The more we all learn about these things, the more careful will the city be to protect her people. To be sure, most cities now have Boards of Health who employ men and women to go about and see that the food in the stores is clean—no flies, no dust, and no tobacco smoke on it. They have laws, too, about keeping milk clean; and in New York alone these laws have saved the lives of thousands of babies. And they have laws about the care of streets and buildings and cars and parks and a great many other things.
In all these things we have been talking about, I want you to be thinking how you can help. For a city is made up of people—boys and girls and men and women. The city is what its people make it; and everyone must help, even the smallest children, no older than little Claude.
The first and most important thing for you to do is to keep yourself clean and tidy. And the next thing is for you to keep your back yard as well as your front yard and the school yard and the street free from papers and sticks and cans and old playthings. You can put away your things when you are through playing; or, if you are making a railroad or a town or a playhouse, you can leave it looking nice and tidy. You can help chiefly by putting away your own things. You know the old saying, “A workman is known by his chips”; and a good workman always works in an orderly way.
When you eat apples or bananas or oranges, don’t throw the skins or peelings about, but put them in a garbage can or swill bucket or cover them with soft dirt in the garden or stable yard; and don’t throw peanut shells, or scraps of paper and the like, about the streets or parks. You should begin to notice all these things and talk about them, and that will make other people begin to think about them, too.
Then you can make gardens instead of leaving bare, untidy back yards. I think that nicely kept vegetable gardens are almost as pretty as flower gardens. If you cannot mow the lawn, you can at least cut the long grass on the edges; and that makes such a difference! It is wonderful how much boys and girls can do in making and keeping a city really beautiful.
I hope that you have plenty of room to play in now. Of course, when you grow up, you will see that there are plenty of playgrounds and parks for the children. We are beginning to find out that the richest and the most beautiful city is the one whose streets are lined with families of happy, rosy-cheeked children. So, you see, the “City Beautiful” is the one that takes best care of her children, and she can do this only by keeping her streets and houses perfectly clean and seeing that the food her people get is fresh and good, and their drinking water pure. If the city or town you live in is not like this, be sure you do your very best to make it better.
WOULD YOU RATHER HAVE A BACK YARD LIKE THIS?
