Municipal government -- United States; Peace; Political participation -- United States; Social justice; Working class -- United States
usual question as to what the Constitution of the United States was,
replied: “The Illinois Central.” His mind naturally turned to his
work, to the one bit of contribution he had genuinely made to the new
country, and his reply might well offer a valuable suggestion to the
student of educational method. Some of our most advanced schools are
even now making industrial construction and evolution a natural basis
for all future acquisition of knowledge, and they claim that anything
less vital and creative is inadequate.
It is surprising how a simple experience, if it be but genuine, gives
an opening into citizenship altogether lacking to the more grandiose
attempts. A Greek-American, slaughtering sheep in a tenement-house
yard, reminiscent of the Homeric tradition, can be made to see the
effect of the improvised shambles on his neighbor’s health and the
right of the city to prohibit the slaughtering, only as he perceives
the development of city government upon its most modern basis.
The enforcement of adequate child labor laws offers unending
opportunity to better citizenship founded, not upon theory but on
action, as does the compulsory education law, which makes clear that
education is a matter of vital importance to the American city and to
the State which has enacted definite, well-considered legislation in
regard to it. Some of the most enthusiastic supporters of child-labor
legislation and of compulsory education laws are those parents who
sacrifice old-world tradition, as well as the much-needed earnings of
their young children, because of loyalty to the laws of their adopted
country. Certainly genuine sacrifice for the nation’s law is a good
foundation for patriotism, and as this again is not a doctrinaire
question, women are not debarred, and mothers who wash and scrub for
the meagre support of their children say, sturdily, sometimes: “It will
be a year before he can go to work without breaking the law, but we
came to this country to give the young ones a chance, and we are not
going to begin by having them do what’s not right.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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