The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1921-12-02
GIVE THE CHILD AN EVEN
CHANCE IN YOUR TOWN

perhaps no one element IN TIT
complex and multif3im ramification!
which comprise our civilization is 81
essential 10 that society which hopes
to perpetaate itself as a far-sceins
solciitude for the children whose
minds anI bodies are taking form
under it's influence
With all their faults of economic
administration, despite the impolitiC
ignorance so tragically displayed
elsewhere, even Trotsky and Lenine
in Soviet Russia were quick to grasp
the truth that "as the twig is bent
so shall the tree incline" One OF
their first steps after finding them
selves firmly in the saddle was to
prorogue the oil schools and found
institutions at which attendance was
compulsory and in which revolu-
tionary doctrines formed the cur
riculum.
That they are destined to fail here
as in the other fields of government
they attempted is due, of course, to
the underlying weakness inherent in
their fallacious conception of soci-
ETY.. But it is worthy of note that
they took the same means which have
been recognized and employed for
the past century by the very type of
civilization they are vainly attempt
ing to displace.
Where they are registering CO.
lossal failure with their plan to
mould the next generation in the
likeness of the communistic system
of which they have dreamed (but
now appear to be abandoning in all
haste), we and all other govern
ments, races, societies and nations,
are to a startling extent different
from them in degree only.
Since the republican form of adj
ministration under which we have
operated for 144 years is predicated
upon a higher than average intelli-
gence among the rank and file of cit
izenship we have had free public
schools throughout the entire dura-
ton of our national entity.
But in the modern state and un-
der the conditions of life which pre-
vail in this hectic Twentieth Gen.
fury the education of the child be-
comes but one of the many influ-
ences which determine the value of
the mature man to the citizen at
large and his attitude toward the
body polite which has nurtured him
and of which he forms part. With
respect to recognition of this prin-
ciple many communities within our
national borders are as blind as are
the fanatics who are destroying Rus
STA.
What shall it avail you if you have
whetted the intelligence of our youth
to an edge of rare sharpness, but
left undone the things needed to
build up moral fibre? OF what ben
eft will it be to heighten the per-
ceptions of soul, but to leave that
soul imprisoned in body rendered
permanently unfit for normally eff
cient functioning through neglect in
childhood?
This same question has been asked,
and is daily being demanded by an
ever-increasing array of agencies,
charitable, governmental. official AMI
quasi public. Therein lies the in
dications that our American type of
civilization has long and sturdy
life looming before it.
But unfortunately only part of
our population is hearing the query
or cropping for the answer-and per-
haps it is not the part which needs
a freshened viewpoint the worst.
1t may be that there is something
about huge aggregation of human
beings living, working and thinking
together which quickens and stimu-
lates normal thought processes. l.
may be that being thrown for the
whole length of their life into What
is virtually human laboratory they
learn to emulate mere shrewdly the
variable equation Of man and his
life. Whatever the reason, however.
the fact remains that in nearly ev-
cry city of any size throughout the
United States-not necessarily wise,
but some steps are being taken to
solve this ill-defned problem. In the
small town and rural field, where life |
is still intensely individual, it is not |
even realized nor admitted that there |
is any problem requiring solution
AS result the city is now con-
ceded by some to be a better place |
in which to raise child than is the !
country, with its many natural adj
vantages of free woodland and mead