The Savannah morning news., 1903-04-02
THE MAKING OF A CITIZEN.
Martha Backus Warning in Columbia
State.

Martha Backus Warning in Columbia
State.
After all is said, the end and aim
of education is not alone the acquire
ment of learning or only the ability to
reason logically or intellectual train
ing for it's own sake it is the fitting
of a man to his own sphere" the MAX
ing of the social, not the unsoclal,
character; and the man who is truly
educated is the one who loves God and
his neighbor as himself; in short, a
good citizen. Some of the most neces-
sary qualities of good citizen are,
viz: Respect of law, his own rights and
the rights of others, love of order cour-
tesy and considerable for the feelings
of others, honesty, right judgment and
above all the habit of right living.
Where are these attributes and cnar
acteristics learned? Not at college, for
by that time the formative period is
nearly over; not at school, for we often
hear of stubborn and hardened boys
and girls at IA, when the intractable
period begins; not even in primary
school, for at the individuality is
often a difficult thing to deal with.
No, these qualities belong essentially
to the formative period OF a child his
tory, to the years between 3 and Z.
Whether, then, they are taken into
much consideration depends upon
whether the child has been in that nur-
sery of citizenship good kIndergar-
ten. The keynote of kindergarten work
is character building; its end and aim
to make a social character, that is, a
character that makes for the good of
its social group wherever that is,
whether it is the highest or the least
influential social circle.
We will suppose the case of a child
coming, as l have known them to
come, from homes that in no sense
deserve that name, from surround
ings that are in themselves enough
to destroy any sense of law or order
or any respect for meum ct tuum. This
child enters a kindergarten at the age
of 8, and coming into a large, pleas
ant bright, Well-ordered room he is at
once unconsciOusly pleased by a feeling
of proper surroundings, something that
he has never done before. He sees
groups of happy children, each at his
own work or contributing to the gen
eral welfare. He sees grown people
of an entirely new variety in his eX
perience. They are clean, neat. hap
Ply and ready to direct the work and
play and to sympathize with the chill
dren in their efforts to construct or
reproduce their ideas. He hears re-
fined, clear cultivated tones at the
most initiative period of his life; he
enters into an atmosphere where love
for nature, man and God, is brought
to him daily and hourly by means of
play, of song and story, of observa-
ton and constructive work. He goes
home at first confused by his uncon-
scious effort to harmonic these i'm
pressionS and experiences with any
former ones, but as time goes on or
the novelty wears off he enters for
three hours day into a new life where
only the highest ideals are brought to
him. Too young to use his feeble rea-
soning power, he simply drinks in the
good. AS a plant water, he absorbs
his training and forms habits hour
by hour of right thinking and living,
which are to last him the rest of his
life; for it is now a well-known and
we'll established psychological fact that
habits earliest learned are last re-
membered and that strong impressions
of early life are the ones that return
in the crisis of existence and are the
last of all to wear out
Persons who visit kindergarten
and see only the play side may scott
and jeer, but if they would study the
history of education and hear the oft
repeated saying GIVE me a child until
ne Is anu 1 care lOL WHO has MN
afterwards" they would realize that the
kindergarten does for the child what
no other system of education can do. 1t
trains his eye, ear hand and heart
just when the training will strike its
deepest root. Do the three hours in
kindergarten outweigh the nine or ten
of home influence where it is bad, is
another question often asked kinder
gartners. The best answer is a look
he hoy q a or of
kindergarten influence. A collector in
Columbus. Ca, said of the factory dis
trict in which he worked that he hard
ly recognized it after the kindergarten
had been there three years, that the
same families had improved so much
and the new ones were of a better
class, attracted by the advantages of
the kindergarten for their children
The chief question is not can we afford
to have kindergarten, but is, can we
afford to be without one?
Those who will read Horace Fletch-
er's book, THAT Last Waif' may see
for themselves the statistics of the
case and no one who is interested in
the welfare of his city can afford to
shut his eyes to the proper training of
it's future citizens. The child of to-
day is the man of tomorrow, and it
rests with us that he should use his
five senses, that he knows how to work
with his hands, that he may respect
good labor and laborers; to use his
five senses, that he may go through
life alive in every fibre, not the half
dead men and women we sometimes
see; to use his reason and observation,
that he may not rely too much on
others All these things and many
more he learns at the kindergarten as
he learns nowhere else.
Is the kindergarten a luxury or a ne
cessity? Every citizen should ask
himself this question. The South
needs good citizens more than ever be-
fore and as a matter Of fact is any
one making it his business to see that
they are being made out of the youth