This calendar is issued annually; the calendar for the new year being ready about Sept. 1st of the preceding year. Note: in ordering please specify what year you desire.)

Decorated and printed in colors.        $1.50

"There is a message of cheer on every page, and the calendar is beautifully illustrated."—Kansas City Star.[2]

"There is something altogether fascinating about 'Miss Billy,' some inexplicable feminine characteristic that seems to demand the individual attention of the reader from the moment we open the book until we reluctantly turn the last page."—Boston Transcript.

"The story is written in bright, clever style and has plenty of action and humor. Miss Billy is nice to know and so are her friends."—New Haven Times Leader.

"Although Pollyanna is the only copyrighted glad girl, Miss Billy is just as glad as the younger figure and radiates just as much gladness. She disseminates joy so naturally that we wonder way all girls are not like her."—Boston Transcript.

"'Six Star Ranch' bears all the charm of the author's genius and is about a little girl down in Texas who practices the 'Pollyanna Philosophy' with irresistible success. The book is one of the kindliest things, if not the best, that the author of the Pollyanna books has done. It is a welcome addition to the fast-growing family of Glad Books."—Howard Russell Bangs in the Boston Post.

"To one who enjoys a story of life as it is to-day, with its sorrows as well as its triumphs, this volume is sure to appeal."—Book News Monthly.

"A very beautiful book showing the influence that went to the developing of the life of a dear little girl into a true and good woman."—Herald and Presbyter, Cincinnati, Ohio.

[3]

"In 'Anne of Green Gables' you will find the dearest and most moving and delightful child since the immortal Alice."—Mark Twain in a letter to Francis Wilson.

"A book to lift the spirit and send the pessimist into bankruptcy!"—Meredith Nicholson.

"A story of decidedly unusual conception and interest."—Baltimore Sun.

"It has been well worth while to watch the growing up of Anne, and the privilege of being on intimate terms with her throughout the process has been properly valued."—New York Herald.

"A book that holds one's interest and keeps a kindly smile upon one's lips and in one's heart."—Chicago Inter-Ocean.

"A story born in the heart of Arcadia and brimful of the sweet life of the primitive environment."—Boston Herald.

"It is a simple, tender tale, touched to higher notes, now and then, by delicate hints of romance, tragedy and pathos."—Chicago Record-Herald.

[4]

"Frankly and wholly romance is this book, and lovable—as is a fairy tale properly told. And the book's author has a style that's all her own, that strikes one as praiseworthily original throughout."—Chicago Inter-Ocean.

"A charming portrayal of the attractive life of the South, refreshing as a breeze that blows through a pine forest."—Albany Times-Union.

"The story is most beautifully told. It brings in most charming people, and presents a picture of home life that is most appealing in love and affection. It is a delightful tale, highly refreshing and most entertaining."—Every Evening, Wilmington, Del.

"A thoroughly enjoyable tale, written in a delightful vein of sympathetic comprehension."—Boston Herald.

"A book which contributes so much of freshness, enthusiasm, and healthy life to offset the usual offerings of modern fiction, deserves all the praise which can be showered upon it."—Kindergarten Review.

"The author's style remains simple and direct, as in her preceding books, and her frank affection for her attractive heroine will be shared by many others."—Boston Transcript.