登陆注册
26304400000092

第92章 CHAPTER XV THE VALUE OF SOCIAL CLUBS(4)

That more such girls do not come to grief is due to those mothers who understand the insatiable demand for a good time, and if all of the mothers did understand, those pathetic statistics which show that four fifths of all prostitutes are under twenty years of age would be marvelously changed. We are told that "the will to live" is aroused in each baby by his mother's irresistible desire to play with him, the physiological value of joy that a child is born, and that the high death rate in institutions is increased by "the discontented babies" whom no one persuades into living. Something of the same sort is necessary in that second birth at adolescence. The young people need affection and understanding each one for himself, if they are to be induced to live in an inheritance of decorum and safety and to understand the foundations upon which this orderly world rests. No one comprehends their needs so sympathetically as those mothers who iron the flimsy starched finery of their grown-up daughters late into the night, and who pay for a red velvet parlor set on the installment plan, although the younger children may sadly need new shoes. These mothers apparently understand the sharp demand for social pleasure and do their best to respond to it, although at the same time they constantly minister to all the physical needs of an exigent family of little children. We often come to a realization of the truth of Walt Whitman's statement, that one of the surest sources of wisdom is the mother of a large family.

It is but natural, perhaps, that the members of the Hull-House Woman's Club whose prosperity has given them some leisure and a chance to remove their own families to neighborhoods less full of temptations, should have offered their assistance in our attempt to provide recreation for these restless young people. In many instances their experience in the club itself has enabled them to perceive these needs. One day a Juvenile Court officer told me that a woman's club member, who has a large family of her own and one boy sufficiently difficult, had undertaken to care for a ward of the Juvenile Court who lived only a block from her house, and that she had kept him in the path of rectitude for six months. In reply to my congratulations upon this successful bit of reform to the club woman herself, she said that she was quite ashamed that she had not undertaken the task earlier for she had for years known the boy's mother who scrubbed a downtown office building, leaving home every evening at five and returning at eleven during the very time the boy could most easily find opportunities for wrongdoing. She said that her obligation toward this boy had not occurred to her until one day when the club members were ****** pillowcases for the Detention Home of the Juvenile Court, it suddenly seemed perfectly obvious that her share in the salvation of wayward children was to care for this particular boy and she had asked the Juvenile Court officer to commit him to her. She invited the boy to her house to supper every day that she might know just where he was at the crucial moment of twilight, and she adroitly managed to keep him under her own roof for the evening if she did not approve of the plans he had made. She concluded with the remark that it was queer that the sight of the boy himself hadn't appealed to her, but that the suggestion had come to her in such a roundabout way.

She was, of course, reflecting upon a common trait in human nature,--that we much more easily see the duty at hand when we see it in relation to the social duty of which it is a part.

When she knew that an effort was being made throughout all the large cities in the United States to reclaim the wayward boy, to provide him with reasonable amusement, to give him his chance for growth and development, and when she became ready to take her share in that movement, she suddenly saw the concrete case which she had not recognized before.

We are slowly learning that social advance depends quite as much upon an increase in moral sensibility as it does upon a sense of duty, and of this one could cite many illustrations. I was at one time chairman of the Child Labor Committee in the General Federation of Woman's Clubs, which sent out a schedule asking each club in the United States to report as nearly as possible all the working children under fourteen living in its vicinity. A Florida club filled out the schedule with an astonishing number of Cuban children who were at work in sugar mills, and the club members registered a complaint that our committee had sent the schedule too late, for if they had realized the conditions earlier, they might have presented a bill to the legislature which had now adjourned. Of course the children had been working in the sugar mills for years, and had probably gone back and forth under the very eyes of the club women, but the women had never seen them, much less felt any obligation to protect them, until they joined a club, and the club joined a Federation, and the Federation appointed a Child Labor Committee who sent them a schedule. With their quickened perceptions they then saw the rescue of these familiar children in the light of a social obligation. Through some such experiences the members of the Hull-House Woman's Club have obtained the power of seeing the concrete through the general and have entered into various undertakings.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 异世万兽之主

    异世万兽之主

    一个事业爱情双丰收的医学博士,一夜之间来到异世,却是穷家小子,为了这一世的家人,他选择了改变自己的命运。一颗神奇的珠子,带来的却是意想不到的能力。一个穷家小子的传奇。
  • 倾城颜:凤凰一吟朝天阙

    倾城颜:凤凰一吟朝天阙

    她,是冥界三公主,又曾是人间的全能偶像;她,是音乐宗师,年轻一代的天才少女;她,是医学高材生,一手失传的太乙神针出神入化;她,是杀手,一身杀气诡异无比,形如鬼魅;不过现在,她,是风云大陆云湘国的郡主,是一只即将翱翔与九天云端的凤凰——凤凰一吟朝天阙,天下无人拭其剑!剑出鞘,指苍穹!吾将为皇!
  • 秦时明月之君临天下完结版

    秦时明月之君临天下完结版

    战国时期,秦始皇嬴政统一六国后,肆意抓年轻力壮的男丁修建万里长城来巩固自己的江山!为求长生不老大肆修建蜃楼!为巩固地位焚书坑儒,劳财伤命,百姓苦不堪言!致使诸子百家走上了推翻大秦帝国的道路!在乱世中辛存的几个孩子也走上了艰难险阻的抗秦道路!在这条道路上慢慢的成长起来!主角:荆天明(荆轲之子),高月(燕国太子.燕丹之女),少羽(楚国项氏一族之后.乃西楚霸王项羽年少时),石兰(蜀国后人,乃虞姬年少时)!
  • 半纸江山

    半纸江山

    坐拥半纸繁华,不过一抔黄沙坠陷尘崖,听风骤起,奈何敌不过满头华发囚锁南篱沉香,一曲断萧下,也学前人葬落花雪染指间怯步盛夏亦冷亦梦亦恨罢亦翎酒浇不醉忆故人,他!(草堂前,亦翎酒烈,铜墙铁壁,如何醉月?)
  • 校草的坏坏丫头

    校草的坏坏丫头

    有一天,冷雨萱问凌寒熠:“你有没有后悔过认识我,并且还爱上我。”“不后悔,遇见你是我这辈子最幸福的事了。”凌寒熠一把拉过冷雨萱,把她抱进怀里,是的,他非常非常非常爱冷雨萱,如果这个世界没有她,一点都不精彩。
  • 甜妻来袭总裁千亿蜜宠

    甜妻来袭总裁千亿蜜宠

    什么是彪悍的人生不需要解释?只有体验过后,才知道,人的一生处处充满着狗血!每个人都是自己人生的主角,但林忆雪的人生是彪悍的亦是狗血,空间!身世!宇宙!拥有的能力越大责任就越大,在身世的背后她到底是谁?
  • 萤火璀璨了凉夜

    萤火璀璨了凉夜

    她,把自己困在一座城里,倔犟却又明面上的活泼,背负了一身的情仇。他,走进了她,让她明白“一个孤独的人不一定一直孤独下去”。一群人的爱恨情仇,你知道吗?世界上没有所谓的配与不配,想和不想。只有,你到底爱还是不爱……
  • 幻境仙踪

    幻境仙踪

    一个来自远古的幻仙传说,一个来自烬家的少年疯狂修炼拯救父亲,打破了三万年都未有人打破的纪录,超强的实力和天赋,带领弟弟和朋友走到了大陆巅峰,并去寻找杀死九名环线的科克里人
  • 穿越之异世再遇

    穿越之异世再遇

    结婚前一天,我被自己的未婚夫撞死,与未婚夫一起死掉。异世重生,竟还能遇他!“你不会早就知道我们会重生,所以才让我死的吧?”面对眼前的这个男人,她觉得跨崩溃了,真是让她又恨又爱。“我本来就不是那个世界的人,而且,我去那个世界,就是为了找你,但是爱上了你,是我的失算。”某男倾城一笑,迷倒在场观众。“哼!我可不会再次中你的计了呢!”恨死了,就是他让她感受到了剜心之痛,发生的一切,只是为了通往这里。“是吗?那就看看你的本领了,不管你在哪里,我都会找到你!”“切,你不就是仗着比我多修炼几千年的仙法嘛,我怕你啊!”某女小声抱怨。
  • 卧底黑途

    卧底黑途

    一个警校里的尖子生,机缘巧合下被选中了做卧底的艰巨任务,看看他是如何在阴险的黑道生涯中生存的……