CHAPTER VII
TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP[8]
The altruism of America is philanthropic rather than civic and in deliberate disregard of government, the average citizen of the United States has no equal. However intelligent or capable he may be, he is in the main a poor citizen. This habit of having no care for the ship of state and of seeking comfort and self-advantage, regardless of her future, is exactly the reverse of what one would expect. For by the manner of her birth and her natural genius the republic would seem to guarantee forever a high type of efficient public service.
But the capable and typical man of the church, and presumptively the man of conscience, studiously avoids the hazards of political life. It is not necessary to rehearse the well-known and deplorable results of this policy whereby the best men have generally avoided public office, especially in municipal government. Intelligence of the ills of the body politic or of the fact that it lies bruised and violated among thieves serves chiefly to divert the disgusted churchman to the other side of the road as he hastens to his destination of personal gain. Indeed it is not an uncommon thing for him to be a past master in circumventing or debauching government and in thus spreading the virus of political cynicism throughout the mass of the people.
Such a separation of church and state is hardly to be desired, and the call to political service is quite as urgent, quite as moral, and far more exacting than the perfectly just calls to foreign mission support and to the support of the great philanthropies of the day. Because of the influx of foreign peoples, the unsolved race problem, tardy economic reforms, uncertain justice, political corruption, and official mediocrity, America stands more in need of good citizenship than of generosity, more in need of statesmen than of clergymen.
No subsequent philanthropy can atone for misgovernment, and furthermore all social injustice, whether by positive act or simple neglect, tends to take toll from the defenseless classes. The more efficient extricate themselves, while the ignorant, the weak, the aged, and chiefly the little children bear the brunt of governmental folly. It is for this reason, together with the passing of materialistic standards of pomp and circumstance and the growing insistence upon human values, that the women are demanding full citizenship. And this new citizenship, including both women and men enfranchised upon the same basis, will not be without the ardor and heroism of those who in former days bore arms for the honor of their native land. For just behind the ranks are the unprotected children, the new generation whose opportunity and treatment constitutes the true measure of statesmanship.
But here as everywhere the only highway leading to that better tomorrow is thronged with little children upon whose training the issue hangs. What do the home, school, church, and community tell them as to citizenship, and, of more importance, what civic attitudes and actions are evoked?
The home, by picture and story and celebration, by the observance of birthdays, national and presidential, by the intelligent discussion of public interests, by respect for constituted authorities, by honest dealing, and by a constant exercise of public spirit as over against a selfish and detached aim, may do much to mold the boy's early civic attitude.
But most homes will do little of this, and both home and school fall short in pledging the new life to the common good and in guaranteeing to the state her just due. Frequently the home provides lavishly and at sacrifice for the comfort and even luxury of the children and exacts nothing in return. Mothers slave for sons and neglect, until it is too late, those just returns of service which make for honor and self-respect. Graft begins in the home, and it is amazing what pains we take to produce an ingrate and perforce a poor citizen.