HOME AND EDUCATION
Hunt, Caroline L. & Follette, Belle Case La
HOME AND EDUCATION The home Is the real seat of government, and the Wise Men of all nations bring their gifts to the cradle. Conducted by BELLE CASE LA FOLLETTE and CAROLINE L. HUNT "The Least of...
...Against this philosophy, how unenlightened seems our legal attempt to prevent crime and reform criminals by measuring out to those who are caught, exact punishment by imprisonment, so many days, years or months, as fixed by statutory law...
...Let me thank you for your expressed interest in myself...
...And I think we understand Him...
...I tell them I am as low as they are—and that's true...
...Christ must have been divine, because being pure he understood my kind of people...
...Often they would rebel and curse, but most of them have had mothers or some one who was that way with them, and they remember it...
...Their friend cannot be a superior person...
...And it is for these people that Mr...
...Seven-year-old Tony lived in one room with her father who was a rag picker when he was sufficiently sober, her aged grandmother, her baby brother and the goat...
...Omitting the address, the first letter reads: Aug...
...After he finished his quiet simple telling of the story, we were all silent for a few moments—I was glad the children had heard it—and, when we spoke, I do not remember that any of us tried to tell what we thought of it—we were too deeply moved to analyze our conclusion...
...Her mother being dead, she did the housework or shall we say the one-room work, prepared the food, waited on the grandmother, tended the baby, made her own clothing which consisted exclusively of straight one-piece dresses hanging from the shoulders, and disciplined the goat...
...As the prisoners were released from jail Bailey helped them organize...
...To this the child indignantly replied, "Why should I give my old clothes to Tony...
...The little ranch has a substantial house and farm buildings upon it and is rented to a happy little family...
...He got an appointment as a night guard and was promoted to be under-jailer...
...It was his policy to leave the doors open, but "something" kept the prisoners there...
...Conducted by BELLE CASE LA FOLLETTE and CAROLINE L. HUNT "The Least of These" A LITTLE brown covered book came in the mail a few days ago...
...Bulletin, Chicago Board of Health...
...it tames them, said Bailey...
...One day the mother of one of the pupils, the wife of a prominent member of the University of Chicago faculty, thinking that the auspicious moment had arrived for giving her daughter a lesson in her duty to "the other half," asked her if she would not like to get together some of her old clothes to give to Tony...
...I was sure it would be a great pleasure to comply with that request, but when I try to put in words my opinion of the story it is not easy...
...It appears that the women of Seattle used their recently-won ballot to get rid of a mayor who had not invoked "the rigors of the law in stamping out vice" yet who, on the recall vote, "won in the down-town districts by large margins...
...The plan grew until the city took cognizance of it...
...Steffens read it to the family from manuscript...
...When they had slept a clean sleep he would search their minds for some interest and would teach them, in the informal school which he had created, anything they might want to learn —electricity, geography, plumbing, the Bible...
...Seven months after it was published Bailey saw it and wrote Mr...
...We do not know the character of the voting population of the down-town districts of Seattle but it is fair to suppose that it is to that city what the denizens of Hinky Dink's ward are to Chicago...
...Could not help but recognize Bailey and the Director...
...Steffens, who at first protested of its necessity...
...6, '09...
...but, you see, there is nobody can help me...
...It will clear your brain and redden your blood And bring you more vigor and health by far Than you can possibly get in any old car...
...If this is true, and if the women of Seattle really did oust a mayor who was in favor in those districts, it would seem as if there could be no more profitable industry for the American people than the domestication of the recall and other wild insurgent policies...
...It was then that conditions in the family became known to Hull House...
...He cannot be better than they or he couldn't stand it, and they couldn't either...
...In the course of time the baby died and soon afterwards the grandmother...
...In reply to your questions I can only say that when being obliged to give up the work in my one wish seemed to be—just a little spot in the hills alone—I did not want to see trouble or hear about it—I did not want storm or snow—I wanted flowers, the bird's song— the open and time to think—California seemed the place.— Have purchased a little ten acre piece of land in the foothills of Co...
...Not so Unobservant After All A TEACHER of English, in order to disprove the charge that high school pupils know little about the really vital things that are going on around them, gave a test in which she asked for definitions of such terms as: tariff, reciprocity, the labor problem...
...For it was a mistake, Bailey said, to try and teach them what WE thought they should know...
...A walk of a mile in the open air Will save you more than your nickel fare, For in God's out-doors the air is good...
...I am the least of these...
...That is the very time to have it by...
...Female supremacy in a town like Seattle is calculated to domesticate insurgency in its worst form...
...and that after he or I or you shall have fought our last fight, even though we lose it, even then there will still be hope, and faith and love to give...
...Bailey replied as follows: Sept...
...Steffens answered, asking the questions "children ask" when they read the story...
...Your article in Everybody's for January current year, has just come to my attention by chance...
...But Tony excited interest among parents as well as among children...
...never...
...Steffens says that if he were writing a fiction instead of a fact story he might polish these two sunny letters into a happy ending...
...In the paper of a fifteen-year-old she found this: "The labor problem is how to keep the working people happy without paying them enough to live on...
...He will have other battles to fight and, even if he wins them all, there will be other fellows with battles to win...
...When Mr...
...My dear friend— Your generous favor of the 3rd at hand.—I had not expected a reply, hence it could not seem slow...
...Nothing about himself, but he signed his right name and gave his address...
...After the story was published in Everybody's in January, 1909, the author received many letters from "good people," complaining that they could not see any "good" in the story...
...But a fact never ends...
...The residents found Tony making a black dress after her own simple design...
...The Domestication of Insurgency ONE WOULD BE almost willing to take the responsibility for that editorial entitled "Women Oust a Mayor" which appeared recently in the Washington Post if he could claim the credit of having coined the term, "the domestication of insurgency...
...Taking a cue from this, the mother asked, "Where does Tony live...
...Steffens says the book is made and he would not have any man leave the book behind just because he was going to break into a house at night, or get drunk, or preach half the truth, or write a lie, or employ little children, or sell bad goods, or accept, or even offer a bribe...
...And it would be interesting to know how great a revision of ethical standards the reading of "The Least of These" has caused...
...Published by the Hillacre Bookhouse, Riverside, Conn...
...Steffens is too great an artist to separate the moral of his story from human interest in the hero, and two letters which are reproduced verbatim will have strong dramatic appeal to all who read the story when it appeared in the magazine...
...At that school where the pupils were chiefly the sons and daughters of wealthy South Side residents she speedily became a general favorite owing to her versatility, her resourcefulness and her accomplishments, which included the ability to dance the tarantelle and other Italian peasant dances with a grace that had been born of her former comparative freedom from the trammels of clothing and an endurance to which the encounters with the goat had probably contributed...
...Bailey had been a mission worker...
...He built so well that his work went on after he was gone...
...Dear Friend— I think I may—for you have been my friend on occasion...
...In a nice house over on the West Side somewhere...
...Oh, I s'pose he's a professor in some university over there," this being the profession to which fathers seemed to be addicted...
...Sick souls like sick stomachs must be fed anything they can keep down...
...The Post goes on to say, "In the resident districts the sufiragettes rolled up preponderating majorities...
...Why, he said that unless ye do it unto the least of these ye do it not unto me...
...And so the child was allowed to wander a little longer in that blessed land upon which the sense of "differences" has never dawned...
...Yours sincerely, That was all...
...For," Mr...
...And it was true...
...Before it was published Mr...
...The towering strength of the Sierras and the sunshine have been a tempermental tonic and done me a world of good—I believe the final battle fought and won...
...They agreed that the first to get honest work should divide with the others...
...Year by year the school developed and the home for discharged prisoners grew under Bailey's direction...
...Two years have here been spent in grubbing and clearing the land.—It is now in producing crops...
...Steffens, as he says in the dedication (you must all read that dedication), because he thought the gospel of the least of these was 1909 years old when he reported this example of it...
...15, 1909...
...Steffens says, "the comforting truth Bailey has brought to book, is that there will be hope for us, even after we have done the wrong we are planning presently to do...
...Let me thank you for the article, the "heart" in the story, the help and courage it will give to many and for understanding Bailey—a little...
...She does not need them...
...It was— THE LEAST OF THESE A Fact Story by Lincoln Steffens A loose leaf says: The publisher would appreciate an expression of your opinion of this book...
...This surprised Mr...
...nor the battles of life...
...Palmer Lucas...
...She's rich...
...Am with a good real estate concern and doing well, but the existence is so selfish that I am not satisfied—am longing to be of service and am hoping, that some day I may be of use again...
...She explained that she had not put on mourning for the baby "because of course he has gone straight to heaven but with an older person you never can tell...
...No man knows that better than Bailey...
...Four months ago I came to the city and am in touch with the throbbing world again...
...This last household task, which was performed by holding the goat's head under the pump with one hand and pumping water on it with the other, was attended by serious difficulties owing to the size of the animal and the goatishness of his behavior, but it was never neglected...
...A house was hired which Bailey looked upon as a home for them to come to, and wherever these fallen men went Bailey would follow them with letters of advice and encouragement...
...The Least of These," by Lincoln Steffens...
...Tony was taken to live temporarily at Hull House, pending the final settlement of her case and went every day to the famous Dewey School in charge of one of the teachers who lived at the Settlement...
...He met the prisoners as friends, on the level, man to man, no matter how loathsome the task he would clean them of filth and vermin, bathe them, dress their sores, clothe them, make them comfortable, put them to bed...
...Steffens thanking him...
...No one but Bailey could have put up with the disappointments and discouragements of that organization, but Bailey's patience was unfailing...
...But some of the "bad people," those who know they are sinners, wrote him that the story "comforted them," that they "loved it," and had "cut it out to keep...
...Bailey's final battle isn't fought and won...
...Yours very sincerely, Mr...
...Steffens pressed Bailey for an explanation of his power, he answered...
...Natural Democracy THOSE OF US who are dissatisfied with our own self-conscious democracy often look with envy upon the children who accept each other unquestioningly...
...For Bailey was discharged for cause,—cause which convinced Mr...
...you, I, Bailey...
...That's why I can help them as no other can...
...But since then whenever the intolerant and uncharitable spirit of "good people" toward "bad people" has found expression in our little circle, we have chided each other—and quite as often our own inner conscience—with, "Remember Bailey...
...What does her father do...
...We would even suggest that the Woman's Journal substitute for its motto, "Devoted to Winning Suffrage for Women" the more modern watchword, "Devoted to the Domestication of Insurgency...
...To bring home to the fathers of the neighborhood a sense of responsibility for the health of their children is the next step in the complete education of the mothers.—Dr...
Vol. 3 • February 1911 • No. 7
