All children are the innocent and helpless guests of the nation to which they are born, subject to the chance of haphazard parentage, without their own volition of choice, and are the victims of whatever conditions are provided in advance for them.
The neglect of the most intelligent hospitality known to the Science of Child-Life is the especial reproach of every citizen who has a vote, a voice, a dollar or any influence whatsoever in the management of the national affairs, and the reproach is not mitigated by any possible excuse as long as one of these helpless guests is denied every facility for developing his God-given faculties or equipment which he brings to us for cultivation.
This is the indictment on the score of duty. That on the score of economy is as strong, but duty should be a sufficient inspiration in the midst of a holy foreign war in which there is little prospect of reward except the honor of having championed a righteous cause.
How is the indictment met by facts?
The single case of the waif of our story, the waif of our especial plea, and the thousands of others of his deplorable condition, as well as the millions that are influenced unfavorably by the neglect that makes him and his fellow victims possible, is the answer on behalf of Chicago and other American and English cities where similar conditions prevail.
But this one alone is, or should be, a stab to the conscience of every citizen.
What is the merit of the Cuban, or any foreign cause, compared with the moral influence of an army of neglected waifs at home?
THE COST.
There is no present excuse for neglect of our Apprentice Citizens and helpless guests on account of cost or inability to reach them with effective methods of character-building. The success of the kindergarten system, when in the hands of trained teachers who analyze the hereditary equipment of their children and cultivate them accordingly, indicates a means for the latter and has proven the cost to be insignificant in comparison with other branches of government or education.
That it should be considered the most important branch of government we reiterate because it actually is the nursery of good citizenship.