It is well to bear in mind when considering the question of the Have-To-Be or Need-Not-Be classes that concrete society has to care for them in one form or another anyhow, whether they work or whether they are idle or steal. They bring nothing with them and must live off the land. If they do not work they live off the workers. In infancy, the cost of caring for them in a manner supplementary only to home care is very little, but the profit of that care increases in value in geometrical ratio as does also the cost of the neglect of right training.
And also, in answer to a question often asked by those who are not informed about kindergarten efficiency, relative to securing the willingness of parents to accept outside care for their children: The question of voluntary or compulsory compliance on the part of parents or children need not be feared during the earliest character-forming age, for until the child is old enough to earn money no selfish objection can be offered, and the greater the need, as stated elsewhere, the more easy is the compliance accorded. As this is the period of present neglect, as well as the time when all students of child-life agree that the character of the adult is moulded, the vexing question of parental control need not be raised.
The duty of social quarantine is to seek out the children of the greatest need first and work back through the strata of misfortune to those of fortune, in the same way that a process of cleansing should first use a shovel, then a broom, and finally a wash rag and a polishing cloth.
The habit-of-thought of a community aiming at quarantine efficiency will become impregnated with the idea that there Must-Not-Be unwholesome units in their midst as soon as it has been delivered of the evil suggestion of the necessity of a Have-To-Be-Bad class, for it is wonderful what the mere change of a point of view will effect.
On the question of the virtue, or merit, of Strict Social Quarantine, there seems to be no difference of opinion about the desirability of the aim, and the efficacy of available means to accomplish it has already been established.
We have heard it said that the kindergarten method is splendidly adapted to the children of the poor but not to the children of the rich in America, because rich children are petted beyond endurance, and have toys in such lavish abundance, that even instructive amusements and wholesome care are but a burden when added to home superfluities. This may easily be so, as there is a point of surfeit in everything, even in the best of nourishment, but it is proof of the wisdom of a wider distribution of the effort so as to really nourish instead of causing a surfeit of care.
It is not the rich and the strong and the healthy that need the direct care of social quarantine, but its rescues from among the presently neglected and warped defenseless ones would create a wave of average improvement of ideals that would be felt in the most luxurious homes to the benefit of the pampered possessors of fortune's birth prizes.
At the present moment, the summer of 1898, there rests in the custody of the mayor of Chicago, Hon. Carter H. Harrison, 2nd, a report of a special commission appointed by him to recommend changes in the educational methods of the city of Chicago and the county of Cook, that are intended to bring them up to the level of the highest ideals. Among the recommendations it is advised that an ample kindergarten shall be attached to every school, and that there shall always be school facilities so that every child of school age shall have a seat at his disposal. The recommendations relative to the higher branches of education do not concern our present argument, but the suggestion relative to extending kindergarten facilities is of the greatest importance.
The mayor and a majority of the aldermen are believed to hold the welfare of the community they govern in earnest care, so that it is a good time to strengthen their hands to do the best and completest thing in the way of reform while changes are being made, and to insist on nothing less than Strict Social Quarantine to protect all the children of tender ages in order that the work of reform may begin now, at the root, and insure a generation of eager students and workers to use the splendid facilities, already supplied, when they arrive at school age.
It is not necessary to wait for the construction of fine buildings, and there will be ready for any need a competent army, if required, to take up the work of training.[2]