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Title: Teaching the Child Patriotism
Author: Kate Upson Clarke
Illustrator: Harriet O'Brien
Release Date: July 2, 2011 [EBook #36579]
Language: English
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TEACHING THE CHILD PATRIOTISM
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TEACHING THE CHILD PATRIOTISM
BY
KATE UPSON CLARKE
Author of "The Dole Twins," etc.
With a Frontispiece by
HARRIET O'BRIEN
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THE PAGE COMPANY
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_Copyright, 1918, by_
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_All rights reserved_
First Impression, October, 1918
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE APPEAL TO HISTORY 1
II THE PATRIOTISM OF PEACE 22
III PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY IN POLITICS 42
IV TEACHING THE MEANING OF DEMOCRACY 61
V SACRIFICING FOR PATRIOTISM 76
VI PATRIOTISM AND HEALTH 93
VII WORK AS A VITAL PART OF PATRIOTISM 111
VIII A PATRIOT'S MANNERS AND MORALS 130
IX THE PATRIOT'S RELIGION AND IDEALS 147
TEACHING THE CHILD PATRIOTISM
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I
THE APPEAL TO HISTORY
Let us suppose for a moment that any set of men could
succeed in sweeping away from them all the influences
of past ages. Suppose a race of men whose minds had
been suddenly deadened to every recollection--can we
imagine a condition of such utter confusion and
misery?--FREDERIC HARRISON.
WE have been lately told by one of our foremost educators that "the
best schools are expressly renouncing the questionable duty of teaching
patriotism by means of history."
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 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.
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 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 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 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 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
"--his part, a man's, with might
And main, and not a faintest touch of fear."
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 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.
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 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 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,
"Not once nor twice in our rough island story,
The path of duty was the way to glory,"
and ending with the fine repetition,
"And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure;
Till in all lands and through all human story,
The path of duty be the way to glory."
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."
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 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 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 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, 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?
"'Tis man's perdition to be safe,
When for the truth he ought to die."
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, and which makes for the development of patriotism
in the child and in the man.
CHAPTER II
THE PATRIOTISM OF PEACE
The great mind knows the power of gentleness--
Only tries force because persuasion fails.
--ROBERT BROWNING.
THE patriotism of war is far easier to teach than the patriotism of
peace. When bands are playing and the love of adventure is calling, men
find it easy to march away to battle for their country, and boys and
girls throb through all their young beings to do something for it.
But when men are staying at home, 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:
"Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay."
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.
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 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:
"Cursed be the man, and void of law and right,
Unworthy property, unworthy light,
Unfit for public rule or private care,
The wretch, the monster, who delights in war,--
Whose lust is murder, and whose horrid joy,
To tear his country and his kind destroy."
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 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.
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 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 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 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 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 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 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,
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 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
"As boys learn to spell,--
By reiteration chiefly."
this mother tried to impress upon those children the duties of good
citizenship. They are grown up now and show the effects of their
training.
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
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 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 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 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.
CHAPTER III
PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY IN POLITICS
Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that
faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we
understand it.--ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
DURING the last few years the magazines have published many helpful
series upon politics and a number of these deserve especial credit for
their work in this line. In one of these articles the writer reminds us
that though the sins of our time are the same old sins which were
denounced by Jeremiah and Ezekiel, they are likely now to be enameled
with fine new exteriors and called by new names. "Especially, the
current methods of annexing the property of others are characterized by
an indirectness and refinement very grateful to the natural feelings."
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.
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
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, 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 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 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 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.
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:
"Thou canst not see grass grow, how sharp soe'er thou be;
Yet that the grass has grown, thou presently shall see.
So, though thou canst not see thy work now prospering, know
The fruit of every work-time without fail shall show."
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 "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.
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_, 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 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 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 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 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."
"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 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, even at the sacrifice of considerable time, to oust them and get
better men in. He was no patriot.
CHAPTER IV
TEACHING THE MEANING OF DEMOCRACY
In a country like ours, there is a public opinion of
almost uncontrollable power. The educated and the
intellectual may have a decisive voice in its
formation; or they may live in their own selfish
enjoyments, and suffer the ignorant and depraved to
form that public opinion.--HORACE MANN.
ONE of the most irritating things in the world to a true patriot, is the
visitor at his table, who exalts the superiority of other nations to our
own.
Not that nearly every other nation may 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.
"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 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.
"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.
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 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 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, 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 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.
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 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!"
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.
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 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.
CHAPTER V
SACRIFICING FOR PATRIOTISM
Look back upon Washington and upon the Savior-like
martyrs, who, for our welfare, in lonely dungeons and
prison-ships, breathed a noisome air; and when the
minions of power came around day after day and offered
them life and liberty if they would desert their
country's cause, refused and died. The great
experiment of republicanism is being tried anew. In
Greece and Italy it failed through the incapacity of
the people to enjoy liberty without abusing it.
Millions of human beings may be happy through our
wisdom, but must be miserable through our folly.
Religion, the ark of God, is here thrown open to all,
and yet is to be guarded from desecration and
sacrilege, lest we perish with a deeper perdition than
ever befell any other people.--HORACE MANN.
A LITTLE boy many years ago was marching down Fourth Avenue in New
York, his face bright with interest and his whole air that of one who
has important business on hand. A gentleman who met him was curious to
know what was in the child's mind and stopped him.
"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
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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.
CHAPTER VI
PATRIOTISM AND HEALTH
Entire abstinence from intoxicating drinks as a
beverage, would, with all its attendant blessings, in
the course of a single generation, carry comfort,
competence and respectability, with but few
exceptions, into all the dwellings in the land. This
is not a matter of probability and conjecture. It
depends upon principles as fixed and certain in their
operation as the rising of the sun.--HORACE MANN.
WE are accused by our foreign visitors of being a sickly nation, and
the numerous exemptions from military service among our young men for
physical defects, have reinforced their contention. Our ice-water, our
ice-cream soda-water, our custom of bolting our food, and our
over-heated houses, make it impossible, they say, that we should ever be
a strong and healthy people. And so, of course, we can never hope to be
a "world-power!"
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 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 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 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 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.
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 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
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, 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 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
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, "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 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 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 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 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 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.
CHAPTER VII
WORK AS A VITAL PART OF PATRIOTISM
Gurowski asked, "Where is the bog? I wish to earn
money. I wish to dig peat." "Oh, no, sir, you cannot
do such degrading work." "I cannot be degraded. I am
Gurowski."--EMERSON'S JOURNALS.
SOMETHING has been said of the estimation in which work and working for
a living, are held in our country.
In an illuminating sermon, Dr. Lyman Abbott once treated of this
subject. It was on the Fourth of July, and he began 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 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 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 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 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 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:
"Get work! Get work! Be sure
That it is better than anything you work to get."
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 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 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 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 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. 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 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.
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, 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 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.
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 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 to show how much
they love their country and wish to promote her glory, can contribute to
it.
CHAPTER VIII
A PATRIOT'S MANNERS AND MORALS
Manners are the happy way of doing things. . . . Give
a boy address and accomplishments, and you give him the
mastery of palaces and fortunes. . . . The moral
equalizes all; enriches, empowers all.--EMERSON.
A THOUGHTFUL writer upon American customs recently remarked, "The morals
of America are better than those of any other nation, but their manners
are the worst."
A certain mother once said, "I was always so fearful that my children
would become bad men and women that I devoted 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 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 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.
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 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 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 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 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 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, 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."
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 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, 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.
"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 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 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.
CHAPTER IX
THE PATRIOT'S RELIGION AND IDEALS
Who seeks and loves the company of great
Ideals, and moves among them, soon or late
Will learn their ways and language, unaware
Take on their likeness.
--PRESIDENT SAMUEL V. COLE.
THE Venerable Bede wrote of a king of Northumberland and his counselors
as debating whether the emissaries of Pope Gregory should be allowed to
present to their people the Christian faith. A gray-haired Chief told of
a little bird, which on a stormy night flew into his warm, bright
dining-hall. It was a sweet moment for the bird, but his surroundings
were unnatural. He was frightened, and presently out he flew into the
storm again.
"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 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 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 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 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 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 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,
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 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:
"Thou art the Voice to kingly boys
To lift them through the fight."
"The child," says President Butler of Columbia University, "is
entitled to his 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 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.
"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 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 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.
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 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 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 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.
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 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.
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 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 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:
"Must all those dead lie still?
Must not the night disgorge
The ghosts of Bunker Hill,
The ghosts of Valley Forge,
Or England's mightier son
The ghost of Washington?
"No ghost where Lincoln fell?
No ghosts for seeing eyes?
I know an old cracked bell
Shall make ten million rise,
When his immortal ghost
Calls to the slumbering host."
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.
"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 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: "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 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:
"He's true to God who's true to man; wherever wrong is done,
To the humblest and the weakest, 'neath the all-beholding sun,
That wrong is done to us; and they are slaves most base,
Whose love of right is for themselves, and not for all their race."
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 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:
"What do we need to keep the nation whole,--
To guard the pillars of the state? We need
The fine audacities of honest deed;
The homely old integrities of soul;
The swift temerities that take the part
Of outcast right--the wisdom of the heart;
Brave hopes that Mammon never can detain,
Nor sully with his gainless clutch for gain.
"We need the Cromwell fire to make us feel
The common burden and the public trust
To be a thing as sacred and august
As the white vigil where the angels kneel.
We need the faith to go a path untrod,
The power to be alone and vote with God."
THE END
GO, GET 'EM!
[Illustration]
_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.
THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF BROMLEY BARNES
[Illustration]
_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.
DAWSON BLACK, RETAIL MERCHANT
[Illustration]
_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.
THE MAN WHO WON
OR, THE CAREER AND ADVENTURES OF THE YOUNGER MR. HARRISON
[Illustration]
_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.
_A new "Blossom Shop" story_
THE MT. BLOSSOM GIRLS
[Illustration]
_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.
THE MYSTERY OF THE RED FLAME
[Illustration]
_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!
Selections from The Page Company's List of Fiction
WORKS OF ELEANOR H. PORTER
Each, one volume, cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50
POLLYANNA: The _GLAD_ Book (400,000)
Trade Mark Trade Mark
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."
POLLYANNA GROWS UP: The Second _GLAD_ Book
Trade Mark (200,000) Trade Mark
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._
* * * * *
_The GLAD Book Calendar_
Trade Mark
THE POLLYANNA CALENDAR
Trade Mark
(_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._
MISS BILLY (19th printing)
Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color
from a painting by G. Tyng $1.50
"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._
MISS BILLY'S DECISION (12th printing)
Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color
from a painting by Henry W. Moore. $1.50
"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._
MISS BILLY--MARRIED (10th printing)
Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color
from a painting by W. Haskell Coffin. $1.50
"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 (20th Printing)
Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated by R. Farrington Elwell. $1.50
"'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._
CROSS CURRENTS
Cloth decorative, illustrated. $1.25
"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._
THE TURN OF THE TIDE
Cloth decorative, illustrated. $1.35
"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._
WORKS OF L. M. MONTGOMERY
THE FOUR ANNE BOOKS
Each, one volume, cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50
ANNE OF GREEN GABLES (43rd printing)
"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._
ANNE OF AVONLEA (28th printing)
"A book to lift the spirit and send the pessimist into
bankruptcy!"--_Meredith Nicholson._
CHRONICLES OF AVONLEA (7th printing)
"A story of decidedly unusual conception and interest."--_Baltimore
Sun._
ANNE OF THE ISLAND (12th printing)
"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._
* * * * *
Each, one volume, cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50
THE STORY GIRL (10th printing)
"A book that holds one's interest and keeps a kindly smile upon one's
lips and in one's heart."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._
KILMENY OF THE ORCHARD (11th printing)
"A story born in the heart of Arcadia and brimful of the sweet life of
the primitive environment."--_Boston Herald._
THE GOLDEN ROAD (6th printing)
"It is a simple, tender tale, touched to higher notes, now and then, by
delicate hints of romance, tragedy and pathos."--_Chicago
Record-Herald._
NOVELS BY ISLA MAY MULLINS
THE BLOSSOM SHOP: A Story of the South
Cloth decorative, illustrated by John Goss. $1.50
"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._
ANNE OF THE BLOSSOM SHOP: Or, the Growing Up of Anne Carter
Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color from a
painting by Z. P. Nikolaki $1.50
"A charming portrayal of the attractive life of the South, refreshing as
a breeze that blows through a pine forest."--_Albany Times-Union._
ANNE'S WEDDING
Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color from a painting
by Gene Pressler $1.50
"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._
NOVELS BY DAISY RHODES CAMPBELL
THE FIDDLING GIRL
Cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50
"A thoroughly enjoyable tale, written in a delightful vein of
sympathetic comprehension."--_Boston Herald._
THE PROVING OF VIRGINIA
Cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50
"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 VIOLIN LADY
Cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50
"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._
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Page 7, "battlefied" changed to "battlefield" (battlefield of Sobraon)
Page 176, "Marechal" changed to "Maréchal" (Maréchal des Logis of
Escadrille)
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