The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-11-24
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.
LENDER OF the way.


in Public School No 10 in Brooklyn
: In that school three hundred boys
and girls who range from eleven to
sixteen years of age have squared
their brave young shoulders and taken
upon them the elders burden. They
have deliberately become their little
sisters and brothers keepers, and
pledged themselves to lead the way
along the narrow-path of right living
"As WE sow, SO shall OUR YOUNG
Err BROTHERS and SISTERS reap.
Constant Honesty-Cheerful Obedi-
ence-Ready Helpfulness, if practiced
by us. in our daily lives, will surely
be initiated by our younger brothers
and SISTERS"
So says their simple and direct con-
fession of faith.
Let us hope that this big brother
and sister movement will spread thru
every school in the land and that the
Leaders OF the Way Will be as
great a power for good among the
youth of the land as are the Boy
Scouts and Camp Fire girls.
Certainly nobody can overestimate
the influence for good or evil that
the older children in a household have
over the younger ones Their power
is far greater in forming the charac-
ter of the little ones than the parents.
1t is not father, but big brother
Ben that little Johnnie considers a
nero and secretely initiates. 1t is not
mother, but big sister Maude, before
whom little Mary stands in worship
ping ad0ration as she dresses for a
party, and whose every smirk and
gesture little Mary initiates as she
plays lady with her dolls.
/ TO little children, their parents seem
dull and old and so behind the times
as to De prehistoric. They venerate
rather and mother as relics of the
past, they love them for their good
ness and kindness, but they haven't
the slightest desire to look or act as
do these fossils.
But big brother and sister are diff
Ierent- They belong to their own
tunes. They are full of life and
laughter and the joy of doing things.
They talk of fun instead Of duty, and
SO the little ones are little copy cats
whose thoughts and ideas and habits
are formed on those of their elder
| brothers and sisters.
Thus it is if big brother Ben is a
gentleman and a scholar, if he lives
cleanly, if he is courteous and kind
at home, If he carries off the honers
at college, little Johnnie in striving to
initiate him will also be a gentleman
and a scholar. He, too, will be polite
and considerate to his mother and
| sisters. He will grub at his books
| because he will be ashamed to fall
short of his model
| On the other hand if big brother
| Ben is hoodlum who swaggers and
fights his way thru life who swears
| at his mother and sisters, and who is
| ignorant and brutal, little Johnnie will
| follow in his footsteps and play truant
| from school and be a foul mouthed
little street gamin.
And little girls are equally initiative
If big sister Maude is gentle and sweet
AID womahly, if she helps mother and
| SS 20 re 60
clever about making her own Clothes
little Mary is likewise gentle and
| sweet and willing to run errands and
| do the dishes, and keen to learn to
sew.
But if big sister Maude is the kind
Of girl that puts on her good man
| rers when she puts on her complexion
to go out: if she lies oil caueh and
reads a novel while her poor old
| mother does all the ousework; IL all
/ that big sister Maude talks about is
| clothes ana how to get them, then
| little Mary understudies big sister and
| becomes herself one of the sordid
! grasping, selfish, sIrewish women
who are as predatory as any wild
animal and who suck the very life
| bands.
The great problem of the world is
not how to refOrl criminals, but how
t keep young people from going
! wrong. 1.-The Leaders of the Way
these wonderful boys and girls who
are what President Wilson calls, for
ward looking people," and do more
| than anyone else on earth so solve
| that inscrutable ethical riddle. You'll
can protect youth far better than age
can because 1t is youth that know!
best what are the temptations of it,
own day and hour. Also youth car
! best Judge youth because it knows it:
own Kind as no older person can pos
! sibly know it.
All young people are banded to-
| gether in tacit and perhaps uncon'
| SciouS conspiracy of silence against al
parents and guardians. No parent:
know what their own curly headed
and angelic looking dsrlings are think
ing and planning or what is at the
| back of their minds. In the code o.
| childhood the one black and unfor'
giyabie crime is to be a tattler. There,
fore, the curly headed and innocent
looking darlings never tell of the
faults and misdeeds of their con-
rades.
lust try to find out what sort of a
boy the Robinson boy is from your
own SON law, he's just a fellow like
all the Others" is all the information
YOU will ever be able to extract
though you cross examine him ever sc
warily, So if the Robinson boy be
longs to a good family, and has beer
bred to have good manners and i:
polite and well dressed. and know:
how to conduct himself towards oldei
people, you size him UP as an ex
ceptionally nice lad and go singing
his praises, and are pleased wher
your little daughter has him for al
escort to parties.
But your boy Ben, who wouldn
tell you on the Robinson boy, ma,
know him for a little degenerate,
boy whose every thought is foul anC
sensual and with whom no girl Il
] safe.
This is where the older brother.
. ability to protect his sister comes in
He knows absolutely and exactl,
just how trustworthy every boy il
their set is, because he associates will
them in their work and in their play
when all their defenses are down anC
: their pretences laid aside and thei
| souls revealed