We then remembered the example of the kindergarten system of the city of Rotterdam, in Holland, that we had examined at the invitation of the President of the Board of Education of that city. Protection was practically assured to all children by a cordon of thirty large character-building schools, which they also call by the name of kindergarten, where not only habit-forming instruction, but milk and cakes necessary to supplement any lack of nourishment at home, were supplied freely at a cost of only eighteen cents per week for each child to the treasury of the school fund.
An interesting feature of the Rotterdam example is that if parents prefer not to have their children receive free nourishment they are privileged to pay the cost to the teacher in charge of each school, to be refunded to the city. Nine-tenths of the parents voluntarily make the payment rather than be considered too poor or too indifferent to do so.
We remembered the example of thirty-four States of the United States in passing child-saving laws, leading naturally to child-protection, and also the experience of the New Orleans combined associations in establishing, within a year, five free kindergartens in conjunction with the Charity Organization Society, and the unanimous support that their plans of reform had received at the hands of both municipal councillors and a constitutional convention. Why might not all cities be as progressive as the Dutch city across the ocean, and why might not all municipal councillors and the state legislators emulate the example of the most progressive, when character of Apprentice Citizen was at stake? Why might not the people who accomplished the World's Columbian Exposition, the World's Parliament of Religions, and who spend eight millions of money annually—forty dollars for each pupil—on higher education, set the world a new example, by establishing such perfect social quarantine that no child could suffer the neglect that is a present reproach to civilization?
We learned, in our inquiry as to conditions prevailing in Chicago, that many kindergartens were already in existence, under the support of both the Board of Education and that of missions and private individuals, and also that the several College Settlements and Social Settlements in slums that we visited were attempting to accomplish the redemption and care of the young, but the efforts were only partial and the progress was slow. They might not, and probably would not, reach our lost waif and hundreds of his kind. How would it be possible to draw a net around all of them so as to include this and every last one of them? How could a perfect quarantine be established so that the wall of protection should be complete? These seemed to be the questions of burning importance. A desire to excite coöperation for the purpose of answering these questions affirmatively and quickly so as to reach our waif and the last of the others is the inspiring motive of this appeal and argument.
THE MENACE OF THE HAVE-TO-BE
"The foundations for national prosperity and perpetuity are to be laid deep down in our infant schools. And the infant school, to be most successful, must be organized and carried forward on the kindergarten plan. The kindergarten has rightly been termed the 'Paradise of Childhood.' It is the gate through which many a little outcast has re-entered Eden."—Sarah B. Cooper, before the National Conference of Charities and Correction.
THE MENACE OF THE HAVE-TO-BE
What are the Have-To-Be?
In England and America they are the neglected or unfortunate members of communities who have been condemned by evil chance to be classified in the social category as "The hopelessly submerged ten per cent. stratum of society," mentioned elsewhere in this appeal, and, of late, frequently referred to under that cruel classification in order to ease the conscience of society as to their presence in its midst.
We are not sure of the origin of the phrase, but have been told that it is used by the Salvation Army to excite sympathy for the "submerged" and to elicit support for the army of rescue.