The Washington herald., 1917-11-23
DOROTHY DIX'S TALKS.
LEADERS OF THE WAY.

LEADERS OF THE WAY.
The greatest moral movement OF the
last decade has just been started in
Public School No. 10, in Brooklyn.
In that school 800 boys and girls
who range from II to IS years of age
have squared their brave young shoul-
ders and taken upon them the elders
| burden. They have deliberately be-
come 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 younger
brothers and sisters reap. Constant
honesty-cheerful obedience - ready
helpfulness, IL 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
through 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.
I Certainly nobody can overestimate
the influence for good or evil that
! the older children in household
have over the younger ones. Their
power Is far greater in forming the
character of the little ones than the
, parents.
! 1t Is not father but big brother
Ben that little Johnnie considers a
hero and secretly initiates. It is not
mother but big sister Maude before
whom little Mary stands in Worship
ping alteration 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 be prehistoric. They venerate
father 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 thes fossils.
But big brother and sister are diff
| ferent. They belong to their own
times. 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
gentleman and a scholar, IL he
lives cleanly. if he is courteous and
kind at home, If he carries or the
honors 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 a hoodlum W no swaggers
and fights his way\ through life,
who swears at his mother and sis
ters, and who is ignorant and brut-
al, little Johnnie will follow in his
footsteps and play truant from
school and be a foul mouthed lit
tie street gamin.
And little girls are equally imi-
tative. If big sister Maude is gentle
and sweet and womanly, If she helps
mother and is considerate Of father,
and If she is clever about making
her own clothes. little Mary is like
wise gentle and sweet and willing
to run errands and do the dishes,
and keen to learn to sew.
But II big sister Maude is the
kind of girl that puts on her good
manners when she puts on her COM
plexion to go out; II she lies on
couch and reads a novel while her
poor old mother does all the house.
work; II all that big sister Maude
talks about Is clothes and how to
get them, then little Mary under
studies big sister and becomes her
self one of the sordid, grasping,
selfish, shrewish woman who are
as predatory as any wild animal
and who suck the very life blood
Of the men they catch for husbands.
The great problem of the world
Is not how to reform criminals,
but how to keep young people from
going wrong. The Leaders OF the
Way" these wonderful boys and
girls who are what President Will
son calls, forward looking people,"
can do more than anyone else on
earth to solve that inscrutable ethi-
cal riddle. Youth can protect
youth far better than age can be-
cause 1t Is youth that knows best
what are the temptations of its
own day and hour. Also youth can
pest Judge youth because 1t knows
'es o"n hinu as no older person
can possibly know 1t.
All young people are banded to-
gether in Q tacit and perhaps un-
conscious conspiracy of silence
against all parents and guardians.
No parents know what their own
curly headed and angelic looking
darlings are thinking and planning
or what is at the back of their
nntndA - hA - -.
the one black and unforgivable
crime is to be tattler. Therefore,
the curly headed and innocent look
ing rdarlings never tell of the faults
and misdeeds Of their comrades.
Inst fr.r In AsnA s...i -uA.A ..-A "a