THE MENACE OF THE HAVE-TO-BE

What are the Have-To-Be?

In England and America they are the neglected or unfortunate members of communities who have been condemned by evil chance to be classified in the social category as "The hopelessly submerged ten per cent. stratum of society," mentioned elsewhere in this appeal, and, of late, frequently referred to under that cruel classification in order to ease the conscience of society as to their presence in its midst.

We are not sure of the origin of the phrase, but have been told that it is used by the Salvation Army to excite sympathy for the "submerged" and to elicit support for the army of rescue.

They argue in this wise, and wisely, too, from their point of view of the evils they aim to attack: "The churches cannot reach these people in the depths of slums, and the wretches will not come to the churches. Religion is the only means of combating sin, and we must take religion to these unfortunates even if we have to employ spectacular means to accomplish it."

The Salvation Army, the King's Daughters, private missions, and the several churches, together with the more recent experiments of College and Social Settlements among the "Submerged" have accomplished noble results in pioneering, but they need reinforcement to complete the work, and adequate co-operation must include a popular movement whose object shall not be less than a Strict Social Quarantine.

A shot is no better than its aim, irrespective of the force behind it. Partial measures are always ineffective in the same way that any faulty aim is ineffective.

Aim at anything short of Perfect Social Quarantine and you can have no quarantine at all.

By evidence of numerous experiments and the successful results which have been accomplished we are made bold to assert that the combined effort that has been put forth by the missions, by private charity, by the Salvation Army, and other detached bodies of altruists, if it had been applied to the aim of a Strict Social Quarantine, by means of ample crÈches, kindergartens, manual-training and parental-farm schools, during the last twenty-five years of social experiments, would have cleared the social atmosphere of its malarial conditions, and to-day there might have been no Have-To-Be-Bads loose in the community.

Of all this restless striving to benefit mankind and purify social conditions, nothing else has been so successful in proving the error of the hypothesis of the "hopelessly submerged" as the kindergarten. The character-forming schools which have had opportunity to care for childhood from earliest perceptions until character has made an impression, have proven that it is absolutely unnecessary to have a Have-To-Be-Bad class at large and that the condemnation carried by the tradition is as unjust as it is cruel.

EVIDENCE.

Let us consider two bits of practical evidence which refute the hideous assumptions of Buckle, Malthus, and even the latter-day gloomy philosophers.

The examples are but echoes of the information from all directions where intelligent effort at character-building has been put forth. No one will deny the universality of the application and corroboration of this evidence without confessing inefficiency behind the effort that has failed of its purpose.

The following is an extract from a letter written by the Hon. William J. Van Patten, President of the Kurn Hattin Homes Farm School at Westminster, Vermont, to the author, in answer to a question as to the results of the New England experiment. The Kurn Hattin institution cares for children from all over New England, but receives most of its charges from the congested districts of the city of Boston.

President Van Patten writes: "It has been a surprise to me ever since we started this work to find that the boys who were taken from the worst homes, and who had, until they were rescued, been under deplorable conditions, were readily changed to thoroughly good lads, with no trace of the evils that came from their former environment. This certainly carries out your thought in respect to social quarantine, and shows that, properly done, it can be made very effective."

The other evidence chosen is that of Chief of Police Crowley of San Francisco, whom the author knows to be a careful observer and conservative judge of his observations. General Brinkerhoff, of the National Conference of Charities and Correction of Canada and the United States, is authority for the statement of Chief Crowley, which was in effect as follows: "I have not known of the arrest of a single person who has had the advantage of a good kindergarten training, and I believe that it is perfect protection against criminal tendencies."[1]

Now here is the evidence of a distinguished philanthropist and also of an honored and successful officer of the corrective branch of government from widely separated communities, one of them the most mixed in its constituent parts of any city of America, and where frontier development has offered extreme temptation for criminal tendencies, coupled with the fever of speculation.

In the "Report of Committee on History of Child-Saving," now unfortunately out of print, which was published in 1893 by the National Conference of Charities and Correction, we find a contribution, based on the San Francisco character-building work, by the revered, the late Sarah B. Cooper.

We esteem the paper of Mrs. Cooper so highly, as being a most convincing argument for social quarantine, that we have begged permission to print it as a chapter of this brief. It carries words of burning truth that should not be "out of print," but on the contrary should be graven deep in the memory of all citizens for whose common good Mrs. Cooper labored in the field of practical Christian experiment.

Mr. Hastings H. Hart, general secretary of the National Conference of Charities and Correction, who is in close communication with six hundred correspondents who are especially interested in child-saving work, assures us that if there is no obstruction offered to the free choice of children, and facilities are available for proper training, practically all can be made useful citizens, and that by coÖperation to attain that aim, social quarantine is possible. The present headquarters of the National Conference of Charities and Correction is in Chicago, in the Montauk Building, 115 Monroe Street. The Conference is doing a great work in stimulating and organizing reforms. The annual subscription—$2.50—entitles members to the published proceedings of the Conference, which are an epitome of the history of progress towards social quarantine. There is no more profitable coÖperation than by means of membership in this association.

We wish to say further with reference to the comprehensiveness of Mr. Van Patten's evidence, that his range of observation is, like that of Mr. Hart, as wide as the country. His activities include both the church and the political fields. He has twice been mayor of Burlington, was the first president of the United Society of Christian Endeavor, and is still a director; is president of the Congregational Club of Western Vermont, as well as of the Kurn Hattin Farm School. He was instrumental in establishing kindergarten work in his home city, and also a Social Mission, where he and other Christians meet the laboring people of the community on the basis of friendly and citizen equality. But Mr. Van Patten's evidence and Mr. Hart's is the same as that of all who have entered personally into the sympathies of unfortunates, especially by the way of giving their children the means of proper training, and they are as one in the belief that thorough measures, which would effect a Perfect Social Quarantine, would rid society entirely of the "hopelessly submerged" class, and sift out of its present mass the diseased and incompetent, who should have the care of an asylum instead of the curse of a prison.

One evil that follows in the wake of such a wicked assumption as that carried in the idea of a Have-To-Be-Bad class is that it is not only a loop-hole for willing indifference, but is a blinding influence cast about those who are not willingly indifferent.

Under such a general assumption an earnest philanthropist or a would-be altruist may pass expressions of deplorable misery, want or neglect with doubt, if not with calm unconcern, under the belief that they are of the Have-To-Bes, whereas, if there were even an attempt at Perfect Social Quarantine no case of distress nor neglect could show itself in a community without its becoming the business of everybody to enquire why the social quarantine officers had not attended to their business.

In this manner the professional beggar, the tramp, the Need-Not-Be, and all that tribe of parasite humanity who prey upon the credulity of unorganized charity would be discovered in their true light, and would shrink out of sight or would be forced to seek useful occupation, if it were to be had, or would then hold just title to public assistance if no occupation were available.

It is well to bear in mind when considering the question of the Have-To-Be or Need-Not-Be classes that concrete society has to care for them in one form or another anyhow, whether they work or whether they are idle or steal. They bring nothing with them and must live off the land. If they do not work they live off the workers. In infancy, the cost of caring for them in a manner supplementary only to home care is very little, but the profit of that care increases in value in geometrical ratio as does also the cost of the neglect of right training.

And also, in answer to a question often asked by those who are not informed about kindergarten efficiency, relative to securing the willingness of parents to accept outside care for their children: The question of voluntary or compulsory compliance on the part of parents or children need not be feared during the earliest character-forming age, for until the child is old enough to earn money no selfish objection can be offered, and the greater the need, as stated elsewhere, the more easy is the compliance accorded. As this is the period of present neglect, as well as the time when all students of child-life agree that the character of the adult is moulded, the vexing question of parental control need not be raised.

The duty of social quarantine is to seek out the children of the greatest need first and work back through the strata of misfortune to those of fortune, in the same way that a process of cleansing should first use a shovel, then a broom, and finally a wash rag and a polishing cloth.

The habit-of-thought of a community aiming at quarantine efficiency will become impregnated with the idea that there Must-Not-Be unwholesome units in their midst as soon as it has been delivered of the evil suggestion of the necessity of a Have-To-Be-Bad class, for it is wonderful what the mere change of a point of view will effect.

On the question of the virtue, or merit, of Strict Social Quarantine, there seems to be no difference of opinion about the desirability of the aim, and the efficacy of available means to accomplish it has already been established.

We have heard it said that the kindergarten method is splendidly adapted to the children of the poor but not to the children of the rich in America, because rich children are petted beyond endurance, and have toys in such lavish abundance, that even instructive amusements and wholesome care are but a burden when added to home superfluities. This may easily be so, as there is a point of surfeit in everything, even in the best of nourishment, but it is proof of the wisdom of a wider distribution of the effort so as to really nourish instead of causing a surfeit of care.

It is not the rich and the strong and the healthy that need the direct care of social quarantine, but its rescues from among the presently neglected and warped defenseless ones would create a wave of average improvement of ideals that would be felt in the most luxurious homes to the benefit of the pampered possessors of fortune's birth prizes.

At the present moment, the summer of 1898, there rests in the custody of the mayor of Chicago, Hon. Carter H. Harrison, 2nd, a report of a special commission appointed by him to recommend changes in the educational methods of the city of Chicago and the county of Cook, that are intended to bring them up to the level of the highest ideals. Among the recommendations it is advised that an ample kindergarten shall be attached to every school, and that there shall always be school facilities so that every child of school age shall have a seat at his disposal. The recommendations relative to the higher branches of education do not concern our present argument, but the suggestion relative to extending kindergarten facilities is of the greatest importance.

The mayor and a majority of the aldermen are believed to hold the welfare of the community they govern in earnest care, so that it is a good time to strengthen their hands to do the best and completest thing in the way of reform while changes are being made, and to insist on nothing less than Strict Social Quarantine to protect all the children of tender ages in order that the work of reform may begin now, at the root, and insure a generation of eager students and workers to use the splendid facilities, already supplied, when they arrive at school age.

It is not necessary to wait for the construction of fine buildings, and there will be ready for any need a competent army, if required, to take up the work of training.[2]

Many young women are beginning to learn that true happiness is the evidence and fruit of conscious usefulness, and that the work of the kindergarten and industrial schools, in producing conscious good results, creates much happiness and enthusiasm in their devotees, and they are being drawn to appreciate, and will eagerly participate in, so pleasurable an occupation,—the only one that quite satisfies the mother impulse within them.

It is also a recognized fact, as an outgrowth of the development of character-school training, that no other preliminary experience is so good in fitting a young woman for the duties of married life as a course of kindergarten study; and, furthermore, there is no part of the kindergarten work that is not useful, in its simple suggestiveness, to anyone, of no matter what sex or age.

This is not, however, a plea for any particular system of pedagogy, although the method of Froebel seems to merit all praise, but for the recognition of the fact that Character-Building and Habit-Forming schools should be appreciated as the most important branches of government and not as minor branches of education, and that they should be supported as becoming the nurseries of good citizenship.

Don't wait for fine buildings; any habitable room in the deepest part of a slum, cleaned and whitened to suggest Godliness, such as have already been used effectively for mission kindergartens is better than nothing, and sometimes better than the best, for the initial work of redemption.

PROFITABLE SUGGESTIONS.

It is the proper function of the government of a community to support so important a thing as a nursery of Apprentice Citizenship. Charity exercises great good in that "It is more blessed to give than to receive," but it is a poor regulator of unbalanced conditions. When it is most needed, as in cases of industrial depression, it is hardest to find.

Perfunctory charity gets weary of giving and demands the stimulation of novelty to excite it to action. It is such a poor regulator of unbalance that helpless infancy should not suffer neglect by its caprice.

As long as charity is lending its support to partial measures of relief it seems almost as if it were throwing money and effort in a hole, for there is little appreciable diminution of the need. This is why charity gets weary of its good work.

Were there a complete aim to be sought, and an estimate of cost prepared, the additional expense would not be large, while the results would soon be very evident in a community purified of its expressions of persecution and neglect, and the city or the State or the nation or whatever branch of the federal government which assumed the charge would always be ready to meet any need of the service of social quarantine as its first duty to its sovereign units.

SOCIAL ASPHYXIATION.

Organized unofficial initiative must lead the way, however, in social experiment, in fostering new measures of reform, until the State adopts them. Suggestions, relative to local quarantine organizations, gathered from many sources of social wisdom, are given in another chapter. When such a measure as Perfect Social Quarantine is the aim of organization it is well to insist upon adoption by the State by all possible means. Voluntary taxation of one one-hundredth of the income of half of a community, as suggested, will accomplish a Perfect Social and Sanitary Quarantine. Families voluntarily tax themselves twenty per cent. of income for comfortable houses alone. One-twentieth of this single item, properly applied, would accomplish Perfect Social and Sanitary Quarantine and make living anywhere comfortable.

And finally, the chief menace of the lying hypothesis, expressed by the assumption of the necessity of a "hopelessly submerged," or Have-To-Be-Bad or Have-To-Be-Miserable class, is that it is not much of a stimulant to charity and is an anesthetic to public and individual conscience.

Conscience is an expression of Character. Conscience is Character, and anything that helps to dull conscience helps to kill character; and, as character is the only firm foundation on which a republic can stand, indifference to neglect is an influence which must wash away, in time, the very foundations of liberty and happiness.

Pessimists constantly echo the cry of the necessity of a Have-To-Be-Bad class. Do not listen to this cry. If it is true under present methods of indifferent and uncertain protection it need not be so. You can correct the fault in a generation. Listen to Mayor Van Patten, to Chief Crowley, to Mr. Hart, and to the state secretaries of the National Conference of Charities and Correction of Canada and the United States. These altruists know. Pessimism, assumption and many a stereotyped tradition lie. Don't listen to the lie. There is better news in Truth. Seek the Truth about your fellowmen and helpless waifs and learn that a social quarantine such as we propose, protecting childhood between the age of earliest perceptions and that of reasonable public school age, will give them a choice between good character and habit and bad character and habit, and that ninety-eight per cent. of the "hopelessly submerged ten per cent." will choose the good and become useful citizens.

This is what we mean by a Perfect Social Quarantine, and this is the menace of a Have-To-Be hypothesis by which to dull the conscience and kill the character of our republic.

Ninety-eight per cent. of the ten per cent. defective characters have been saved after becoming warped, and saved by the methods of the kindergarten. What would not the same method of character-building accomplish in the way of protection instead of correction? It would also prevent deep scars being marked on the tender soul matrices confided to our care.

SUSPICION REMOVED.

One excuse for the assumption of a Have-To-Be-Bad class lurks under the suspicion of irremedial hereditary taint. This suspicion has been proved to be without foundation.

Heredity is race memory. Physical heredity is memory and perpetuation of physical characteristics, like legs, arms, senses, color, etc., but is constantly being modified by environment. Mental heredity does not follow the physical but is a sensitive undeveloped film which holds itself a blank in the darkness but develops in the light of environment. While physical heredity goes on adding to its proportions, if allowed to normally develop, newly-born mentality must be attended by example, books, or other monuments, to start it on the plane of intelligence of its progenitors or it becomes as blank as that of a savage; with force, but no aim. The remarkable mental difference of children, while there is strong physical resemblance, in a family, denies the close continuity or potency of mental heredity in the matter of equipment and tendencies, which constitute the basis of character. The force is there but each is a distinct, new and important message from the Creator, given us to interpret and cultivate according to the best intelligence available to us.

Note: The careful observations of Ernest Bicknell, Esquire, (secretary of the Indiana Board of State Charities, at the time the observations were made, but at present secretary of the Associated Charities of the City of Chicago,) relative to the transmission of Feeble Mind in parents to their offspring, only serve to strengthen our assertion relative to mental heredity.

Feeble Mind is a lack of healthy brain tissue and relates to quantity of mind possibility, while mental bent is a matter of quality and is amenable to direction of aim, either in the direction of good, or in the direction of bad efforts. Ingenuous childhood prefers the good in all normal cases, even if its home surroundings are perverse, for the good is sweeter, and children are especially susceptible to the allurement of sweets.

The ranks of greatness and genius are usually filled from humble parental sources, in which character dominates over a desire for material accumulation, and rarely from greatness or genius itself, whose child-product, under parental neglect—or possibly shadow—frequently drops to an insignificant place in the scale of usefulness. If any fixed, progressive, inexorable law of mental heredity were in force in evolution, these tendencies would be reversed. Mind is Nature's one unknown quantity, except that it is good in preference to being bad, if it is given a chance to choose; progressive, if deterrents to its normal growth are removed from about it, but reactive and resentful if denied the blessing of cultivation.