The interior journal. [volume] (Stanford, Ky.) 1912-1984, 1916-09-15
THE NEED FOR CLEAN
ADJUSTMENTS IN TOWN

(From the Woman's Club Daily [. j.
In all the work for the moraiiza-
ton of human life, the worked are
confronted by a disturbing ENVIRON
ment and a persistent counter-cur-
rent of degeneration.
The question which earnest and
thoughtful men and women are ask
ing more insistently every day is:
whence come the bad?" Are they
ar inevitable feature of society?
They are recruited from the ranks
of childhood. Are they the product
of heredity? Perhaps to very
great extent, but much more are
they the product of environment.
Comparatively little change in the
moral bent in one direction or the
other takes place in humanity, after
adolescence. The waste begins be-
fore that time tho it may not appear
until later. Nothing is more discour-
aging or disappointing than the work
for the reform of depraved adults.
Childhood is the time of extreme
Elasticity, physically, mentally and
morally. Children, unless removed
from the wrong environment, are
which act within or upon the child
are heredity and environment. The
essential elements of environment
are: the good home, school and town.
The making of a good homo need
scarcely be argued since most of our
children have a good home and the
privilege of attending one of the very
best schools in the state, but what
have we in the way for clean amuse-
ments or environment for our youth?
Our children hear and learn that
which pollutes their minds and makes
moral training difficult. The eff
fluent force of our coarseness is ev-
erywhere.. On the streets a vast
amount of unthinking as well as vic
ious profanity, coarseness, obscenity
and even brutality is sometimes wit
messed by them. Petty babble and
gossip in our social surroundings is
positively so corrupting that the Won
der is that life improves from gene
ration to generation as much as it
does. We need to cooperate with
our efficient movie manager and have
a picture show for our children. The
movies give them the first glimpse of
a larger world. The vivid scenes on
the screens become the strongest
social influence at our youths most
impressionable age. Psychologists
have uniformly found that films ex-
ert the strongest known power of
imitation and suggestion. The fate
of the world is determined by the
influences which prevail with the
child from birth to seven years of
age; and certainly from birth to four
teen years. All of our problems go
back to the child: the corrupt en-
vironment of politics, dishonesty,
drunkenness, incompetency and Grim
inality. All because we are work
ing in opposition to Gods command
ment: "Do unto others as you would
have others do unto you" Mr.. Voter
will you not, by your privilege blot
out the dangerous cigarette, the sale
of "booze," clean up and purify the
atmosphere Of our back streets and
alleys and save our boys? Don't
wait to take tie twig after it is bent
and stiffened into tree; to take the
brook after it has become a torrent:
to take the fire after it has become a
conflagration. God is teaching US in
ways made costly, to begin at the be-
ginning and meet the demands of
the situation by confronting to fun
damental principles.
Mrs. w. K. WARNER.