The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1915-11-03
CHILDREN LEAD
CROWN PEOPLE
THROUGH LIFE

unUUOU Lite
Rabbi M. M. Fenerlicht Tells
How Reform Must Beyond
With Children and Not
Mature Persons.
1.-THE Child. the Community and the
Home each in itself, and its relation
to and INTERPOLATION with the other.
presents field of discussion that Is
practically lfmitless. There Is legiti-
mate and more than mere sentimental
ground for asking. just what does the
term child In the realm Of social
service connote? Wadsworth wrote:
The child Is father Of the man. So
too. Milton: The childhood shows the
man as morning shows the day"
This was the opening Of the address
by Rabbi Morris M. Feuerlicht Of In
dianapolis, at the closing session Of
the State Conference of Charities and
Correction last night.
THAT is the poets view. The peda-
gogue, quoting another poet, reminds
us that Just as the twig is bent, the
trees inclined And still farther
back, in the dim stretches of civiliza-
tons dawn, we have the prophetic
view, And a little child shall lead
them So here we have the testimony
Of prophet, poet and pedagogue that
man Is after all only child of larger
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istics save for the natural modifica-
lions which environment, evolution
and time may bring. And yet, strange
ly enough, that which poet, pedagogue
and prophet of past days have spoken
until It became a veritable common
place, it Is only in comparatively re-
cent days that the social worker from
a different viewpoint and different ex-
perience, perhaps, has come to accept
and verify.
Rally About Children.
Our social program today, there
fore, may be said to have found a
positive and definite rallying-point in
child-welfare. More than that, it has
thereby become permanently standard
lied. Social service has reached a
norm, level stretch Of clear and un-
obstructed and comprehensive ground
upon which 1t may deliberately and
sanely proceed. Time was, within the
member of the youngest recruit in
social work, when the slogan of social
service was reform-primarily, moral
reform of the adult. Then came the
conviction that any process of reform
alton with individuals who were ma
tured in thought and habit and outlook
upon life must after all be Intellectual
and can meet with only partial sue
cess at best So, we In America took
a slight step backward-Or, If you will,
forward-and gave the world of prac-
teal sociology it's great contribution
Of the Juvenile Court. This meant re-
form Of the child-but primarily again,
the moral reform of the delinquent.
It's chief significance, however, lay in
the fact that 1t brought the home and
the community into a more definite
and conscious obligation in the treat
ment of child-welfare problems.
Through the parental character of the
court, the Volunteer Probation Sys-
tenn, the Big Brother and Big Sister
Movements, it brought the community
directly into the home of the child
involved, and helped to make it a nor
NAL home.
But we had not gone very far with
the Juvenile Court, winning the ad-
miration and imitation or the world,
when it was realized that in the de-
linquency with which the Juvenile
Court dealt there were certain physic-
al and mental as we'll as moral factors
involved; and that in order to really
reform the child, 1t was necessary to
go back of the Juvenile Court and
behind reform into the field Of pre-
vention. The community then came
still closer to the normal in child-life
by substituting prevention for reform
in the organization of our play ground
and recreation movements, boys and
girls clubs. and the like. And so, the
process continued backward behind re-
form and even prevention until today
we reached the point where we no
longer use terms reform and prevent
ion. but have supplanted them with
the slogan of conservation and con-
struction.
Go Back Behind Birth.
To-day, we have accepted the oft
quoted challenge of Oliver Wendell
Holmes and we go back of Juvenile
Courts and Fairgrounds. back of re-
form and prevention-back to hun
dred years before the child is born,
from generation to generation. through
prenatal and post-natal days of in
fancy, through childhood. adolescence,
youth and maturity, down to the very
end of life until child shall be born,
today and hundred years hence, that
in all respect. physical, mental and
moral, shall be perfectly normal
child Thus. in attempting to stand
ardize child-life. social service has like
wise standardized social life generally
1T has inserted a beneficent Grand
fathers Clause into our social program
by insisting that in the home and the
community there must be provided
such an environment and such con
ditions whereby. in any given genera
ton, infantile blindness, physical and