Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1917-12-10
LEADERS OF THE WAY
10y DOROTHY DIX,
The Worlds Highest Paid Woman
Writek)


3 y started 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 TAX.
en- upon themselves the elders bur.
dens. 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 younger
brothers and sisters reap. Constant
honesty, cheerful obedience, ready
helpfulness, II practised by us. in our
daily lives, will surely be initiated By
our younger brothers and sisters"
So says their simple and direct
confession of faith.
Let us hope that this big brother
and sister movement viii 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 aud 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.
II is not father but big brother Ben
that little Johnnie considers hero
and secretly initiates. II is not moth
err but big sister Maude before whom
little Mary. stands in worshippine
alteration as she dresses for a party,
and whose every s1nirk 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 yene.
rate father and mother as relics of
the past, they love them for their
goodness and kindness, but they
haven't the slightest desire to look
or act as do these fossils.
But big brother and sister are diff.
ferent. They belong to their own
times. They are full of life and laugh
ter 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 broth,
ers and sisters. s
Thus II is II big brother Ben Is a
gentleman and q scholar, II he lives
cieanly, II he Is courteous and kind
at home, II he carries off the honors
at college, little Johnnie in striving
to initiate him viii also be gentle
man and scholar. He. too. will be
polite and considerate to hts mother
and sisters. He win grub at HIS books
because he viii be ashamed to fall
short Of his model.
On the other hand, II big brother
Ben is hoodlum who swaggers and
fights HIS way through life, who
swears at hts mother and sisters, and
who is ignorant and brutal, little
Johnnie will follow in his footsteps
and play trnant from school and be a
foul mouthed little street gamin.
And little girls are equally imitat-
ed. II big sister Maude Is gentle and
sweet and womanly, II she helps
mother and is considerable of father,
and il she Is 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
ners when she puts on her complex.
ion to go out: II she lies on couch
and reads novel while her poor old
mother does all the homework: IL all
that big sister Maude talks about is
clothes and how to get them. then lit.
tie Mary understndies big sister and
becomes herself one of the sordid,
grasping, selfish, shrewish women 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 Wilson calls, .'for.
ward looking people" can do more
than anyone else on earth to solve
that inscrutable ethical riddle. Youth
can protect youth far better than age
can because It is. youth that knows
best what are the temptations of its
own day and hour. Also youth can
best Judge youth because it knows
It's own kind as no older person can
possibly know II.
All young people are banded togeth.
er in q tacit and perhaps unconscious
conspiracy of silence against all par
ents and guardians. No parents know
what their own curly headed and
angelic looking darlings are thinking
and planning or what Is at the back
az their minds. In the code of child
hood the one black and unforgiyable
crime is to be tattIer. Therefore,
the curly headed and innocent looking
darlings never tell of the faults and
nois6eeds of their comrades.
Just try to find out what sort of
hov the Robinson boy is from your
avn son. .Aw, he's just fellow like
an the others" is all the information
~on will ever be able to extract,
shourh you cross examine him ever
= wariiy. So If the Robinson boy
hs1ong to a good family, and has been
bred 70 have good manners and is po
,,.s and wen dressed, and knows how
= = coniuct himself towards older PEG.
-. Won size MIN up as an exception
Paos 4. = ,nd 90 singing his praises