The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1895-12-19

lasting three RS offer no etfectual
barrier to the corruption of the young.
1t needs to be reconstructed on the
plan of the three Hs-the head, the
heart and hand trained together to
make a whole boy. Many young
thief is thief simply because the best |
part of him was never developed. 1t is
not that he is so much worse than |
the rest, but simply that the other |
half of him did not get chance.
1t never will in a healthy boy till ne
has chance of healthy play. In this !!
respect our cities have sinned griev
ously. For every dollar hereafter
laid out on parks and Fairgrounds it is
certain that they will get two back.
The thief and the tough grow naturally
enough out of the gutter. Its associa-
tions, and the evaporation against So
ciety that afforded them nothing better,
do the business. The street and the
gutter were the only Fairgrounds the
children of the poor in too many of our
cities have called theirs all these years.
| In the school they were stuffed into
dark cellars and told to play. In the
ward if there was yard, the landlord
! forbade. In the street it was against
some ordinance or another. The result
was to smother the play in the boy and
breed the mischief instead. Boys must
let off their steam somehow. If the
harvest was bad. the boy was not to
blame. 1t was only last winter that
the first open air school playground
was authorized by law in New York
city. where 2O0,0ot children attend the
public schools.
That laws are made to break, not to
obey. is fact of which the street takes
, early notice and shapes,its conduct ac-
cordingly Respect for the law is not
t going to spring from disregard OF it.
| The boy who smokes his cigarette
! openly, i'm defiance of one law, carries
2 the grOwler early and late on week
days in defiance of another, and on
q Sunday of third: observes fourteen
saloons clustering around the door OF
q his school in contempt of a fourth
I which expressly forbids their being
+ there: plays hockey secure from arrest
J. because nobody thinks of enforcing tht
v compulsory education law. or slaves il
o the sweatshop under perlured ag'
q certificate bought for quarter OF ;
Il perjured notary, and so on to the end
!. of the long register, while score o
l. offensive ordinances prohibit him from
8 flying kite, tossing ball or rompin!
a on the grass, where there is any, can
is hot be expected to grow up with yer
o exalted idea of law and order. The in
" difference or hypocrisy that makes dea
o. letters of so many of our laws is one o
"a the constantly active feeders Of ou
v iails. And the real dignity of labo
# the hardest and most important lesso
is he has to learn, can hardly be more al
IA parent to the lad who is crowded into
TO shop when he ought to be at play tha
,e to the one who idles in the street whe
he ought to have been at school. The or
r.. breaks the law, the other has it broke
O. for him. The impression that abide
10 with each is the ease with which tt
13 thing is done.
"a The gambling mania and the penn
cy dreadful are evil companions of tt
his street that bear an active hand in mu
as tering the boy into the ranks of Grim
rk nails. The saloon is their ally, and tt
% saloon is the boys club as he grows i
ut to early manhood It is not altogeth
he his fault that he has no other. Fro
of it he takes his politics and gets his bac
no ing in his disputes with the police. Th
f a he knows is to be despised and G
we nounced by the sentiment responsil
1r- for the laws he broke with impunity
ne his days, while to him it represents t
300 one potent, practical force of life,
nd we'll calculated to add to his mental &C
ew fusion as to the relationship of thin
its but hardly to increase his respect for t
nd law or for the sentiment behind it.
need an era of enforcement of Il
elf next-less of pretense, more of p
ne pose.
er- There is one other source of corr,