Los Angeles herald., 1907-05-13
HUMAN PROGRESS
AND CHILDHOOD
Little Ones and Their Place in Solving
Problems of Humanity, Subject
of Sermon by Rev. C.
c. Pierce

Yesterday morning Rev. G. c. Pierce,
pastor of the Memorial Baptist church,
preached special sermon on the inn
portances of childhood in the progress
of the human race. He took for his
text the words of Isaiah, 11:6, "And a
little child shall lead them" In the
course Of his sermon he said:
Nothing can be more apparent to
him who has eyes to see and a heart
to understand than the fact that there
is a growing number of men and
women all about us, seeking as never
before to solve the problem of human
society. We are not satisfied with
everything that has come down to us
from the past, and there is a growing
number seeking to lead the race to
higher and better things He who is
not interested in the social progress of
humanity is simply hinderance to the
race.
Isaiah, the greatest of Hebrew
prophets, in his picture of human
progress, which should terminate in
universal peace and blessedness, be-
held at the head of that procession
typifying this little child. One
greater than Isaiah, the worlds great
est Reformer, who prayed and lived
and died for the coming of the king
dom of righteousness on the earth,
taught that in childhood we were to
find the exemplification of the sole and
supreme qualifications of those who
were to enter his kingdom. In other
words, in every movement for the adj
vancement Of the human race let us be-
gin with childhood. We are to lead the
children and they are to lead us. While
we teach the children, they are our
supreme teachers, and in what we
learn from them, and in what we have
been given to teach to them, shall we
find the strategic point in the great
problem and battle of human life.
"That the world needs reforming, or
rather more true progress, no one who
really studies life as it has been in
the past, and as 1t is today, can doubt.
And the reformer and the leader, the
hero prophet and Savior has not been
wanting. The simple trouble with the
vast majority of them has been and
with the most Of us who long to see the
world advance, we have begun at the
wrong end of the problem.
''It is a thousand times easier, saner
and cheaper to mould the life of the
child as it should be, to develop the
character as it ought to be, than it is
to correct or reform that character
when once established. 1t is infinitely
easier to form than to reform, to learn
than to unlearn.
There is no problem of human life
or human society, though it has baf-
fled the worlds greatest leaders and
teachers for centuries, which cannot
be easily and naturally, safely and
speedily solved If we will begin at the
right end Of the problem, begin with
the child, and the mother of the child,
begin, in other words, where Isaiah and
Jesus told us long ago t. begin. The
simple fact is the human race Is just
beginning to recognize the supreme i'm
port OF the words of these great teach
ers. We are rediscovering childhood
and the Importance of childhood. AS
a returned missionary recently said,
There are no heathen children, and we
have only to take them early enough to
have them grow up into true, strong
Christians and as Jacob A. Riis recent
ly said, There are no children born bad,
If they are bad they are taught to be
bad after they are born, so are we
coming to believe that If we take the
child as he comes to our homes and
treat him as he has a right to, be
treated. he will become in all the va
ried relations Of life what he ought
to be.
'While there are no doubt individual
cases where this does not seem to be
the fact. tho vast majority of instances
have enabled us to prove the general
law, so long ago announced by the
wise man of old, Train a child up in the
way he should go. and when he is old
he will not depart from it,
There is not single problem of
human life which ought to be solved
that cannot be solved by the right
training of childhood. Warfare will
greed and savage selfishness.
coarseness and vulgarity will go. and
the spirit of love and service, the power
OF self mastery, the adjustment of the