The Kalispell bee. [volume] (Kalispell, Mont.) 1901-1901, 1901-03-30
The Line Of True Reform.

Editor of the Bee:-Believing the
enclosed article from the Chicago
Record of March Goth to be along the
line of true reform, l should be glad
to see the same published in all the
newspapers of the world. Will you
kindly continue the thoughts therein
expressed through the medium of
the Bee to your readers by printing
it entire?
Yours very truly,
ALICE l. LISTLE.
DR.. Graham Taylor, of Chicago,
lecturing to the State Teachers as
ISOLATION, said: ut is difficult to con-
ceive what menace to public safety
is the ignorant prejudice of the people
among whom our missions are locat-
ed; how like a powder magazine,
ready to be ignited by chance spark,
the whole community is" Yet he
said it was touching to see grown
men and women come to the missions
and enter with zest into the games Of
the children, SO hungry are they for
innocent recreation. In thanking the
association for the $3.50 it voted him
he said: with your permission II
will use this to keep open the little
mission we thought we must abandon
when we moved to the new. We were
reluctant to do this, for the people
begged us not to leave them, yet they
are so peculiar that they would not
leave their own neighborhood to come
to the more commodious quarters,
and we had not the money to support
both missions"
So easily entertained and kept
from mischief, yet they could not goI
a few blocks from their accustomed
haunts! This means that entertain
ment and instruction must be brought
to them. 1t means that every neigh
borhood, either in the country or city,
should have it's clubroom and read
ing room.
hood in the city has, waiting to it's
hands, If it were only wise enough to
use them. Our schoolhouses, equip
ped with pianos, libraries, laborator-
les and museums are used but eight
or ten hours five days in the week.
what conveniences they offer for
musical and literary entertainment
and for illustrated lectures on chem
istry, physics, geology and zoology!
And why should we purchase pipe or
gans and erect costly edifices dedicat-
ed to God, and then lock God and
children out of them for all but about
ten hours of each week? Would it
not be better to open them every night
for works unto salvation, rather than
but once a week for preaching unto
salvation?
But do you say the people we most
wish to reach do not come to the
church when it is open? OF course
they do not. 1t is all too well-dress-
ed. too proper, too serious. And the
crying need of the toilers is something
to tighten the gloom of their daily
lives. The school and the church
must offer many of them something
more enlivening than the class meet
ing.
The eight-hour system of labor has
left the working people with much
leisure, which has too often proved
anything but benefit to them. The
opportunities for harmless amusement
and self-culture have not multiplied in
proportion to the hours of leisure.
Many people have become loafers from
compulsion.
This is what the Rev. William
Lindsay did. as expressed in his
own words.
When l came here as a missionary
l found it to be a railroad town in
which many of the men lived in board
ing houses surrounded by practically
no refining influences. at once OBJ
tain permission from the trainmaster.
and formed the men into a social and
literary club with seventy charter
members. We secured rooms, tables,
chairs. bookcases, etc., and ordered
the leading daily papers and maya
zines. put 500 volumes of my own
books at the disposal of the fellows
Then we began holding monthly en-
tertainments, usually a short drama,
music, vocal and instrumental, or any
wholesome amusement that offered.
The conductors and engineers got up
these entertainments alternately, and
they were fine.
Then came the travelling library and
the people were joyful. When No.
l library was returned and before the
next one came scores of people stop