Society practically abandons its Apprentice Citizens to haphazard instruction during the most important period of character-formation, and confronts them with punishment when full-grown tendencies to idleness and evil may already have become habits.
Within the past few years organized detachments of society have essayed to offer protection on humanitarian grounds and thereby have unconsciously helped to avoid the necessity of expensive correction by placing outposts as near to the gate of birth as possible, the crèche being the outer sentinel and the kindergarten guarding one of the inner gates of entrance into life, but the full benefit of protection cannot be felt, and there is in reality no quarantine at all until no child can escape the care of these blessed institutions.
We are not pleading for an untried experiment but we are appealing for organized effort to utilize already successful and approved means to close up the last gap of neglect through which the germs of evil and discord and idleness and waste may enter, and thus derive, for a small additional cost, the tenfold benefit of complete over partial protection. We are pleading for support that shall enable us to find the waif of our story, and the only possible means of rescuing him is to "corral" all waifs in need of care. We are pleading that the conscience of our nation may not be soggy with the responsibility of one neglected, helpless one at home even while we fight in the cause of freedom abroad.
QUARANTINE
"When the old king demanded of the Spartans fifty of their children as hostages, they replied: 'We would prefer to give you a hundred of our most distinguished men.' This was but a fair testimony of the value of the child to any commonwealth and to any age. The hope of the world lies in the children. The hope of this nation lies in the little children that throng our streets to-day."—Sarah B. Cooper, before the National Conference of Charities and Correction.
QUARANTINE
Perfect protection rests only behind a strict quarantine.
It is not sufficient to bar the seaports of a country against infectious physical diseases.
The greatest need of quarantine is against germs of disorder that originate within the gates.