Omaha daily bee., 1921-06-29
FIRST ARTICLE.


the chimneys OF gun works and breweries have
for years drenched with smoke the streets, the
gables and towers OF deserted monasteres, and
the airy spire of the superb cathedral, there is
| little park 1t is outside of the smoke clouds,
| bounded by two tiny rivers, and If visitor
turns his back upon the town. he can see toward
| the east the round, smooth green, Bohemian
hills with their patches of dark pines and their
| rows of white stones along the roadsides. That
| park has long been an escape from the town and,
because there were many to seek escape there, it
| has been populous Uttered place-until a few
months ago. 1t is not less populous now, but it
| is much cleaner, for on regular days there de-
scends upon it small army OF small people, boys
and girls from the Pilsen schools, with rake
| and basket and wheelbarrow and huge wicker
| broom The leaves are gathered, the papers
| picked up, the paths carefully swept. The
| municipal brewery which owns the park pays for
| the work, and the small army which has accepted
| public responsibility is discharging it with
| dignity and success.
In Saskatchewan prairie town, a club Of
Canadian boys is gatherig every scrap Of news
| paper or rag that can be baled and sold to the
| refuse merchants. In New South Wales, Aus
tralian boys and girls have established and main
tain tea room for blinded service men. A
huge shipment of garments, saved and mended
| by Chinese children was sent some time ago to
poor children in Siberia. In Poland, school
children have cultivated gardens, in California
they have made toys for childrens hospitals, in
Hungary they are knitting for themselves and
for their poorer neighbors.
All these children are part OF the same
great enterprise. They are expressing each
group in the way that its ingenuity suggests the
idea of servite to the common good. Some of
them are giving money from their spending
allowance, some are earning with their own
hands and giving to the funds that go to helpful
AAf.-A -.
| increase the we'll being OF their neighbors, just
around the corner. or halfway around the world.
They are all part of the Junior Red Cross
and they are all proving one very important fact
| about that organization They are showing their
elders that under all circumstances, in all sorts
| of places and conditions they are capable of
grasping the ideal of service and can Immediately,
| and successfully, find way to express it. The
| Junior Red Cross is movement much discussed
at the present time and its practical possibility
| is often in question That Red Cross societies
| have become worldwide agency for sustained
humanitarian effort is understood That the
next generation may be expected to carry still
greater burden of humanitarian effort is not often
| disputed. That the world would be bettercd if
the ideal of the Red Cross, the ideal of service,
could be introduced universally into education is
living faith that is growing among people
everywhere. But the children themselves have
had to prove to some of their elders that they
could learn practical benevolence by the practice
of it.
They are proving it daily in nine countries.
The Junior Red Cross is a part of the national
society in those nine countries. which are: Aus
tralia Canada, China, Czecho- -Slovakia, Hungary,
| Poland, Spain, Switzerland and the United States.
They work under the solemn sanction of their
elders and under the central organization of the
League of Red Cross Societies in Geneva.
The children have had to demonstrate their
practical capacity, because although the theory
of learning service by the practice of it is readily
grasped by adults, there is, when the idea comes
freshly to the mind OF group Of parents or
teachers, very often skeptcal question: "What
will the children really do? We can see how
splendid it would be for them to learn kindness,
practical kindness service to other children or to
the whole community, but what are they going
to dor"
Or if the listeners are teachers they some
times shake sad head over the difficulties of
teaching SO many different old ideas and the i'm
possibility Of bringing in this new service and
they say: "Ah, yes that might be done with
the children of some countries but not with ours
Our children could be told Of the principles, but
what could they do?"
In spite of this skepticsm, the children are
gong ahead to demonstrate the hexibty the
teeundity and the power of their imagination.
Wherever they are, whatever they have been
through in life or education, they have in COM
mon this capacity to make superbly real the SYM
pathetic suggestions of their elders Their minds
are not content with distractions; ideas that re-
main abstract quickly lost interest for them. but
they can turn almost any abstract idea into con-
crete use by their own invention. The Junior
Red Cross is entering the school system Of nine
countries and preparing to 60 much further, be-
cause 1t is founded upon the fundamental nature
OF children, their ingenious imaginations and
their innate goodness of heart
Neither the ideas nor the institution have any,
| thing OF novelty about them and many countries
have done the same under other names for nany
years. But never before has there existed a
world league of such workers, an organization
by which children everywhere, under. MANY flags
but one symbol, could feel solidarity in this
impulse toward kindness There never has been
a time before when a humanitarian organization
OF thirty-eght countries has asked the children
IN all these countries to help in its work and learn
its work, so that they may help also when they
are men and women. The varied ingenious prac-
tcal response of the children has proved that at
last has been found a motive and a means so
close to the natural instincts Of children. so SIM
pie and so powerful as to take place in the
educational practice of many different teachers
| under the name of the same secular organization
and with chance Of giving the children the feel
ing that they are all, regardless of race and color
creed or boundary, working together to help the
world.
Between these groups are passing letters and
post cards, samples of school work and hand
craft One junior activity in which nearly all
particularly the older children, want to partici-
pate is this interschool correspondence. Bv th;s
interchange they may all be made conscious of
their common purpose There are those looking
hopefully on the future of this work who believe
that national and racial hates are as much the
result OF teaching as are language and manners,