“With a little music, plenty of pictures, and a speaker with a hearty, ringing voice, I think there can be no question of winning attention among these foreigners. After that, classes and clubs for reading and discussion would easily follow.
“I have spoken of two sections, the students and the teachers; the third might comprise those who could give neither work nor study, but who would give money. This money might go to any one of a dozen fields of work which the organization would help support.
“Each donor could specify the purpose for which he gives his money, whether it be temperance-reform work, free kindergartens, industrial schools, payment for detection and prosecution of law-breakers, or general running expenses. You can readily see that although there may be much voluntary, unpaid service, there will be great need of more money than I have promised to contribute.
“The fourth class would be one of the most important, comprising chiefly the solid business men and practical, public-spirited women, such as I have found here in your remarkably live Woman’s Club and other organizations. These men and women would attend to such practical work as is done by our Law and Order Leagues in the different states, supplementing the often inefficient police service, and persistently insisting that the existing laws shall be enforced.
“This branch of the work alone would require more than one paid agent. Another line of work for this fourth class of good citizens would be an organized and ever-increasing vigilance in regard to the work of the city’s servants, and the creation of a strong public sentiment which shall demand a purer, cleaner press and a suppression of the vile literature which is poisoning the imagination of thousands of our youth.
“This class of workers would be the active agents of all reforms, and unwavering in their efforts to make the primary meetings places where the moral force and the intelligence of the city shall be most powerfully felt.
“Let me illustrate what I mean in speaking of the kinds of work which this fourth class of workers can do to promote good citizenship. The successful courses of lectures on history to young people under the auspices of the
COMMERCIAL CLUB
which have been carried on here is just the kind of work which needs to be done. The prizes for essays on historical subjects offered to the school-children by the ‘Daily News’ is another good thing. The courses of lectures by workmen and capitalists under the auspices of the Ethical Culture Society is just the kind of work which I should like to see multiplied a hundredfold.
“All existing organizations for promoting the welfare of the community can unite in this large organization without abandoning their own methods and field of work.