Laws have been passed in the following states making humane education compulsory in the public schools: Maine, Washington, California, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Idaho, Montana, Texas, Wyoming, Pennsylvania, Utah, New Hampshire, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Alabama, Connecticut, Kentucky, and New York. Many testimonials have been received from school superintendents and teachers as to the good results obtained since humane education has been made a part of the regular school work.
As state after state is passing the law making humane education a part of the school work, some students may ask why the state is especially interested in their being taught kindness to all living creatures,—to the lower animals as well as to human beings. The teacher can mention the fact that eighty per cent of the criminal class in our jails and prisons were cruel from childhood, and that it is less expensive for the state to educate the child in humanity than to support him as a criminal. The teacher can tell the child that if it is necessary to take life, it should be done as quickly and painlessly as possible. It is cruel to inflict needless pain. Tell the child that our hearts warm toward one who is kind, while we shrink from one who is cruel.
The child should be taught to remember that no living creature is here from choice; all comes from the hand of God, and each has its special work. We must also remember that a child when cruel is morally hurt, and a moral hurt is greater than a physical one.
"We and the beasts are kin. Man has nothing that the animals have not at least a vestige of; the animals have nothing that man does not in some degree share. Since, then, the animals are creatures with wants and feelings differing in degree only from our own, they surely have their rights."—ERNEST THOMPSON SETON.