CopyiightN^ 
 
 COPyRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
THE TOCSIN: 
 
 Our Children in Peril 
 
 By 
 
 Elizabeth Strong Worthington 
 
 NE^ rORK :: BROADWAY 
 PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
I ' COPY w. 
 
 
 Copyright, 1903, by 
 ELIZABETH STRONG WORTHINGTON 
 
To R. S. W. 
 
 THIS BOOKLET IS AFFECTIONATELY 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 WITH THE GLAD AND CONFIDENT HOPE 
 
 THAT HE WILL ONE DAY WIELD 
 
 A STRONG INFLUENCE IN THE WORLD 
 
 FOR ENNOBLING AND UPLIFTING 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I. 
 Our Children in Peril 1 
 
 PART II. 
 The Growing Immorality of Children 43 
 
 PART III, 
 Suggestions as to Remedies 59 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It is often an unenviable task to attack. Praise 
 smooths the plumage ; criticism ruffles it. We slip 
 through this world more easily by agreeing with 
 our neighbor, than by combating him, but easy 
 living is not exactly a model aim in life. I can 
 readily foresee that numerous shafts will be di- 
 rected my way for the writing of this booklet. 
 I cannot truthfully say I am <vholly indiffer- 
 ent to this, although I can realize that my own 
 personal fate is a matter of small importance, 
 compared to such things as are treated in the 
 following pages. I only hope I shall not be 
 represented as standing for views which I do not 
 hold, or antagonizing anything which, in real- 
 ity, is dear to me. I have actual faults enough 
 for my enemies to feast upon, so there is no need 
 of manufacturing any, out of whole cloth. I take 
 pleasure in saying plainly here, that nothing writ- 
 ten in these pages about the church, is intended 
 to oppose her. Like many others, I regret her 
 mistakes, but I keenly realize her immense value 
 to the world, and am grateful for the great good 
 she has done, and is still doing. No one, who 
 is clear headed, can fail to recognize the fact 
 
viii Preface. 
 
 that to silence the church bells, and level the 
 steeples, would be to court calamity of a most 
 appalling type. To me the church is a sacred 
 institution ; I reverence her as the bride of Christ, 
 and look forward, most hopefully, to her continued 
 bettering, until she has indeed become worthy 
 of her sacred position. 
 
 What I have said about the Catholics will, no 
 doubt, be hotly resented. It should not, how- 
 ever. A country is not deserving of the name, 
 that has no religious policy. Any and every re- 
 ligion, soon or late becomes no religion, just as 
 an o'er broad creed soon degenerates into no creed 
 at all. And a religious policy that is not lived, 
 is a weak affair. President Palma has just re- 
 minded Cuba that she should bear in mind, in 
 her dealings as a country, that she is Roman Cath- 
 olic. All well and good. Would that the United 
 States would bear in mind that she is Protestant, 
 in carrying on her schools. When Protestants 
 go to Cuba, they know exactly what they are go- 
 ing to, a Catholic country; and no one of them 
 who has any sense, will expect the public schools 
 there, to be run to suit him. If he wants a non- 
 sectarian school, he, and others of his ilk, should 
 conduct one. This fair policy is precisely what the 
 United States should adopt. None but a bigot, 
 however, could endorse the added suggestion that 
 those of another faith should be kept out, as far 
 as possible. All we need is to stand for what 
 we believe, in our public as well as in our private 
 life. 
 
 I am happily aware of the steps our public 
 school system is taking, in good directions. Near 
 
Preface. ix 
 
 my present home, we have a school which is for- 
 tunate in several of its teachers. Through their 
 influence, features of great utility have been in- 
 troduced. One of these is a Sloyd class; another, 
 a school garden, each of whose well kept little beds 
 attest the pride that the pupil who has it in 
 charge, feels in its proper cultivation. Other 
 schools have introduced sewing classes, cooking 
 classes, the latter including instruction in chem- 
 istry and domestic economy; others are conduct- 
 ing mothers' meetings; and so there are many 
 practical features which will* ere long, I trust, 
 help to push aside much of the impractical work 
 that has been so foolishly carried on. 
 
 Mrs. Margaret Bottome has lately made a sug- 
 gestion of great value, it seems to me. She ad- 
 tvises the holding of neighborhood mothers' meet- 
 ings, all over our country, to discuss the pres- 
 ent downhill tendency of our young folk, and 
 to devise means of checking it, and changing 
 the direction. I earnestly hope this suggestion 
 may be acted upon, and that God's blessing may 
 go with it. 
 
 Those who have made pedagogy a life study, 
 may scorn criticsm from an unlearned outsider, 
 but I trust they will bear in mind that our pub- 
 lic schools are for the people, and hence see the 
 T)ropriety of permitting one of the people a voice 
 in the matter. 
 
 I sit in my dear little nest, and brood over 
 my birdlings, but even in this retirement, I am 
 visited by thoughts which may, perhaps, be of 
 service to those who have the opportunity and 
 ability to carry them out Although I am no 
 
X Preface. 
 
 architect, I can note the overloaded, the sinking 
 column, and icall in those who are able to relieve 
 the pressure, and restore the equilibrium. I can 
 detect the smouldering fire in the house-top, and 
 sound the alarm. So, perhaps, I may be able to 
 note the overloaded, sinking brain, and the 
 smouldering fires of sensuality, and sound The 
 Tocsin. 
 
 May the call be heard, and may the Great Ar- 
 chitect, the Great Chief, send His good, wise, 
 capable agents of relief for the saving of our 
 children. Elizabeth Strong Worthington. 
 
PART I. 
 
 THE TOCSIN: 
 OUR CHILDREN IN PERIL 
 
 Not long ago two young girls, unconnected with 
 one another, went out of this world into the next, 
 and by the wrong door; one turned on the gas 
 and died of suffocation ; the other, a few days later, 
 braved the torture of carbolic acid to escape the 
 torture of the school curriculum. Both were in the 
 High School ; both were suffering from ill health ; 
 both were discouraged and tired of the struggle 
 to keep abreast with the work, and both laid down 
 voluntarily and went to sleep, to waken, they 
 hoped, where they would not be assigned tasks 
 beyond their power of accomplishment. 
 
 It was an awful thing for the families — the two 
 suicides, but with God's help, the suffering and 
 premature end of these young lives may be the 
 means of saving others, for these cases attracted 
 attention, and must attract more. There was an 
 investigation at the time, and in the course of 
 this, the Superintendent of Public Schools said 
 that he did not hold the schools guilty ; the youn^- 
 
2 The Tocsin: 
 
 girls were not up to the usual standard of strength, 
 and should not have attempted full work. 
 Parents, he insisted, were too ambitious for their 
 children, wanting them to graduate, even when 
 they knew they had weak constitutions. 
 
 There is something of value in all this, but it 
 does not strike down to the root of the matter. 
 We must probe much deeper before we can discover 
 the irritating cause of which these suicides were 
 the effect. 
 
 If the case of these two young girls was as 
 new as it is startling we might accept the remedy 
 suggested by the Superintendent's defense, and 
 rest content, but when we look abroad, throughout 
 the length and breadth of our land, we are com- 
 pelled to admit that such a remedy would but 
 poorly cope with so enormous a difficulty as faces 
 us. 
 
 If we listen fairly and intelligently we hear 
 from all quarters, the same cry — overwork ; if we 
 look, with honest eyes, we see the same sight all 
 over — tired, broken down youths and maidens. 
 This has been brought home to me again and again 
 — not through my own children, for I have not 
 allowed them to suffer, but through the failures of 
 my efforts to secure a normally healthy young 
 v/oman to teach the younger ones at home. Fate 
 and inclination combined to make a tramp of me 
 for some years, so I have had in several different 
 cities opportunity to test this matter of cur- 
 riculum, and have also in a number of different 
 sections of the country, put forth efforts to secure 
 assistance at home in the education of my children. 
 
 Again and again I have heard : "I am not very 
 
Our Children in Peril. 3 
 
 strong; I broke down the last year at High 
 School." Or, "I have never been well since I left 
 the University." 
 
 My experience, in this regard, has forced me to 
 conclude that it is most difficult to find a college 
 graduate whose nervous system is not badly im- 
 paired; difficult, indeed, to find even a High 
 School graduate who has not been more or less in- 
 jured nervously. 
 
 Mine is but one of thousands of testimonies. 
 Everywhere throughout our land there are intelli- 
 gent parents who could tell of sad cases of shat- 
 tered nerves among their children, everywhere 
 there are physicians who have young patients, 
 broken by school work — physicians can tell of re- 
 quests, by the thousand^ for some tonic that will 
 serve temporarily to mend the nerves and enable 
 students to hold out until after graduation — some 
 medical lash to stimulate the tired, broken steed 
 to keep up, and keep on until the goal is reached. 
 What then? Life just fairly begins when the stu- 
 dent closes the University door behind him, and we 
 who have lived over thirty years, realize that a 
 strong body, an unimpaired brain, and sound 
 nerves, are factors in the outfit necessary to meet 
 life properly. 
 
 Our young folks do not know this; we have to 
 know it for them. ''Oh, if I can only get past 
 graduation day safely, I don't care for anything 
 else." That is their attitude. Throughout their 
 entire school career, this same graduation day has 
 loomed up before their young, inexperienced eyes 
 as the goal of all effort; toward this they turned 
 their little feet on the first day of entering school, 
 
4 The Tocsin: 
 
 and whenever, in the course of succeeding years, 
 they stumbled and fell, their first look on rising 
 was toward the goal to see if, by slipping, they 
 had lost ground, and were set back from the object 
 of all their work. The large majority of our young 
 people are studying for marks, and marks are of 
 value in proportion as they bear on the final great 
 day. They are not working for Life; that is the 
 unknown. They are working for the known — the 
 diploma. Each year, as it is presented to excited, 
 fluttering candidates, those in the lower ranks look 
 eagerly on, and desire it more ardently than ever, 
 and when running toward the goal, they are utter- 
 ly unable to observe temperance in their gait. 
 What then? We must observe it for them. And 
 how ? Ah, me ! In this, as in all else, it were 
 easier to tell the twenty what were good to be 
 done, than to be one of the twenty to do it. 
 Temperance, like consistency, is a jewel, and 
 we must look far and long ere we find it, even 
 in grown-up ranks. What folly then, to expect 
 it in children, and how criminal to leave chil- 
 dren either to furnish this jewel for their guid- 
 ance, or to break down for the lack of it. To 
 be stupid; to be wanting in ambition; to be un- 
 principled and to shirk — all this is not being 
 temperate, and I am not writing of children 
 who discover these characteristics. Physically 
 these will come out well enough, so we need not 
 worry over them just here. It is for the mettle- 
 some, the high-spirited, the aspiring, that we must 
 fear. Ay, for those who are made of that mettle 
 which carries America to the front wherever she 
 goes; for those who are of the same sort as were 
 
Our Children in Peril. g 
 
 our forefathers when they snapped our bonds and 
 wrote America on the banner of the free; of the 
 same sort who have carried our flag more than 
 half way around the world, and made it one of the 
 most respected as well as one of the most beloved 
 of all that flutter to the winds of Heaven, Per- 
 haps he did not mean it so ; nevertheless this is the 
 sort of stufl that the Superintendent of Public 
 Schools, who testified in the case of the two young 
 suicides, called weakness. This mettlesomeness, 
 nervousness, high spiritedness. It breaks more 
 easily than solid material, but you know, and I 
 know, that for all that^ this same weakness is our 
 strength. Like the delicate machinery of a watch, 
 it is as easily put out of gear ; an ignorant, clumsy 
 touch and it is ruined ; but with care, with wisdom 
 in the handling, it keeps time and is steadfast in 
 its useful work for years. 
 
 Now, what must we do with this, our finest 
 mettle, in the school ? Must we select an especial 
 course for these children and deny them the crown- 
 ing glory of their school-year — graduation; the 
 public recognition of the value of their work; the 
 "well done" of the faculty and the trustees? 
 What would be the effect of that? Try it on a 
 horse ; take a mettlesome thoroughbred, capable of 
 winning the race, if placed in proper hands ; give 
 him an ignorant jockey whose only method of 
 gaining the required speed is the use of the lash. 
 Command this jockey not to whip — not to try to 
 win, but to draw out and jog along as best he can, 
 on account of the weakness of his mount. Now 
 watch the steed when the band plays and the racers 
 rush past him. See his delicate form quiver and his 
 
6 The Tocsin: 
 
 eyeballs glow with excitement as he rears and 
 plunges in vain effort to take the place that law- 
 fully belongs to him. Ay.' belongs to him, for he 
 has a right to a place in the race. So have our 
 high-spirited children a right to run the race — a 
 right to win. Indeed, we cannot spare them from 
 the lists, and if the conditions are such that they 
 cannot win with safety, the conditions are at fault, 
 and the sooner they are changed the better. 
 
 Nerves are important factors in our make-up; 
 if diseased, they become our weakness; if healthy, 
 our strength. Here in America, we are forced 
 to deal with them from the very beginning of a 
 child's life, and the more highly bred the child, 
 the more troublesome this particular factor. Un- 
 happily this is not universally understood — cer- 
 tainly it is not acted upon universally. All of 
 us "grown-ups" are more or less stupid in this 
 regard, even in dealing with one another, and still 
 more so in dealing with children. We appreciate 
 injuries to the body — apologize if we so much as 
 tread upon our neighbor's foot, but we tread upon 
 his nerves without stint and without remorse. If 
 our boys and girls happen to be well-grown and 
 well-looking, we pile mental work upon them, tax- 
 ing and straining that delicate network — the nerv- 
 ous system — the very essence of life (for which 
 the flesh is merely the protective case) ; in short, 
 riding roughshod over the intricate mesh without 
 a thought of the incalculable injury we are doing. 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes refers to this when he 
 speaks of the readiness with which we tap one 
 another's nerves, when, no doubt we would shrink 
 from doing him fleshly harm. It is well to have 
 
Our Children in Peril. 7 
 
 attention called to this, for a flesh wound nsTially 
 heals rapidly, while an overstrained nerve more 
 than often cripples one for life. 
 
 We hear at once too much, and too little of all 
 this. It is unwise to allow children to talk and 
 think of their nerves, but it is still more unwise 
 for educators to forget these same nerves in a 
 scheme of training. If, however, teachers will be 
 unmindful of their duty, parents must jog their 
 memories, and as I say this I am not without a 
 vivid consciousness of the unpleasantness and dif- 
 ficulty of the task proposed. We mothers espe- 
 cially, are liable to the imputation of fussiness, 
 foolishness, and all sorts of other nesses, when we 
 urge caution in the mental work for children. 
 Even our married partners frequently laugh at 
 our fears, and when we go to school, we are still 
 more liable to ridicule. 
 
 I once found it very difficult to stand firm in 
 the face of the polite incredulity and amusement 
 shown me by the principal of a certain school 
 when I insisted that one of my children (a large, 
 stout appearing boy) must not study out of school. 
 
 "He does not look delicate," said the man, with 
 a slight smile. 
 
 I winced before the subtle sarcasm, but took a 
 firmer grip on my position. In view of the ap- 
 pearance my boy presented, and in view of the 
 fact that he was ashamed to show at school the 
 irritability which was to me the warning signal, I 
 realized that it was futile to attempt to make his 
 teacher understand the risk he would run, if his 
 mental work were carried into his hours at home. 
 But I clung with undying tenacity to my "must 
 
8 The Tocsin: 
 
 not," and protected my boy, and went out of the 
 building labeled "Silly woman." 
 
 That last did not matter much, however. In 
 the long run we shall come out what we really are, 
 rather than what somebody thinks us. Happily, 
 the verdict, "Foolish" cannot do away with good 
 sense, and unhappily, the verdict, "Sensible" can- 
 not abolish folly. 
 
 No doubt I am pricked to more earnest effort 
 toward a reformation in our school system by a 
 vivid page of my own history. Like many another 
 child I was, soon after entering school, loaded 
 down with more books than my poor little brain 
 could have held, had time permitted me to study 
 them. I used to look drearily at my armful as 
 I went home, realizing that even if I worked 
 during my every waking moment, I could not 
 learn all that had been assigned me for the next 
 day. Then came the difficult task of choosing 
 which to take, and which to leave. To a conscien- 
 tious, ambitious child, this is always a hard mat- 
 ter ; in the end he is all but certain to do just what 
 I did — turn over the list feverishly as a debt- 
 laden man, with a little money in his hands, runs 
 over his bills. "No, I mnt leave this out," and 
 "No, I musin't omit that," and so on, until in the 
 end the poor child, who is attempting impossi- 
 bilities, gives up, goes to school nervously worn 
 out and discouraged, to make an attempt to slip 
 through as many recitations as he can, and escape 
 the dreaded zero. 
 
 Is it not clear that days and weeks of this sort 
 must result, not alone in a nerve disintegration, 
 but in moral disintegration as well? Happily 
 
Our Children in Peril. 9 
 
 for me, my nerves gave way in time to save me 
 from the full effect of the unconscious lack of 
 the lack of thoroughness in class work. For two 
 honor in taking credits I did not deserve, and 
 years I was an invalid. The doctor's verdict was : 
 "She will never be able to study again." Fortu- 
 nately, the good man was mistaken, but at the 
 time, this opinion fell heavily on the ear of my 
 parents, who had fancied they saw occasion for 
 bright anticipations. 
 
 No one dared tell me what was said for fear 
 of possible effects, and week after week I chafed, 
 and watched the school door, seeing with beating 
 — all but breaking heart, my classmates walk on 
 ahead of me. 
 
 At the end of two years I was able to step into 
 the school ranks again, healed, but scarred. 
 
 Naturally, with such a leaf in my own history, 
 I was on the alert when my children started to 
 school to see that this unhappy tale was not "twice 
 told," and it was not long before my vigilance 
 detected danger signals. My daughter, a child of 
 eight, and her brother, a year younger, were kept 
 in school until half-past three, and then sent home 
 with enough work to occupy three-quarters of an 
 hour, and ere long, as might have been expected, 
 they began to show signs of too close confinement. 
 I refused to permit any more studying at home, 
 and they begged me to go and talk with their 
 teachers, to save them from punishment for leav- 
 ing their work undone. 
 
 I found the teachers courteous, but helpless; 
 they had, so they told me, no volition in the mat- 
 ter. Consequently, I repaired to the principal, a 
 
10 The Tocsin: 
 
 big, burly Irishwoman, with a voice and a manner 
 that harmonized with her frame. My interview 
 was memorable for being the only occasion upon 
 which I was treated with rudeness during the 
 many times I have gone to school, and felt com- 
 pelled to object to some feature of the work, or 
 some particular rule. 
 
 Upon entering the office I was bidden, by the 
 teacher who escorted me, to take a seat. This I 
 did, and she approached the great woman, who sat 
 writing at a desk. After a low-voiced colloquy, in 
 which, as appeared later on, she explained enough 
 of my errand to rouse the ire of her superior, the 
 teacher came to me and said, in a deprecatory 
 manner, as if she were sorry to be forced to use 
 me thus : 
 
 "Miss Blank is very busy, and she says it's a 
 rule in the school that pupils, in these grades, shall 
 study three-quarters of an hour daily at home." 
 
 Wishing to reach the source of the trouble, I 
 asked : "Whose rule is it ?" 
 
 Before the teacher could open her lips. Miss 
 Blank — ^who still sat writing at her desk — ^her back 
 toward me, snapped out : "It's my rule." 
 
 "Very well," I said to the teacher, "I have some 
 matters to talk over with Miss Blank, and will 
 await her leisure." 
 
 Thereupon the teacher went out of the office, 
 leaving me absolutely unprotected. I nerved my- 
 self for the encounter, which I divined, from a 
 study of the back of my robust antagonist, would 
 be of no trifling character. 
 
 After some moments of waiting, she remarked, 
 brusquely — still without turning: 
 
Our Children in Peril. ii 
 
 "I'm busy this morning and can't talk with 
 you." 
 
 "I'll call another day," I replied, with hideous 
 suavity, "if you will be so kind as to name one 
 convenient for you." 
 
 Then she wheeled her chair about and faced me. 
 
 "There's no use in our wasting time !" she said, 
 with that utter lack of courtesy for which she was 
 justly famous, "the rule won't be changed for you, 
 and it won't do a particle of good to talk it over 
 with me. I know just what jow are going to say." 
 
 "I beg pardon, but I don't think you do know 
 just what I am going to say." 
 
 Thereupon she waxed excited and poured forth 
 a volley about the number of people in waiting 
 that moment to see her, and the children needing 
 her, and tlie duties, in general, claiming her. Next 
 she launched into a treatise on the uselessness of 
 my errand and (to infer from her manner) the 
 impertinence of it. To all of this tirade I listened 
 without a word. Had I stormed in return it would 
 have amounted to nothing. I am harmless when 
 I storm, for I presently realize I have put myself 
 in a weak position; invariably regret my mood, 
 and endeavor to make amends to my opponent. 
 But whenever I close my lips and hear the enemy 
 out, then there is trouble brewing. I am danger- 
 ous when I hold my tongue. 
 
 As soon as my big antagonist paused for breath, 
 I said quietly: "Some other time would, perhaps, 
 be more convenient for you ; I'll wait." 
 
 She looked into my face and realized I was 
 capable of sitting on that chair for several years. 
 Now, few principals would care to have the same 
 
12 The Tocsin: 
 
 woman wintering and siunmering in their office. 
 Certainly this principal did not. So, after taking 
 in the situation with a look that plainly said a war 
 of fists would be more to her taste than a war of 
 words, she swung her chair directly in front of 
 me, spread her hands on her knees, and, with a 
 manner that would have caused a timid woman 
 to quail, said: 
 
 "Well, I suppose I may as well hear you now 
 as any time. What have you got to say?" 
 
 Thus encouraged, I began. A palmist once told 
 me I was not an aggressive woman, and I think 
 he was right. I am not fond of contentions, but 
 there are some subjects that nerve me to such a de- 
 gree that I can enter a battle of any proportions 
 with a certain relish, and one of these subjects is 
 my children. So it was without any feeling of 
 timidity, but with the strongest sense of support 
 in the justice of my cause, and (to be entirely 
 frank) with a certain relish of the situation as 
 well, that I entered upon my task. 
 
 "You say your rule is not to be changed. Am I 
 dealing with the Medes and Persians?" 
 
 She looked furious. 
 
 "Am I to understand that you are ready to main- 
 tain the public school system is perfect?" 
 
 "I've said nothing of the kind. I don't sup- 
 pose it is." 
 
 "Very well, then ; if it is not perfect, it must be 
 faulty ; if faulty, it should be subject to change." 
 
 "Well, this rule won't be changed, for it was 
 made for a purpose, and it answers that." 
 
 "What is that, may I ask ?" 
 
 "Why, the children have got to study at home as 
 
Our Children in Peril. 13 
 
 soon as they are in the higher grades, and this is 
 to accustom them to it," 
 
 "I have heard of this method before," I re- 
 marked. "Down in Mississippi my parents 
 knew a woman who used to have her coach- 
 man drive out some five or six miles with her, Sun- 
 day morning, to prepare her to endure the strain 
 of the half mile drive to church. Now setting 
 aside the question of the desirability of the home 
 study hour or two, later on, let me ask you if the 
 best preparation for a hard pull is not the building 
 Tip of the t^trength beforehand, and if you think 
 this end is best conserved by denying these little 
 ones the sunlight and the play which, as every- 
 body knows, are necessary for a child's develop- 
 ment." 
 
 "Who wants to deny them sunlight and play?" 
 she demanded. 
 
 "I live near school," I went on, "and yet my 
 children don't reach home until quarter of four. 
 Between this hour and bedtime— half past seven — 
 they must study three-quarters of an hour, prac- 
 tice (I think that you will allow that music is a 
 very important part of their education), and take 
 dinner, to say nothing of finding time for our fam- 
 ily hour, when I read aloud, and chat with them. 
 How much space does this leave for running about 
 in the sunshine ?" 
 
 "Half past seven is a very early bedtime. Most 
 children sit up later than that." 
 
 "A half past seven start seldom means sleep be- 
 fore eight, or even a little later," I responded. 
 "Growing children, as you doubtless know, need a 
 great deal of sleep." 
 
14 The Tocsin: 
 
 She looked at me in desperation. 
 
 "Will you tell me what you want?" she burst 
 forth at last, 
 
 "Gladly," I said, in a cheerful tone, "I want my 
 children to be allowed to study in school, instead 
 of at home. There are enough hours spent in this 
 building for both study and recitation, but as mat- 
 ters are now, these are always given to some work 
 or other, and so the children are kept busy during 
 the time when they could and should be studying. 
 
 "Very well, if 3'Our children can keep up with 
 the grade without working at home, they are wel- 
 come to do it." 
 
 "And they may have time for study at school, 
 instead of being compelled to take part in all these 
 extra exercises ?" 
 
 "Yes, they may ; now does that end it ?" 
 
 "It does; thank you, and, Good morning." 
 
 It was a case of the unjust judge ; my continuous 
 sitting had worried her into some justice. 
 
 But even this concession proved insufficient, for 
 I found that school life did not agree with my 
 babies. The change from a life in which, after three 
 or four hours spent with their governess, they were 
 given the freedom of birds for the rest of the sun- 
 lighted day, was too great and too hard for their 
 precious, unfolding spirits and their chubby little 
 bodies, so at the end of a month, I returned them 
 to the nursery school. 
 
 Two years later, when we had, like poor Joe, 
 "moved on" to another place, I started them again, 
 this time to a school where one could go with a 
 question or even an objection and be certain of a 
 courteous hearing. By this time my children were 
 
Our Children in Peril. 15 
 
 in perfect health again, but ere long, the little 
 daughter began to grow pale, and from being full 
 of life and energy, became listless. 
 
 "What has come to puss?" the governess and I 
 asked one another when we saw her seek the ham- 
 mock as soon as she entered the house, day after 
 day — she who up to this time had never seemed to 
 tire ; she whom we had often dubbed the Gay Little 
 Girl. 
 
 When I proposed one of our good old-fashioned 
 tramps she said, wearily: 
 
 "I can't go." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "I have so much to study." 
 
 "What ?" 
 
 "Oh, a page of "Evangeline" to commit to mem- 
 ory, and a long geography lesson, and my arith- 
 metic." 
 
 "Where are they all ?" 
 
 She brought out the books, and handed them to 
 me, with the places marked. I closed "Evangeline" 
 with a snap. 
 
 "There, now, your poetry is learned, what else ?" 
 
 "Why, mamma !" 
 
 Next the geography went to with a bang, and 
 the arithmetic was closed as tightly, and as sud- 
 denly as the shell of a clam on the approach of 
 danger. 
 
 "And now you are through with your geography 
 and arithmetic; so you're ready for a walk; run, 
 and get your hat." 
 
 "But, mamma, I haven't learned my lessons." 
 
 "You've learned all you'll learn to-night." 
 
 "But I've no time to study in the morning." 
 
i6 The Tocsin: 
 
 "I know it." 
 
 Then the poor little thing began to cry. 
 
 "Don't you fret, honey; I'll go to school witH 
 yon and you'll be all right." 
 
 So I went with her tbe next morning, wrought 
 up to such a pitch that the thought of an en- 
 counter with the enemy was a distinct relief. 
 
 But there was no battle, for I found the gentle 
 little teacher quite my way of thinking. She ex- 
 pressed her opinion sotto voce, however, lest she 
 imperil her position. 
 
 "What can we do?" she asked. "We teachers 
 are almost as helpless as the pupils. The pace is 
 set for us, and we are forced to keep it. There are 
 just so many pages to be gone over each term, and 
 if many of our pupils fail to pass the examinations, 
 we are held responsible, and may lose our positions. 
 What can we do ?" 
 
 What indeed ! But then and there I resolved to 
 do all I could to call attention to this system, so 
 ruinous to teachers and pupils both. 
 
 I am glad to say that the public is already awak- 
 ing to this evil. In many places, rules forbidding 
 teachers to require home study from children in 
 these lower grades, have been made. This is a step 
 toward the light, but we must walk some distance 
 in the same direction, if we would see the sun- 
 rise. 
 
 I managed to secure relief for my little daughter 
 at the time of which I have been speaking, by get- 
 ting permission for her to do all her studying at 
 school. My boy, being of a less excitable tempera* 
 ment, was not suffering as much damage, but a 
 few months later I took them both out, for various 
 
Our Children in Peril. 17 
 
 reasons, and returned them to the home school, 
 where I expect to keep them for some years, 
 
 I am well aware that these scenes I have described 
 are most simple — puerile they might be accounted 
 in a literary sense, but as a faithful recital of ac- 
 tualities which attest to certain conditions existent 
 in our public schools to-day, they are of grave im- 
 portance. 
 
 If anyone doubts, all I ask is that he will look 
 about him; his own eyes will then substantiate 
 the truth of my words. Scarce anyone who has 
 children is without some evidence of the bad re- 
 sults of this cramming system; the overloaded 
 arms of many young folk in the higher grades, as 
 they return from school, is in itself proof of what 
 I assert. 
 
 I once asked a High School miss of my acquaint- 
 ance, whom I met on the street, what she was 
 supposed to do with that pile of books she was 
 carrying. 
 
 "Learn them, every one, before to-morrow morn- 
 ing,'' she replied with a laugh — she was not of the 
 kind that takes life seriously. 
 
 "You know very well you can't do that," I said. 
 
 "I know very well that I can slip out of them, 
 then," she responded with another laugh. 
 
 And on she went to study her lessons. What 
 lessons ? We forget that school children are study- 
 ing out the Book of Life; this girl was learn- 
 ing superficiality and evasion. Hardly the les- 
 sons the State ought to be called upon to pay for ! 
 
 Again I look back to my own school days in 
 St. Louis. I have before me now a picture of a 
 classmate — a bright girl, the daughter of one of 
 
i8 The Tocsin: 
 
 our generals — as she sat crying in a vexed, de- 
 spondent way because she realized she could not, 
 by any possibility, learn all the lessons assigned 
 her. It seemed to me oftentimes as if each teacher 
 gave what would comfortably fill the time between 
 the close of school one day and its opening the 
 next, without the slightest care of what any other 
 teacher might be giving. This method, when 
 adopted by some half-dozen teachers, naturally 
 resulted in a volume of work which we could 
 scarce have crammed into our poor little brains 
 had we charged them to the very muzzle. 
 
 It is the work that we don't do that kills oft- 
 times, and the school work I did not master broke 
 me down and came near crippling me for life. 
 
 This school system is false, in that it pretends 
 to point one way and in reality shoots another. 
 This cramming is miserably wrong. We all know 
 what it means for a student to cram for exami- 
 nation — a brain temporarily stretched, as it were, 
 only to spring back again with an impaired qual- 
 ity. What is learned for that occasion barely lasts 
 the occasion out ; it is not even expected to do 
 more. It is just so with cramming for recita- 
 tion; the desired marks are gained, perhaps, and 
 that is about all. Can fine intellectual results be 
 obtained from such a method ? ISTo ! A thousand 
 times no ! These require the careful, thoughtful 
 conning of a few — a very few — ^lessons. But in- 
 tellectual failures are by no means the most se- 
 rious results of this system. I am more and 
 more convinced, as I have opportunity to ex- 
 amine into the matter, that, morally speaking, 
 all this works havoc. 
 
Our Children in Peril. 19 
 
 The overwork against which we have been 
 inveighing is not confined to the children; teach- 
 ers also suffer from it. Compelled, oftentimes, 
 by their tasks to remain long after school hours, 
 carrying home a load of work that must be lifted 
 before the next morning, they too often return 
 to school listless and weary — in no condition to 
 impart knowledge, still less to inspire their pu- 
 pils with high ideals of character. In fact, char- 
 acter building is about the last thing many of 
 our teachers think of, and the last thing they 
 are capable of, but of that we shall speak under 
 another head. 
 
 Another difficulty with the present system as 
 it acts upon the teachers is the temptation it 
 presents for dishonesty in the marking of pa- 
 pers. Either the teacher must pass a certain 
 number of pupils or must run the risk of losing 
 her situation. The consequence of this can be 
 easily foreseen in many cases. 
 
 Not only do we work our teachers very hard, 
 but we pay them very little, and this big work 
 and little pay results in filling the lists with an 
 inferior quality of woman (it is chiefly women who 
 teach in our public schools). Anyone of discrimi- 
 nation who has attended some large gathering of 
 public school teachers will bear me out in the as- 
 sertion that the large majority of them possess 
 neither taste nor qualification for the position of 
 teacher — the grandest position outside of parent- 
 hood. 
 
 I have heard considerable on the subject of so- 
 ciety's refusing to recognize teachers. One article 
 in a magazine urged upon the public the giving 
 
20 The Tocsin: 
 
 of teachers an honored place in society. I can 
 hardly help smiling over this; it so stupidly puts 
 the cart before the horse. Let teachers be worthy 
 of an honored place in society, and they'll take it 
 of necessity, but all the sentiment in the world 
 can't put illiterate, low-born, uncultured women in 
 a high social place, and the teaching ranks are full 
 of just such people, many of them put in by 
 means of a course of corrupt wirepulling; many 
 put in by men as illiterate, as low-born, as un- 
 cultured, as utterly unfit for their positions, as the 
 teachers they appoint are for theirs. 
 
 When I was a very young girl I was invited to 
 go on an excursion gotten up for the St. Louis pub- 
 lic school teachers and chiefly attended by them. 
 I overheard one of them say at luncheon time that 
 she was as hungry as a hedge-hog, and all that day 
 I was making mental observations on their appear- 
 ance, manners and conversation. Up to that time 
 I had seen only the teachers of the school I at- 
 tended. I learned then, and this has since been 
 impressed upon me still more strongly by the ele- 
 vated positions in different parts of the world to 
 which those teachers have been called, that they 
 were vastly superior to the majority in that posi- 
 tion. 
 
 I came home from the picnic with a childish hor- 
 ror of teachers, and I trembled lest some finan- 
 cial misfortune should befall my father and I be 
 forced to earn my own living. The only calling I 
 could think of as open to me was teaching, and I 
 not only instinctively realized I was unfit for it, 
 but I also shrank from allying myself with the 
 
Our Children in Peril. 21 
 
 common, -uncultured horde I had seen on the day of 
 the excursion. 
 
 I hope no one will be so stupid as to misunder- 
 stand me. I have no thought of denying that there 
 are cultured men and women among the public 
 school teachers. I do say, however, that the ma- 
 jority of these teachers cannot, even by a stretch 
 of kindliness and courtesy, come under that head. 
 
 I have taken pains to see and know as many 
 teachers as possible. A number of them have won 
 my respect, but I have been forced to acknowledge 
 to myself that but few of even these are fit for the 
 place they occupy. They themselves realize this 
 vividly sometimes. 
 
 "You can't imagine how I long for Friday and 
 dread Monday," said one to me. 
 
 I felt sorry for her, poor girl, but I felt still 
 more sorry for her pupils. The difference between 
 what their work was with her and what it might 
 have been with one gifted for teaching is too great 
 for us to grasp easily. 
 
 Another teacher said to me that she thought 
 teaching was very "nice work. It is so genteel," 
 she added so complacently. 
 
 Her ancestors were servants, probably, and she 
 felt she rose in the social scale when she stepped 
 from dishwashing and scrubbing into teaching. 
 But I sat down and thought over the kind of char- 
 acter building that was likely to be done by a 
 teacher who embraced that profession because it 
 was "genteel." 
 
 We cannot look for a much higher grade of work 
 from those who adopt that calling merely in order 
 
22 The Tocsin: 
 
 to make a livelihood, and the numbers who come 
 under this head would surprise one, methinks. 
 
 "What are we to do ?" said a man to me the other 
 day. "I doubt if we could run our schools if we 
 only accepted such teachers as were gifted for the 
 work." 
 
 I am always strongly of the opinion that God has 
 provided enough workers for any field. What we 
 need to know is how to seek them out. A de- 
 mand almost invariably calls forth a supply. We 
 must make teaching attractive — set a proper pe- 
 cuniary value upon it — encourage, by visible and 
 invisible rewards, the real teachers whom we al- 
 ready possess ; and there are a number of them in 
 our schools, scattered here and there, men and 
 women who must teach, because God has implanted 
 this divine passion in their natures ; who love chil- 
 dren ; who have a genius for inspiring them and 
 imparting knowledge. I ran across such a woman 
 in a school in a rough part of San Francisco. In 
 the short time I was in her room she inspired me. 
 I felt I wanted to see her again; wanted to talk 
 over my children with her and ask her advice. 
 God had made her a teacher. This is the kind we 
 need — the kind we must have to make our schools 
 a success. 
 
 Another evil on foot in the school of to-day (and 
 it is first cousin to the overwork) is the continual 
 imrest of its atmosphere. Only lately a friend, 
 speaking of her children, said : 
 
 "I really don't know what to do with them, but 
 I must make some change; they have no chance 
 to study in school — teacher rattles on all day — 
 
Our Children In Peril. 23 
 
 and no chance to play out of school, for they must 
 learn their lessons then." 
 
 Now, when a teacher is compelled to rattle on 
 all day, a grievous wrong is done her and the chil- 
 dren as well. Unless we wish to become a nation 
 of rattlebrains we must put a stop to this "rattling 
 on continually" at school. Quietude is necessary 
 to thought, and thought is an indispensable factor 
 in education. ISTo intellectual brawn and muscle, 
 capable of standing the test of time, can be formed 
 in the midst of commotion. Nor is this latter 
 condition favorable to the best type of manners. 
 As a nation we discover a lack in our training, due 
 to the continual unrest of the atmosphere in which 
 we live. We possess great energy, sprightliness 
 and ambition, but we lack that evidence of reserve 
 force, that perfect control of our powers, that sub- 
 tle something, with a charm all its own, which 
 we designate poise. The various manifestations 
 of our life are temporarily fascinating, especially 
 as seen in our women, but alas for the stuff that 
 endures to the end ! Pray don't imagine I am ad- 
 vocating any such solidity of education as shall dis- 
 bar all lighter literature, intercourse and experi- 
 mces — that which lends sparkle to manner and con- 
 versation. Such a course would be apt to pro- 
 duce men and v/omen so heavy and so clumsy in 
 the movements in every-day life that one who had 
 the misfortune to attempt to manipulate them so- 
 cially or otherwise, would, as she trundled them 
 about from place to place, feel as might a house- 
 wife if she had just so many pieces of ponderous 
 furniture on her hands of a sweeping day. The 
 golden mean, here and elsewhere, is the true path. 
 
24 The Tocsin: 
 
 and the wisdom to discover this path and the 
 strength to keep the feet therein, should be our 
 goal. 
 
 I shall have more to say on this subject of un- 
 rest later on, and, if I am not mistaken, we have 
 more suffering of various kinds to undergo be- 
 cause of it, later on. 
 
 We are in continual need of being reminded that 
 it is not what we eat that makes strength, but what 
 we digest and assimilate — not what we read or 
 study that makes intellectual strength, but what 
 we remember and appropriate, and that it is folly 
 to attempt to devour books by the wholesale. 
 
 Here in America "Too much ! too much !" is a 
 common cry. We overeat, overwork, overstudy. 
 As a nation we are intemperate, and, knowing this, 
 nevertheless go on, deliberately it would seem, fos- 
 tering in our children those unfortunate tenden- 
 cies which are their inheritance as Americans, and 
 which have tended toward our own personal undo- 
 ing. Our public schools are conspicuous aggress- 
 ors in this regard. Not only are they trying to 
 teach too much at a time, but in the opinion of 
 many thoughtful men and women they are carry- 
 ing the course too far. It has for some time been 
 a grave question whether the State was doing its 
 citizens a kindness in giving them such an educa- 
 tion free. We all have noted with alarm a growing 
 dissatisfaction with labor; an impatience with its 
 necessarily hard conditions and modest returns; a 
 restlessness in the lower ranks of society, a grow- 
 ing determination to step out of the working 
 classes; to forsake the trades for clerkships and 
 professions; oftentimes a determination to enjoy 
 
Our Children in Peril. 25 
 
 the privileges of achieveineiit without the ability 
 or the willingness to make the necessary prepara- 
 tion. 
 
 Near me, in the little village in which I lived 
 for a time, was a gentle Swedish woman of the 
 class which makes up the peasantry in her country. 
 She was working herself into an early grave in 
 order to give her daughters time to go to school. 
 She was but one of a horde of mothers who are re- 
 solved to make teachers of their daughters, and 
 thereby add to the long list of the incompetent, 
 unfit teachers with which we are already over bur- 
 dened. And all the while there are here, there and 
 everywhere over our land, careladen wives and 
 mothers longing to give comfortable homes and 
 modest wages for such service as these girls could 
 render, and no doubt would render were they not 
 spoiled for it by our foolish public school system, 
 which leads them to hold themselves above do- 
 mestic work. 
 
 I am very well aware that such a paragraph as 
 the foregoing is enough to cost a politician his 
 head, but that does not impair its truth. If we 
 could for one moment get outside of our ranted 
 "freedom and equal opportunity for all" we might 
 look at this subject dispassionately, and see that a 
 contented peasantry, where thrift, integrity, do- 
 mestic virtues and modest wants are leading char- 
 acteristics, adds strength to a nation, while on the 
 other hand, a seething, discontented class, scornful 
 of manual labor, in haste to be rich, fiercely deter- 
 mined to be thought "as good as anybody else," is 
 a menace to national safety. If our public school 
 system tends to diminish the first-named class and 
 
26 The Tocsin: 
 
 to swell the ranks of the second, we shall ultimately 
 see that it might have been improved, even if it is 
 "the best in the world," and we shall ardently wish 
 we had seen this earlier in the day. 
 
 When we come to consider the matter we realize 
 that the various branches in the higher walks of 
 professional and business life play but a small part 
 in ministering to our necessities, in comparison 
 with the trades and so-called menial occupations. 
 For this reason it is, to say the least, impolitic of 
 the State to burden itself with taxation in order to 
 carry on the present system of education which is 
 calculated to unfit the people to serve the people. 
 
 We claim that these magic words, "You may be 
 President some day,'' dropped frequently in the 
 ear of our American youth, tends to the growth of 
 his self-respect and ambition, but we seldom ex- 
 amine into the matter deeply enough to see that, 
 while some few individuals are improved, numbers 
 are injured by this sort of stimulus. If we will 
 but thoughtfully consider this subject; if we can 
 but step, as it were, out of the bustle of every-day 
 life into some quiet nook, where we shall no longer 
 hear the screaming of the American eagle, we may 
 be induced to listen without passion or scorn to 
 some earnest citizen who tells us that the rudi- 
 ments of "book learning" — an ability to read and 
 write, such ciphering as may be necessary in every- 
 day life, some knowledge of geography, coupled 
 with skill in some trade or domestic pursuit — all 
 this based upon the strong foundation of an hon- 
 est, religious character, ready and anxious to obey 
 the laws of God and of our country, should be the 
 State's curriculum in its free public schools. 
 
Our Children in Peril. 27 
 
 I hope I shall not be iinderstood. to assert that 
 whatsoever is more than this yea and nay of edu- 
 cation "eometh of evil." But I do say that any 
 unprejudiced observer can see for himself that the 
 results of our present system are very unsatisfac- 
 tory. 
 
 In the August Overland I have just run across 
 this sentence: "For years the wisest have ac- 
 knowledged that in our educational system, excel- 
 lent as it is, there is something lacking. A train- 
 ing even in our best institutions, leaves the ordi- 
 nary boy and girl singularly defenseless in the 
 actual battle of life." 
 
 I scarce think the writer realized the serious- 
 ness of the charge she was bringing. For a 
 State to so train its children as to unfit them for 
 Life's battle, is rather stupid, to speak mildly. 
 The name of the article in which this sentence oc- 
 curs is significant — "The Little Mothers' Train- 
 ing School" — it being a record of a school estab- 
 lished to teach girls the most useful and womanly 
 domestic employments. I wonder how many of 
 these attempts to supplement our Public Schools, 
 exist over the country! Schools established to 
 teach the people useful arts, while the State is 
 using up its money teaching them Latin and Trig- 
 onometry ! In the over-turning of affairs which 
 is sure to come, soon or late, our legislators may 
 decide that the elementary branches are the main 
 thing, and that whatsoever cometh of more than 
 this must be paid for in money or in labor. 
 
 There are to-day, schools and colleges where the 
 expenses of tuition and residence are small; 
 there are schools and colleges where the 
 
28 The Tocsin: 
 
 student may work his way, and there are Corres- 
 pondence Schools, by means of which a working 
 boy or girl may, by employing in study an hour 
 or two each evening (a morally preservative 
 method, it strikes me, this studying of evenings, 
 instead of running about), gain an ecellent edu- 
 cation, at small expense, in some particular line. 
 This latter method is already employed by thou- 
 sands of people; the change from manual labor 
 throughout the day, to intellectual labor during 
 the evening proving beneficial in most cases, and 
 the effort entailed, proving a means of added 
 strength to the character. 
 
 It is clear, then, to anyone conversant with edu- 
 cational opportunities that the ambitious, capable 
 boy or girl (the only kind worth educating) need 
 not pine away for lack of education; it is also 
 clear, it seems to me, that the sensible course sug- 
 gested, would not only rid the State of unneces- 
 sary burdens, but would ultimately enrich her by 
 the possession of useful, contented citizens; that 
 it would rid the professional world of vast num- 
 bers of shj^sters and charlatans; rid our street 
 corners of loafers, who, not able to reach the 
 higher things, refuse to do the humbler, and would 
 enrich the trades and the ranks of domestic serv- 
 ice with the competent, decent and orderly em- 
 ployees for lack of which they often languish now. 
 
 The Lowell School of Practical Design in Bos- 
 ton, whose tuition is free, furnishes, in its regu- 
 lations, some hints which might possibly be of 
 benefit in the regulation of our public schools. 
 At this institute the number of pupils is limited 
 to forty-two, and, to quote from the prospectus. 
 
Our Children in Peril. 29 
 
 "only those students can be retained who, after a 
 fair and patient trial are found to have some 
 aptitude for work." At the close of each half- 
 year all those found to be gravely deficient are 
 notified, and a quiet — ^seemingly voluntary — ^with- 
 drawal is the result. If the State is bent upon 
 teaching Latin and Greek, and other studies of 
 equal value to working people, she might do so 
 more sensibly by exercising discrimination, in- 
 stead of giving anybody and everybody — white, 
 black and yellow — the benefit of this extremely 
 practical training! 
 
 Such institutions as the Lowell School would 
 increase in number and efficiency were the demand 
 for them to increase, and the demand certainly 
 would increase were the State to cease doing what 
 she can't, and begin doing more thoroughly what 
 she can. 
 
 The self-made man is already an American di- 
 vinity, and although we have pushed him rather 
 too far up into the air, and he is, as someone re- 
 marked, tremendously fond of trying himself on in 
 public, he makes, on the whole, a much more sub- 
 stantial and useful citizen than some of the nerve- 
 spent, brain-spent, enervated products of our free 
 education, and we would do well to multiply his 
 species by a change in our methods. 
 
 Scientists have learned that slow growth is a 
 law of superiority in the animal world ; according 
 as the infancy or period of development is long or 
 short, the maturity is superior or inferior. The 
 jungle fowl (low in the scale of intelligence) is a 
 notable instance of precocity, since it is equipped 
 for life so early that upon breaking its shell it 
 
30 The Tocsin: 
 
 immediately flies away, whereas, on the other hand, 
 man's formative period extends over a space of 
 more than twenty years, and he does not begin to 
 fly until he reaches the age of fourteen or fifteen ! 
 • On every side we are taught that forcing is dis- 
 astrous; hothouse plants are notably delicate, and 
 animals whose growth is hastened by unnatural 
 conditions are rarely ever sound. The hair may 
 be forced to abnormal length by a certain treat- 
 ment, but, as a hairdresser once told me, Nature 
 avenges herself for the disturbance of her methods, 
 and premature loss is the result. 
 
 With these, and many other instances, illus- 
 trative of the folly of undue pressure, in mind, 
 what can we expect when we place that most deli- 
 cate structure — the human brain — in a hothouse 
 of learning, and subject it to a forcing process? 
 
 It is an acknowledged fact that the large ma- 
 jority of our foremost men and women come from 
 the country, or from the village. There must be a 
 reason for this. Is it not because in the country 
 and in the village, children are less subject to dis- 
 tractions, imdue pressure, and excitement, than in 
 the city ? Concentration is one of the laws of high 
 achievement, and this, city life, and especially city 
 school life, militates against. Various experi- 
 ments are being tried to remedy this evil of scatter- 
 ing the life energy — ^breaking it into fragments, as 
 it were. I know of a school principal who decreed 
 that only one topic should be studied and recited 
 each day, trying in this way to keep the children's 
 minds on one subject for some seven or eight hours. 
 He was no doubt in error, but his intention was 
 good, and, for my part, I welcome every sign of 
 
Our Children in Peril. 31 
 
 an awakening which bids fair to improve our sys- 
 tem of education. 
 
 I am well aware that there is, to-day, much in 
 the life of our nation calculated to shine out in 
 seemingly brilliant proof of the wisdom of our 
 present methods of education. I am thankful for 
 this. Heaven forbid that we should delay to sound 
 the warning until the bomb had actually burst, 
 and naught remained of the once fair edifice but 
 an unsightly wreck. Let us awake in time, before 
 the evil is irreparable. We have much to be proud 
 of in our schools to-day, and we plume ourselves 
 upon them. Nor is self-praise all we hear; not 
 long ago Lord Eosebery, speaking of the wonder- 
 ful advance the United States had made within a 
 comparatively short time, found the explanation of 
 this phenomena in our public school system, fos- 
 tering, as it does, in the masses both independence 
 in action and ambition in aim. 
 
 Why, then, you may ask, attempt to disturb a 
 system from which we reap such brilliant results ? 
 Because to one who looks beneath the surface, this 
 brilliance is the beauty of the consumptive — the 
 sign and seal of early decay. Now, then, I find 
 myself the target for a storm of invective. I am 
 disloyal to my country, someone cries, prophesying 
 her ruin. Not so, for my faith in the sound sense 
 and discretion of our people, is strong. For the 
 present they are blinded by the glare of prosperity, 
 but once they can be induced to face the actual 
 condition of affairs, they will institute such changes 
 as shall save our youth for future greatness. 
 
 America is, as yet an infant among nations — let 
 us bear that in mind. What are one or two hun- 
 
32 The Tocsin: 
 
 dred years as a test of endurance ? What are sev- 
 eral hundred as a final proof? Why, it is only a 
 few years, comparatively speaking, since Columbus 
 was looking us up with a spy-glass — only a few 
 years since this entire country was a wilderness of 
 solemn forests, lighted by the glare of the war- 
 dance fire, and broken here and there by richly 
 carpeted valleys where the deer grazed in herds; 
 a country whoso towering mountains hurled back 
 from the rocky cliffs the defiant Indian war whoop. 
 
 We are so young that even to-day, in those grey 
 old worlds across the sea, there are many people 
 who still think of us as- clad in a blanket, with — 
 not a harp, but a tomahawk 'Vithin our hands." 
 To be sure, this ignorance on their part proves 
 them better fitted for those emblems of national 
 infancy — the blanket and the tomahawk — than we, 
 but it also serves to remind us of our youth. 
 
 ^^hat of that?" you cry. "See what we have 
 done !" 
 
 I know, I know ; it makes a brave list, and I love 
 to run it o'er. It begins away back, for we didn't 
 wait for numbers, but commenced when there was 
 but a handful of us — a little handful that had but 
 just scrambled up from the sea and perched on the 
 extreme edge of a big continent, of which we knew 
 nothing beyond the dark forest fringe that hemmed 
 us in — ^began in 1773 by our being sassy to our 
 elders, and saying we didn't want their old tea, 
 and wouldn't be coerced into taking it. Our swift 
 next came, when in 1776 we threw off parental 
 authority; then in 1812 we raised our flag on high 
 seas, and proved that every word of the Declara- 
 tion of Independence was underlined; in 1846 we 
 
Our Children in Peril. 33 
 
 took another child into onr household and said, 
 "Hands off !" to those from whose bonds she had 
 escaped. In 1865 we settled an all but fatal fam- 
 ily quarrel, and later despite some huge blunders 
 made by our statesmen, managed to reconstruct 
 the disturbed portion of our household and cement 
 the two pieces that had been temporarily severed. 
 In 1898 we took our place more firmly among 
 the nations of the world, raised the banner of 
 humanity and made even scoffers (who, themselves 
 unworthy, cannot recognize nobility in others) 
 realize that we were a power to be reckoned with 
 in the adjustment of republics, kingdoms, and 
 empires. In 1900 we proved that our shield was, 
 as yet, untarnished and our flag, like the good 
 knight, "without fear and without reproach." 
 
 Not only have we proven our collective dignity 
 and power, but we have also won admiration for 
 individual worth. At the Court of St. James, as 
 well as at Berlin and other seats of government, 
 we have been so honorably, so ably and so courte- 
 ously represented, that the word American has 
 come to stand for a high type of manhood. In all 
 the recent diplomatic manipulations, entailed by 
 our affairs with Spain and with China, we have 
 had cause for honest pride in that no potentate 
 that Europe boasts, has proven himself better qual- 
 ified to uphold the high standard of a Christian 
 gentleman — to show forth that commingling of 
 cool sense and tender compassion ; of sound moral- 
 ity, without priggishness ; intellectuality, without 
 pedantry; that combination of simplicity and 
 frankness, with dignity and reserve, than our be- 
 loved McKinley, and I trow not one among all the 
 
34 The Tocsin: 
 
 heads of peoples on the face of the globe, has been 
 more respected and admired, alike by friend and 
 honest foe, than he. His successor, though quite 
 a different type, is another of America's fine 
 products — a man whom most of us regarded with 
 a thrill of pride when, in response to God's call, he 
 stepped forward to fill the high place as head of our 
 nation — a man, indeed ! A Christian gentleman ! 
 Vigorous, intense, clear-headed, unflinching in his 
 courage ; unwavering in his honor. A man with an 
 inheritance of culture, and yet as simple, direct, 
 and natural as the manliest backwoodsman in his 
 native wilds. Verily we have cause to be proud 
 of these colossal figures, standing out in the clear 
 light of international activities ! 
 
 When we think on all this we feel secure, and 
 then Cometh danger. "Let him that thinketh he 
 standeth take heed lest he fall." Supposing we 
 grant that all is well now, what of the future? 
 Ere long we of the present generation (perfect as 
 we undoubtedly are ! ) will have passed on. \\nio is 
 to take our place ? The youth of to-day. And how 
 are they being prepared for their coming responsi- 
 bilities? "As the twig is bent, the tree is in- 
 clined," and if the twig is bent to breaking, the 
 tree will be a crotchety, feeble affair. Are our 
 schools of to-day calculated to turn out men and 
 women strong in brain and strong in principle? 
 I refer now to our schools as a whole, but as the 
 mass of the people receive their education in the 
 public schools, I refer especially to them. I do 
 not even ask anyone to accept my single testimony 
 in answer to so momentous a question. In matters 
 that concern the people, the people themselves 
 
Our Children in Peril. 35 
 
 should testify. My voice is but one of a million ; 
 you can hear the others if you but listen. Hardly 
 a day passes but what important testimony in this 
 case comes in. Lately it was this story : A mother 
 in Denver found her patience with public school 
 methods there, worn threadbare, and took up that 
 which is mightier than the sword in defense of a 
 wrong from which her family, in common with 
 others, was sufEering. In the article she wrote, 
 she stated that she and her husband hardly knew 
 what it was to have an evening for rest and pleas- 
 ure, for they were obliged to help their children 
 learn the numerous and lengthy lessons which 
 they brought home from school. 
 
 "We are paying a school tax for having our 
 children taught,^' she said, "and yet are obliged 
 to spend most of the little time we have at home 
 together, teaching them." 
 
 Even with all this help at home, there was com- 
 plaint at school that the children had not mastered 
 the work, albeit they were no dullards. What 
 must we conclude? Simply that the tasks set 
 were beyond the bounds of reason and propriety. 
 
 In the article this mother wrote, she called the 
 attention of the public to the number of children 
 who had broken down during their school term, 
 and asked if such over-forcing of young brains 
 should be allowed to continue. 
 
 The Superintendent of Schools was a man high 
 in Masonic ranks, and otherwise influential, and 
 fearing to antagonize him, one of the papers re- 
 fused to print the article. Two others had the 
 courage to print it, however, and one of these 
 called especial attention to it by enclosing it in 
 
36 The Tocsin: 
 
 blue lines, and writing an excellent editorial upon 
 it. That it struck a responsive chord was manifest 
 by the signs of gratitude shown its author. 
 Women who were strangers to her — women who 
 themselves lacked the courage to speak their minds 
 in public, on this subject, drove vip to her door, 
 and, as it were, whispered their thanks. 
 
 Passing from this matter of broken health, let 
 us take up some other points. Even if our chil- 
 dren were able to stand the mental and nervous 
 strain of their work, there are other objections of a 
 serious nature to our present school system. Edu- 
 cators are seeing more and more clearly that the 
 study about things is not suflficient, that there 
 must be object lessons also — practice as well as 
 theory. 
 
 The failure to bear this in mind in arranging 
 the school curriculum is largely accountable for a 
 failure in life on the part of the children after 
 they graduate. Indeed, in many ways, it seems 
 as if their training actually disqualifies them for 
 life, ridiculous as that sounds. If the Solons who 
 compile our elaborate curriculums could be pre- 
 vailed upon not to attempt to cover the entire 
 universe of learning; if they could be induced to 
 select a few — a very few vigorous, fundamental 
 branches, reserving the less common and less need- 
 ful studies for those who wish to follow especial 
 lines, we should see a vast improvement on the 
 intellectual diet assigned our children now. 
 
 If properly planned and arranged, the entire 
 school work might not only be performed during 
 the school hours, but those hours could be material- 
 ly shortened, and more time left for those children 
 
Our Children in Peril. 37 
 
 who have homes needing them, to assist their 
 parents, thereby learning in the best way some 
 ■valuable lessons, and strengthening the home ties 
 as well. 
 
 Again and again, in talking over their children 
 with me, parents have complained of some serious 
 defect in their character, or in their mental ac- 
 quirements. 
 
 "Can't you remedy this at home ?" I would ask. 
 "Devise some training toward that especial end?" 
 
 The almost invariable answer is : "Oh, no, there 
 is no chance for that; their time, in and out of 
 school, is all taken up by their studies." 
 
 Lately I spoke to a sweet girl of eighteen, whose 
 tastes are strongly domestic. 
 
 "What a comfort you must be to your mother" 
 (who is alone with her children) ; "how she must 
 lean upon you," I said. 
 
 She looked regretful. "She used to lean upon 
 me," she answered, "but really, I'm so busy now, 
 she can't. I am just loaded down with studies, 
 and I have to shut myself in my room as soon as 
 I get home, and poor mama don't dare talk over 
 any worry or care with me, for it does seem as if 
 I could hardly carry what I've got with my 
 studies." 
 
 Is this the way to train a daughter into the full- 
 est womanhood ? No wonder we have so many un- 
 sexed girls growing up — not liking children; 
 hating housework and domestic employments gen- 
 erally ! Is it not amazing that we, a free, intelli- 
 gent people, will go on paying out money to main- 
 tain a system which is peculiarly adapted to make 
 our children selfish and impractical? Fitted to 
 
38 The Tocsin: 
 
 dwarf them as far as character development goes, 
 to say nothing of weakening them physically ? To 
 keep them, for several of the most precious train- 
 ing years of their lives, at studies for which they 
 more often than not, have no shred of talent, and 
 of which they have no need, while more useful 
 branches, attention to which would materially aid 
 the development of character, and help them on 
 in life, are utterly neglected ! 
 
 I am well aware as I write, of the existence of 
 two classes of parents, both of which would unite 
 to oppose any such step as shortening the school 
 hours; the one class is made up of foolish people, 
 incapable of discerning what is for the best good 
 of their children, or parents too ignorant or un- 
 principled to perform a parents' duty by them, 
 even supposing they saw what it was; the other 
 class, of people so overburdened by the cares of 
 life, that they have neither time nor strength to 
 train crude effort, and no means to risk in careless, 
 immature labor. These two classes claim that, 
 unless the children are kept at school long hours, 
 and then sent home with work to occupy them, 
 they are running the streets and getting into mis- 
 chief. 
 
 The problem of the parent who does not deserve 
 to be blest with children, and of the overworked 
 parent, so oppressed by unjust conditions that he 
 is unable to rear them properly, and enjoy them, is 
 not new, by any means. Under another heading 
 in this little work, I have a suggestion to offer for 
 the care of the children of such parents. 
 
 Coming to another point in our objection to 
 the school system — the weakening of home ties — 
 
Our Children in Peril. 39 
 
 we find OTirselves face to face with a most serious 
 question. In fact, the entire matter is serious, 
 but this especially so. Since the home is the very 
 core of civilization; since all substantial govern- 
 ments must rest upon it, certainly it should be the 
 State's effort to strengthen in the child, a love of 
 home, and to quicken his interest in its conduct. 
 That this most desirable result cannot follow the 
 present training, but that, on the contrary, children 
 experience from it a material weakening of the 
 finest ties on earth, will readily be seen if we but 
 look into the subject. The long absence from 
 home; the return, laden with work of an engross- 
 ing nature, demanding quiet and seclusion, must, 
 inevitably, separate children in large measure, 
 from the affairs of home, and this separation must 
 result in a certain degree of alienation and indif- 
 ference. 
 
 In some of the schools my children have at- 
 tended, I have found it all but impossible to strike 
 a responsive chord in the teacher's heart when I 
 have pleaded for the preservation of the home 
 hour for games, or for reading aloud, or fireside 
 chat. Even where no open objection has been 
 made to my setting aside the children's studies 
 for anything of this kind, I have felt the teacher's 
 unspoken thought that I was making the important 
 give way to the trivial. The plea for time for the 
 children to perform certain home tasks — to learn 
 sewing, cooking, gardening, or some other practical 
 work — has always met with a more ready response 
 if put in the form of my needing assistance, al- 
 though it was not always possible to make room 
 for it. That last — making room for some home 
 
40 The Tocsin: 
 
 training I thought important — has generally de- 
 volved upon myself, and when I have done it, I 
 have been forced to take my children out of the 
 regular course, and make them feel something like 
 aliens in their own classes. 
 
 I was deeply impressed by the following sen- 
 tence, which I "an across lately in the London 
 Spectator, in an article on the relationship of 
 parent and child: "The complications of ad- 
 vancing civilization do not strengthen the primi- 
 tive ties ; the conditions of life, in the present day, 
 put a great strain on the parental bond, and in 
 many instances snap it altogether." 
 
 If that, indeed, is the case, then we would better 
 heave this false civilization into the sea, and return 
 to our primeval forest. And if our public school 
 system is calculated to hasten this ruin (for 
 ruin it will be if the primitive ties are snapped), 
 then it is false and bad, and the sooner we are rid 
 of it the better. 
 
 Every now and then we are almost startled by 
 running across some children like those I heard 
 of the other day in the Kentucky mountains, who 
 discover the most passionate attachment for their 
 cheerless homes — barren of everything we think 
 necessary to make life endurable. Even in the 
 slums of our cities we often stumble upon children, 
 who, though beaten and half starved by their 
 parents, nevertheless show a deeper interest in 
 their wretched homes, and a stronger love for their 
 family than the more favored children of the well- 
 to-do. Why is this? For some reason, surely, 
 since a cause stands behind every effect. I am 
 certain it is because they have either, as in the 
 
Our Children in Peril. 41 
 
 case of the mountaineers, stayed at home, and 
 known nothing of outside interests, or else, as in 
 the case of the children in the slums, have 
 been forced, by the misery and drunkenness of 
 their parents, to bear an active part in the care 
 of their brothers and sisters, and in the general 
 conduct of the home. 
 
 Now, I trust that no wilful or stupid misin- 
 terpreter will accuse me of recommending that 
 parents get drunk and pound their children, to 
 develop a love of home. I do say, however, so 
 clearly I trust that he who runs may read, that 
 it is necessary to keep children at home some con- 
 siderable portion of their time, and to give them 
 active home interests, in order to develop a love 
 of home and family, and I also assert that our 
 school system tends strongly to oppose the develop- 
 ment of this fundamental characteristic. In other 
 words, the Stae is stupidly working out her own 
 undoing. She will see this ere long, I am certain, 
 for she has the brain to perceive and the heart to 
 feel. Already there is a brightening in our na- 
 tional sky, that promises a clearer day than the 
 present. 
 
 During the last tour of President McKinley 
 there was considerable to set earnest brains 
 a-throbbing. One of the San Francisco dailies 
 struck a fine note, I thought, in an editorial in 
 which it said that, with due consideration for all 
 the apt, able and tactful addresses that Mr. Mc- 
 Kinley had made, about the best thing he had 
 done for the youth of our land was to teach them 
 a touching lesson on the strength and beauty of 
 the domestic tie. If I might add something to 
 
42 The Tocsin: 
 
 this, I should say that, to my mind, after due con- 
 sideration of all the evidences of loyal devotion 
 shown our President, by youth and maturity, 
 along his pathway, the most beautiful tribute to 
 him, and to the good dwelling in their own hearts, 
 was their quick response to him as a man — to the 
 father who had been bereaved; to the husband 
 whose anxious, loving eyes were continually turned 
 to the sweet-faced woman he called by the sacred 
 name of wife. 
 
 As long as the heart of the people throbs in 
 response to such strong, sweet sentiment, there is 
 hope for our future. 
 
PART II. 
 
 THE GEOWING IMMORALITY OF CHILDREN". 
 
 However urgent the foregoing topics may be, 
 they dwindle almost into insignificance when com- 
 pared with that of which we must speak in this 
 division. The Book which has long been a beacon 
 light for the greatest nations on earth, says : "For 
 what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole 
 world, and lose his own soul?" And this is the 
 solemn question we must now ask. 
 
 Supposing our young people could stand the 
 mental strain imposed by their school work; sup- 
 posing they were not made superficial and im- 
 practical, by the multiplicity of their studies and 
 their attention to theory, to the exclusion of prac- 
 tice; supposing the strength of their home ties 
 were not impaired by the absorption of time and 
 interest elsewhere, what then? There would still 
 be much to say. In dealing with the points we 
 have just mentioned, we have arraigned the school 
 system, but in the matter we are now to take up 
 we cannot hold the schools responsible, since this 
 particular evil exists in an even more virulent 
 form outside the school precincts, than it does 
 within them. Still, I have a strong hope that a 
 
44 The Tocsin: 
 
 better school system will do much to correct this 
 hideous evil, and I wish to press the matter upon 
 the attention of our educators, and implore their 
 aid in its cure. 
 
 Many sociologists look with despondency upon 
 the reformation of adults, but all agree that hope 
 rests in the children. Inheritance presses down- 
 ward, in some cases, with fearful weight, it is true, 
 but even that load may be lifted by the use of 
 such efficient levers as prayer, watchfulness, and 
 sound judgment. 
 
 The opposite of this is equally true. We may 
 almost say we can combat the evil wrought by 
 adults, but if the children are corrupt, how dare 
 we look the future in the face ! What is to be- 
 come of our rivers and lakes, if our springs are 
 poisoned ? 
 
 Those who have studied the youth of our land 
 are already aware that a pestilence, more virulent 
 than smallpox or cholera, has attacked them. I 
 should think it unnecessary to adduce proof of 
 this, were it not for the fact that a large number 
 of childless people (and, unhappily, the majority 
 of our educators belong to this class) are not 
 aware of the extent to which this evil has gone. 
 Even many parents, heedless or thoughtlessly con- 
 fident of their children's virtue, are ignorant of 
 the fact that the plague has broken out in their 
 very midst. 
 
 Personally I cannot testify in favor of private 
 schools over and above public schools. When I was 
 a child I was sent to the most fashionable seminary 
 in St. Louis. Later on I left in a pet, because 
 one of the teachers lectured me for some childish 
 
Our Children in Peril. 45 
 
 caper. For a time I had a private teacher; then 
 my parents consented, very reluctantly, to let me 
 attend the High School, and later I attended a pri- 
 vate university. So I had a somewhat varied 
 personal experience, and am, perhaps, the better 
 able for that reason, to compare notes and judge 
 in some matters. There was at the seminary, 
 although the pupils belonged to families in the 
 higher walks of life, a great deal of vulgarity. 
 Much that went on was beyond my comprehen- 
 sion, but I instinctively shrank from it. For this 
 reason, I was dubbed "The Good" by my school- 
 mates — all in good nature — and they oftentimes 
 changed the subject, and began talking and laugh- 
 ing on innocent themes when I came among them. 
 If there was anything impure in the talk or the 
 conduct of the pupils at the High School, or the 
 University I attended, I can only say I never heard 
 or saw it. 
 
 But although this was my personal experience, 
 from the experience of my children who have at- 
 tended both private and public schools, and also 
 from all I have been able to learn, on every side, 
 I am inclined to think : 
 
 First: 
 
 That children of families standing high in the 
 social scale are, as a general thing, less given to 
 vulgarity and other immoralities of like nature 
 than such children as make up the majority of 
 public school classes. 
 
 Second : 
 
 That when the children of educated parents 
 indulge in vulgarity, as a general thing they do 
 so more covertly than common children, thereby 
 
46 The Tocsin: 
 
 rendering it more destructive for themselves, but 
 less contagious. 
 
 Third : 
 
 That vulgarity and kindred immoralities are 
 more common in our primary and grammar schools, 
 than in our high schools, colleges and universities, 
 owing to the weeding out of inferior pupils, 
 from year to year. 
 
 Fourth : 
 
 That vulgarity and kindred immoralities, when 
 practiced in the latter schools, are more covert, 
 and take on very serious forms, most destructive 
 to the individuals, though the rank and file are 
 less exposed, by reason of the secretiveness of those 
 indulging. 
 
 Possibly my conclusions are at variance with 
 those of other people, who may be better informed 
 upon the subject than myself, but they are drawn 
 from a large number of instances which have come 
 to my knowledge in various cities, and smaller 
 places. 
 
 Let no one accuse me of exaggerating this evil, 
 until he has thoroughly investigated the matter 
 in the place in which he lives. 
 
 By nature I was unsuspicious, and unobserving, 
 and I long remained ignorant on many of these 
 vital subjects. Consequently much, no doubt, 
 passed me without attracting my attention. Not 
 until I began to send my children to school, did 
 I realize that that hideous monster — Immorality, 
 was ready to seize its victims before they were out 
 of pinafores. While my little ones were yet in 
 my arms, I was cautioned to beware what nurses 
 might do with them, and little later, I was warned 
 
Our Children in Peril. 47 
 
 to keep them from certain children in the neigh- 
 borhood (one, the little son of an army officer, and 
 all belonging to families of education and means) 
 lest they be taught vulgarity. When I moved to 
 Chicago, and took a house in a delightful sub- 
 urb, I was cautioned to keep my children from a 
 little boy and girl — brother and sister in a fam- 
 ily, living in a handsome place over the way, as 
 these children were indulging in hideous immo- 
 ralities. It later transpired that the mother had 
 been told of this, and had resented tliB information 
 hotly. She and the father were fashionable peo- 
 ple of gross private life, so their children were to 
 be pitied, and I did pity them, but I told my maids 
 to admit the smallpox any day, rather than al- 
 low those children inside my gate. 
 
 I watched my little ones with lynx eyes, with- 
 out letting them know it, but my two elder chil- 
 dren were started to school, and there they encoun- 
 ered this filthy trouble. Several times, on his 
 way home (I always looked for the children at 
 just such a moment), my little son was thrown 
 to the ground, and urged to expose himself. He 
 was released when he resisted, but a more timid 
 child might have yielded. Here, as in the major- 
 ity of places there were no suitable closet apart- 
 ments, the boys going down into a basement, where 
 there was a continuous row of seats, without any 
 partition between them. Occasionally a teacher 
 kept watch here, but more frequently the boys were 
 left to themselves, and under such favorable cir- 
 cumstances for the propagation of vice, it flour- 
 ished horribly. Since the close of my daughter's 
 brief term of school life, she has told me that 
 
48 The Tocsin: 
 
 the lowest things were written on the closet walls, 
 and remained there. Evidently it was no teach- 
 er's concern to watch over that matter. She has 
 also told me that several girls were allowed to go 
 at once, to these closets, and as no teacher was at 
 hand, often a vulgar girl would do all possible 
 to demoralize the rest. In a small public school 
 not far from where I live, there are but two clos- 
 ets, one for boys and one for girls; they are un- 
 der the same roof, only a thin board partition 
 separating them. One of the pupils there told me 
 that often there was calling and talking, and 
 laughing, back and forth. I was so shocked by 
 what I heard of it, that although I never have 
 had, and never will have a child at this school, 
 yet in the interests of the children who had the 
 misfortune to be there, I went to one of the trus- 
 tees and told him how matters were, and urged 
 upon him to see that there were separate closets 
 on opposite sides of the yard. Nothing has been 
 done, however, but I shall make another attempt 
 to effect something. In this same school it was the 
 teacher's custom to engage a little girl, for a few 
 cents a month, to clean both these closets, instead 
 of getting some adult to do that work. I always 
 felt that the poor child, who was so misused by 
 a miserably ignorant, blundering teacher, was con- 
 taminated, and bade my children avoid her. This 
 same teacher was in the habit of tying her pupils 
 one to the other, and setting them at work in the 
 school yard, as a punishment for offences. This 
 little group was called the "chain gang," in im- 
 itation of that wretched line of convicts after 
 whom the teacher was copying. It excited great 
 
Our Children in Peril. 49 
 
 mirth among the children, especially the boys, 
 who thought it jolly good fun. This ingenious 
 system of punishment deserves to rank with that 
 of a principal of an Oakland school, who decreed 
 that, for certain minor offenses among his pupils, 
 the culprits (girls as well as boys) should be 
 brought out and jeered at, by the other scholars. 
 As long as such methods — so successful in brutal- 
 izing children are in vogue in our schools, we may 
 expect much, and never be disappointed ! 
 
 To return to the particular forms of immo- 
 rality with which we are dealing under this head- 
 ing, I have been horrified at many things I've 
 heard. I have always encouraged my children to 
 talk with me with perfect freedom, feeling that 
 nothing could be as injurious if it was brought 
 to the mother. They have repeated to me bits 
 of talk among their school mates, some of these 
 overheard and some addressed to them, such as 
 might be expected only in brothels; filthy jokes, 
 and conundrums and stories, even among young 
 girls being frequent. In a few cases that 
 have come to my notice, there have been very ap- 
 parent evidences of immorality. In several in- 
 stances the young girls were asked to quietly leave 
 school. One of these eloped and married the boy, 
 before the birth of her child. 
 
 In the village in which I lived for a time, the 
 happenings were more conspicuous than they 
 would have been in a city, and we heard more of 
 them, but I have no idea that it was any worse, 
 morally speaking. I considered the faculty of the 
 school superior in courtesy, and sympathetic un- 
 derstanding of the parents' wishes, and of the 
 
50 The Tocsin: 
 
 needs of the pupils, to that of many of the schools 
 with which my children have, been connected. 
 But the teachers seemed powerless to stem the tide 
 of immorality which at times threatened us with 
 a filthy deluge. Many of the pupils were as clean 
 and as wholesome young folk as one could wish 
 to see, but many, many others were more or less 
 stained. 
 
 Outside of school, there were several pitiable 
 cases in the village. One, a fatherless child, whose 
 mother (going out to work by the day) left her 
 unguarded much of the time. She was expelled 
 from the school for immoralities, and later on, was 
 the victim of a crime involving several grey- 
 headed men (grandfathers) who had up to that 
 time, been supposed to be respectable. Unfortu- 
 nately the community's concern to preserve its rep- 
 utation for godliness (it was a religious settle- 
 ment), seemed to be greater than its concern for 
 its children ; consequently the officials of the place, 
 instead of aiding those of the near village, who 
 came over to enquire into the matter, tried to hush 
 it up, and some one of them was even base enough 
 to go bail for the chief offender — a white headed 
 roue, who deserved to be hung to the nearest 
 tree. This creature was finally sent to the peni- 
 tentiary for ten years, but weakness and laxity 
 have pardoned him out, and he is around again, 
 ready for more filthy villainy. 
 
 The girl of whom I am speaking (at that time 
 barely twelve years old) became a village prob- 
 lem, and enticed many of the boys of the place 
 into immorality. 
 
 Another instance among us was that of the 
 
Our Children in Peril. 51 
 
 children of a mother, who, after long continued 
 unfaithfulness, at last went to her partner in crime. 
 The oldest girl (of eleven or twelve) had charge 
 of the family. Often she was seen on the streets 
 of an evening, and her conduct was as bad as that 
 of her companion — the little girl of whom I have 
 told. The pathos of the situation was inten- 
 sified by the faith of the father, who not only 
 trusted and loved his children, but also clung 
 to the hope that God would send his wife home 
 repentant — he was more than ready to forgive 
 her, 
 
 "He is not quite right," someone said to me. 
 "he was kicked in the head, by a horse, a while 
 ago." 
 
 "It is a pity," I answered, "that some of the 
 rest of us couldn't be kicked in the head, and 
 in the heart, too, if such love and Christian char- 
 ity would result." 
 
 I could not help crying ; it was all so pathetic. 
 
 The disposition and proper care of these miser- 
 able waifs was a problem with some of the pitiful, 
 conscientious people of the place. A woman with 
 a family could not receive such morally diseased 
 little ones into her home. It remained, there- 
 fore, for a big-souled woman, (to whom God had 
 denied children, that she might care for the neg- 
 lected) to mother them, and so rescue them from 
 the dens toward which their feet were rapidly tend- 
 ing. 
 
 I have dwelt at some length upon these eases 
 not only because it is so shocking to find such 
 in a civilized community, but also because in some 
 
52 The Tocsin: 
 
 of their features they are duplicated in hundreds 
 of places throughout our country. 
 
 I have known of lads of sixteen and seventeen 
 years of age, belonging to respectable families, 
 visiting Chinatown for low purposes, and bring- 
 ing back moral and physical contagion with them. 
 I have seen others, of the same age, openly parad- 
 ing the streets with abandoned women from a city 
 not far distant. 
 
 At a recent lecture I heard Dr. Jordan, of Stan- 
 ford, quoted as saying, that a large proportion 
 of our youth were morally ruined before entering 
 university life, and most of us know how num- 
 bers of the students behave during their university 
 career. 
 
 It would be horrible enough if this evil were con- 
 fined to our boys and young men, but it is not. 
 Not long since, a secret individual vice threat- 
 ened the destruction of one of our best known fe- 
 male colleges. A number of the students became 
 too ill to prosecute their studies properly. As 
 there was no apparent cause for sickness, a strict 
 investigation followed, and this finally elicited con- 
 fessions, and resulted in such a number of with- 
 drawals, that the institution was, for a time, se- 
 riously crippled. 
 
 I spoke to a friend, an elderly woman, on this 
 awful subject some time ago. Herself without chil- 
 dren, she was disposed to question the correctness 
 of my statements. 
 
 "You certainly have grown morbid on this 
 theme. I am sure you are exaggerating the trou- 
 ble," she said. 
 
 When I spoke of the necessity of talking with 
 
Our Children in Peril. 53 
 
 one's children in private, winning their confidence 
 and warning them to avoid low companions, she 
 said: 
 
 "Why, I think it would be awful to speak to 
 them of such things. It is awful to even think 
 of it in connection w*ith them — mere innocen't 
 babies, they are V 
 
 A few days after this very talk, she came to me 
 in great excitement. 
 
 "What do you suppose I saw written on the 
 fence as I was riding along here, this afternoon?" 
 
 I did not know, nor do I yet, for she said : 
 
 "I can't tell you, I shouldn't want to name 
 such words, but they referred to the most sacred 
 relationship in life, and were evidently written 
 by some childish hand — in big letters on the fence." 
 
 In one of his stories, "Eose, of Dutcher Cooley," 
 Hamlin Garland speaks of obscene words scrawled 
 in the dust of the road, by passing children, on 
 their way to school from the different farm 
 houses. I read this book years ago, and was 
 amazed and disgusted by this, and still more so 
 by his telling of a shocking sin committed by his 
 heroine when a little school-girl, with a young 
 classmate. I thought Mr. Garland had gone out 
 of his way to write of something repellent and 
 improbable. I have since then studied this branch 
 of sociology in the practical school of Life, and 
 alas ! I am only too well aware now, that Hamlin 
 Garland did not over-color his picture. 
 
 One of my friends in an Eastern city who lived 
 within sight of a vacant stable, noticed a num- 
 ber of school children going there, from time 
 to time. She resolved to investigate, and upon 
 
54 The Tocsin: 
 
 doing so, learned enough to terrify anyone to 
 whom purity is sacred. 
 
 Not content with the individual sin which even- 
 tually engulfs body and soul, and frequently ends 
 in the insane asylum, some poor wretched chil- 
 dren are taking a short cut to the hell fires of 
 sensuality, by practicing an unnamable vice which 
 is said to have come from France, and has been 
 learned by them, God only knows how. I cannot 
 think of this without a shudder; I have never had 
 it explained to me, and hope I never shall. All 
 I know is that I was warned to beware of some 
 children in my neighborhood on this account, and 
 that the faces of these children corroborated all 
 I heard. 
 
 But of the many, many instances of de- 
 pravity that have come to my knowledge, 
 the most startling, perhaps, is this; a friend 
 of mine, a most careful mother, allowed her 
 little girl to associate with another child 
 about her own age, — eleven years, as this 
 latter was apparently a harmless, child-like and 
 innocent little one, as a child of that age should 
 be. The parents — Scotch-English — ^belong to the 
 working class, are very intelligent, honest, indus- 
 trious and religious people. In most respects they 
 are careful, even strict with their children, but 
 for some inexplicable reason the mother has oc- 
 casionally allowed them to associnte with other 
 children whose reputation is bad. My friend, 
 however, has always had such respect for this 
 mother, and felt such confidence in the innocence 
 and good behavior of her children, that she had 
 no hesitation about letting hers play with them 
 
Our Children In Peril. 55 
 
 frequently. Imagine her dismay and amazement 
 — ^not to mention other feelings, when she read 
 the following sentence, written by this seemingly 
 sweet, modest child, to her young son — about 
 eleven years of age, (who to do him justice was 
 wholly innocent in the matter, and who never saw 
 the paper, as his sister would not allow her lit- 
 tle friend to give it to him, but told her mother 
 about it instead). Here is the note: 
 
 "Carrie says to Wilson dear every night, come 
 to bed with me and we will have lots of fun to- 
 night very sweet i love you darling will you come 
 to the bad house with me ?" 
 
 When a child of the class I have described — 
 a child of such parentage and training, can de- 
 vise a note like the above, it certainly is time we 
 looked about us in earnest; guarded our homes, 
 our children more carefully, realizing that the 
 foulest contagion can slip in through a very small 
 chink in our wall of defense. To do this child 
 justice, I do not believe she fully realized the 
 hideous import of her note. She certainly un- 
 derstood it in a measure though, and knew it was 
 wrong, for she attempted to conceal it from her 
 own and her little friend's mother, and seemed 
 much ashamed of having written such a thing 
 when her friend declared it was bad, and she 
 was not going to give it to her brother. 
 
 I never had anything of this kind come to my 
 knowledge which startled me quite as much as this, 
 for I had often seen the children of this family, 
 and judging from their faces, and from what I 
 knew of their parents and home, I supposed that 
 they were of the best character. 
 
56 The Tocsin: 
 
 I have this note — the melancholy proof of the 
 direction a child may take unknown to the pa- 
 rents, in my hand to-day, and it is a fearful com- 
 mentary on all I have ever said on the need of 
 a reform among children. 
 
 I can go no farther ; I am heartsick. The sub- 
 ject leaves me with a bad taste in my mind. I 
 feel as if I had dipped my pen in the sewer. Sure- 
 ly I have brought forward enough proof to support 
 my assertions, but if not, there is, alas ! much more, 
 for I have only told a small part of what I have 
 learned on this subject. 
 
 Now there should be three parts to any disserta- 
 tion on an evil. First: the proof of its existence. 
 Second: the cause. Third: the remedy. 
 
 As to the first, only the wilfully blind can re- 
 fuse to be convinced of the existence of this im- 
 morality among our children, so we will dismiss 
 that part of the subject without further comment. 
 As to the cause, even a wise man may go astray. 
 We can, however, mention certain things which 
 tend in that direction, although they may not be 
 the sole causes of that which we so deeply deplore. 
 
 Before entering upon this partial list of causes, 
 I wish to say that in treating of the sins of chil- 
 dren, I have not mentioned profanity (which I 
 have often heard, in the West, from girls as well 
 as boys), because people are more generally aware 
 of the presence of this evil than of some others, 
 and it being a more open, less delicate transgres- 
 sion than the particular one with which we have 
 been dealing here, it is proportionately less lif- 
 ficult to combat. 
 
 With regard to all these vices, many people are 
 
Our Children in Peril. 57 
 
 under the impression that environment is respon- 
 sible. Acting upon this idea, I have known fam- 
 ilies move from one place to another at some dis- 
 tance from it, simply in order to change the lo- 
 cality, for their children's sake. 
 
 There is no doubt something in this. There 
 must be, for it is noticeable in business relations, 
 as well as in those of children. The State or local- 
 ity that dates its early settlement to any cause 
 likely to bring together people of a loose way of 
 life, must work very many years before it can 
 cleanse its wells, more or less poisoned by the con- 
 dition of the fountain head of the waters. Most of 
 these countries and regions that were originally 
 penal settlements, or gold fields, testify, to-day, to 
 the truth of this assertion, especially when they are 
 brought into sharp contrast with communities 
 whose beginnings were founded on an honorable 
 ancestry. Climatic conditions are also found to 
 have weight in determining the character of the 
 individuals, as well as nations. Other things be- 
 ing equal, we may look for a more vigorous type 
 of morality in the temperate zone, than in the 
 torrid. 
 
 Still, I am inclined to think that, aside from 
 these broad and less usual differences, we gain but 
 little in matters moral, by a change of abode. I 
 have never lived in New England, and so can- 
 not speak positively of that section. I have an 
 idea, however, based upon its history, that in that 
 land of original sterling worth we may still find 
 more back-bone in the matter of principle than 
 in some places I have known. I hope I am not 
 mistaken. As far as my experience in residence 
 
58 The Tocsin: 
 
 does go, I must confess there is not very mueli 
 choice, when considering the subject of immoral- 
 ity among children, and this leads me to conclude 
 that the evil is widespread. 
 
 Assuming that such is the case, let us enquire 
 into the causes — for causes there must be, and un- 
 til we reach them we cannot hope to effect reforma- 
 tion. But in this investigation we shall encroach 
 upon the third subject head of this booklet, and 
 so we would best transfer it to the next page. 
 
 This has been, to me, a most heart-rending divi- 
 sion of my little book. It has been grievous to 
 write, and I shrink from turning it over to my 
 copyist. But I sit here, in my study, at work upon 
 it with a constant prayer that Grod may bring it 
 home to the mothers in our land, with such force 
 that they will awake to the needs, and the peril of 
 their children. 
 
PART III. 
 
 SUGGESTIONS AS TO EEMEDIES. 
 
 Since we have been writing of schools and 
 school children, it seems most appropriate, when 
 we come to a discussion of remedies proposed for 
 the evils dwelt upon, to take up the school sys- 
 tem, before dealing with the more important home 
 influences. 
 
 I should like to ask my readers, in the very out- 
 set, not to fancy for one moment, that I feel my- 
 self capable of solving these awful problems. Es- 
 pecially when the questions raised lie more in the 
 realms of pedagogy (in which I am quite untu- 
 tored), I feel my weakness. We all know, how- 
 ever, that there are times when an outsider sees 
 vs^ith a clearer vision than a participant; we also 
 know that occasionally there arises, from the deep- 
 est well of ignorance, a word that Wisdom stoops 
 to hear. Most of my suggestions (for that is all I 
 have to offer in discussing schools) are rather neg- 
 ative than positive, and grow out of a description 
 of some unfortunate condition of the present 
 school methods. 
 
 I care very little, on the whole, what is said of 
 the manner in which I have put this subject for- 
 
6o The Tocsin: 
 
 ward. So its perusal starts up thought, discus- 
 sion, opposition (whichever it may be), I am cer- 
 tain good will come from the awakening, soon or 
 late. 
 
 In discussing school errors, let us always bear 
 in mind that school boards and trustees are not 
 deliberately antagonistic to the needs of the peo- 
 ple. Their lamentable failure to adopt their 
 methods to those needs, and to conserve the high- 
 est interest of the vast army of children for whom 
 they operate, is generally the result of ignorance 
 rather than of carelessness, and as si matter of 
 course, never the result of intention. 
 
 Unhappily politics, in all its baneful workings, 
 has not spared our educational system. The pres- 
 ence of many incompetent principals, and many 
 more incompetent teachers is largely due to this 
 fact. The sooner the American public sees that 
 an entire and wide separation of politics and the 
 public schools, is necessary to the furtherance of its 
 children's good, the better it will be. Let these 
 two — politics and schools — ^be divorced, and see 
 to it that each weds again, in another direction, 
 that the danger of reunion be removed. 
 
 Many of the members of our present school 
 boards are so densely stupid that they call to mind 
 Sydney Smith's famous suggestion that the city 
 fathers should put their heads together, when he 
 was told the streets needed paving. We need on 
 our boards people who are fitted for their work; 
 women, as well as men for this important position ; 
 not excitable, hysterical women, of the type who 
 regard opposition as personal insult, but intelli- 
 gent, womanly, self-controlled women, thought- 
 
Our Children in Peril. 6i 
 
 ful, Christian mothers, whose swift intuitions are 
 supplemented by careful study of their chil- 
 dren's necessities; women, as well as men, who 
 have some intelligent idea of what kind of 
 citizens a State needs, and consequently are better 
 able to formulate a system of education looking 
 toward the supply of those needs. Were our school 
 boards made up of such men and women we should 
 rapidly advance toward a better, brighter educa- 
 tional day. 
 
 As to our congested curriculum, the plan men- 
 tioned, on a former page, for the public schools — 
 that of a few elementary studies, coupled with 
 manual training suitable for boys, and also train- 
 ing suitable for girls, is the one I most earnestly 
 advocate. I would also advocate the conduct of 
 State academies and universities, but would require 
 the applicants for the higher schools to prove their 
 fitness, in character, as well as in mental ability, 
 to occupy some higher position in life, than the 
 lower grades of schools were qualified to furnish 
 preparation for. If the State did conduct any 
 such high grade schools as the academy or univer- 
 sity, she should see to it that her trustees, as well 
 as her faculties, were most carefully selected, and 
 were strong enough in numbers to exercise a most 
 vigilant surveillance, thereby preventing these ed- 
 ucational institutions from being overrun by a 
 horde of semi-worthless, immoral young people. 
 I am earnestly in favor of State kindergartens; 
 not only this, but I would go a step further and 
 advocate a State Creche, in connection with every 
 public school situated in the poorer parts of the 
 city. By means of these institutions — Creche, 
 
62 The Tocsin: 
 
 Kindergarten, and School, the State would be able 
 to train its children (whenever that was made nec- 
 essary, in default of a proper home) from their 
 very infancy until they were ready to step out 
 into the world as wage earners. Think what these 
 three schools, in the hands of inspired men and 
 women, would mean for the State, in the way of 
 citizens, eventually ! 
 
 Expensive ? Ay, but far less so than letting the 
 little ones run the streets and alleys, until they 
 have, by the time they are four years old, learned 
 more vice, than all the schools in Christendom 
 can unlearn. Of course, no mother worthy the 
 name, would, unless the hard conditions of her life 
 compelled her to be absent from home all day, 
 give over her sacred charge to the State, but we 
 must always bear in mind that there is a vast army 
 of children whose parents can not, or will not care 
 for them properly, and in this fertile soil the State 
 can, by the help of God and his minister — the in- 
 spired teacher, do sowing that shall, later on, re- 
 sult in noble citizenship. Eead Kate Douglass 
 Wiggin's "Patsy," and see what can be done, even 
 with a street life, in a Kindergarten. Much more 
 could be accomplished if we began with the baby, 
 taking it for the better part of the day out of un- 
 motherly arms, or out of a neglected cradle. 
 
 We undoubtedly need more teachers, as well as 
 better teachers. In our crowded class-rooms the 
 individual is lost sight of. Our thinkers know 
 this; are talking about it — this sinking of the 
 individual in the throng. How can there be prop- 
 er teaching — sympathetic teaching, and proper 
 surveillance; under such circumstances? You 
 
Our Children in Peril. 63 
 
 can't do much with boy or man unless you, as an 
 individual, deal with him as an individual. As 
 for the surveillance, there is, of course, a surveil- 
 lance that provokes evil; surveillance must be 
 cloaked, to be effective; here and everywhere, good 
 intention must walk hand in hand with wisdom. 
 
 Besides the scrimping in teachers, there is a 
 scrimping in playgrounds. In a large city school 
 which my children attended, the pupils were 
 packed in the yard like sardines at recess. Land 
 was scarce there; morals still scarcer, and wisdom 
 scarcest of all. For fear of accident, the most 
 vigorous rules were made; for one boy even to 
 chase another around the yard was a misdemeanor. 
 Hence the children, denied a proper outlet for 
 spirits and energy, limited, by nature, as to proper 
 subjects for conversation, and closely associated 
 with those who continually see and hear the worst 
 at home, sank into immorality; obscenity became 
 rife among them. 
 
 I learned not long ago of a society which can 
 not fail to work much evil. It exists in a school 
 in a small Western town. By its laws no member 
 is allowed to reveal any of the happenings in and 
 about school, under penalty of certain punish- 
 ments, more or less severe. Furthermore, pressure 
 of a kind felt by children is brought to bear upon 
 all who enter the school, to join the society, re- 
 fusal being followed by ostracism. Protected as 
 evil doers are, by the false idea of brotherhood and 
 honor which obtains in this organization, it is all 
 but impossible for a teacher to find them out, and 
 yet (this fact is eloquent testimony against the 
 teachers in that school) up to the last accounts 
 
64 The Tocsin: 
 
 that reached me, no vigorous, systematic meas- 
 ures had been set on foot for the breaking of this 
 corrupting bond. 
 
 In marked and happy contrast with this school, 
 is that described in "Artliur Bonnicastle," where 
 the boys were taught that it is just as dishonorable 
 to protect a school criminal as it is to protect a 
 state criminal : that every offense against the honor 
 and well being of the institution is also an offense 
 against every individual in it, and so far from 
 its being mean to bring the culprit to justice, it 
 is mean to shield him. There it is impressed upon 
 them that a dishonest, lying, or impure boy is an 
 offense against each member of the school, and 
 also against every member of the outside commu- 
 nity to which he belongs, and should be so re- 
 garded and dealt with. 
 
 Such ideas as the latter, in our schools, would 
 go far toward inculcating lofty iuoas of citizenship 
 and patriotism, and would be vastly superior, mor- 
 ally speaking, to that now in vogue, to say nothing 
 of being more practical. 
 
 One who thinks on this subject, must regret 
 much of the training children are receiving at 
 present. Take the subject of Patriotism for in- 
 stance. On Memorial Day they hear words cal- 
 culated to stir anew the passions which fired our 
 Civil War; on the Fourth of July the orator of 
 the day proclaims the Eevolutionary feats of our 
 forefathers. All very well — both of these lessons 
 in their place, but their place is a subordinate one 
 to the place of more useful matter. Boys espe- 
 cially, are captivated by this martial teaching; 
 to their minds patriotism is a very easy thing, 
 
Our Children in Peril. 65 
 
 for the average boy would rather enter a fight than 
 keep out of it — has plenty of the brute courage 
 necessary to accept a challenge, but less of the 
 finer moral courage necessary to decline it. Too 
 rarely do the guardians of our youth teach the 
 deeper lessons of patriotism, and these are what 
 our children chiefly need. War is but an occa- 
 sional necessity, and while we all know that it is 
 in time of peace that we must prepare for war, yet 
 we also know, thank God! that the note of the 
 trumpet calling to battle, is receding, and we are 
 confidently looking for the time when it shall 
 die away, to be heard again nevermore. What 
 then abideth? Peace; and the lessons of peace 
 should be our chief concern in training our young 
 people. 
 
 Not long ago a man said to me, speaking of his 
 love for his wife, that he would die for her. I re- 
 peated this, thinlving to give her pleasure. She 
 was silent a moment, and then said, sadly, "It 
 is so much easier to die for one than it is to live 
 for one !" Since this occurred, I have learned 
 that the husband in this case is selfishly thought- 
 less of his wife's comfort; that he has a nasty, 
 cowardly kind of temper — of the sort that is irri- 
 table about trifles, and snaps, and snarls continu- 
 ally. Now I know what she meant when she said 
 it was harder to live than to die for another. 
 
 We should teach our children that loyalty to 
 country is built of pretty much the same material 
 as loyalty to home. It is a fine thing to die for 
 one's country in time of danger, but it is a much 
 finer and a much more difficult thing to live for 
 her, in time of peace. A pride in the outward 
 
66 The Tocsin: 
 
 appearance of the section in which we live is a 
 practical first step toward this latter end. It 
 Bounds trivial to say that we should teach a child 
 that it is unpatriotic to scatter picnic papers, and 
 all sorts of debris over our pleasure grounds, and 
 scraps of various sorts, along our streets, but surely 
 good citizenship presupposes a pride in the civic' 
 home. Pursuing the same train of thought into 
 higher realms, the child should learn that all 
 kinds of dishonor — theft, cowardice, impurity — 
 everything that tends to drag the family name 
 clown into the dust — is disloyalty to one's kindred, 
 and in a broader sense to one's country ; while, on 
 the other hand, everything that tends to the honor 
 of home or country, everything that sheds light 
 on the family name, or on the word American, is 
 patriotism of a fine type. Fighting is often a 
 mercenary business; we can even hire men to die 
 for us, but we can never hire men to live for us. 
 All this sort of work — this higher training, 
 must be thought out, lived out, by instructors be- 
 fore it can take on form and color to our youth. 
 For this reason I again assert that it is utterly 
 impossible for thoughtless, shallow, uncultured 
 men or women to properly train children, how- 
 ever much geometry, and Latin, and Greek they 
 may know, and also that oiir schools will never 
 attain a hardy, healthy growth until they are 
 purged of their unfit teachers. If I am not mis- 
 taken, a majority of those now in charge, will go 
 when this is done. A remnant will, however, be 
 left, a choice remnant that will increase in size 
 and strength steadily. I have already spoken of 
 the gifted teachers in our schools. I meet one 
 
Our Children in Peril. 67 
 
 every now and then ; a while ago it was in a High 
 School one of my boys attended — a woman in 
 charge of the history classes — a fine, strong char- 
 acter, devoted to teaching, and able to inspire 
 her charge. Again it was in a grammar school 
 in a large city ; here the faculty were strangers to 
 me, and most of them seemed commonplace 
 enough, but there was one woman who stood out 
 from among the rest, and shone as a bright star 
 in a cloudy firmament. She had not spoken a 
 dozen words before I recognized that wonderful 
 intuition and sympathy, which meant genius for 
 her work. 
 
 There are more of these women in the land, 
 numbers of them, longing to teach, and equipped, 
 by God, for teaching, but not having the necessary 
 political influence, or not knowing the requisite 
 amount of some study now in vogue, they remain 
 outside the school walls, while vithin are a horde 
 of listless, incompetent figureheads, sitting at the 
 teachers' desks. When the State ceases to teach 
 her little citizens Latin^ Greek, and Trigonometry, 
 and begins character-building, these real teachers, 
 idle to-day, as far as their chosen work is con- 
 cerned, may be called upon, and the others may be 
 given an indefinite leave of absence. 
 
 This talk about curriculum and so on, can be 
 greatly simplified, it strikes me. All we have to 
 do is to ask, "What end do we mean to reach?" 
 Then next, "How shall we compass this ?" 
 
 For what are we sending these children to 
 school? The question brings us up with a sharp 
 jerk. Is it in order to have certain mathematical 
 problems, or certain facts in geography crammed 
 
68 The Tocsin: 
 
 into their young brains, as a charge is crammed 
 down the mouth of a cannon ? Or are the mathe- 
 matics, the geography, and so on, but incidental 
 — a means to an end, and that end the develop- 
 ment of the child's intelligence; the opening of 
 the windows of his soul to the beauty and useful- 
 ness possible — nay, obligatory, to a well-lived 
 life? Is our end the committing to memory of 
 certain facts, or the awakening of the moral na- 
 ture to a relationship to fellow-beings, and an ob- 
 ligation to a Creator? Do we desire as a chief 
 end, to teach the child higher mathematics, or to 
 teach him the higher moral code — strength in self- 
 control ; the idea of duty and beauty, even in the 
 apparently small concerns of life? 
 
 Is education merely an acquirement of some- 
 thing for the individual, or is it an enlargement 
 of the mental scope and vision ; a strengthening 
 of ties first of all to God, then to the family, then 
 to that combination of families which we term 
 our country, and finally to the large human fam- 
 ily — that brotherhood which comprehends all 
 countries and all peoples? 
 
 No one, I think, will deny the value of such 
 ends as I have just mentioned. But is it the 
 State's aim in her schools ? Last year, while off on 
 a trip, I listened to a most interesting lecture, de- 
 livered by the president of a large city Normal 
 School. He is a man who has brought himself into 
 prominence and disfavor by opposing some of the 
 features of the school system. It is more than 
 likely he will, ere long, be brought to the block, but 
 his words can not be put to death by our corrupt 
 school boards, or by anyone else. The title of his 
 
Our Children in Peril. 69 
 
 lecture arrested my attention as I walked along 
 the street: "The Problem of Citizenship in our 
 Public Schools." 
 
 "I must hear that lecture/' I said to myself, 
 "that's a big theme !" 
 
 The speaker was evidently a thoughtful man; 
 an able man, too, and a man of experience, so his 
 assertions carried weight. Speaking of the con- 
 tract entered into by the State with the public, 
 he said that in the original document (so to speak) 
 there was nothing about citizenship, the State was 
 under bond to teach certain branches — that was 
 all ; she was, by the original contract, under no ob- 
 ligation to mould character, or to inspire good 
 citizenship. He brought this out clearly and vivid- 
 ly, and I am sure that he sent his audience home, 
 thinking. 
 
 If it is true that the State holds herself under 
 no obligation to build up character in her future 
 citizens, she is a stupid blunderer, and the sooner 
 she puts this old contract (so to speak) in the 
 flames, and sees to it that a ne'w one is drawn up, 
 the better. Briefly, the State needs to awaken to 
 the fact that she is walking in the wrong direction 
 in her schools ; spending time, effort, and immense 
 sums of money foolishly, and she would better 
 right about face, immediately. 
 
 That there is the greatest need for a change of 
 method, sociologists almost universally agree. 
 Can you not see for yourselves, that the present 
 system of education has been weighed in the bal- 
 ance and foimd wanting? Look about you. In 
 Part II. of this booklet, there is proof enough of 
 the degeneracy of children to sicken one, and I 
 
yo The Tocsin: 
 
 have told but a little of what I have kno-vrn. I 
 have not told you of the ease of a family in my 
 neighborhood, where the parents were regarded 
 as respectable people, and the children were not 
 only leading immoral lives among themselves, but 
 were deliberately corrupting others. An acquaint- 
 ance of mine walked to and from school with her 
 little girl every day, lest she should fall into the 
 hands of one of these infant procurers. Another 
 friend of mine told me of the revelations her little 
 son made to her. He had been besought by a boy 
 living near (a child of a supposedly good family) 
 to allow him to have his little sister for base 
 purposes. 
 
 I assure you the half can not be told in print ; 
 it is unfit for publication, but it is being lived 
 around us every day, and by our future citizens. 
 Think you that our method of education is tried 
 and true ! Look abroad again. Listen to the talk 
 in the men's dressing rooms in our handsomest 
 houses. Several times young men, whose charac- 
 ter commands respect, have told me how they 
 have felt, on seeing sweet, modest girls chatting 
 or dancing with low fellows, from whose vile lips 
 they have Just heard all kinds of indecent lan- 
 guage upstairs, in the dressing room. A fair ex- 
 terior, a dress coat, and entree to fashionable so- 
 ciety is not sufficient to make a gentleman. Im- 
 agine, for a moment, that you are looking for a 
 man to conduct a business requiring strict hon- 
 esty and purity of character. Eun over the list 
 of men of your acquaintance ; even supposing they 
 all possess the necessary capability, how many of 
 them do you consider eligible otherwise? Im- 
 
Our Children in Peril. 71 
 
 purity is so common that it is expected, and in 
 most instances where business engagements be- 
 tween men are made, so the employees do their 
 work, no exception is taken to immoralities in con- 
 nection with their private lives. This can be said 
 emphatically of the Government, which in its 
 army and navy tolerates drunkenness and the 
 grossest immoralities (frequently of a public char- 
 acter), if the offence does not, too often, interfere 
 with the performance of the officer's duties. 
 
 Since the Boer War we have been startled by 
 the death of one of England's leading generals, 
 who took his life in Paris, rather than face a court 
 martial for unnameable offences against virtue. 
 
 For years there has been heard throughout the 
 land a passionate cry against the injustice of 
 judging men and women by separate standards 
 of virtue, and it would seem as if this cry had, in 
 a measure, been heard and answered. But differ- 
 ently alas ! from what was intended by those who 
 have been making it. Instead of our coming to 
 condemn men for sins against virtue, as we have 
 condemned women, we are coming to condone 
 women for such sins, even as we have condoned 
 men. Ask any frank, honest woman of fashionable 
 society, and she will tell you this is true. One of 
 the most notable instances of this, of late, has been 
 the pair who, in one of those insane automobile 
 rides which are becoming the fashion in a cer- 
 tain brainless set, ran to their death. I was pres- 
 ent when two women of my acquaintance were dis- 
 cussing them; one mentioned them slightingly, 
 alluding to their bad reputations, the other re- 
 proved her, and said: 
 
72 The Tocsin: 
 
 "You ought not to speak so, they lived that 
 down." 
 
 How? By a life bright with Christian virtues 
 and good deeds ? No ! They married indeed, but 
 their lives were spent in the pursuit of pleasure. 
 Was there anything in that to wipe out infamous 
 records? And is it not a sign of great social lax- 
 ity to even mention such people with complais- 
 ance? "Judge not," we are told. Certainly, let 
 us be silent, and leave judgment to God, but this 
 is quite another thing, from such a lax acceptance 
 of degraded lives, as we have instanced. 
 
 It is recorded of one of the old English kings 
 (Edward the First, I think), that during his reign 
 a woman could walk the length and breadth of the 
 realm without fear of molestation. Centuries 
 have past since that day, and in all this time it is 
 supposed, in Christian countries, the children of 
 each succeeding generation have been in train- 
 ing, by their parents, and by their respective gov- 
 ernments. Some very fine results ought to have 
 been reached by this time. How is it? In our 
 enlightened country is it safe for our women and 
 our little girls to walk abroad ? Shame on the 
 race ! Shame ! that one of the first things we have 
 to instill into the minds of our little daughters, is 
 a fear of going into any lonesome place ; a fear 
 of accepting the civility of a ride with any man 
 when out on some errand. Shame that grown 
 women as well as young girls must fear to go 
 abroad alone after dark ! 
 
 "How can this be helped ?" you may ask. "There 
 will always be the low and vicious, and these will 
 menace unprotected womanhood!" 
 
Our Children in Peril. ' 73 
 
 If it were only a few of the low and the vicious 
 among us who threatened our women, we might 
 round them up and put them where they would 
 be unable to do farther harm. But the ter- 
 rible feature of this trouble is that, apart from 
 these offenders who belong to an inferior race — a 
 race in which the animal instincts and sensual na- 
 ture is very strong, we are confronted with the fact 
 that a large proportion of the perpetrators of vio- 
 lent crimes against purity, are members of sup- 
 posedly respectable families. Again you exclaim, 
 "What can we do ?" And I answer negatively, if 
 education is powerless to overcome base tendencies ; 
 if education is powerless to strengthen weak moral 
 natures, and to engender habits of self-control, 
 then it is no such force as we have been taught to 
 believe. 
 
 The plain fact is, we have been educating (if we 
 may so abuse the word), toward these vices, not 
 positively, always, but negatively. In our public 
 schools we have broken down the wall of decency 
 by providing no opportunity for seclusion at times 
 when modesty calls for privacy. We have brought 
 the two sexes together in the every-day battle of 
 school life, and have not thrown sheltering guards 
 around them. We have not, in family, or in 
 school, taught the boy that reverence for woman- 
 hood, which is one of the defences of virtue, nor 
 have we taugh the girl to hold herself sacred. We 
 have not taught our youth reverence for age and 
 lawful authority, but have indirectly encouraged 
 a pert, petty, contemptible sneering at the opinions 
 of parents, teachers and other elders. But worst 
 of all (and this is really the cause of all other 
 
74 The Tocsin: 
 
 failure) we have not taught our children reverence 
 for God. We have discussed religion flippantly 
 before them, as we have discussed immoralities, 
 divorces, and the like, in their hearing. We have 
 carefully eliminated from our public schools, 
 prayer ; reading of the Bible ; direct allusions to 
 Deity. "They can get all that at church," you 
 say. But do they? Do these school children at- 
 tend church in great numbers? Do those who go, 
 attend in the proper spirit? I live near a large 
 church which I attend occasionally; the behavior 
 of m'any of the young people who go there, is a 
 serious drawback to my enjoyment of the services. 
 A number of boys and girls so conduct themselves 
 during the sermon, and even at prayer time, as 
 to disturb all around them. Three such young 
 people sat in front of me lately; the two girls 
 were in the chairs ; the boy (a lad about seventeen) 
 sat on a step (the church was crowded) at their 
 feet. He leaned back against the knees of one of 
 these girls, and rested his arm on the lap of the 
 leaned over and said to one of the girls : "Will you 
 other, and they whispered and tittered until I 
 please ask that boy to sit up properly? If he has 
 no respect for womanhood, he should respect the 
 house of God." The girls looked ashamed, and 
 whispered to the boy, but he flung me a look so 
 insolent and sneering that it was a startling rev- 
 elation of character. Ko pure, manly boy could 
 ever look like that. Such a look could only come 
 from one who was on the road to becoming a pro- 
 fane C3'nic, disbelieving in the goodness of God or 
 woman, because of the rottenness of his own heart. 
 You can't build up a country out of this sort of 
 
Our Children in Peril. 75 
 
 material. You may contend that I should speak 
 to parents to correct such faults as I have just in- 
 stanced. I am only too ready to lay the parent's 
 share of the blame at the parent's door;, but the 
 point I wish to emphasize is this : character-build- 
 ing ranks first among the duties, not only of the 
 parent, but of every other educator as well. Or 
 to put this statement in another form, education 
 can rest on no other foundation than this of char- 
 acter building. For this reason it must become 
 the chief concern of our public schools. Who can 
 dispute this? If the State founds and supports 
 the school, does it not follow, as a logical sequence, 
 that the chief aim of that school should be to in- 
 culcate, in the children, such traits as will best con- 
 serve the highest interests of the State, or in other 
 words, of the community of which they will form a 
 part, and in which they must become one of two 
 things — a help, or a hindrance? Unless this is 
 the avowed purpose of the school, it would better 
 close its doors, and let us have our money to use 
 in strengthening the locks of the penitentiaries. 
 
 Some one said to me lately that education in 
 the time of our forefathers was superior to that 
 of the present day, and I am not sure but what he 
 was right, for when a child was sent to an old 
 Dame school, he was taught to fear God, and the 
 multiplication table. Now I was taught to fear 
 the multiplication table, but had I depended upon 
 the school for any promptings toward religion, I 
 might to-day be an infidel. 
 
 About a year or two ago. Dr. H. S. Minturn 
 preached a sermon in which he spoke warmly on 
 the subject of religion in our schools. In common 
 
76 The Tocsin: 
 
 with most people he approached the subject with 
 an apology. Men are afraid of even the suspicion 
 of speaking against this system. It has, for so 
 long been our vaunt that few care to look at it 
 with candid eyes, and scarce one can be found to 
 prick this blister of national conceit, for fear of 
 the enraged blow which sudden pain might cause 
 the patient to inflict. But unless we do nerve our- 
 selves to examine into the matter honestly, intel- 
 ligently, and prayerfully, our so called national 
 strength is in a fair way to become "our national 
 weakness. 
 
 Here is Dr. Minturn's warning: "God forbid 
 that I should say an ill word against our public 
 school system, the safe-guard of our nation, but is 
 the educational machinery subsidiary to the only 
 worthy end of fashioning charcater ? Have we, so 
 morbidly afraid of uniting Church and State, gone 
 so far as to disunite God from the State? This 
 is a most serious question. The fate of our sons 
 and daughters is involved, and the kingdom of 
 God, in our country, is involved. It is not an 
 organized scepticism that threatens, but a God- 
 forgotten secularism." 
 
 This quotation appeared in an editorial of a 
 large city daily, which went on to speak of the 
 difficulty attendant upon the bringing of religion 
 into the schools — returning practically to the old 
 theocratic government, when Church and State 
 were united, and Church supreme. 
 
 I am reminded just here of a statement I read 
 the other day to the effect that there were two 
 clearly defined classes of people: the one busies 
 itself with setting forth, in the most elaborate and 
 
Our Children in Peril. 77 
 
 logical way, the reasons why a thing cannot be 
 done, while the other class gets right up and does 
 it. Often when I require some service of one of 
 my children he goes into a lengthy explanation as 
 to why the task can not be performed. He is 
 sometimes annoyed when I say: "I know it can't 
 be done, but go right ahead and do it.'^ "Where 
 there's a will there's a way," is a very trite say- 
 ing, but it contains the germs of success. There is 
 alwaj^s a way to accomplish the thing that ought 
 to be done. Is this putting of the Bible in our 
 public schools the thing that ought to be done? 
 Examine, and see. We have already declared that 
 the true policy of the State toward her children 
 is to give them the training that shall render them 
 of greatest service to her later on. Who will dis- 
 pute this ? Supposing we accept it, then ? We can 
 readily see that the mere possession of mathematics 
 (however high the mathematics may be!) and 
 geography, and so on, is not, per se, of any value 
 to the State, but that the possession of a strong, re- 
 liable character, and the acquirement of the knowl- 
 edge requisite to an honest, independent mainte- 
 nance, is of great value to the State. Very well; 
 what then? It only remains to be decided what 
 system of education is best adapted to bring about 
 such results. In an article on Social Progress, by 
 Professor Ely, which appeared in the Cosmopoli- 
 tan a while ago. President Eliot is quoted as say- 
 ing: "No educational system can be successfully 
 carried on without education in morals, and no 
 education in morals is possible without a religious 
 life." Again Professor Ely quotes these words 
 from General Brinkerhoff, who has given a life- 
 
yS The Tocsin: 
 
 time to the work of prison reform : "I want to put 
 it on record, with all the emphasis I can command, 
 that if we are to make any large progress in the 
 reformation of prisoners, or in the prevention of 
 crime, or in the betterment of mankind, we must 
 utilize more fully than we have heretofore, the re- 
 ligious element which is inherent in the universal 
 heart of man.'' 
 
 All honor to those who are working to lift the 
 fallen ! God help them ! My work, however, much 
 as I respect theirs, is essentially different. I am 
 undertaking the ounce of prevention, rather than 
 the pound of cure. 
 
 In the quotation just made, I italicized the 
 words "prevention of crime" because I wished to 
 call the attention of educators to the fact that 
 when the State busies herself with character- 
 building, she is taking steps toward the emptying 
 of her penitentiaries. Just here 3'ou may laugh at 
 me for rehearsing such trite truth. "It is an old 
 theme," you cry; "long ago we discovered that edu- 
 cation diminished crime." Ay, you discovered it ! 
 but are you working logically and successfully on 
 that hypothesis ? Eeread, if you please, the above 
 quotations ; they are notable, and come from nota- 
 ble sources. Then look at our schools by their 
 light. What do j^ou see? An educational system 
 that conforms to these eminently wise suggestions ? 
 ISTo ; rather one that carefully steers clear of this 
 wisdom. Instead of utilizing the religious ele- 
 ment in our sehools, we totally ignore it. 
 
 We are a set of stupid blunderers in Hiany direc- 
 tions, and we blunder in religious matters, as in 
 others. Too often we cQnfound religion with the 
 
Our Children in Peril. 79 
 
 church. Eeligion is a thing of God, whereas the 
 church, though founded by Christ, is carried on 
 by man, and bears the impress of his clumsy hand 
 on its every feature. If the church of to-day were 
 to be compared with the simple association 
 founded by our Saviour, — the association whose 
 members Paul rebuked so earnestly for calling 
 themselves by the name of some human leader, I 
 fear it would look like an adopted child rather 
 than like a child of the same blood. Sectarianism 
 is one thing ; religion another. Against the form- 
 er we should bar our public school doors, even as 
 Stephen Girard barred the doors of his college. 
 Sectarianism may be well enough in its place, 
 for those who care for such things; in itself it is 
 harmless — simply denoting as it does a difference 
 of opinion on questions, the settlement of which is 
 either beyond human power, or entirely imma- 
 terial. When sectarianism is confounded with re- 
 ligion, however, then it works injury. We are so 
 hedged about by man-made creeds, and the atten- 
 tion of great bodies of ministers is so often given 
 to trying and condemning some fellow minister 
 for not believing in the damnation of unbaptized 
 infants, or some similar stuff and nonsense, that 
 the legitimate mission of religion is too often com- 
 pletely lost sight of. But albeit we may be some- 
 what confused by such evidence, on the part of 
 those who should be our spiritual guides, that they 
 themselves are unbaptized with Christian grace 
 and charity, and in far greater need of damnation 
 than the poor little babies, yet our undeviating 
 Guide has not left us in the dark as to the defini- 
 tion of religion "pure and undefiled." It tells the 
 
8o The Tocsin: 
 
 wayfaring man in language so simple and .clear 
 that, though he be a fool, he need not err therein, 
 "To visit the fatherless and widows in their afflic- 
 tion, and to keep himself unspotted from the 
 world." 
 
 On top of this the "Finnally, brethern" — the 
 sum total of religion, comes down to us like a 
 grand chorus from out Heaven itself; "Finally, 
 brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever 
 things are honest, whatsoever things are lovely, 
 whatsoever things are of good report, if there be 
 any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on 
 these things." 
 
 Our failure to teach this sublime doctrine in 
 our homes, and in our public schools, is the reason 
 for the horrible degeneracy of our youth. What ! 
 the Bible is our public schools ! Ay ! the Book 
 that many of the world's greatest thinkers, after 
 the most elaborate researches into the literature 
 of ages, have decided contains the only perfect code 
 of morals ever known ! What better code could 
 we have in our training schools for the young? 
 No one attempts to offer another in its place. 
 Many, however, oppose this, and in so doing have 
 really proven themselves traitors to their country 
 by refusing to minister to her deepest needs, and 
 by throwing the weight of their influence on the 
 side of that which will, if unchecked, ultimately 
 dim her glory, and undermine her strength. 
 
 Only lately in a New Yo^k daily, a controversy 
 has been in progress. It began with an article 
 by a Hindoo making light of the work accom- 
 plished by our missionaries in India; animadvert- 
 ing the claims of Christianity; and insisting that 
 
Our Children in Peril. 8i 
 
 Buddhism was as potent to upbuild and unlift 
 human nature. This article elicited a reply from 
 another Hindoo, who asserted and brought abund- 
 ant proof to bear out his assertions that the first 
 writer only displayed his ignorance of what had 
 been going on in India in the missionary field. 
 He further said that, after giving the subject care- 
 ful study, he had been forced to conclude that the 
 Buddhist religion contained no such power for 
 the development of human character, as did the 
 Christian religion. 
 
 Who shall gainsay him ? Look abroad ; read his- 
 tory with G-od in your heart, and you will 
 then see and understand. Never has there been 
 a force equal to this same Christian religion, for 
 civilizing, developing, strengthening, uplifting. I 
 care not with whom this experiment is made; 
 whether with Anglo-Saxon, or with Sandwich Is- 
 lander. The result is always a rapid succession 
 of strides toward individual, and national develop- 
 ment. 
 
 Can you tell me of any superior force to use 
 in the training of our youth? Once we had the 
 Bible in our public schools. Who turned it out? 
 Many voices will answer, "The Eomanists.'' It 
 is asserted that, after working for years, they at 
 last prevailed on our politicians to bring about this 
 destructive result. Their argument was subtle; 
 the public schools supported by taxation, so the 
 tempter said, must not teach what the people op- 
 pose; the United States, founded in the name of 
 freedom, must not compel all to support one sect. 
 
 Before this subtlety many, who personally were 
 in favor of the use of this marvelous Book of 
 
82 The Tocsin: 
 
 morals in our schools, went down. They ought 
 to have stood their ground ; had they looked about 
 them sensibly and calmly they would have be- 
 come conscious of resting on a good firm founda- 
 tion. Let us see. Was not the United States 
 from the very first avowedly a Protestant coun- 
 try? Does she not stand for this faith among 
 the nations of the earth ? Why then, in the train- 
 ing of her youth, should she be more hampered by 
 the clamor of her Eomanist citizens against the 
 reading and teaching Bible truths in her schools, 
 than she should be by any clamor her Mormon 
 citizens might raise against the teaching of the 
 pure doctrines of Christ which are opposed to 
 polygamy ? As a matter of fact, although the Mor- 
 mons are citizens, amenable to taxation, they are 
 compelled by law to abandon one of the prominent 
 tenets of their faith — polygamy. Nobody, un- 
 less it is those who are longing for this sensual 
 way of life, has seen fit to become excited over 
 this — to call it injustice, or anything of the sort. 
 Again, we have Sunday laws which demand the 
 closing of business houses on the Lord's day. Like 
 many other laws on our statute books they are but 
 feebly enforced in some places, but they are our 
 laws, and so far as they are put in motion, work 
 for our good, and are the legitimate expression 
 of a Protestant, God-fearing nation. Should these 
 laws be abrogated because a group of tax-paying 
 citizens choose to keep Saturday for their day of 
 worship instead of the Sabbath? If we were to 
 cater to the various beliefs of our tax-paying citi- 
 zens, heterogeneous mass that the latter are, for 
 should have no national Sabbath : like France we 
 
Our Children in Peril. 83 
 
 should drift into a most debasing secularism, for 
 I doubt not we hold between the boundaries of 
 our continent religious sects who keep Monday, 
 those who keep Tuesday, others who keep Wednes- 
 day, and so on throughout the entire week. It 
 would be as impossible for the United States to 
 cater to all this, as it would be impolitic for her 
 to attempt to do so. The result of any such at- 
 tempt would inevitably be the abolition of any 
 national religious policy, which as many states- 
 men (themselves irreligious) would confess, would 
 be most disastrous. 
 
 Some of the Eomanists deny that they were 
 the ones who drove the Bible from our public 
 schools. However that may be, I simply wish 
 to draw public attention to this ; if the Eomanists 
 were the ones to object to the soul-inspiring teach- 
 ings of the Bible in the houses where our youth 
 are trained, they are as clearly the enemies of 
 their countr/s good as are the Mormons, and 
 should be given no more heed in the direction of 
 our schools than are the latter. 
 
 This much I know: Eomanists as well as Protes- 
 tants, are alarmed at the growth of immorality 
 in our midst, for lately one of our dailies published 
 a sermon in which a Eomanist priest advocated 
 putting the Bible back into the schools. 
 
 Let us not fall into that stupid error of con- 
 founding liberty and license. Again and again, 
 in despondent moments, it has seemed to me that 
 as a nation we were doomed, and the sword that 
 would deal the stroke was labeled, "Equal liberty 
 for all !" That one idea, great in its real self, is 
 
84 The Tocsin: 
 
 destructive in the distorted shape that ignorance 
 gives it. 
 
 "What then," you ask, "what can we do, and 
 still be just to all ? I am but a woman, unlearned 
 in statecraft; perhaps that is why the path seems 
 so clear to me. What can the United States do? 
 Why, exactly what she has already done in other 
 directions. She looked about her and read the 
 pages of history; read the signs of the times; 
 saw that free love led to death — death of the 
 home ; a heartrending orphanage of children ; de- 
 struction of the moral nature, and she enacted 
 laws to uphold the sanctity of the marriage tie. 
 She looked about her and saw that miscegenation 
 was revolting, and followed by dire results, and 
 she enacted laws against it. She saw that Mor- 
 monism was opposed to light and knowledge, to 
 the moral development of the individual, and the 
 uplifting of a people, and she enacted laws against 
 it. What should she do about Eomanism? Sit her 
 down by the light of the clear lamp of common 
 sense and practical knowledge, and read of Spain, 
 Italy, Ireland, South America, Cuba, the Philip- 
 pines. Let her turn the pages carefully and read 
 details ; let her contrast Protestant Ulster County, 
 Ireland, with Eomanist Ireland ; contrast the few 
 Catholic cantons in Switzerland with Protestant 
 Switzerland. By the time she is ready to close this 
 history she will not, I think, be over anxious to 
 adopt in her schools any of the methods of a re- 
 ligious body which has for so many long years, 
 made such a dismal failure of its conduct of its vil- 
 lages, towns, cities and countries. She will, me- 
 thinks, read the history of Protestantism — ^the 
 
Our Children in Peril. 85 
 
 record of Switzerland, Germany, England, and see 
 how, notwithstanding many blunders; in spite of 
 many departures from the right path, the general 
 trend has been toward the light; toward the de- 
 velopment of the individual, as well as the develop- 
 ment of the national strength. She will see that 
 the Eomanist religion must, of necessity, warp and 
 enervate; see that the shifting of individual re- 
 sponsibility to God, must relax moral tissue; that 
 the cultivation of the superstitious elements must 
 retard thought and weaken brain force, and tliat 
 the pandering to the material in the pageantry em- 
 ployed by the Eomanist church in its services and 
 celebrations, must inevitably, to a greater or less 
 extent, substitute form for spirit. In short she 
 must see that the face of the Eomanist church is 
 turned toward ignorance and darkness, while the 
 face of Protestantism — Martin Luther's great pro- 
 test against the corruption and blackness of 
 the Eoman church, is set toward the Light. She 
 must see that when that wonderful priest of the 
 fifteenth century, turned from the church whose 
 shame cried to Heaven for reform, he set in motion 
 waves of light — the most powerful impulse for- 
 warded the world has ever known. She is forced 
 to see that those nations who received this quick- 
 ening impulse — ^who threw overboard their cargo 
 of saints, bones, relics, sensual priests — making a 
 fat living by the sale of indulgences — those na- 
 tions who shook off the bondage of cruelty, super- 
 stition, and ignorance, have rapidly developed into 
 the greatest of the earth, while those who clung 
 to all this, have as rapidly gone down hill, until 
 
86 The Tocsin: 
 
 to-day they have all but ceased to figure on the list 
 of peoples of note. 
 
 What then? Do we need to waver and hesi- 
 tate ? No ! thank God ! We stand confessed — 
 a Protestant nation ; consequently a great nation ! 
 If only we are true to our high vocation and 
 calling — if only we form a consistent policy and 
 adhere to it! "But," you still demur, "must our 
 Eomanist citizens pay for what they don't re- 
 ceive?" By no means. We certainly would not 
 compel them to attend our avowedly Protestant 
 Public Schools; that would be an act of tyranny. 
 When, in the very beginning of our history, we 
 opened our doors to all religious sects, we did not 
 bind ourselves to build our schools to their liking, 
 but we did, in a manner, bind ourselves not to 
 force them to attend, if they preferred schools 
 of their own. Their school tax money need not 
 distress us, however, it will be but a small pay- 
 ment for value received, since, if the Bible is put 
 into our Public Schools and our youth are care- 
 fully trained in accordance with its sublime doc- 
 trines, our Eomanist citizen will be benefited on 
 every side ; sensuality will be held with a so much 
 tighter rein ; intelligence, faithfulness and honesty 
 will be so much more prevalent, that the property 
 of a Eomanist, as well as that of a Protestant, will 
 be far safer than it is where their church is su- 
 preme ; and when in business life, these Eomanists 
 have occasion to employ service, they will find it 
 so much more reliable and otherwise valuable, 
 than it is in Catholic countries, that even if they 
 never send a child to our schools and still pay 
 these taxes continually, they will, in the long run. 
 
Our Children In Peril. 87 
 
 find themselves pecuniarily in debt to our system 
 of education, and heavily, too ! 
 
 As every sensible person must realize, this is not 
 aimed at individuals; all of us who have seen 
 much of the world must have known priests whose 
 gentle, worthy lives commanded both respect and 
 love. Personally I know and cherish several Cath- 
 olic friends. All civilized Europe, as well as 
 Am'erica, has lately joined in expressions of re- 
 spect for the late Pope, but none of this blinds 
 us to the fact that the religious system which 
 these individuals uphold, is false and brings forth 
 a lamentable harvest. The world, thanks to our 
 Saviour, leans more and more toward tolerance 
 and charity, but, as in the case of liberty and 
 license, we must have a care to distinguish betwixt 
 terms. There must be no laxity, however much 
 of charity we cultivate. We must discriminate, 
 however carefully we forbear to judge, and, 
 while we love the individual, we must never 
 condone the sin, or the error, which holds him 
 down. 
 
 I have Just been reading a booklet entitled 
 "Problems of the Twentieth Century," by Bishop 
 Fowler ; in this I find the following passage : "We 
 have in our midst a strong church, with little to 
 commend her, in her false and foolish dogmas, in 
 constant antagonism to the educated mind of the 
 age and in mortal combat with our free institu- 
 tions; the old and sworn enemy of liberty and 
 handicapped with the worst, most cruel and most 
 bloody history known among men — a church that 
 has blighted every people she has touched, robbed 
 and ruined every country she has mastered, 
 
88 The Tocsin: 
 
 dwarfed and deformed every race she has taught ; 
 yet, in spite of her bigotry and bloody history, and 
 her boast that she never changes ; by the power 
 there is in her apparent works of charity, her care 
 for children and for the sick, she is tolerated in 
 this free land and aspires to dominion over the 
 Eepublic." 
 
 The last clause possesses no terrors for me, for 
 I can not conceive of a country like ours slipping 
 her neck into such a noose and thus voluntarily 
 consenting to the strangling of all her free in- 
 stitutions and her high aims. Let us take heed, 
 however, that we open not the door to the enemy 
 so much as one little crack, or, I should say, hav- 
 ing foolishly done so already (in taking the Bible 
 out of our schools) let us make haste to repair 
 our error ere it be too late. 
 
 I think that most people, like myself, in talking 
 of our schools, think of a class of children similar 
 to our own. We do not always bear in mind the 
 kind of stuff that Public School scholars are made 
 of. We should remember that we have to consider 
 problems forced upon us by the introduction of a 
 large and ignorant foreign element. A while ago 
 I read a report made by a Commissioner of Immi- 
 gration, in which he uttered a solemn warning. 
 He spoke of the hordes of uneducated, low foreign- 
 ers pouring into this country — all coming here 
 with more or less distorted ideas of what they 
 were to find and receive. He said that he did not 
 wish to be an alarmist, but he could not help 
 wondering what we were to do with these people 
 through our cold winters, with work scarce and 
 needs plenty. Now, then, it occurs to me that we 
 
Our Children in Peril. 89 
 
 do not often enough have in mind the fact that 
 the children of this untutored immigrant horde 
 make up a large proportion of our Public School 
 scholars, and unless they are so trained in these 
 Public Schools as to make them God fearing, law- 
 abiding citizens, they presently become an even 
 graver menace to our Republic than were their 
 parents, for without this religious tutelage of 
 which I speak, the little learning they acquire at 
 school becomes indeed "a dangerous thing," mak- 
 ing them restless and rebellious. Again and again 
 I wish to emphasize the fact that our future as a 
 nation depends upon the children in this country. 
 Should we not then regard our schools as the most 
 important of all our institutions? "We do/' you 
 cry; "we have always regarded them so." And 
 yet, in spite of that, have very largely given them 
 over to the management of i^orant, scheming, 
 corrupt politicians ! Wisdom unparalleled, this ! 
 We realize that the Eepublic rests on the training 
 of these children, and yet we take the very back- 
 bone from out that training! Expect it to stand 
 after that? What consummate folly! As I said 
 before, I am not a statesman; neither am I an 
 idiot, but I should deserve to rank as one had I 
 been guilty of such a piece of gross stupidity. 
 
 For some years now we have been trying to run 
 training schools for the young without religion. 
 We are already realizing some of the results of this 
 course. Our every paper is soiled with accounts 
 of self-murder, and also murder of others than 
 self; accounts of vile assaults upon virtue; of 
 defalcation, highway robbery, burglary and other 
 crimes. We say we cannot afford more teachers 
 
90 The Tocsin: 
 
 and better teachers, but we manage to afford 
 penitentiaries and insane and imbecile asylums, 
 and year by year we are feeding our children to 
 their awful maw. 
 
 Some may object just here, to my lack of mod- 
 eration. Garrison once said that he would not 
 trouble himself to be moderate when dealing with 
 slavery, neither will I trouble myself to be mod- 
 erate when dealing with the growing immorality 
 of our children. The subject does not admit of 
 moderation. 
 
 Eemember the pagan worship of Greece and her 
 consequent enervation and ruin; the pagan wor- 
 ship of Eome and her down-hill course, till she 
 was fairly steeped in licentiousness. On our li- 
 brary shelves stands the account of her "Decline 
 and Fall." Let us read it carefully — read be- 
 tween the lines, and then ponder. God grant we 
 may awake to realize that just so surely as we 
 attempt to carry on our schools without the "Book 
 of Books," another Gibbon will, some day, arise 
 to write "The Decline and Fall of the United 
 States.'^ We are told on the highest authority — 
 and the testimony of centuries corroborates 
 this statement — that there is "none other name 
 under heaven whereby we may be saved but the 
 name of our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 The day cries for reform. Let us, with God's 
 help, set it in motion at once lest we be too late. 
 Of old the monster that devoured children was 
 the very embodiment of iniquity, and the very 
 symbol of all that was horrible. He is no less so 
 to-day; we have seen him in our midst; have 
 witnessed his awful work. What can we do? In 
 
Our Children in Peril. 91 
 
 the name of God, in the name of all we hold most 
 dear ; in the name of Love — that which makes this 
 world worth living, and makes the next world 
 Heaven — fight him to the very death. There is 
 one weapon, only one, that will neither break nor 
 bend in the contest, and that one is the "sword of 
 the Spirit, which is the Word of God." 
 
 Up to this point I have been laying the em- 
 phasis of my warning and entreaty upon our Pub- 
 lic Schools. I have a still more earnest word to 
 utter. Would I might insert an advertisement in 
 every paper, large and small, all over the world. 
 I should give it the most prominent place, the 
 largest type, the most attractive style — "Wanted: 
 Fathers and Mothers ! Christian parents ! gifted 
 for their work, which is the loftiest God has in- 
 trusted to any being. Voluntary parents, loving 
 and longing for children. Men and women re- 
 garding parenthood as supreme, passion as inci- 
 dental ; believing that in the matter of parenthood 
 the propagation of the species is not the main 
 thing, but must be regarded as a private and 
 public calamity unless the species be good; realiz- 
 ing that intelligent, conscientious parenthood 
 looks to conditions, and provides for the entrance 
 of an immortal soul upon this great stage — the 
 world. Fathers prepared to set an example to 
 their sons. Mothers who regard their children as 
 did Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi. Mothers 
 who hold their children a sacred trust ; train them 
 for the time when He shall come to make up His 
 jewels. 
 
 Instead of this, what have we now? Mothers 
 who give their children over to the care of un- 
 
92 The Tocsin: 
 
 principled nurses, A while ago an acquaintance 
 of mine came home late in the evening and found 
 her baby boy asleep by the side of a drunken 
 nurse; another acquaintance discovered, one day, 
 that the nurse who had for some weeks taken 
 charge of her three children — the oldest a little 
 girl about nine — was a prostitute. I am not ob- 
 jecting to nurses; often they are a necessity. I 
 do object, however, to their taking the entire care 
 of the children; and I also object to their being 
 the cheapest servants in the family. Get a cheap 
 cook (if you must have a cheap servant) but get 
 an expensive nurse. She will be the least ex- 
 pensive in the end. I certainly don't mean a fash- 
 ionable nurse with a fictitious price, but a Chris- 
 tian gentlewoman who will, as nearly as possible, 
 take your place with your children at times when 
 it is impossible for you to care for them. A 
 physician once told me that I would be surprised 
 if I knew how many children were ruined by 
 servants. He said that often careless parents of a 
 coarse grain of mind let quite sizable boys sleep 
 with some maid when the limitations of house- 
 room seemed to demand crowding. In addition 
 to all this, many thoughtless parents allow chil- 
 dren to be bantered on the subject of falling in 
 love, and so on, thereby fostering a most un- 
 favorable precocity and breaking down that fine 
 reserve which is a wall of defense. 
 
 No doubt the sins of parents are visited upon 
 children; heredity is an awful fact. Can the 
 pure come from the impure? Occasionally in 
 Nature we see the lily rise in its purity and white- 
 ness from out the mire, but^ as a rule, like pro- 
 
Our Children in Peril. 93 
 
 duces like, and great numbers of children are 
 tainted ere ever they come into the world. It has 
 been said by some one that the beasts of the field 
 set man a commendable example, inasmuch as 
 they do not molest approaching maternity. Too 
 long man's conscience has been soothed by the 
 theory that it is hardly possible and hardly wise 
 to bring the physical under absolute control of 
 the spiritual. In this enlightened day he and his 
 partner should understand that enforced mater- 
 nity never has been and never will be productive 
 of purity in the oif spring ; that self-indulgence be- 
 gets self-indulgence. Surely God did not make 
 man in His image for this ! Let those whose con- 
 science is "not dead, but sleeping," rouse to this 
 truth and consider the responsibility they assume 
 when they refuse to act upon it in married life. 
 
 Awhile ago our President uttered some plain, 
 manly words on the selfishness of the attempt to 
 elude lawful and intended responsibilities by not 
 having children. All over the coimtry there were 
 cries of indignation, but in many hearts his words 
 found congenial soil for growth. 
 
 Among the lower classes, where each slice of 
 bread is paid for in hard labor, we might look to 
 see few children, but we find them swarm instead. 
 How they are reared is another story, and yet 
 not another quite, when we consider, for there is 
 much of the same neglect in high and low circles. 
 In the latter, necessity too often compels the hud- 
 dling together of the different members of the 
 family at night. This is frequently the case, even 
 outside the slums, in the small cottage. A conse- 
 quent carelessness is engendered ; children see and 
 
94 The Tocsin: 
 
 hear too muchj and some of life's most sacred re- 
 lations become to them mere objects of curiosity 
 and imitation. I first had my attention called to 
 this evil one day when I was speaking of a certain 
 little child to an acquaintance of mine. "She 
 knows too much," said the woman, "she knows 
 more, I venture to say, than you or I. There is 
 nothing in connection with the coming of life that 
 could be told her." 
 
 It seemed as if the child's very aspect changed 
 as I listened to these words; her pretty baby can- 
 dor (she was but four years old) shrank, and in 
 place of the little innocent I had fancied her, I 
 saw before me a weird object — nor child, nor 
 woman; nor young, nor old — something uncanny, 
 uncleanly. I love children with the love that 
 yearns — that longs to take to one's heart. Before 
 ever I had heard or known anything of this awful 
 evil I could scarce pass one in the street without 
 stopping for word or caress. Now, as I look at 
 them it is often with a heartache. Poor babies ! 
 poor babies ! Who is to blame ? It were better 
 that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck ! 
 
 Often as I go about and see groups of un- 
 guarded children here and there, I ask: "Where 
 are their mothers ?" Sometimes these mothers are 
 off at work, earning the supper for their little 
 ones. God pity the society where women are de- 
 nied the rights and privileges of motherhood ! It 
 must answer to Him. Sometimes the mothers are 
 indoors, sweeping and dusting and polishing an 
 o'er clean house that children would throw into 
 confusion. God pity the women who show greater 
 concern for wood and stone than for flesh and 
 
Our Children in Peril. 95 
 
 blood and soul ! They must answer to Him. 
 Often, often the mothers are trifling away their 
 time with social acquaintances; perhaps sitting in 
 their drawing-rooms, where candlelight is substi- 
 tuted for sunlight, chatting over a cup of tea 
 about the latest novel, the popular play or opera, 
 or tearing an absent acquaintance to shreds with 
 those who will presently tear them to bits at some 
 other darkened house. God pity them ! Their 
 day of reckoning v/ill come. 
 
 I am hesitating, for my pen is powerless to ex- 
 press my feeling. Could I write what is in my 
 heart every mother would clasp her children in 
 her arms; would thank God for them, and feel 
 that her sweetest, most sacred duty was their 
 training. What is one thinking of when he turns 
 from pearls and diamonds and takes up with clay ? 
 What can one be made of to prefer filth and rags 
 to pure, beautiful raiment? "No one is such a 
 fool !" you say ; but mothers — oh, ye mothers 
 throughout our land, ye are turning away from 
 happiness beyond expression, and taking up with 
 emptiness — soul-sickening nothing ! 
 
 Eecently Roy Eolfe Gilson gave a pearl to the 
 world. He called it "In the Morning Glow." I 
 read it with tears ; it is a book to stir the deepest, 
 tenderest fountains of one's being. It tells of the 
 dear old-fashioned mothers and grandmothers; 
 pretty, loving, domestic mothers and grand- 
 mothers ; pretty, for husband and children, sitting 
 in the home — the house, or the garden, with their 
 sewing, and the children playing about them. 
 Think what it means to a child's character to have 
 the mother almost always at hand; to be able to 
 
96 The Tocsin: 
 
 nm to that never-failing fount of sympathy — 
 "Mother, I have hurt my head !" That inexhaust- 
 ible cyclopaedia of knowledge — "Mother, what 
 makes the stars shine ?"' That living law and gos- 
 pel — "Mother, ought I to let Willie have my new 
 cart?" Mayhap this sounds trivial to 5'Ou; per- 
 haps you think it better to turn these expanding 
 minds, these immature moral natures into the 
 street, to be smeared with the slime of some vile 
 misinterpretation of life's great mysteries, while 
 "Mother" is off at some Woman's Club cultivating 
 her mind. What! Are we never to leave home? 
 Unless your means admit of your securing in your 
 family a Christian, motherly woman who can, in 
 a manner, take your place while 3^ou run out for 
 a few hours, I urge upon you to stay at your post 
 or take your children with you save when the 
 sternest necessity calls you away. What a life ! 
 groans some gay girl who is e'rV.eT unfit for its 
 glory or else merely ignorant, for often gay, care- 
 less girls make the best of mothers, once their eyes 
 are opened to the beauty and richness of the true 
 mother's life. Stay at home? What better, 
 dearer, happier place on earth ? Thank God every 
 moment of your life that you have one, and if He 
 has given into your keeping little children, hold 
 your breath and just whisper your thanks, awe- 
 stricken at His goodness; at the wonder of it all 
 and the possibilities it opens before you. 
 
 There is nothing on earth so fascinating as the 
 development of a child's character; there is noth- 
 ing so tenderly precious as its clinging, trusting 
 love. With those baby arms around your neck, 
 with those little velvet hands stroking your face. 
 
Our Children in Peril. 97 
 
 with the dear little voices whispering into your 
 ear, "I love you, Mama," what more do you 
 want on earth — or even in Heaven? It is Heaven 
 brought to earth. 
 
 We should do well to take a few lessons of the 
 Germans. I think they go about as families much 
 more than we do. It is a delightful sight to see 
 old and young skating together there, and off a- 
 holidaying together in various directions. Why 
 should not we women go about more with husband 
 and children? A little supper out-of-doors in the 
 country of a Summer evening; a coast down hill 
 together in Winter, or a skim over the shining ice, 
 hand in hand; a concert, when we can look into 
 each other's faces and read the answering delight 
 — all this would refresh us and scatter flowers 
 along life's pathway. 
 
 Walk with your children, talk with them, study 
 with them ; live simply, dress simply, house simply, 
 so that you will have more time for these higher 
 duties. Above all, keep them off the street as 
 much as posible. If I were to speak my real mind 
 I should say, keep them away from school until 
 our schools are changed; at present they are too 
 often schools of vice. 
 
 "Would you keep children in a bandbox?" By 
 no means. Let them have companions as they 
 grow older, but do you be their chief companion, 
 and do you be the guiding star of the other com- 
 panions as well as of your own children. Talk 
 with them plainly and beautifully of God's won- 
 ders in connection with life; tell them to keep 
 this saered secret just for you; to come to you at 
 any time, you will answer any question, but never 
 
98 The Tocsin: 
 
 allow any one else to speak of it to them. As they 
 grow older and the inevitable changes take place, 
 do as a woman with a drinking husband said she 
 did: "Pray God and hold on." You'll be tired, 
 vexed, M^orried, disapointed, unless you keep hold 
 of Him, no doubt, for this has been dubbed the 
 "hateful age." Both boys and girls are more ex- 
 citable and nervous, contrary, rebellious at that 
 time. The animal is developing in advance of the 
 spiritual, or even the mental, but hold on. Make 
 home as attractive as possible ; yourself stil morle 
 so ; love harder than ever, and live on your knees, 
 as it were. You have God's promise ; if you trust 
 this, and lean on it, the children will come out as 
 gold from the furnace. The May, 1891, "At- 
 lantic" contains a most beautiful article on this 
 age of puberty. Every parent and teacher should 
 read it. 
 
 If your children go to school, do you go, too, 
 frequently, as a visitor. Watch the time of their 
 home-coming ; let there be no loitering to and fro ; 
 no early going, long before school. 
 
 A s}anpathetic co-operation of school boards, 
 trustees, teachers and parents would go far toward 
 elucidating many of the problems that confront us 
 now. The mothers' meetings, held in some of our 
 schoolhouses, are steps in this good direction, espe- 
 cially as they enhance the importance of the 
 parents in the eyes of the children, and connect 
 them directly with the school. 
 
 For practical life-training work, the home is the 
 place par excellence, especially if it is so fortunate 
 as to be situated in the country, or in a town or 
 small city, where it is possible to spread out a bit 
 
Our Children in Peril. 99 
 
 and have a garden. Give your children home in- 
 terests, make them responsible for certain depart- 
 ments in the house and out-of-doors, and give 
 them all the credit for any successful running of 
 these. The home love which this engenders, as 
 well as the capability, is of greatest value. In ad- 
 dition to this, it serves as healthful occupation, 
 and keeps children from much harmful idleness. 
 Possibly I exaggerate the number of children 
 who are polluted as I have described. God grant 
 I do ! In the first shock of the revelation of im- 
 morality among mere infants, as well as youth, 
 one can hardly see clearly enough to count with 
 accuracy. Grief and horror are pessimistic; even 
 a naturally buoyant nature has to struggle against 
 this tendency in contemplating an evil of such 
 magnitude. But in my most depressed moments, 
 when it has seemed to me that almost all our sweet 
 lambs had gone astray, I have read the history of 
 Elijah and found comfort. I can, to-day, I think, 
 enter with swift sympathy into his heavy heart 
 when he withdrew from the world and sat one 
 side, abandoned, for the time, to leaden despon- 
 dency. He had tried to stem the tide; had 
 sounded his warning; had rushed hither and 
 thither over the field of the battle of Life, trying 
 to instill fainting and treacherous soldiers with 
 loyalty to the Great Captain; had stood in front 
 of the deserting hosts in a vain efEort to arrest 
 their shameful flight. Then, weary and hurt in 
 body, and yet more v/eary and hurt in soul, he had 
 crept off into the wilderness like a wounded deer, 
 and from out that hiding place, had gazed with 
 mental vision upon the ruin of that which he 
 
 LofC: 
 
lOO The Tocsin: 
 
 loved best, and the victory of that which was most 
 infamous. How he cried to God that all was lost 
 — that he — only he, sitting there, solitary and 
 alone; broken in spirit, crushed in heart, was left 
 to serve his Maker ! 
 
 And then came the answer, — calm, serene; a 
 sweet, clear, steadfast note : "Yet have I left seven 
 thousand in Israel — all the knees which have not 
 bowed unto Baal." 
 
 And so I take heart once more. God has not let 
 Satan leave his sickening mark on all our chil- 
 dren. There is a large remnant yet ; a remnant of 
 babies as sweet, as pure as the angels; of little 
 ones in whose large, wondering eyes we catch 
 glimpses of the "land o' the leal." 
 
 God grant that we may so learn to deal with 
 our children that this remnant may wax greater 
 with each succeeding year until it shall embrace, 
 not only all of babyhood, but all of childhood and 
 youth as well. When that day comes we shall 
 indeed be a great nation among the nations of the 
 world — a nation of briTe men and of women 
 beautiful in the fullest, richest sense of the word. 
 
 Once we go to the right source for guidance 
 and strength, there need be no despondency. Ee- 
 member how our Saviour one day said: "Of such 
 is the kingdom of Heaven," and how another time 
 He "took a little child and set him in the midst 
 of them." I seem to see that little one — loving, 
 trustful, pure in heart; making efforts in his baby 
 way, to do as he was bid; slipping his little hand 
 into the Saviour's so confidingly ; ready to walk 
 whither the dear Christ led. What wonder he 
 bade his hearer ^Tjecome like unto one of these." 
 
Our Children in Peril. loi 
 
 "Oh, you are always coming back to this !" some 
 one exclaimed the other day. 
 
 So I am; I know no other way. It is the Gos- 
 pel;, first, second and last — not just for Sunday, 
 but for every day of the week; not for church 
 alone, but for home and school as well. I know 
 of no other purification for our defiled springs. 
 Nor am I alone in looking to religion for aid at 
 this juncture of our history. The other day an 
 editorial appeared in a daily newspaper, calling 
 for another John Wesley. The article cited many 
 of the proofs of degeneracy; the flagrant mu- 
 nicipal corruption; the unfaithfulness in service, 
 public and private; the desecration of the Sab- 
 bath; the violation of conjugal faith and purity. 
 These, and many other alarming evidences pointed 
 to a rapid decadence, from which we need to be 
 rescued, and the article called for another re- 
 ligious leader — another John Wesley — ^to rouse 
 men's dull consciences and to quicken religious 
 impulses. A wave of reform, it said, would be a 
 Godsend indeed. 
 
 Some nineteen years back — it may be more (I 
 am not positive) — Professor Koch, of Berlin, dis- 
 covered that consumption was caused by a bacillus, 
 and that it wag contagious. Since then, many and 
 elaborate have been the researches among physi- 
 cians all over the world for some specific to com- 
 bat this germ. The utmost learning has been 
 brought into requisition, and experiments without 
 number have been performed in laboratories and 
 in hospitals. And now, after years spent in 
 search for some scientific remedy, physicians have 
 just opened their eyes to Nature's simple ways. 
 
I02 The Tocsin: 
 
 and are performing wonders in the cure of con- 
 sumption by the use of some things which a few 
 of us have been using all the time. Sanitariums 
 are now established in different parts of the world 
 where the window spaces in the walls have no glass, 
 and close to these the patient sleeps, well bundled 
 up, with the snow drifting over him, mayhap. 
 Just plenty of clean, fresh air to breathe night 
 and day, and plenty of clean, cold water to bathe 
 in. 
 
 So it will be with the sickness of the soul. Phi- 
 losopher, Moralist and Sociologist, have been 
 searching for some specific to combat the disease. 
 But after all the stiff-necked assertion of mankind 
 that he can cure himself, by efforts of will; 
 after experiments on the part of France, Germany, 
 England, the United States, and other countries 
 in checking immoralit}^, we shall come (God has- 
 ten the day!) to some simple remedies we could 
 have used long ago — the pure air of the Mount of 
 Olives, and the revivifying Water of Life. 
 
 THE END. 
 
vt\j lij 1308