Evening star., 1937-02-25
Neighbor's
Child Must
BeAccepted
Young sters Should
Learn to Get Along
With Other People.
BY ANGELO PATRI.

7 NEVER hear a mother complain
about the bad children of the
neighborhood, who influence hers to
no good, without thinking about the
young teacher, substituting for an ex-
perienced and able teacher who was
Ill. Shortly after she had taken
charge of the room she came to my
office.
will you please come upstairs and
make these children behave? If you
make them behave I can teach them.
but can't teach if they don't behave.
1t would have been cruel to have
sent her back with the cold state
ment that the other teacher could
make them behave and teach them
at the same time Only time and ex-
perience would bring that understand
ing which would enable her to teach
SO that the children had no other
thought than to learn.
Many young mother says, i
can bring up my child perfectly. He
Is clean and obedient and good as
gold until he gets with the neighbor's
child, and then he is just as AWFUL
as he is. I can't keep him in all
the time. What am I to do?" 1t Is
the old cry: Make them behave and
I can do my work.
The fact is that each child IS q
neighbors child. Each mother can
make her child behave like paragon
when she is alone with him. Just
as soon as he gets with the other
children he reverts to type. He is
what he truly is, jolly little savage
without manners or morals. He loves
the earth. water and sky. is part OF
them. He shouts and jumps and rolls
over in the mud, lays about him with
right good will when occasion rises.
and puts up sturdy fight when his
mother calls him home where she can
keep an eye on him. Where he can
be safe from the influence of that
child next door. The other mothers
feel the same way.
It would be too bad If child had
to grow in the artificial atmosphere
of the protected, grown-up home. That
Is not his environment. He belongs
outdoors, playing hard with his own
kind, learning to take as well as to
give, getting rid of outworn growth In
crude gestures and with loud noises.
He needs these earthly contacts. He
needs these associations with his own
lot of wildings. No harm will come
of it. only good. As long as q child
Is In good health, has q good home.
intelligent training, he will grow IN
the right way.
Righteousness is not the peculiar
possession Of any one neighbor. 1t
Is quality possessed to some degree
by every decent human being. The
expressions of it vary. but funda-
mentals stick The mother down the
street, the one next door, believe they
have right on their side and act on
it. They are as earnest about rearing
their children as any other mother.
There are neighbors, not Just
neighbor. Every family counts, ana
few are so bad that association with
their children will injure others.
It is natural for us all to have
certain pet ideas. Sometimes We eIc-
vate them to a religion It is then
that we are shocked by the behavior
of the neighbor's children. It diners
50 from our own ideas that 1t must
be wrong. Usually it is only different.
In any case, it must be accepted as
condition in which the child nnds
himself and to which he must ad-
lust himself. Living with other people
on the basis of common acceptance
of each others peculiarities is the
essence of all living. Sterilized life
is impossible on this earth. It would
be folly to equip a child for anything
but the earthly existence he is to lead.
We. too. are neighbors, to other
folk.