That Last Waif; or, Social QuarantineFletcher, Horace
History
That Last Waif; or, Social Quarantine
Fletcher, Horace
Child welfare
We wish to say further with reference to the comprehensiveness of Mr.
Van Patten's evidence, that his range of observation is, like that of
Mr. Hart, as wide as the country. His activities include both the
church and the political fields. He has twice been mayor of
Burlington, was the first president of the United Society of Christian
Endeavor, and is still a director; is president of the Congregational
Club of Western Vermont, as well as of the Kurn Hattin Farm School. He
was instrumental in establishing kindergarten work in his home city,
and also a Social Mission, where he and other Christians meet the
laboring people of the community on the basis of friendly and citizen
equality. But Mr. Van Patten's evidence and Mr. Hart's is the same as
that of all who have entered personally into the sympathies of
unfortunates, especially by the way of giving their children the means
of proper training, and they are as one in the belief that thorough
measures, which would effect a Perfect Social Quarantine, would rid
society entirely of the "hopelessly submerged" class, and sift out of
its present mass the diseased and incompetent, who should have the
care of an asylum instead of the curse of a prison.
One evil that follows in the wake of such a wicked assumption as that
carried in the idea of a Have-To-Be-Bad class is that it is not only a
loop-hole for willing indifference, but is a blinding influence cast
about those who are not willingly indifferent.
Under such a general assumption an earnest philanthropist or a
would-be altruist may pass expressions of deplorable misery, want or
neglect with doubt, if not with calm unconcern, under the belief that
they are of the Have-To-Bes, whereas, if there were even an attempt at
Perfect Social Quarantine no case of distress nor neglect could show
itself in a community without its becoming the business of everybody
to enquire why the social quarantine officers had not attended to
their business.
In this manner the professional beggar, the tramp, the Need-Not-Be,
and all that tribe of parasite humanity who prey upon the credulity of
unorganized charity would be discovered in their true light, and would
shrink out of sight or would be forced to seek useful occupation, if
it were to be had, or would then hold just title to public assistance
if no occupation were available.
It is well to bear in mind when considering the question of the
Have-To-Be or Need-Not-Be classes that concrete society has to care
for them in one form or another anyhow, whether they work or whether
they are idle or steal. They bring nothing with them and must live off
the land. If they do not work they live off the workers. In infancy,
the cost of caring for them in a manner supplementary only to home
care is very little, but the profit of that care increases in value in
geometrical ratio as does also the cost of the neglect of right
training.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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