Valparaiso High School - Valenian Yearbook (Valparaiso, IN)

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22 HIGH SCHOOL ANNUAL • playground. How much better those women can work for their employer, and how much better a community will follow such an arrangement ! Often when children are left at home they get into bad company and are influenced by low characters of the neighborhood. The establishment of playgrounds in connection with all manufactories would be a great improvement and a help to the solving of this social question. Another subject to be considered in connection with the poorer class of children is the compulsory school laws. In some states a clause is added to the usual school law. saying that if a child at fourteen has not accom- plished a certain amount of the prescribed course, he shall not go to work until he is sixteen. Now many children are detained at home to help care for younger children and to do other things which an employed mother can not do. Then, the children may be foreigners who have not learned our language very well, or they may not have the mental capacity of the average child; and so get hopelessly behind in their schooling. If they are allowed to go until sixteen in this condition, then when they are permitted to work, they have lost ambition, or are addicted to some habit contracted while they were kept from work. Do not the men who make these law ' s see that such a law is pushing children down into a level lower than that in which they were born? I)o they not realize that the lowering of children will naturally lower parents? Why, thousands of these people become criminals. But the children of the rich are also to be considered. The great majority of them attend private schools where they have everything to suit them. If they wish to study, they do so ; if they do not wish to study, they do not. In this way the best training of life is missed; they are not compelled to be regular and punctual, and in later years they can not be expected to exhibit characteristics which have never been developed. If rich men would only stop to realize that their children can not absorb the abilities by which they have become famous they would insist upon more rigid training. Now as to the middle class of boys and girls. They have neither poverty nor great riches to hinder them, but they also have problems to be solved. There is a feeling among people of moderate means that great wealth can not be accumulated honestly, and this idea causes much dissatisfaction. The idea is prevalent that if a man is very rich he is exempt from many penalties which the law imposes. It is the duty of rich men to insist upon respect for the law, and it is the duty of judges, not merely to reprimand, but to punish the wrongdoer as the law prescribes; how otherwise can young people be imbued with respect for the law of our land? It is better to neglect a child under school age than one over that age. I believe that every child in school in the United States should be personally considered by individuals appointed for that purpose. I believe that every child should receive a thorough physical examination at stated intervals, and all defects reported to his parents, who should be forced to correct them, if possible. I believe that school work should be selected which will not

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HIGH SCHOOL ANNUAL 21 Burden Bearers of Progress. DEM A TIMMONS. T HAS been said that as the age of our nation increases the social questions increase. One of the most important topics of our time is the care of the children who will in a few veal’s become the men and women of the land. But few people bother themselves with the thoughts of what will happen when the children are grown and occupy the places of their parents. It is very essential that both the old and the young people be impressed with the idea that soon the present generation will pass away and a new one will take its place. It is true that there are a few people who are thinking on the subject of preparing the children for the duties of later - life, but all people should be interested, favorable laws should be passed, and the idea of what the children have to do in the future should be constantly before us. In considering this subject, we must think of the different kinds of children — the poor, tenement class; the fortunate group, whose parents are neither rich nor poor; and the petted children of the rich. Each class has its own dangers to be guarded against. The majority of the children who are brought to the juvenile courts are children of wage-earning mothers, and the crimes, if I may say crimes, which they have committed, started with truancy. The mother can not see that her child goes to school. Young people have an inborn hatred of restraint, and it is natural that the school room should possess attractions inferior to those of out-door life. So we find children from the first step of truancy and running on the streets, falling into greater misdemeanors. I lie children whose parents are employed during the day are the ones who are most neg- lected in their bringing up. Think of those boys and girls whose mothers have gone to work before they awake! Think of the irksome responsibility placed upon them ! They must arise at a proper time, get their breakfasts and go to school. It is any wonder that many play truant in the morning and then just do not go in the afternoon? And the mother — what can she do? She is at work from morning until evening, easing the lives of more fortunate women, while her children are left with absolutely.no care. In some places efforts have been made to ameliorate these conditions. In Richmond. Va., there is a large tobacco factory where many women are employed, and in connection with this factory an extensive playground is main- tained. It is located in a pleasant situation, and to this place the mothers take their children when they go to work in the morning. Those of school age are taken to school at the proper time, while the younger ones are kept at the

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HIGH SCHOOL ANNUAL 23 interfere with a child’s growth. Many children lose their vitality by pushing in school, especially in the seventh and eighth grades. I believe that a good system of hygiene should be a part of the instruction in schools and health laws should be enforced. And how about our young men who are above school age, the frequenters of pool rooms, bowling alleys and other places of questionable amusement? Many boys spend all their leisure time in these resorts. True, there is a law saying that minors shall not be allowed in such places, but the law is not enforced. In these dens young men associate with all kinds of evil charac- ters, and I venture to say that many who are on the downward path received a push in that direction from just such companions. Now, it is the duty of voters to right these wrongs, to change existing conditions, to throw all possible safeguards about the youth of our nation, and it is my hope that the day will come when there will be no difficulties to prevent any child growing up an honorable, industrious, God-fearing man or woman.