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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/16221-8.txt b/16221-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..45e438e --- /dev/null +++ b/16221-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3086 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets, by Jane Addams + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets + +Author: Jane Addams + +Release Date: July 6, 2005 [EBook #16221] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH AND THE *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Diane Monico, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + + + + +THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH AND +THE CITY STREETS + + + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS +ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO + +MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED +LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA +MELBOURNE + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +OF CANADA, LIMITED +TORONTO + + + + +THE +SPIRIT OF YOUTH +AND THE CITY STREETS + +_By_ +JANE ADDAMS + +HULL HOUSE, CHICAGO + +_Author of Democracy and Social Ethics +Newer Ideals of Peace, etc._ + +New York +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +1930 + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1909, +By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. + +Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1909 + +Norwood Press: +Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. + + + + +TO MY DEAR FRIEND + +Louise de Koben Bowen + +WITH SINCERE ADMIRATION FOR HER UNDERSTANDING OF THE NEEDS OF CITY +CHILDREN AND WITH WARM APPRECIATION OF HER SERVICE AS PRESIDENT OF THE +JUVENILE PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION OF CHICAGO + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I + +Youth in the City 3 + +CHAPTER II + +The Wrecked Foundations of Domesticity 25 + +CHAPTER III + +The Quest for Adventure 51 + +CHAPTER IV + +The House of Dreams 75 + +CHAPTER V + +The Spirit of Youth and Industry 107 + +CHAPTER VI + +The Thirst for Righteousness 139 + + + + +FOREWORD + + +Much of the material in the following pages has appeared in current +publications. It is here presented in book form in the hope that it +may prove of value to those groups of people who in many cities are +making a gallant effort to minimize the dangers which surround young +people and to provide them with opportunities for recreation. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +YOUTH IN THE CITY + + +Nothing is more certain than that each generation longs for a +reassurance as to the value and charm of life, and is secretly afraid +lest it lose its sense of the youth of the earth. This is doubtless +one reason why it so passionately cherishes its poets and artists who +have been able to explore for themselves and to reveal to others the +perpetual springs of life's self-renewal. + +And yet the average man cannot obtain this desired reassurance through +literature, nor yet through glimpses of earth and sky. It can come to +him only through the chance embodiment of joy and youth which life +itself may throw in his way. It is doubtless true that for the mass of +men the message is never so unchallenged and so invincible as when +embodied in youth itself. One generation after another has depended +upon its young to equip it with gaiety and enthusiasm, to persuade it +that living is a pleasure, until men everywhere have anxiously +provided channels through which this wine of life might flow, and be +preserved for their delight. The classical city promoted play with +careful solicitude, building the theater and stadium as it built the +market place and the temple. The Greeks held their games so integral a +part of religion and patriotism that they came to expect from their +poets the highest utterances at the very moments when the sense of +pleasure released the national life. In the medieval city the knights +held their tourneys, the guilds their pageants, the people their +dances, and the church made festival for its most cherished saints +with gay street processions, and presented a drama in which no less a +theme than the history of creation became a matter of thrilling +interest. Only in the modern city have men concluded that it is no +longer necessary for the municipality to provide for the insatiable +desire for play. In so far as they have acted upon this conclusion, +they have entered upon a most difficult and dangerous experiment; and +this at the very moment when the city has become distinctly +industrial, and daily labor is continually more monotonous and +subdivided. We forget how new the modern city is, and how short the +span of time in which we have assumed that we can eliminate public +provision for recreation. + +A further difficulty lies in the fact that this industrialism has +gathered together multitudes of eager young creatures from all +quarters of the earth as a labor supply for the countless factories +and workshops, upon which the present industrial city is based. Never +before in civilization have such numbers of young girls been suddenly +released from the protection of the home and permitted to walk +unattended upon city streets and to work under alien roofs; for the +first time they are being prized more for their labor power than for +their innocence, their tender beauty, their ephemeral gaiety. Society +cares more for the products they manufacture than for their immemorial +ability to reaffirm the charm of existence. Never before have such +numbers of young boys earned money independently of the family life, +and felt themselves free to spend it as they choose in the midst of +vice deliberately disguised as pleasure. + +This stupid experiment of organizing work and failing to organize play +has, of course, brought about a fine revenge. The love of pleasure +will not be denied, and when it has turned into all sorts of malignant +and vicious appetites, then we, the middle aged, grow quite distracted +and resort to all sorts of restrictive measures. We even try to dam up +the sweet fountain itself because we are affrighted by these neglected +streams; but almost worse than the restrictive measures is our +apparent belief that the city itself has no obligation in the matter, +an assumption upon which the modern city turns over to commercialism +practically all the provisions for public recreation. + +Quite as one set of men has organized the young people into industrial +enterprises in order to profit from their toil, so another set of men +and also of women, I am sorry to say, have entered the neglected field +of recreation and have organized enterprises which make profit out of +this invincible love of pleasure. + +In every city arise so-called "places"--"gin-palaces," they are +called in fiction; in Chicago we euphemistically say merely +"places,"--in which alcohol is dispensed, not to allay thirst, but, +ostensibly to stimulate gaiety, it is sold really in order to empty +pockets. Huge dance halls are opened to which hundreds of young people +are attracted, many of whom stand wistfully outside a roped circle, +for it requires five cents to procure within it for five minutes the +sense of allurement and intoxication which is sold in lieu of innocent +pleasure. These coarse and illicit merrymakings remind one of the +unrestrained jollities of Restoration London, and they are indeed +their direct descendants, properly commercialized, still confusing joy +with lust, and gaiety with debauchery. Since the soldiers of Cromwell +shut up the people's playhouses and destroyed their pleasure fields, +the Anglo-Saxon city has turned over the provision for public +recreation to the most evil-minded and the most unscrupulous members +of the community. We see thousands of girls walking up and down the +streets on a pleasant evening with no chance to catch a sight of +pleasure even through a lighted window, save as these lurid places +provide it. Apparently the modern city sees in these girls only two +possibilities, both of them commercial: first, a chance to utilize by +day their new and tender labor power in its factories and shops, and +then another chance in the evening to extract from them their petty +wages by pandering to their love of pleasure. + +As these overworked girls stream along the street, the rest of us see +only the self-conscious walk, the giggling speech, the preposterous +clothing. And yet through the huge hat, with its wilderness of +bedraggled feathers, the girl announces to the world that she is here. +She demands attention to the fact of her existence, she states that +she is ready to live, to take her place in the world. The most +precious moment in human development is the young creature's assertion +that he is unlike any other human being, and has an individual +contribution to make to the world. The variation from the established +type is at the root of all change, the only possible basis for +progress, all that keeps life from growing unprofitably stale and +repetitious. + +Is it only the artists who really see these young creatures as they +are--the artists who are themselves endowed with immortal youth? Is it +our disregard of the artist's message which makes us so blind and so +stupid, or are we so under the influence of our _Zeitgeist_ that we +can detect only commercial values in the young as well as in the old? +It is as if our eyes were holden to the mystic beauty, the redemptive +joy, the civic pride which these multitudes of young people might +supply to our dingy towns. + +The young creatures themselves piteously look all about them in order +to find an adequate means of expression for their most precious +message: One day a serious young man came to Hull-House with his +pretty young sister who, he explained, wanted to go somewhere every +single evening, "although she could only give the flimsy excuse that +the flat was too little and too stuffy to stay in." In the difficult +rôle of elder brother, he had done his best, stating that he had taken +her "to all the missions in the neighborhood, that she had had a +chance to listen to some awful good sermons and to some elegant hymns, +but that some way she did not seem to care for the society of the best +Christian people." The little sister reddened painfully under this +cruel indictment and could offer no word of excuse, but a curious +thing happened to me. Perhaps it was the phrase "the best Christian +people," perhaps it was the delicate color of her flushing cheeks and +her swimming eyes, but certain it is, that instantly and vividly there +appeared to my mind the delicately tinted piece of wall in a Roman +catacomb where the early Christians, through a dozen devices of spring +flowers, skipping lambs and a shepherd tenderly guiding the young, had +indelibly written down that the Christian message is one of +inexpressible joy. Who is responsible for forgetting this message +delivered by the "best Christian people" two thousand years ago? Who +is to blame that the lambs, the little ewe lambs, have been so caught +upon the brambles? + +But quite as the modern city wastes this most valuable moment in the +life of the girl, and drives into all sorts of absurd and obscure +expressions her love and yearning towards the world in which she +forecasts her destiny, so it often drives the boy into gambling and +drinking in order to find his adventure. + +Of Lincoln's enlistment of two and a half million soldiers, a very +large number were under twenty-one, some of them under eighteen, and +still others were mere children under fifteen. Even in those stirring +times when patriotism and high resolve were at the flood, no one +responded as did "the boys," and the great soul who yearned over them, +who refused to shoot the sentinels who slept the sleep of childhood, +knew, as no one else knew, the precious glowing stuff of which his +army was made. But what of the millions of boys who are now searching +for adventurous action, longing to fulfil the same high purpose? + +One of the most pathetic sights in the public dance halls of Chicago +is the number of young men, obviously honest young fellows from the +country, who stand about vainly hoping to make the acquaintance of +some "nice girl." They look eagerly up and down the rows of girls, +many of whom are drawn to the hall by the same keen desire for +pleasure and social intercourse which the lonely young men themselves +feel. + +One Sunday night at twelve o'clock I had occasion to go into a large +public dance hall. As I was standing by the rail looking for the girl +I had come to find, a young man approached me and quite simply asked +me to introduce him to some "nice girl," saying that he did not know +any one there. On my replying that a public dance hall was not the +best place in which to look for a nice girl, he said: "But I don't +know any other place where there is a chance to meet any kind of a +girl. I'm awfully lonesome since I came to Chicago." And then he added +rather defiantly: "Some nice girls do come here! It's one of the best +halls in town." He was voicing the "bitter loneliness" that many city +men remember to have experienced during the first years after they had +"come up to town." Occasionally the right sort of man and girl meet +each other in these dance halls and the romance with such a tawdry +beginning ends happily and respectably. But, unfortunately, mingled +with the respectable young men seeking to form the acquaintance of +young women through the only channel which is available to them, are +many young fellows of evil purpose, and among the girls who have left +their lonely boarding houses or rigid homes for a "little fling" are +likewise women who openly desire to make money from the young men whom +they meet, and back of it all is the desire to profit by the sale of +intoxicating and "doctored" drinks. + +Perhaps never before have the pleasures of the young and mature become +so definitely separated as in the modern city. The public dance halls +filled with frivolous and irresponsible young people in a feverish +search for pleasure, are but a sorry substitute for the old dances on +the village green in which all of the older people of the village +participated. Chaperonage was not then a social duty but natural and +inevitable, and the whole courtship period was guarded by the +conventions and restraint which were taken as a matter of course and +had developed through years of publicity and simple propriety. + +The only marvel is that the stupid attempt to put the fine old wine +of traditional country life into the new bottles of the modern town +does not lead to disaster oftener than it does, and that the wine so +long remains pure and sparkling. + +We cannot afford to be ungenerous to the city in which we live without +suffering the penalty which lack of fair interpretation always +entails. Let us know the modern city in its weakness and wickedness, +and then seek to rectify and purify it until it shall be free at least +from the grosser temptations which now beset the young people who are +living in its tenement houses and working in its factories. The mass +of these young people are possessed of good intentions and they are +equipped with a certain understanding of city life. This itself could +be made a most valuable social instrument toward securing innocent +recreation and better social organization. They are already serving +the city in so far as it is honeycombed with mutual benefit societies, +with "pleasure clubs," with organizations connected with churches and +factories which are filling a genuine social need. And yet the whole +apparatus for supplying pleasure is wretchedly inadequate and full of +danger to whomsoever may approach it. Who is responsible for its +inadequacy and dangers? We certainly cannot expect the fathers and +mothers who have come to the city from farms or who have emigrated +from other lands to appreciate or rectify these dangers. We cannot +expect the young people themselves to cling to conventions which are +totally unsuited to modern city conditions, nor yet to be equal to the +task of forming new conventions through which this more agglomerate +social life may express itself. Above all we cannot hope that they +will understand the emotional force which seizes them and which, when +it does not find the traditional line of domesticity, serves as a +cancer in the very tissues of society and as a disrupter of the +securest social bonds. No attempt is made to treat the manifestations +of this fundamental instinct with dignity or to give it possible +social utility. The spontaneous joy, the clamor for pleasure, the +desire of the young people to appear finer and better and altogether +more lovely than they really are, the idealization not only of each +other but of the whole earth which they regard but as a theater for +their noble exploits, the unworldly ambitions, the romantic hopes, the +make-believe world in which they live, if properly utilized, what +might they not do to make our sordid cities more beautiful, more +companionable? And yet at the present moment every city is full of +young people who are utterly bewildered and uninstructed in regard to +the basic experience which must inevitably come to them, and which has +varied, remote, and indirect expressions. + +Even those who may not agree with the authorities who claim that it is +this fundamental sex susceptibility which suffuses the world with its +deepest meaning and beauty, and furnishes the momentum towards all +art, will perhaps permit me to quote the classical expression of this +view as set forth in that ancient and wonderful conversation between +Socrates and the wise woman Diotima. Socrates asks: "What are they +doing who show all this eagerness and heat which is called love? And +what is the object they have in view? Answer me." Diotima replies: "I +will teach you. The object which they have in view is birth in beauty, +whether of body or soul.... For love, Socrates, is not as you imagine +the love of the beautiful only ... but the love of birth in beauty, +because to the mortal creature generation is a sort of eternity and +immortality." + +To emphasize the eternal aspects of love is not of course an easy +undertaking, even if we follow the clue afforded by the heart of every +generous lover. His experience at least in certain moments tends to +pull him on and out from the passion for one to an enthusiasm for that +highest beauty and excellence of which the most perfect form is but an +inadequate expression. Even the most loutish tenement-house youth +vaguely feels this, and at least at rare intervals reveals it in his +talk to his "girl." His memory unexpectedly brings hidden treasures to +the surface of consciousness and he recalls the more delicate and +tender experiences of his childhood and earlier youth. "I remember the +time when my little sister died, that I rode out to the cemetery +feeling that everybody in Chicago had moved away from the town to +make room for that kid's funeral, everything was so darned lonesome +and yet it was kind of peaceful too." Or, "I never had a chance to go +into the country when I was a kid, but I remember one day when I had +to deliver a package way out on the West Side, that I saw a flock of +sheep in Douglas Park. I had never thought that a sheep could be +anywhere but in a picture, and when I saw those big white spots on the +green grass beginning to move and to turn into sheep, I felt exactly +as if Saint Cecilia had come out of her frame over the organ and was +walking in the park." Such moments come into the life of the most +prosaic youth living in the most crowded quarters of the cities. What +do we do to encourage and to solidify those moments, to make them come +true in our dingy towns, to give them expression in forms of art? + +We not only fail in this undertaking but even debase existing forms of +art. We are informed by high authority that there is nothing in the +environment to which youth so keenly responds as to music, and yet the +streets, the vaudeville shows, the five-cent theaters are full of the +most blatant and vulgar songs. The trivial and obscene words, the +meaningless and flippant airs run through the heads of hundreds of +young people for hours at a time while they are engaged in monotonous +factory work. We totally ignore that ancient connection between music +and morals which was so long insisted upon by philosophers as well as +poets. The street music has quite broken away from all control, both +of the educator and the patriot, and we have grown singularly careless +in regard to its influence upon young people. Although we legislate +against it in saloons because of its dangerous influence there, we +constantly permit music on the street to incite that which should be +controlled, to degrade that which should be exalted, to make sensuous +that which might be lifted into the realm of the higher imagination. + +Our attitude towards music is typical of our carelessness towards all +those things which make for common joy and for the restraints of +higher civilization on the streets. It is as if our cities had not yet +developed a sense of responsibility in regard to the life of the +streets, and continually forget that recreation is stronger than +vice, and that recreation alone can stifle the lust for vice. + +Perhaps we need to take a page from the philosophy of the Greeks to +whom the world of fact was also the world of the ideal, and to whom +the realization of what ought to be, involved not the destruction of +what was, but merely its perfecting upon its own lines. To the Greeks +virtue was not a hard conformity to a law felt as alien to the natural +character, but a free expression of the inner life. To treat thus the +fundamental susceptibility of sex which now so bewilders the street +life and drives young people themselves into all sorts of +difficulties, would mean to loosen it from the things of sense and to +link it to the affairs of the imagination. It would mean to fit to +this gross and heavy stuff the wings of the mind, to scatter from it +"the clinging mud of banality and vulgarity," and to speed it on +through our city streets amid spontaneous laughter, snatches of lyric +song, the recovered forms of old dances, and the traditional rondels +of merry games. It would thus bring charm and beauty to the prosaic +city and connect it subtly with the arts of the past as well as with +the vigor and renewed life of the future. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE WRECKED FOUNDATIONS OF DOMESTICITY + + "Sense with keenest edge unused + Yet unsteel'd by scathing fire: + Lovely feet as yet unbruised + On the ways of dark desire!" + + +These words written by a poet to his young son express the longing +which has at times seized all of us, to guard youth from the mass of +difficulties which may be traced to the obscure manifestation of that +fundamental susceptibility of which we are all slow to speak and +concerning which we evade public responsibility, although it brings +its scores of victims into the police courts every morning. + +At the very outset we must bear in mind that the senses of youth are +singularly acute, and ready to respond to every vivid appeal. We know +that nature herself has sharpened the senses for her own purposes, and +is deliberately establishing a connection between them and the newly +awakened susceptibility of sex; for it is only through the outward +senses that the selection of an individual mate is made and the +instinct utilized for nature's purposes. It would seem, however, that +nature was determined that the force and constancy of the instinct +must make up for its lack of precision, and that she was totally +unconcerned that this instinct ruthlessly seized the youth at the +moment when he was least prepared to cope with it; not only because +his powers of self-control and discrimination are unequal to the task, +but because his senses are helplessly wide open to the world. These +early manifestations of the sex susceptibility are for the most part +vague and formless, and are absolutely without definition to the youth +himself. Sometimes months and years elapse before the individual mate +is selected and determined upon, and during the time when the +differentiation is not complete--and it often is not--there is of +necessity a great deal of groping and waste. + +This period of groping is complicated by the fact that the youth's +power for appreciating is far ahead of his ability for expression. +"The inner traffic fairly obstructs the outer current," and it is +nothing short of cruelty to over-stimulate his senses as does the +modern city. This period is difficult everywhere, but it seems at +times as if a great city almost deliberately increased its perils. The +newly awakened senses are appealed to by all that is gaudy and +sensual, by the flippant street music, the highly colored theater +posters, the trashy love stories, the feathered hats, the cheap +heroics of the revolvers displayed in the pawn-shop windows. This +fundamental susceptibility is thus evoked without a corresponding stir +of the higher imagination, and the result is as dangerous as possible. +We are told upon good authority that "If the imagination is retarded, +while the senses remain awake, we have a state of esthetic +insensibility,"--in other words, the senses become sodden and cannot +be lifted from the ground. It is this state of "esthetic +insensibility" into which we allow the youth to fall which is so +distressing and so unjustifiable. Sex impulse then becomes merely a +dumb and powerful instinct without in the least awakening the +imagination or the heart, nor does it overflow into neighboring fields +of consciousness. Every city contains hundreds of degenerates who have +been over-mastered and borne down by it; they fill the casual lodging +houses and the infirmaries. In many instances it has pushed men of +ability and promise to the bottom of the social scale. Warner, in his +_American Charities_, designates it as one of the steady forces making +for failure and poverty, and contends that "the inherent uncleanness +of their minds prevents many men from rising above the rank of day +laborers and finally incapacitates them even for that position." He +also suggests that the modern man has a stronger imagination than the +man of a few hundred years ago and that sensuality destroys him the +more rapidly. + +It is difficult to state how much evil and distress might be averted +if the imagination were utilized in its higher capacities through the +historic paths. An English moralist has lately asserted that "much of +the evil of the time may be traced to outraged imagination. It is the +strongest quality of the brain and it is starved. Children, from +their earliest years, are hedged in with facts; they are not trained +to use their minds on the unseen." + +In failing to diffuse and utilize this fundamental instinct of sex +through the imagination, we not only inadvertently foster vice and +enervation, but we throw away one of the most precious implements for +ministering to life's highest needs. There is no doubt that this ill +adjusted function consumes quite unnecessarily vast stores of vital +energy, even when we contemplate it in its immature manifestations +which are infinitely more wholesome than the dumb swamping process. +Every high school boy and girl knows the difference between the +concentration and the diffusion of this impulse, although they would +be hopelessly bewildered by the use of the terms. They will declare +one of their companions to be "in love" if his fancy is occupied by +the image of a single person about whom all the newly found values +gather, and without whom his solitude is an eternal melancholy. But if +the stimulus does not appear as a definite image, and the values +evoked are dispensed over the world, the young person suddenly seems +to have discovered a beauty and significance in many things--he +responds to poetry, he becomes a lover of nature, he is filled with +religious devotion or with philanthropic zeal. Experience, with young +people, easily illustrates the possibility and value of diffusion. + +It is neither a short nor an easy undertaking to substitute the love +of beauty for mere desire, to place the mind above the senses; but is +not this the sum of the immemorial obligation which rests upon the +adults of each generation if they would nurture and restrain the +youth, and has not the whole history of civilization been but one long +effort to substitute psychic impulsion for the driving force of blind +appetite? + +Society has recognized the "imitative play" impulse of children and +provides them with tiny bricks with which to "build a house," and +dolls upon which they may lavish their tenderness. We exalt the love +of the mother and the stability of the home, but in regard to those +difficult years between childhood and maturity we beg the question and +unless we repress, we do nothing. We are so timid and inconsistent +that although we declare the home to be the foundation of society, we +do nothing to direct the force upon which the continuity of the home +depends. And yet to one who has lived for years in a crowded quarter +where men, women and children constantly jostle each other and press +upon every inch of space in shop, tenement and street, nothing is more +impressive than the strength, the continuity, the varied and powerful +manifestations, of family affection. It goes without saying that every +tenement house contains women who for years spend their hurried days +in preparing food and clothing and pass their sleepless nights in +tending and nursing their exigent children, with never one thought for +their own comfort or pleasure or development save as these may be +connected with the future of their families. We all know as a matter +of course that every shop is crowded with workingmen who year after +year spend all of their wages upon the nurture and education of their +children, reserving for themselves but the shabbiest clothing and a +crowded place at the family table. + +"Bad weather for you to be out in," you remark on a February evening, +as you meet rheumatic Mr. S. hobbling home through the freezing sleet +without an overcoat. "Yes, it is bad," he assents: "but I've walked to +work all this last year. We've sent the oldest boy back to high +school, you know," and he moves on with no thought that he is doing +other than fulfilling the ordinary lot of the ordinary man. + +These are the familiar and the constant manifestations of family +affection which are so intimate a part of life that we scarcely +observe them. + +In addition to these we find peculiar manifestations of family +devotion exemplifying that touching affection which rises to unusual +sacrifice because it is close to pity and feebleness. "My cousin and +his family had to go back to Italy. He got to Ellis Island with his +wife and five children, but they wouldn't let in the feeble-minded +boy, so of course they all went back with him. My cousin was fearful +disappointed." + +Or, "These are the five children of my brother. He and his wife, my +father and mother, were all done for in the bad time at Kishinef. It's +up to me all right to take care of the kids, and I'd no more go back +on them than I would on my own." Or, again: "Yes, I have seven +children of my own. My husband died when Tim was born. The other three +children belong to my sister, who died the year after my husband. I +get on pretty well. I scrub in a factory every night from six to +twelve, and I go out washing four days a week. So far the children +have all gone through the eighth grade before they quit school," she +concludes, beaming with pride and joy. + +That wonderful devotion to the child seems at times, in the midst of +our stupid social and industrial arrangements, all that keeps society +human, the touch of nature which unites it, as it was that same +devotion which first lifted it out of the swamp of bestiality. The +devotion to the child is "the inevitable conclusion of the two +premises of the practical syllogism, the devotion of man to woman." +It is, of course, this tremendous force which makes possible the +family, that bond which holds society together and blends the +experience of generations into a continuous story. The family has been +called "the fountain of morality," "the source of law," "the necessary +prelude to the state" itself; but while it is continuous historically, +this dual bond must be made anew a myriad times in each generation, +and the forces upon which its formation depend must be powerful and +unerring. It would be too great a risk to leave it to a force whose +manifestations are intermittent and uncertain. The desired result is +too grave and fundamental. + +One Sunday evening an excited young man came to see me, saying that he +must have advice; some one must tell him at once what to do, as his +wife was in the state's prison serving a sentence for a crime which he +himself had committed. He had seen her the day before, and though she +had been there only a month he was convinced that she was developing +consumption. She was "only seventeen, and couldn't stand the hard +work and the 'low down' women" whom she had for companions. My remark +that a girl of seventeen was too young to be in the state penitentiary +brought out the whole wretched story. + +He had been unsteady for many years and the despair of his thoroughly +respectable family who had sent him West the year before. In Arkansas +he had fallen in love with a girl of sixteen and married her. His +mother was far from pleased, but had finally sent him money to bring +his bride to Chicago, in the hope that he might settle there. _En +route_ they stopped at a small town for the naïve reason that he +wanted to have an aching tooth pulled. But the tooth gave him an +excellent opportunity to have a drink, and before he reached the +office of the country practitioner he was intoxicated. As they passed +through the vestibule he stole an overcoat hanging there, although the +little wife piteously begged him to let it alone. Out of sheer bravado +he carried it across his arm as they walked down the street, and was, +of course, immediately arrested "with the goods upon him." In sheer +terror of being separated from her husband, the wife insisted that +she had been an accomplice, and together they were put into the county +jail awaiting the action of the Grand Jury. At the end of the sixth +week, on one of the rare occasions when they were permitted to talk to +each other through the grating which separated the men's visiting +quarters from the women's, the young wife told her husband that she +made up her mind to swear that she had stolen the overcoat. What could +she do if he were sent to prison and she were left free? She was +afraid to go to his people and could not possibly go back to hers. In +spite of his protest, that very night she sent for the state's +attorney and made a full confession, giving her age as eighteen in the +hope of making her testimony more valuable. From that time on they +stuck to the lie through the indictment, the trial and her conviction. +Apparently it had seemed to him only a well-arranged plot until he had +visited the penitentiary the day before, and had really seen her +piteous plight. Remorse had seized him at last, and he was ready to +make every restitution. She, however, had no notion of giving up--on +the contrary, as she realized more clearly what prison life meant, she +was daily more determined to spare him the experience. Her letters, +written in the unformed hand of a child--for her husband had himself +taught her to read and write--were filled with a riot of +self-abnegation, the martyr's joy as he feels the iron enter the +flesh. Thus had an illiterate, neglected girl through sheer devotion +to a worthless sort of young fellow inclined to drink, entered into +that noble company of martyrs. + +When girls "go wrong" what happens? How has this tremendous force, +valuable and necessary for the foundation of the family, become +misdirected? When its manifestations follow the legitimate channels of +wedded life we call them praiseworthy; but there are other +manifestations quite outside the legal and moral channels which yet +compel our admiration. + +A young woman of my acquaintance was married to a professional +criminal named Joe. Three months after the wedding he was arrested +and "sent up" for two years. Molly had always been accustomed to many +lovers, but she remained faithful to her absent husband for a year. At +the end of that time she obtained a divorce which the state law makes +easy for the wife of a convict, and married a man who was "rich and +respectable"--in fact, he owned the small manufacturing establishment +in which her mother did the scrubbing. He moved his bride to another +part of town six miles away, provided her with a "steam-heated flat," +furniture upholstered in "cut velvet," and many other luxuries of +which Molly heretofore had only dreamed. One day as she was wheeling a +handsome baby carriage up and down the prosperous street, her brother, +who was "Joe's pal," came to tell her that Joe was "out," had come to +the old tenement and was "mighty sore" because "she had gone back on +him." Without a moment's hesitation Molly turned the baby carriage in +the direction of her old home and never stopped wheeling it until she +had compassed the entire six miles. She and Joe rented the old room +and went to housekeeping. The rich and respectable husband made every +effort to persuade her to come back, and then another series of +efforts to recover his child, before he set her free through a court +proceeding. Joe, however, steadfastly refused to marry her, still +"sore" because she had not "stood by." As he worked only +intermittently, and was too closely supervised by the police to do +much at his old occupation, Molly was obliged to support the humble +ménage by scrubbing in a neighboring lodging house and by washing "the +odd shirts" of the lodgers. For five years, during which time two +children were born, when she was constantly subjected to the taunts of +her neighbors, and when all the charitable agencies refused to give +help to such an irregular household, Molly happily went on her course +with no shade of regret or sorrow. "I'm all right as long as Joe keeps +out of the jug," was her slogan of happiness, low in tone, perhaps, +but genuine and "game." Her surroundings were as sordid as possible, +consisting of a constantly changing series of cheap "furnished rooms" +in which the battered baby carriage was the sole witness of better +days. But Molly's heart was full of courage and happiness, and she was +never desolate until her criminal lover was "sent up" again, this time +on a really serious charge. + +These irregular manifestations form a link between that world in which +each one struggles to "live respectable," and that nether world in +which are also found cases of devotion and of enduring affection +arising out of the midst of the folly and the shame. The girl there +who through all tribulation supports her recreant "lover," or the girl +who overcomes, her drink and opium habits, who renounces luxuries and +goes back to uninteresting daily toil for the sake of the good opinion +of a man who wishes her to "appear decent," although he never means to +marry her, these are also impressive. + +One of our earliest experiences at Hull-House had to do with a lover +of this type and the charming young girl who had become fatally +attached to him. I can see her now running for protection up the broad +steps of the columned piazza then surrounding Hull-House. Her slender +figure was trembling with fright, her tear-covered face swollen and +bloodstained from the blows he had dealt her. "He is apt to abuse me +when he is drunk," was the only explanation, and that given by way of +apology, which could be extracted from her. When we discovered that +there had been no marriage ceremony, that there were no living +children, that she had twice narrowly escaped losing her life, it +seemed a simple matter to insist that the relation should be broken +off. She apathetically remained at Hull-House for a few weeks, but +when her strength had somewhat returned, when her lover began to +recover from his prolonged debauch of whiskey and opium, she insisted +upon going home every day to prepare his meals and to see that the +little tenement was clean and comfortable because "Pierre is always so +sick and weak after one of those long ones." This of course meant that +she was drifting back to him, and when she was at last restrained by +that moral compulsion, by that overwhelming of another's will which is +always so ruthlessly exerted by those who are conscious that virtue is +struggling with vice, her mind gave way and she became utterly +distraught. + +A poor little Ophelia, I met her one night wandering in the hall half +dressed in the tawdry pink gown "that Pierre liked best of all" and +groping on the blank wall to find the door which might permit her to +escape to her lover. In a few days it was obvious that hospital +restraint was necessary, but when she finally recovered we were +obliged to admit that there is no civic authority which can control +the acts of a girl of eighteen. From the hospital she followed her +heart directly back to Pierre, who had in the meantime moved out of +the Hull-House neighborhood. We knew later that he had degraded the +poor child still further by obliging her to earn money for his drugs +by that last method resorted to by a degenerate man to whom a woman's +devotion still clings. + +It is inevitable that a force which is enduring enough to withstand +the discouragements, the suffering and privation of daily living, +strenuous enough to overcome and rectify the impulses which make for +greed and self-indulgence, should be able, even under untoward +conditions, to lift up and transfigure those who are really within +its grasp and set them in marked contrast to those who are merely +playing a game with it or using it for gain. But what has happened to +these wretched girls? Why has this beneficent current cast them upon +the shores of death and destruction when it should have carried them +into the safe port of domesticity? Through whose fault has this basic +emotion served merely to trick and deride them? + +Older nations have taken a well defined line of action in regard to +it. + +Among the Hull-House neighbors are many of the Latin races who employ +a careful chaperonage over their marriageable daughters and provide +husbands for them at an early age. "My father will get a husband for +me this winter," announces Angelina, whose father has brought her to a +party at Hull-House, and she adds with a toss of her head, "I saw two +already, but my father says they haven't saved enough money to marry +me." She feels quite as content in her father's wisdom and ability to +provide her with a husband as she does in his capacity to escort her +home safely from the party. He does not permit her to cross the +threshold after nightfall unaccompanied by himself, and unless the +dowry and the husband are provided before she is eighteen he will +consider himself derelict in his duty towards her. "Francesca can't +even come to the Sodality meeting this winter. She lives only across +from the church but her mother won't let her come because her father +is out West working on a railroad," is a comment one often hears. The +system works well only when it is carried logically through to the end +of an early marriage with a properly-provided husband. + +Even with the Latin races, when the system is tried in America it +often breaks down, and when the Anglo-Saxons anywhere imitate this +régime it is usually utterly futile. They follow the first part of the +program as far as repression is concerned, but they find it impossible +to follow the second because all sorts of inherited notions deter +them. The repressed girl, if she is not one of the languishing type, +takes matters into her own hands, and finds her pleasures in illicit +ways, without her parents' knowledge. "I had no idea my daughter was +going to public dances. She always told me she was spending the night +with her cousin on the South Side. I hadn't a suspicion of the truth," +many a broken-hearted mother explains. An officer who has had a long +experience in the Juvenile Court of Chicago, and has listened to +hundreds of cases involving wayward girls, gives it as his deliberate +impression that a large majority of cases are from families where the +discipline had been rigid, where they had taken but half of the +convention of the Old World and left the other half. + +Unless we mean to go back to these Old World customs which are already +hopelessly broken, there would seem to be but one path open to us in +America. That path implies freedom for the young people made safe only +through their own self-control. This, in turn, must be based upon +knowledge and habits of clean companionship. In point of fact no +course between the two is safe in a modern city, and in the most +crowded quarters the young people themselves are working out a +protective code which reminds one of the instinctive protection that +the free-ranging child in the country learns in regard to poisonous +plants and "marshy places," or of the cautions and abilities that the +mountain child develops in regard to ice and precipices. This +statement, of course, does not hold good concerning a large number of +children in every crowded city quarter who may be classed as +degenerates, the children of careless or dissolute mothers who fall +into all sorts of degenerate habits and associations before childhood +is passed, who cannot be said to have "gone wrong" at any one moment +because they have never been in the right path even of innocent +childhood; but the statement is sound concerning thousands of girls +who go to and from work every day with crowds of young men who meet +them again and again in the occasional evening pleasures of the more +decent dance halls or on a Sunday afternoon in the parks. + +The mothers who are of most use to these normal city working girls are +the mothers who develop a sense of companionship with the changing +experiences of their daughters, who are willing to modify ill-fitting +social conventions into rules of conduct which are of actual service +to their children in their daily lives of factory work and of city +amusements. Those mothers, through their sympathy and adaptability, +substitute keen present interests and activity for solemn warnings and +restraint, self-expression for repression. Their vigorous family life +allies itself by a dozen bonds to the educational, the industrial and +the recreational organizations of the modern city, and makes for +intelligent understanding, industrial efficiency and sane social +pleasures. + +By all means let us preserve the safety of the home, but let us also +make safe the street in which the majority of our young people find +their recreation and form their permanent relationships. Let us not +forget that the great processes of social life develop themselves +through influences of which each participant is unconscious as he +struggles alone and unaided in the strength of a current which seizes +him and bears him along with myriads of others, a current which may so +easily wreck the very foundations of domesticity. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE QUEST FOR ADVENTURE + + +A certain number of the outrages upon the spirit of youth may be +traced to degenerate or careless parents who totally neglect their +responsibilities; a certain other large number of wrongs are due to +sordid men and women who deliberately use the legitimate +pleasure-seeking of young people as lures into vice. There remains, +however, a third very large class of offenses for which the community +as a whole must be held responsible if it would escape the +condemnation, "Woe unto him by whom offenses come." This class of +offenses is traceable to a dense ignorance on the part of the average +citizen as to the requirements of youth, and to a persistent blindness +on the part of educators as to youth's most obvious needs. + +The young people are overborne by their own undirected and misguided +energies. A mere temperamental outbreak in a brief period of +obstreperousness exposes a promising boy to arrest and imprisonment, +an accidental combination of circumstances too complicated and +overwhelming to be coped with by an immature mind, condemns a growing +lad to a criminal career. These impulsive misdeeds may be thought of +as dividing into two great trends somewhat obscurely analogous to the +two historic divisions of man's motive power, for we are told that all +the activities of primitive man and even those of his more civilized +successors may be broadly traced to the impulsion of two elemental +appetites. The first drove him to the search for food, the hunt +developing into war with neighboring tribes and finally broadening +into barter and modern commerce; the second urged him to secure and +protect a mate, developing into domestic life, widening into the +building of homes and cities, into the cultivation of the arts and a +care for beauty. + +In the life of each boy there comes a time when these primitive +instincts urge him to action, when he is himself frightened by their +undefined power. He is faced by the necessity of taming them, of +reducing them to manageable impulses just at the moment when "a boy's +will is the wind's will," or, in the words of a veteran educator, at +the time when "it is almost impossible for an adult to realize the +boy's irresponsibility and even moral neurasthenia." That the boy +often fails may be traced in those pitiful figures which show that +between two and three times as much incorrigibility occurs between the +ages of thirteen and sixteen as at any other period of life. + +The second division of motive power has been treated in the preceding +chapter. The present chapter is an effort to point out the necessity +for an understanding of the first trend of motives if we would +minimize the temptations of the struggle and free the boy from the +constant sense of the stupidity and savagery of life. To set his feet +in the worn path of civilization is not an easy task, but it may give +us a clue for the undertaking to trace his misdeeds to the +unrecognized and primitive spirit of adventure corresponding to the +old activity of the hunt, of warfare, and of discovery. + +To do this intelligently, we shall have to remember that many boys in +the years immediately following school find no restraint either in +tradition or character. They drop learning as a childish thing and +look upon school as a tiresome task that is finished. They demand +pleasure as the right of one who earns his own living. They have +developed no capacity for recreation demanding mental effort or even +muscular skill, and are obliged to seek only that depending upon +sight, sound and taste. Many of them begin to pay board to their +mothers, and make the best bargain they can, that more money may be +left to spend in the evening. They even bait the excitement of "losing +a job," and often provoke a foreman if only to see "how much he will +stand." They are constitutionally unable to enjoy anything +continuously and follow their vagrant wills unhindered. Unfortunately +the city lends itself to this distraction. At the best, it is +difficult to know what to select and what to eliminate as objects of +attention among its thronged streets, its glittering shops, its gaudy +advertisements of shows and amusements. It is perhaps to the credit +of many city boys that the very first puerile spirit of adventure +looking abroad in the world for material upon which to exercise +itself, seems to center about the railroad. The impulse is not unlike +that which excites the coast-dwelling lad to dream of + + "The beauty and mystery of the ships + And the magic of the sea." + +I cite here a dozen charges upon which boys were brought into the +Juvenile Court of Chicago, all of which might be designated as deeds +of adventure. A surprising number, as the reader will observe, are +connected with railroads. They are taken from the court records and +repeat the actual words used by police officers, irate neighbors, or +discouraged parents, when the boys were brought before the judge. (1) +Building fires along the railroad tracks; (2) flagging trains; (3) +throwing stones at moving train windows; (4) shooting at the actors in +the Olympic Theatre with sling shots; (5) breaking signal lights on +the railroad; (6) stealing linseed oil barrels from the railroad to +make a fire; (7) taking waste from an axle box and burning it upon +the railroad tracks; (8) turning a switch and running a street car off +the track; (9) staying away from home to sleep in barns; (10) setting +fire to a barn in order to see the fire engines come up the street; +(11) knocking down signs; (12) cutting Western Union cable. + +Another dozen charges also taken from actual court records might be +added as illustrating the spirit of adventure, for although stealing +is involved in all of them, the deeds were doubtless inspired much +more by the adventurous impulse than by a desire for the loot itself: + +(1) Stealing thirteen pigeons from a barn; (2) stealing a bathing +suit; (3) stealing a tent; (4) stealing ten dollars from mother with +which to buy a revolver; (5) stealing a horse blanket to use at night +when it was cold sleeping on the wharf; (6) breaking a seal on a +freight car to steal "grain for chickens"; (7) stealing apples from a +freight car; (8) stealing a candy peddler's wagon "to be full up just +for once"; (9) stealing a hand car; (10) stealing a bicycle to take a +ride; (11) stealing a horse and buggy and driving twenty-five miles +into the country; (12) stealing a stray horse on the prairie and +trying to sell it for twenty dollars. + +Of another dozen it might be claimed that they were also due to this +same adventurous spirit, although the first six were classed as +disorderly conduct: (1) Calling a neighbor a "scab"; (2) breaking down +a fence; (3) flipping cars; (4) picking up coal from railroad tracks; +(5) carrying a concealed "dagger," and stabbing a playmate with it; +(6) throwing stones at a railroad employee. The next three were called +vagrancy: (1) Loafing on the docks; (2) "sleeping out" nights; (3) +getting "wandering spells." One, designated petty larceny, was cutting +telephone wires under the sidewalk and selling them; another, called +burglary, was taking locks off from basement doors; and the last one +bore the dignified title of "resisting an officer" because the boy, +who was riding on the fender of a street car, refused to move when an +officer ordered him off. + +Of course one easily recalls other cases in which the manifestations +were negative. I remember an exasperated and frightened mother who +took a boy of fourteen into court upon the charge of incorrigibility. +She accused him of "shooting craps," "smoking cigarettes," "keeping +bad company," "being idle." The mother regrets it now, however, for +she thinks that taking a boy into court only gives him a bad name, and +that "the police are down on a boy who has once been in court, and +that that makes it harder for him." She hardly recognizes her once +troublesome charge in the steady young man of nineteen who brings home +all his wages and is the pride and stay of her old age. + +I recall another boy who worked his way to New York and back again to +Chicago before he was quite fourteen years old, skilfully escaping +the truant officers as well as the police and special railroad +detectives. He told his story with great pride, but always modestly +admitted that he could never have done it if his father had not been a +locomotive engineer so that he had played around railroad tracks and +"was onto them ever since he was a small kid." + +There are many of these adventurous boys who exhibit a curious +incapacity for any effort which requires sustained energy. They show +an absolute lack of interest in the accomplishment of what they +undertake, so marked that if challenged in the midst of their +activity, they will be quite unable to tell you the end they have in +view. Then there are those tramp boys who are the despair of every one +who tries to deal with them. + +I remember the case of a boy who traveled almost around the world in +the years lying between the ages of eleven and fifteen. He had lived +for six months in Honolulu where he had made up his mind to settle +when the irresistible "Wanderlust" again seized him. He was +scrupulously neat in his habits and something of a dandy in +appearance. He boasted that he had never stolen, although he had been +arrested several times on the charge of vagrancy, a fate which befell +him in Chicago and landed him in the Detention Home connected with the +Juvenile Court. The judge gained a personal hold upon him, and the lad +tried with all the powers of his untrained moral nature to "make good +and please the judge." Monotonous factory work was not to be thought +of in connection with him, but his good friend the judge found a +place for him as a bell-boy in a men's club, where it was hoped that +the uniform and the variety of experience might enable him to take the +first steps toward regular pay and a settled life. Through another +bell-boy, however, he heard of the find of a diamond carelessly left +in one of the wash rooms of the club. The chance to throw out +mysterious hints of its whereabouts, to bargain for its restoration, +to tell of great diamond deals he had heard of in his travels, +inevitably laid him open to suspicion which resulted in his dismissal, +although he had had nothing to do with the matter beyond gloating over +its adventurous aspects. In spite of skilful efforts made to detain +him, he once more started on his travels, throwing out such diverse +hints as that of "a trip into Old Mexico," or "following up Roosevelt +into Africa." + +There is an entire series of difficulties directly traceable to the +foolish and adventurous persistence of carrying loaded firearms. The +morning paper of the day in which I am writing records the following: + + "A party of boys, led by Daniel O'Brien, thirteen years old, + had gathered in front of the house and O'Brien was throwing + stones at Nieczgodzki in revenge for a whipping that he + received at his hands about a month ago. The Polish boy + ordered them away and threatened to go into the house and + get a revolver if they did not stop. Pfister, one of the + boys in O'Brien's party, called him a coward, and when he + pulled a revolver from his pocket, dared him to put it away + and meet him in a fist fight in the street. Instead of + accepting the challenge, Nieczgodzki aimed his revolver at + Pfister and fired. The bullet crashed through the top of his + head and entered the brain. He was rushed to the Alexian + Brothers' Hospital, but died a short time after being + received there. Nieczgodzki was arrested and held without + bail." + +This tale could be duplicated almost every morning; what might be +merely a boyish scrap is turned into a tragedy because some boy has a +revolver. + +Many citizens in Chicago have been made heartsick during the past +month by the knowledge that a boy of nineteen was lodged in the county +jail awaiting the death penalty. He had shot and killed a policeman +during the scrimmage of an arrest, although the offense for which he +was being "taken in" was a trifling one. His parents came to Chicago +twenty years ago from a little farm in Ohio, the best type of +Americans, whom we boast to be the backbone of our cities. The mother, +who has aged and sickened since the trial, can only say that "Davie +was never a bad boy until about five years ago when he began to go +with this gang who are always looking out for fun." + +Then there are those piteous cases due to a perfervid imagination +which fails to find material suited to its demands. I can recall +misadventures of children living within a few blocks of Hull-House +which may well fill with chagrin those of us who are trying to +administer to their deeper needs. I remember a Greek boy of fifteen +who was arrested for attempting to hang a young Turk, stirred by some +vague notion of carrying on a traditional warfare, and of adding +another page to the heroic annals of Greek history. When sifted, the +incident amounted to little more than a graphic threat and the lad was +dismissed by the court, covered with confusion and remorse that he had +brought disgrace upon the name of Greece when he had hoped to add to +its glory. + +I remember with a lump in my throat the Bohemian boy of thirteen who +committed suicide because he could not "make good" in school, and +wished to show that he too had "the stuff" in him, as stated in the +piteous little letter left behind. This same love of excitement, the +desire to jump out of the humdrum experience of life, also induces +boys to experiment with drinks and drugs to a surprising extent. For +several years the residents of Hull-House struggled with the +difficulty of prohibiting the sale of cocaine to minors under a +totally inadequate code of legislation, which has at last happily been +changed to one more effective and enforcible. The long effort brought +us into contact with dozens of boys who had become victims of the +cocaine habit. The first group of these boys was discovered in the +house of "Army George." This one-armed man sold cocaine on the streets +and also in the levee district by a system of signals so that the word +cocaine need never be mentioned, and the style and size of the package +was changed so often that even a vigilant police found it hard to +locate it. What could be more exciting to a lad than a traffic in a +contraband article, carried on in this mysterious fashion? I recall +our experience with a gang of boys living on a neighboring street. +There were eight of them altogether, the eldest seventeen years of +age, the youngest thirteen, and they practically lived the life of +vagrants. What answered to their club house was a corner lot on +Harrison and Desplaines Streets, strewn with old boilers, in which +they slept by night and many times by day. The gang was brought to the +attention of Hull-House during the summer of 1904 by a distracted +mother, who suspected that they were all addicted to some drug. She +was terribly frightened over the state of her youngest boy of +thirteen, who was hideously emaciated and his mind reduced almost to +vacancy. I remember the poor woman as she sat in the reception room at +Hull-House, holding the unconscious boy in her arms, rocking herself +back and forth in her fright and despair, saying: "I have seen them go +with the drink, and eat the hideous opium, but I never knew anything +like this." + +An investigation showed that cocaine had first been offered to these +boys on the street by a colored man, an agent of a drug store, who +had given them samples and urged them to try it. In three or four +months they had become hopelessly addicted to its use, and at the end +of six months, when they were brought to Hull-House, they were all in +a critical condition. At that time not one of them was either going to +school or working. They stole from their parents, "swiped junk," +pawned their clothes and shoes,--did any desperate thing to "get the +dope," as they called it. + +Of course they continually required more, and had spent as much as +eight dollars a night for cocaine, which they used to "share and share +alike." It sounds like a large amount, but it really meant only four +doses each during the night, as at that time they were taking +twenty-five cents' worth at once if they could possibly secure it. The +boys would tell nothing for three or four days after they were +discovered, in spite of the united efforts of their families, the +police, and the residents of Hull-House. But finally the superior boy +of the gang, the manliest and the least debauched, told his tale, and +the others followed in quick succession. They were willing to go +somewhere to be helped, and were even eager if they could go together, +and finally seven of them were sent to the Presbyterian Hospital for +four weeks' treatment and afterwards all went to the country together +for six weeks more. The emaciated child gained twenty pounds during +his sojourn in the hospital, the head of which testified that at least +three of the boys could have stood but little more of the irregular +living and doping. At the present moment they are all, save one, doing +well, although they were rescued so late that they seemed to have but +little chance. One is still struggling with the appetite on an Iowa +farm and dares not trust himself in the city because he knows too well +how cocaine may be procured in spite of better legislation. It is +doubtful whether these boys could ever have been pulled through unless +they had been allowed to keep together through the hospital and +convalescing period,--unless we had been able to utilize the gang +spirit and to turn its collective force towards overcoming the desire +for the drug. + +The desire to dream and see visions also plays an important part with +the boys who habitually use cocaine. I recall a small hut used by boys +for this purpose. They washed dishes in a neighboring restaurant and +as soon as they had earned a few cents they invested in cocaine which +they kept pinned underneath their suspenders. When they had +accumulated enough for a real debauch they went to this hut and for +several days were dead to the outside world. One boy told me that in +his dreams he saw large rooms paved with gold and silver money, the +walls papered with greenbacks, and that he took away in buckets all +that he could carry. + +This desire for adventure also seizes girls. A group of girls ranging +in age from twelve to seventeen was discovered in Chicago last June, +two of whom were being trained by older women to open tills in small +shops, to pick pockets, to remove handkerchiefs, furs and purses and +to lift merchandise from the counters of department stores. All the +articles stolen were at once taken to their teachers and the girls +themselves received no remuneration, except occasional sprees to the +theaters or other places of amusement. The girls gave no coherent +reason for their actions beyond the statement that they liked the +excitement and the fun of it. Doubtless to the thrill of danger was +added the pleasure and interest of being daily in the shops and the +glitter of "down town." The boys are more indifferent to this downtown +life, and are apt to carry on their adventures on the docks, the +railroad tracks or best of all upon the unoccupied prairie. + +This inveterate demand of youth that life shall afford a large element +of excitement is in a measure well founded. We know of course that it +is necessary to accept excitement as an inevitable part of recreation, +that the first step in recreation is "that excitement which stirs the +worn or sleeping centers of a man's body and mind." It is only when it +is followed by nothing else that it defeats its own end, that it uses +up strength and does not create it. In the actual experience of these +boys the excitement has demoralized them and led them into +law-breaking. When, however, they seek legitimate pleasure, and say +with great pride that they are "ready to pay for it," what they find +is legal but scarcely more wholesome,--it is still merely excitement. +"Looping the loop" amid shrieks of simulated terror or dancing in +disorderly saloon halls, are perhaps the natural reactions to a day +spent in noisy factories and in trolley cars whirling through the +distracting streets, but the city which permits them to be the acme of +pleasure and recreation to its young people, commits a grievous +mistake. + +May we not assume that this love for excitement, this desire for +adventure, is basic, and will be evinced by each generation of city +boys as a challenge to their elders? And yet those of us who live in +Chicago are obliged to confess that last year there were arrested and +brought into court fifteen thousand young people under the age of +twenty, who had failed to keep even the common law of the land. Most +of these young people had broken the law in their blundering efforts +to find adventure and in response to the old impulse for +self-expression. It is said indeed that practically the whole +machinery of the grand jury and of the criminal courts is maintained +and operated for the benefit of youths between the ages of thirteen +and twenty-five. Men up to ninety years of age, it is true, commit +crimes, but they are not characterized by the recklessness, the +bravado and the horror which have stained our records in Chicago. An +adult with the most sordid experience of life and the most rudimentary +notion of prudence, could not possibly have committed them. Only a +utilization of that sudden burst of energy belonging partly to the +future could have achieved them, only a capture of the imagination and +of the deepest emotions of youth could have prevented them! + +Possibly these fifteen thousand youths were brought to grief because +the adult population assumed that the young would be able to grasp +only that which is presented in the form of sensation; as if they +believed that youth could thus early become absorbed in a hand to +mouth existence, and so entangled in materialism that there would be +no reaction against it. It is as though we were deaf to the appeal of +these young creatures, claiming their share of the joy of life, +flinging out into the dingy city their desires and aspirations after +unknown realities, their unutterable longings for companionship and +pleasure. Their very demand for excitement is a protest against the +dullness of life, to which we ourselves instinctively respond. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE HOUSE OF DREAMS + + +To the preoccupied adult who is prone to use the city street as a mere +passageway from one hurried duty to another, nothing is more touching +than his encounter with a group of children and young people who are +emerging from a theater with the magic of the play still thick upon +them. They look up and down the familiar street scarcely recognizing +it and quite unable to determine the direction of home. From a tangle +of "make believe" they gravely scrutinize the real world which they +are so reluctant to reënter, reminding one of the absorbed gaze of a +child who is groping his way back from fairy-land whither the story +has completely transported him. + +"Going to the show" for thousands of young people in every industrial +city is the only possible road to the realms of mystery and romance; +the theater is the only place where they can satisfy that craving for +a conception of life higher than that which the actual world offers +them. In a very real sense the drama and the drama alone performs for +them the office of art as is clearly revealed in their blundering +demand stated in many forms for "a play unlike life." The theater +becomes to them a "veritable house of dreams" infinitely more real +than the noisy streets and the crowded factories. + +This first simple demand upon the theater for romance is closely +allied to one more complex which might be described as a search for +solace and distraction in those moments of first awakening from the +glamour of a youth's interpretation of life to the sterner realities +which are thrust upon his consciousness. These perceptions which +inevitably "close around" and imprison the spirit of youth are perhaps +never so grim as in the case of the wage-earning child. We can all +recall our own moments of revolt against life's actualities, our +reluctance to admit that all life was to be as unheroic and uneventful +as that which we saw about us, it was too unbearable that "this was +all there was" and we tried every possible avenue of escape. As we +made an effort to believe, in spite of what we saw, that life was +noble and harmonious, as we stubbornly clung to poesy in contradiction +to the testimony of our senses, so we see thousands of young people +thronging the theaters bent in their turn upon the same quest. The +drama provides a transition between the romantic conceptions which +they vainly struggle to keep intact and life's cruelties and +trivialities which they refuse to admit. A child whose imagination has +been cultivated is able to do this for himself through reading and +reverie, but for the overworked city youth of meager education, +perhaps nothing but the theater is able to perform this important +office. + +The theater also has a strange power to forecast life for the youth. +Each boy comes from our ancestral past not "in entire forgetfulness," +and quite as he unconsciously uses ancient war-cries in his street +play, so he longs to reproduce and to see set before him the valors +and vengeances of a society embodying a much more primitive state of +morality than that in which he finds himself. Mr. Patten has pointed +out that the elemental action which the stage presents, the old +emotions of love and jealousy, of revenge and daring take the thoughts +of the spectator back into deep and well worn channels in which his +mind runs with a sense of rest afforded by nothing else. The cheap +drama brings cause and effect, will power and action, once more into +relation and gives a man the thrilling conviction that he may yet be +master of his fate. The youth of course, quite unconscious of this +psychology, views the deeds of the hero simply as a forecast of his +own future and it is this fascinating view of his own career which +draws the boy to "shows" of all sorts. They can scarcely be too +improbable for him, portraying, as they do, his belief in his own +prowess. A series of slides which has lately been very popular in the +five-cent theaters of Chicago, portrayed five masked men breaking into +a humble dwelling, killing the father of the family and carrying away +the family treasure. The golden-haired son of the house, aged seven, +vows eternal vengeance on the spot, and follows one villain after +another to his doom. The execution of each is shown in lurid detail, +and the last slide of the series depicts the hero, aged ten, kneeling +upon his father's grave counting on the fingers of one hand the number +of men that he has killed, and thanking God that he has been permitted +to be an instrument of vengeance. + +In another series of slides, a poor woman is wearily bending over some +sewing, a baby is crying in the cradle, and two little boys of nine +and ten are asking for food. In despair the mother sends them out into +the street to beg, but instead they steal a revolver from a pawn shop +and with it kill a Chinese laundry-man, robbing him of $200. They rush +home with the treasure which is found by the mother in the baby's +cradle, whereupon she and her sons fall upon their knees and send up a +prayer of thankfulness for this timely and heaven-sent assistance. + +Is it not astounding that a city allows thousands of its youth to fill +their impressionable minds with these absurdities which certainly will +become the foundation for their working moral codes and the data from +which they will judge the proprieties of life? + +It is as if a child, starved at home, should be forced to go out and +search for food, selecting, quite naturally, not that which is +nourishing but that which is exciting and appealing to his outward +sense, often in his ignorance and foolishness blundering into +substances which are filthy and poisonous. + +Out of my twenty years' experience at Hull-House I can recall all +sorts of pilferings, petty larcenies, and even burglaries, due to that +never ceasing effort on the part of boys to procure theater tickets. I +can also recall indirect efforts towards the same end which are most +pitiful. I remember the remorse of a young girl of fifteen who was +brought into the Juvenile Court after a night spent weeping in the +cellar of her home because she had stolen a mass of artificial flowers +with which to trim a hat. She stated that she had taken the flowers +because she was afraid of losing the attention of a young man whom she +had heard say that "a girl has to be dressy if she expects to be +seen." This young man was the only one who had ever taken her to the +theater and if he failed her, she was sure that she would never go +again, and she sobbed out incoherently that she "couldn't live at all +without it." Apparently the blankness and grayness of life itself had +been broken for her only by the portrayal of a different world. + +One boy whom I had known from babyhood began to take money from his +mother from the time he was seven years old, and after he was ten she +regularly gave him money for the play Saturday evening. However, the +Saturday performance, "starting him off like," he always went twice +again on Sunday, procuring the money in all sorts of illicit ways. +Practically all of his earnings after he was fourteen were spent in +this way to satisfy the insatiable desire to know of the great +adventures of the wide world which the more fortunate boy takes out in +reading Homer and Stevenson. + +In talking with his mother, I was reminded of my experience one Sunday +afternoon in Russia when the employees of a large factory were seated +in an open-air theater, watching with breathless interest the +presentation of folk stories. I was told that troupes of actors went +from one manufacturing establishment to another presenting the simple +elements of history and literature to the illiterate employees. This +tendency to slake the thirst for adventure by viewing the drama is, of +course, but a blind and primitive effort in the direction of culture, +for "he who makes himself its vessel and bearer thereby acquires a +freedom from the blindness and soul poverty of daily existence." + +It is partly in response to this need that more sophisticated young +people often go to the theater, hoping to find a clue to life's +perplexities. Many times the bewildered hero reminds one of Emerson's +description of Margaret Fuller, "I don't know where I am going, follow +me"; nevertheless, the stage is dealing with the moral themes in which +the public is most interested. + +And while many young people go to the theater if only to see +represented, and to hear discussed, the themes which seem to them so +tragically important, there is no doubt that what they hear there, +flimsy and poor as it often is, easily becomes their actual moral +guide. In moments of moral crisis they turn to the sayings of the +hero who found himself in a similar plight. The sayings may not be +profound, but at least they are applicable to conduct. In the last few +years scores of plays have been put upon the stage whose titles might +be easily translated into proper headings for sociological lectures or +sermons, without including the plays of Ibsen, Shaw and Hauptmann, +which deal so directly with moral issues that the moralists themselves +wince under their teachings and declare them brutal. But it is this +very brutality which the over-refined and complicated city dwellers +often crave. Moral teaching has become so intricate, creeds so +metaphysical, that in a state of absolute reaction they demand +definite instruction for daily living. Their whole-hearted acceptance +of the teaching corroborates the statement recently made by an English +playwright that "The theater is literally making the minds of our +urban populations to-day. It is a huge factory of sentiment, of +character, of points of honor, of conceptions of conduct, of +everything that finally determines the destiny of a nation. The +theater is not only a place of amusement, it is a place of culture, a +place where people learn how to think, act, and feel." Seldom, +however, do we associate the theater with our plans for civic +righteousness, although it has become so important a factor in city +life. + +One Sunday evening last winter an investigation was made of four +hundred and sixty six theaters in the city of Chicago, and it was +discovered that in the majority of them the leading theme was revenge; +the lover following his rival; the outraged husband seeking his wife's +paramour; or the wiping out by death of a blot on a hitherto unstained +honor. It was estimated that one sixth of the entire population of the +city had attended the theaters on that day. At that same moment the +churches throughout the city were preaching the gospel of good will. +Is not this a striking commentary upon the contradictory influences to +which the city youth is constantly subjected? + +This discrepancy between the church and the stage is at times +apparently recognized by the five-cent theater itself, and a +blundering attempt is made to suffuse the songs and moving pictures +with piety. Nothing could more absurdly demonstrate this attempt than +a song, illustrated by pictures, describing the adventures of a young +man who follows a pretty girl through street after street in the hope +of "snatching a kiss from her ruby lips." The young man is overjoyed +when a sudden wind storm drives the girl to shelter under an archway, +and he is about to succeed in his attempt when the good Lord, "ever +watchful over innocence," makes the same wind "blow a cloud of dust +into the eyes of the rubberneck," and "his foul purpose is foiled." +This attempt at piety is also shown in a series of films depicting +Bible stories and the Passion Play at Oberammergau, forecasting the +time when the moving film will be viewed as a mere mechanical device +for the use of the church, the school and the library, as well as for +the theater. + +At present, however, most improbable tales hold the attention of the +youth of the city night after night, and feed his starved imagination +as nothing else succeeds in doing. In addition to these fascinations, +the five-cent theater is also fast becoming the general social center +and club house in many crowded neighborhoods. It is easy of access +from the street the entire family of parents and children can attend +for a comparatively small sum of money and the performance lasts for +at least an hour; and, in some of the humbler theaters, the spectators +are not disturbed for a second hour. + +The room which contains the mimic stage is small and cozy, and less +formal than the regular theater, and there is much more gossip and +social life as if the foyer and pit were mingled. The very darkness of +the room, necessary for an exhibition of the films, is an added +attraction to many young people, for whom the space is filled with the +glamour of love making. + +Hundreds of young people attend these five-cent theaters every evening +in the week, including Sunday, and what is seen and heard there +becomes the sole topic of conversation, forming the ground pattern of +their social life. That mutual understanding which in another social +circle is provided by books, travel and all the arts, is here +compressed into the topics suggested by the play. + +The young people attend the five-cent theaters in groups, with +something of the "gang" instinct, boasting of the films and stunts in +"our theater." They find a certain advantage in attending one theater +regularly, for the _habitués_ are often invited to come upon the stage +on "amateur nights," which occur at least once a week in all the +theaters. This is, of course, a most exciting experience. If the +"stunt" does not meet with the approval of the audience, the performer +is greeted with jeers and a long hook pulls him off the stage; if, on +the other hand, he succeeds in pleasing the audience, he may be paid +for his performance and later register with a booking agency, the +address of which is supplied by the obliging manager, and thus he +fancies that a lucrative and exciting career is opening before him. +Almost every night at six o'clock a long line of children may be seen +waiting at the entrance of these booking agencies, of which there are +fifteen that are well known in Chicago. + +Thus, the only art which is constantly placed before the eyes of "the +temperamental youth" is a debased form of dramatic art, and a vulgar +type of music, for the success of a song in these theaters depends not +so much upon its musical rendition as upon the vulgarity of its +appeal. In a song which held the stage of a cheap theater in Chicago +for weeks, the young singer was helped out by a bit of mirror from +which she threw a flash of light into the faces of successive boys +whom she selected from the audience as she sang the refrain, "You are +my Affinity." Many popular songs relate the vulgar experiences of a +city man wandering from amusement park to bathing beach in search of +flirtations. It may be that these "stunts" and recitals of city +adventure contain the nucleus of coming poesy and romance, as the +songs and recitals of the early minstrels sprang directly from the +life of the people, but all the more does the effort need help and +direction, both in the development of its technique and the material +of its themes. + +The few attempts which have been made in this direction are +astonishingly rewarding to those who regard the power of +self-expression as one of the most precious boons of education. The +Children's Theater in New York is the most successful example, but +every settlement in which dramatics have been systematically fostered +can also testify to a surprisingly quick response to this form of art +on the part of young people. The Hull-House Theater is constantly +besieged by children clamoring to "take part" in the plays of +Schiller, Shakespeare, and Molière, although they know it means weeks +of rehearsal and the complete memorizing of "stiff" lines. The +audiences sit enthralled by the final rendition and other children +whose tastes have supposedly been debased by constant vaudeville, are +pathetically eager to come again and again. Even when still more is +required from the young actors, research into the special historic +period, copying costumes from old plates, hours of labor that the "th" +may be restored to its proper place in English speech, their +enthusiasm is unquenched. But quite aside from its educational +possibilities one never ceases to marvel at the power of even a mimic +stage to afford to the young a magic space in which life may be lived +in efflorescence, where manners may be courtly and elaborate without +exciting ridicule, where the sequence of events is impressive and +comprehensible. Order and beauty of life is what the adolescent youth +craves above all else as the younger child indefatigably demands his +story. "Is this where the most beautiful princess in the world lives?" +asks a little girl peering into the door of the Hull-House Theater, or +"Does Alice in Wonderland always stay here?" It is much easier for her +to put her feeling into words than it is for the youth who has +enchantingly rendered the gentle poetry of Ben Jonson's "Sad +Shepherd," or for him who has walked the boards as Southey's Wat +Tyler. His association, however, is quite as clinging and magical as +is the child's although he can only say, "Gee, I wish I could always +feel the way I did that night. Something would be doing then." Nothing +of the artist's pleasure, nor of the revelation of that larger world +which surrounds and completes our own, is lost to him because a +careful technique has been exacted,--on the contrary this has only +dignified and enhanced it. It would also be easy to illustrate youth's +eagerness for artistic expression from the recitals given by the +pupils of the New York Music School Settlement, or by those of the +Hull-House Music School. These attempts also combine social life with +the training of the artistic sense and in this approximate the +fascinations of the five-cent theater. + +This spring a group of young girls accustomed to the life of a +five-cent theater, reluctantly refused an invitation to go to the +country for a day's outing because the return on a late train would +compel them to miss one evening's performance. They found it +impossible to tear themselves away not only from the excitements of +the theater itself but from the gaiety of the crowd of young men and +girls invariably gathered outside discussing the sensational posters. + +A steady English shopkeeper lately complained that unless he provided +his four, daughters with the money for the five-cent theaters every +evening they would steal it from his till, and he feared that they +might be driven to procure it in even more illicit ways. Because his +entire family life had been thus disrupted he gloomily asserted that +"this cheap show had ruined his 'ome and was the curse of America." +This father was able to formulate the anxiety of many immigrant +parents who are absolutely bewildered by the keen absorption of their +children in the cheap theater. This anxiety is not, indeed, without +foundation. An eminent alienist of Chicago states that he has had a +number of patients among neurotic children whose emotional natures +have been so over-wrought by the crude appeal to which they had been +so constantly subjected in the theaters, that they have become victims +of hallucination and mental disorder. The statement of this physician +may be the first note of alarm which will awaken the city to its duty +in regard to the theater, so that it shall at least be made safe and +sane for the city child whose senses are already so abnormally +developed. + +This testimony of a physician that the conditions are actually +pathological, may at last induce us to bestir ourselves in regard to +procuring a more wholesome form of public recreation. Many efforts in +social amelioration have been undertaken only after such exposures; in +the meantime, while the occasional child is driven distraught, a +hundred children permanently injure their eyes watching the moving +films, and hundreds more seriously model their conduct upon the +standards set before them on this mimic stage. + +Three boys, aged nine, eleven and thirteen years, who had recently +seen depicted the adventures of frontier life including the holding up +of a stage coach and the lassoing of the driver, spent weeks planning +to lasso, murder, and rob a neighborhood milkman, who started on his +route at four o'clock in the morning. They made their headquarters in +a barn and saved enough money to buy a revolver, adopting as their +watchword the phrase "Dead Men Tell no Tales." One spring morning the +conspirators, with their faces covered with black cloth, lay "in +ambush" for the milkman. Fortunately for him, as the lariat was thrown +the horse shied, and, although the shot was appropriately fired, the +milkman's life was saved. Such a direct influence of the theater is by +no means rare, even among older boys. Thirteen young lads were brought +into the Municipal Court in Chicago during the first week that +"Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman" was upon the stage, each one with an +outfit of burglar's tools in his possession, and each one shamefacedly +admitting that the gentlemanly burglar in the play had suggested to +him a career of similar adventure. + +In so far as the illusions of the theater succeed in giving youth the +rest and recreation which comes from following a more primitive code +of morality, it has a close relation to the function performed by +public games. It is, of course, less valuable because the sense of +participation is largely confined to the emotions and the imagination, +and does not involve the entire nature. + +We might illustrate by the "Wild West Show" in which the onlooking boy +imagines himself an active participant. The scouts, the Indians, the +bucking ponies, are his real intimate companions and occupy his entire +mind. In contrast with this we have the omnipresent game of tag which +is, doubtless, also founded upon the chase. It gives the boy exercise +and momentary echoes of the old excitement, but it is barren of +suggestion and quickly degenerates into horse-play. + +Well considered public games easily carried out in a park or athletic +field, might both fill the mind with the imaginative material +constantly supplied by the theater, and also afford the activity which +the cramped muscles of the town dweller so sorely need. Even the +unquestioned ability which the theater possesses to bring men together +into a common mood and to afford them a mutual topic of conversation, +is better accomplished with the one national game which we already +possess, and might be infinitely extended through the organization of +other public games. + +The theater even now by no means competes with the baseball league +games which are attended by thousands of men and boys who, during the +entire summer, discuss the respective standing of each nine and the +relative merits of every player. During the noon hour all the +employees of a city factory gather in the nearest vacant lot to cheer +their own home team in its practice for the next game with the nine of +a neighboring manufacturing establishment and on a Saturday afternoon +the entire male population of the city betakes itself to the baseball +field; the ordinary means of transportation are supplemented by gay +stage-coaches and huge automobiles, noisy with blowing horns and +decked with gay pennants. The enormous crowd of cheering men and boys +are talkative, good-natured, full of the holiday spirit, and +absolutely released from the grind of life. They are lifted out of +their individual affairs and so fused together that a man cannot tell +whether it is his own shout or another's that fills his ears; whether +it is his own coat or another's that he is wildly waving to celebrate +a victory. He does not call the stranger who sits next to him his +"brother" but he unconsciously embraces him in an overwhelming +outburst of kindly feeling when the favorite player makes a home run. +Does not this contain a suggestion of the undoubted power of public +recreation to bring together all classes of a community in the modern +city unhappily so full of devices for keeping men apart? + +Already some American cities are making a beginning toward more +adequate public recreation. Boston has its municipal gymnasiums, +cricket fields, and golf grounds. Chicago has seventeen parks with +playing fields, gymnasiums and baths, which at present enroll +thousands of young people. These same parks are provided with +beautiful halls which are used for many purposes, rent free, and are +given over to any group of young people who wish to conduct dancing +parties subject to city supervision and chaperonage. Many social clubs +have deserted neighboring saloon halls for these municipal drawing +rooms beautifully decorated with growing plants supplied by the park +greenhouses, and flooded with electric lights supplied by the park +power house. In the saloon halls the young people were obliged to +"pass money freely over the bar," and in order to make the most of the +occasion they usually stayed until morning. At such times the economic +necessity itself would override the counsels of the more temperate, +and the thrifty door keeper would not insist upon invitations but +would take in any one who had the "price of a ticket." The free rent +in the park hall, the good food in the park restaurant, supplied at +cost, have made three parties closing at eleven o'clock no more +expensive than one party breaking up at daylight, too often in +disorder. + +Is not this an argument that the drinking, the late hours, the lack of +decorum, are directly traceable to the commercial enterprise which +ministers to pleasure in order to drag it into excess because excess +is more profitable? To thus commercialize pleasure is as monstrous as +it is to commercialize art. It is intolerable that the city does not +take over this function of making provision for pleasure, as wise +communities in Sweden and South Carolina have taken the sale of +alcohol out of the hands of enterprising publicans. + +We are only beginning to understand what might be done through the +festival, the street procession, the band of marching musicians, +orchestral music in public squares or parks, with the magic power they +all possess to formulate the sense of companionship and solidarity. +The experiments which are being made in public schools to celebrate +the national holidays, the changing seasons, the birthdays of heroes, +the planting of trees, are slowly developing little ceremonials which +may in time work out into pageants of genuine beauty and significance. +No other nation has so unparalleled an opportunity to do this through +its schools as we have, for no other nation has so wide-spreading a +school system, while the enthusiasm of children and their natural +ability to express their emotions through symbols, gives the securest +possible foundation to this growing effort. + +The city schools of New York have effected the organization of high +school girls into groups for folk dancing. These old forms of dancing +which have been worked out in many lands and through long experiences, +safeguard unwary and dangerous expression and yet afford a vehicle +through which the gaiety of youth may flow. Their forms are indeed +those which lie at the basis of all good breeding, forms which at once +express and restrain, urge forward and set limits. + +One may also see another center of growth for public recreation and +the beginning of a pageantry for the people in the many small parks +and athletic fields which almost every American city is hastening to +provide for its young. These small parks have innumerable athletic +teams, each with its distinctive uniform, with track meets and match +games arranged with the teams from other parks and from the public +schools; choruses of trade unionists or of patriotic societies fill +the park halls with eager listeners. Labor Day processions are yearly +becoming more carefully planned and more picturesque in character, as +the desire to make an overwhelming impression with mere size gives way +to a growing ambition to set forth the significance of the craft and +the skill of the workman. At moments they almost rival the dignified +showing of the processions of the German Turn Vereins which are also +often seen in our city streets. + +The many foreign colonies which are found in all American cities +afford an enormous reserve of material for public recreation and +street festival. They not only celebrate the feasts and holidays of +the fatherland, but have each their own public expression for their +mutual benefit societies and for the observance of American +anniversaries. From the gay celebration of the Scandinavians when war +was averted and two neighboring nations were united, to the equally +gay celebration of the centenary of Garibaldi's birth; from the +Chinese dragon cleverly trailing its way through the streets, to the +Greek banners flung out in honor of immortal heroes, there is an +infinite variety of suggestions and possibilities for public +recreation and for the corporate expression of stirring emotions. +After all, what is the function of art but to preserve in permanent +and beautiful form those emotions and solaces which cheer life and +make it kindlier, more heroic and easier to comprehend; which lift the +mind of the worker from the harshness and loneliness of his task, and, +by connecting him with what has gone before, free him from a sense of +isolation and hardship? + +Were American cities really eager for municipal art, they would +cherish as genuine beginnings the tarentella danced so interminably at +Italian weddings; the primitive Greek pipe played throughout the long +summer nights; the Bohemian theaters crowded with eager Slavophiles; +the Hungarian musicians strolling from street to street; the fervid +oratory of the young Russian preaching social righteousness in the +open square. + +Many Chicago citizens who attended the first annual meeting of the +National Playground Association of America, will never forget the long +summer day in the large playing field filled during the morning with +hundreds of little children romping through the kindergarten games, in +the afternoon with the young men and girls contending in athletic +sports; and the evening light made gay by the bright colored garments +of Italians, Lithuanians, Norwegians, and a dozen other nationalities, +reproducing their old dances and festivals for the pleasure of the +more stolid Americans. Was this a forecast of what we may yet see +accomplished through a dozen agencies promoting public recreation +which are springing up in every city of America, as they already are +found in the large towns of Scotland and England? + +Let us cherish these experiments as the most precious beginnings of an +attempt to supply the recreational needs of our industrial cities. To +fail to provide for the recreation of youth, is not only to deprive +all of them of their natural form of expression, but is certain to +subject some of them to the overwhelming temptation of illicit and +soul-destroying pleasures. To insist that young people shall forecast +their rose-colored future only in a house of dreams, is to deprive the +real world of that warmth and reassurance which it so sorely needs and +to which it is justly entitled; furthermore, we are left outside with +a sense of dreariness, in company with that shadow which already lurks +only around the corner for most of us--a skepticism of life's value. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH AND INDUSTRY + + +As it is possible to establish a connection between the lack of public +recreation and the vicious excitements and trivial amusements which +become their substitutes, so it may be illuminating to trace the +connection between the monotony and dullness of factory work and the +petty immoralities which are often the youth's protest against them. + +There are many city neighborhoods in which practically every young +person who has attained the age of fourteen years enters a factory. +When the work itself offers nothing of interest, and when no public +provision is made for recreation, the situation becomes almost +insupportable to the youth whose ancestors have been rough-working and +hard-playing peasants. + +In such neighborhoods the joy of youth is well nigh extinguished; and +in that long procession of factory workers, each morning and evening, +the young walk almost as wearily and listlessly as the old. Young +people working in modern factories situated in cities still dominated +by the ideals of Puritanism face a combination which tends almost +irresistably to overwhelm the spirit of youth. When the Puritan +repression of pleasure was in the ascendant in America the people it +dealt with lived on farms and villages where, although youthful +pleasures might be frowned upon and crushed out, the young people +still had a chance to find self-expression in their work. Plowing the +field and spinning the flax could be carried on with a certain +joyousness and vigor which the organization of modern industry too +often precludes. Present industry based upon the inventions of the +nineteenth century has little connection with the old patterns in +which men have worked for generations. The modern factory calls for an +expenditure of nervous energy almost more than it demands muscular +effort, or at least machinery so far performs the work of the massive +muscles, that greater stress is laid upon fine and exact movements +necessarily involving nervous strain. But these movements are exactly +of the type to which the muscles of a growing boy least readily +respond, quite as the admonition to be accurate and faithful is that +which appeals the least to his big primitive emotions. The demands +made upon his eyes are complicated and trivial, the use of his muscles +is fussy and monotonous, the relation between cause and effect is +remote and obscure. Apparently no one is concerned as to what may be +done to aid him in this process and to relieve it of its dullness and +difficulty, to mitigate its strain and harshness. + +Perhaps never before have young people been expected to work from +motives so detached from direct emotional incentive. Never has the age +of marriage been so long delayed; never has the work of youth been so +separated from the family life and the public opinion of the +community. Education alone can repair these losses. It alone has the +power of organizing a child's activities with some reference to the +life he will later lead and of giving him a clue as to what to select +and what to eliminate when he comes into contact with contemporary +social and industrial conditions. And until educators take hold of +the situation, the rest of the community is powerless. + +In vast regions of the city which are completely dominated by the +factory, it is as if the development of industry had outrun all the +educational and social arrangements. + +The revolt of youth against uniformity and the necessity of following +careful directions laid down by some one else, many times results in +such nervous irritability that the youth, in spite of all sorts of +prudential reasons, "throws up his job," if only to get outside the +factory walls into the freer street, just as the narrowness of the +school inclosure induces many a boy to jump the fence. + +When the boy is on the street, however, and is "standing around on the +corner" with the gang to which he mysteriously attaches himself, he +finds the difficulties of direct untrammeled action almost as great +there as they were in the factory, but for an entirely different set +of reasons. The necessity so strongly felt in the factory for an +outlet to his sudden and furious bursts of energy, his overmastering +desire to prove that he could do things "without being bossed all the +time," finds little chance for expression, for he discovers that in +whatever really active pursuit he tries to engage, he is promptly +suppressed by the police. After several futile attempts at +self-expression, he returns to his street corner subdued and so far +discouraged that when he has the next impulse to vigorous action he +concludes that it is of no use, and sullenly settles back into +inactivity. He thus learns to persuade himself that it is better to do +nothing, or, as the psychologist would say, "to inhibit his motor +impulses." + +When the same boy, as an adult workman, finds himself confronted with +an unusual or an untoward condition in his work, he will fall back +into this habit of inhibition, of making no effort toward independent +action. When "slack times" come, he will be the workman of least +value, and the first to be dismissed, calmly accepting his position in +the ranks of the unemployed because it will not be so unlike the many +hours of idleness and vacuity to which he was accustomed as a boy. No +help having been extended to him in the moment of his first irritable +revolt against industry, his whole life has been given a twist toward +idleness and futility. He has not had the chance of recovery which the +school system gives a like rebellious boy in a truant school. + +The unjustifiable lack of educational supervision during the first +years of factory work makes it quite impossible for the modern +educator to offer any real assistance to young people during that +trying transitional period between school and industry. The young +people themselves who fail to conform can do little but rebel against +the entire situation, and the expressions of revolt roughly divide +themselves into three classes. The first, resulting in idleness, may +be illustrated from many a sad story of a boy or a girl who has spent +in the first spurt of premature and uninteresting work, all the energy +which should have carried them through years of steady endeavor. + +I recall a boy who had worked steadily for two years as a helper in a +smelting establishment, and had conscientiously brought home all his +wages, one night suddenly announcing to his family that he "was too +tired and too hot to go on." As no amount of persuasion could make +him alter his decision, the family finally threatened to bring him +into the Juvenile Court on a charge of incorrigibility, whereupon the +boy disappeared and such efforts as the family have been able to make +in the two years since, have failed to find him. They are convinced +that "he is trying a spell of tramping" and wish that they "had let +him have a vacation the first summer when he wanted it so bad." The +boy may find in the rough outdoor life the healing which a wise +physician would recommend for nervous exhaustion, although the tramp +experiment is a perilous one. + +This revolt against factory monotony is sometimes closely allied to +that "moral fatigue" which results from assuming responsibility +prematurely. I recall the experience of a Scotch girl of eighteen who, +with her older sister, worked in a candy factory, their combined +earnings supporting a paralytic father. The older girl met with an +accident involving the loss of both eyes, and the financial support of +the whole family devolved upon the younger girl, who worked hard and +conscientiously for three years, supplementing her insufficient +factory wages by evening work at glove making. In the midst of this +devotion and monotonous existence she made the acquaintance of a girl +who was a chorus singer in a cheap theater and the contrast between +her monotonous drudgery and the glitter of the stage broke down her +allegiance to her helpless family. She left the city, absolutely +abandoning the kindred to whom she had been so long devoted, and +announced that if they all starved she would "never go into a factory +again." Every effort failed to find her after the concert troupe left +Milwaukee and although the pious Scotch father felt that "she had been +ensnared by the Devil," and had brought his "gray hairs in sorrow to +the grave," I could not quite dismiss the case with this simple +explanation, but was haunted by all sorts of social implications. + +The second line of revolt manifests itself in an attempt to make up +for the monotony of the work by a constant change from one occupation +to another. This is an almost universal experience among thousands of +young people in their first impact with the industrial world. + +The startling results of the investigation undertaken in Massachusetts +by the Douglas Commission showed how casual and demoralizing the first +few years of factory life become to thousands of unprepared boys and +girls; in their first restlessness and maladjustment they change from +one factory to another, working only for a few weeks or months in +each, and they exhibit no interest in any of them save for the amount +of wages paid. At the end of their second year of employment many of +them are less capable than when they left school and are actually +receiving less wages. The report of the commission made clear that +while the two years between fourteen and sixteen were most valuable +for educational purposes, they were almost useless for industrial +purposes, that no trade would receive as an apprentice a boy under +sixteen, that no industry requiring skill and workmanship could +utilize these untrained children and that they not only demoralized +themselves, but in a sense industry itself. + +An investigation of one thousand tenement children in New York who +had taken out their "working papers" at the age of fourteen, reported +that during the first working year a third of them had averaged six +places each. These reports but confirm the experience of those of us +who live in an industrial neighborhood and who continually see these +restless young workers, in fact there are moments when this constant +changing seems to be all that saves them from the fate of those other +children who hold on to a monotonous task so long that they finally +incapacitate themselves for all work. It often seems to me an +expression of the instinct of self-preservation, as in the case of a +young Swedish boy who during a period of two years abandoned one piece +of factory work after another, saying "he could not stand it," until +in the chagrin following the loss of his ninth place he announced his +intention of leaving the city and allowing his mother and little +sisters to shift for themselves. At this critical juncture a place was +found for him as lineman in a telephone company; climbing telephone +poles and handling wires apparently supplied him with the elements of +outdoor activity and danger which were necessary to hold his +interest, and he became the steady support of his family. + +But while we know the discouraging effect of idleness upon the boy who +has thrown up his job and refuses to work again, and we also know the +restlessness and lack of discipline resulting from the constant change +from one factory to another, there is still a third manifestation of +maladjustment of which one's memory and the Juvenile Court records +unfortunately furnish many examples. The spirit of revolt in these +cases has led to distinct disaster. Two stories will perhaps be +sufficient in illustration although they might be multiplied +indefinitely from my own experience. + +A Russian girl who went to work at an early age in a factory, pasting +labels on mucilage bottles, was obliged to surrender all her wages to +her father who, in return, gave her only the barest necessities of +life. In a fit of revolt against the monotony of her work, and "that +nasty sticky stuff," she stole from her father $300 which he had +hidden away under the floor of his kitchen, and with this money she +ran away to a neighboring city for a spree, having first bought +herself the most gorgeous clothing a local department store could +supply. Of course, this preposterous beginning could have but one +ending and the child was sent to the reform school to expiate not only +her own sins but the sins of those who had failed to rescue her from a +life of grinding monotony which her spirit could not brook. + +"I know the judge thinks I am a bad girl," sobbed a poor little +prisoner, put under bonds for threatening to kill her lover, "but I +have only been bad for one week and before that I was good for six +years. I worked every day in Blank's factory and took home all my +wages to keep the kids in school. I met this fellow in a dance hall. I +just had to go to dances sometimes after pushing down the lever of my +machine with my right foot and using both my arms feeding it for ten +hours a day--nobody knows how I felt some nights. I agreed to go away +with this man for a week but when I was ready to go home he tried to +drive me out on the street to earn money for him and, of course, I +threatened to kill him--any decent girl would," she concluded, as +unconscious of the irony of the reflection as she was of the +connection between her lurid week and her monotonous years. + +Knowing as educators do that thousands of the city youth will enter +factory life at an age as early as the state law will permit; +instructed as the modern teacher is as to youth's requirements for a +normal mental and muscular development, it is hard to understand the +apathy in regard to youth's inevitable experience in modern industry. +Are the educators, like the rest of us, so caught in admiration of the +astonishing achievements of modern industry that they forget the +children themselves? + +A Scotch educator who recently visited America considered it very +strange that with a remarkable industrial development all about us, +affording such amazing educational opportunities, our schools should +continually cling to a past which did not fit the American +temperament, was not adapted to our needs, and made no vigorous pull +upon our faculties. He concluded that our educators, overwhelmed by +the size and vigor of American industry, were too timid to seize upon +the industrial situation, and to extract its enormous educational +value. He lamented that this lack of courage and initiative failed not +only to fit the child for an intelligent and conscious participation +in industrial life, but that it was reflected in the industrial +development itself; that industry had fallen back into old habits, and +repeated traditional mistakes until American cities exhibited +stupendous extensions of the medievalisms in the traditional Ghetto, +and of the hideousness in the Black Country of Lancashire. + +He contended that this condition is the inevitable result of +separating education from contemporary life. Education becomes unreal +and far fetched, while industry becomes ruthless and materialistic. In +spite of the severity of the indictment, one much more severe and well +deserved might have been brought against us. He might have accused us +not only of wasting, but of misusing and of trampling under foot the +first tender instincts and impulses which are the source of all charm +and beauty and art, because we fail to realize that by premature +factory work, for which the youth is unprepared, society perpetually +extinguishes that variety and promise, that bloom of life, which is +the unique possession of the young. He might have told us that our +cities would continue to be traditionally cramped and dreary until we +comprehend that youth alone has the power to bring to reality the +vision of the "Coming City of Mankind, full of life, full of the +spirit of creation." + +A few educational experiments are carried on in Cincinnati, in Boston +and in Chicago, in which the leaders of education and industry unite +in a common aim and purpose. A few more are carried on by trade +unionists, who in at least two of the trades are anxious to give to +their apprentices and journeymen the wider culture afforded by the +"capitalistic trade schools" which they suspect of preparing +strike-breakers; still a few other schools have been founded by public +spirited citizens to whom the situation has become unendurable, and +one or two more such experiments are attached to the public school +system itself. All of these schools are still blundering in method and +unsatisfactory in their results, but a certain trade school for +girls, in New York, which is preparing young girls of fourteen for the +sewing trade, already so overcrowded and subdivided that there remains +very little education for the worker, is conquering this difficult +industrial situation by equipping each apprentice with "the informing +mind." If a child goes into a sewing factory with a knowledge of the +work she is doing in relation to the finished product; if she is +informed concerning the material she is manipulating and the processes +to which it is subjected; if she understands the design she is +elaborating in its historic relation to art and decoration, her daily +life is lifted from drudgery to one of self-conscious activity, and +her pleasure and intelligence is registered in her product. + +I remember a little colored girl in this New York school who was +drawing for the pattern she was about to embroider, a carefully +elaborated acanthus leaf. Upon my inquiry as to the design, she +replied: "It is what the Egyptians used to put on everything, because +they saw it so much growing in the Nile; and then the Greeks copied +it, and sometimes you can find it now on the buildings downtown." She +added, shyly: "Of course, I like it awfully well because it was first +used by people living in Africa where the colored folks come from." +Such a reasonable interest in work not only reacts upon the worker, +but is, of course, registered in the product itself. Such genuine +pleasure is in pitiful contrast to the usual manifestation of the play +spirit as it is found in the factories, where, at the best, its +expression is illicit and often is attended with great danger. + +There are many touching stories by which this might be illustrated. +One of them comes from a large steel mill of a boy of fifteen whose +business it was to throw a lever when a small tank became filled with +molton metal. During the few moments when the tank was filling it was +his foolish custom to catch the reflection of the metal upon a piece +of looking-glass, and to throw the bit of light into the eyes of his +fellow workmen. Although an exasperated foreman had twice dispossessed +him of his mirror, with a third fragment he was one day flicking the +gloom of the shop when the neglected tank overflowed, almost instantly +burning off both his legs. Boys working in the stock yards, during +their moments of wrestling and rough play, often slash each other +painfully with the short knives which they use in their work, but in +spite of this the play impulse is too irrepressible to be denied. + +If educators could go upon a voyage of discovery into that army of +boys and girls who enter industry each year, what values might they +not discover; what treasures might they not conserve and develop if +they would direct the play instinct into the art impulse and utilize +that power of variation which industry so sadly needs. No force will +be sufficiently powerful and widespread to redeem industry from its +mechanism and materialism save the freed power in every single +individual. + +In order to do this, however, we must go back a little over the +educational road to a training of the child's imagination, as well as +to his careful equipment with a technique. A little child makes a very +tottering house of cardboard and calls it a castle. The important +feature there lies in the fact that he has expressed a castle, and it +is not for his teacher to draw undue attention to the fact that the +corners are not well put together, but rather to listen to and to +direct the story which centers about this effort at creative +expression. A little later, however, it is clearly the business of the +teacher to call attention to the quality of the dovetailing in which +the boy at the manual training bench is engaged, for there is no value +in dovetailing a box unless it is accurately done. At one point the +child's imagination is to be emphasized, and at another point his +technique is important--and he will need both in the industrial life +ahead of him. + +There is no doubt that there is a third period, when the boy is not +interested in the making of a castle, or a box, or anything else, +unless it appears to him to bear a direct relation to the future; +unless it has something to do with earning a living. At this later +moment he is chiefly anxious to play the part of a man and to take his +place in the world. The fact that a boy at fourteen wants to go out +and earn his living makes that the moment when he should be educated +with reference to that interest, and the records of many high schools +show that if he is not thus educated, he bluntly refuses to be +educated at all. The forces pulling him to "work" are not only the +overmastering desire to earn money and be a man, but, if the family +purse is small and empty, include also his family loyalty and +affection, and over against them, we at present place nothing but a +vague belief on the part of his family and himself that education is a +desirable thing and may eventually help him "on in the world." It is +of course difficult to adapt education to this need; it means that +education must be planned so seriously and definitely for those two +years between fourteen and sixteen that it will be actual trade +training so far as it goes, with attention given to the condition +under which money will be actually paid for industrial skill; but at +the same time, that the implications, the connections, the relations +to the industrial world, will be made clear. A man who makes, year +after year, but one small wheel in a modern watch factory, may, if his +education has properly prepared him, have a fuller life than did the +old watchmaker who made a watch from beginning to end. It takes +thirty-nine people to make a coat in a modern tailoring establishment, +yet those same thirty-nine people might produce a coat in a spirit of +"team work" which would make the entire process as much more +exhilarating than the work of the old solitary tailor, as playing in a +baseball nine gives more pleasure to a boy than that afforded by a +solitary game of hand ball on the side of the barn. But it is quite +impossible to imagine a successful game of baseball in which each +player should be drilled only in his own part, and should know nothing +of the relation of that part to the whole game. In order to make the +watch wheel, or the coat collar interesting, they must be connected +with the entire product--must include fellowship as well as the +pleasures arising from skilled workmanship and a cultivated +imagination. + +When all the young people working in factories shall come to use their +faculties intelligently, and as a matter of course to be interested in +what they do, then our manufactured products may at last meet the +demands of a cultivated nation, because they will be produced by +cultivated workmen. The machine will not be abandoned by any means, +but will be subordinated to the intelligence of the man who +manipulates it, and will be used as a tool. It may come about in time +that an educated public will become inexpressibly bored by +manufactured objects which reflect absolutely nothing of the minds of +the men who made them, that they may come to dislike an object made by +twelve unrelated men, even as we do not care for a picture which has +been painted by a dozen different men, not because we have enunciated +a theory in regard to it, but because such a picture loses all its +significance and has no meaning or message. We need to apply the same +principle but very little further until we shall refuse to be +surrounded by manufactured objects which do not represent some gleam +of intelligence on the part of the producer. Hundreds of people have +already taken that step so far as all decoration and ornament are +concerned, and it would require but one short step more. In the +meantime we are surrounded by stupid articles which give us no +pleasure, and the young people producing them are driven into all +sorts of expedients in order to escape work which has been made +impossible because all human interest has been extracted from it. That +this is not mere theory may be demonstrated by the fact that many +times the young people may be spared the disastrous effects of this +third revolt against the monotony of industry if work can be found for +them in a place where the daily round is less grinding and presents +more variety. Fortunately, in every city there are places outside of +factories where occupation of a more normal type of labor may be +secured, and often a restless boy can be tided over this period if he +is put into one of these occupations. The experience in every boys' +club can furnish illustrations of this. + +A factory boy who had been brought into the Juvenile Court many times +because of his persistent habit of borrowing the vehicles of +physicians as they stood in front of houses of patients, always +meaning to "get back before the doctor came out," led a contented and +orderly life after a place had been found for him as a stable boy in +a large livery establishment where his love for horses could be +legitimately gratified. + +Still another boy made the readjustment for himself in spite of the +great physical suffering involved. He had lost both legs at the age of +seven, "flipping cars." When he went to work at fourteen with two good +cork legs, which he vainly imagined disguised his disability, his +employer kindly placed him where he might sit throughout the entire +day, and his task was to keep tally on the boxes constantly hoisted +from the warehouse into cars. The boy found this work so dull that he +insisted upon working in the yards, where the cars were being loaded +and switched. He would come home at night utterly exhausted, more from +the extreme nervous tension involved in avoiding accidents than from +the tremendous exertion, and although he would weep bitterly from +sheer fatigue, nothing could induce him to go back to the duller and +safer job. Fortunately he belonged to a less passionate race than the +poor little Italian girl in the Hull-House neighborhood who recently +battered her head against the wall so long and so vigorously that she +had to be taken to a hospital because of her serious injuries. So +nearly as dull "grown-ups" could understand, it had been an hysterical +revolt against factory work by day and "no fun in the evening." + +America perhaps more than any other country in the world can +demonstrate what applied science has accomplished for industry; it has +not only made possible the utilization of all sorts of unpromising raw +material, but it has tremendously increased the invention and +elaboration of machinery. The time must come, however, if indeed the +moment has not already arrived, when applied science will have done +all that it can do for the development of machinery. It may be that +machines cannot be speeded up any further without putting unwarranted +strain upon the nervous system of the worker; it may be that further +elaboration will so sacrifice the workman who feeds the machine that +industrial advance will lie not in the direction of improvement in +machinery, but in the recovery and education of the workman. This +refusal to apply "the art of life" to industry continually drives out +of it many promising young people. Some of them, impelled by a +creative impulse which will not be denied, avoid industry altogether +and demand that their ambitious parents give them lessons in "china +painting" and "art work," which clutters the overcrowded parlor of the +more prosperous workingman's home with useless decorated plates, and +handpainted "drapes," whereas the plates upon the table and the rugs +upon the floor used daily by thousands of weary housewives are totally +untouched by the beauty and variety which this ill-directed art +instinct might have given them had it been incorporated into industry. + +I could cite many instances of high-spirited young people who suffer a +veritable martyrdom in order to satisfy their artistic impulse. + +A young girl of fourteen whose family had for years displayed a +certain artistic aptitude, the mother having been a singer and the +grandmother, with whom the young girl lived, a clever worker in +artificial flowers, had her first experience of wage earning in a box +factory. She endured it only for three months, and then gave up her +increasing wage in exchange for $1.50 a week which she earns by making +sketches of dresses, cloaks and hats for the advertisements of a +large department store. + +A young Russian girl of my acquaintance starves on the irregular pay +which she receives for her occasional contributions to the Sunday +newspapers--meanwhile writing her novel--rather than return to the +comparatively prosperous wages of a necktie factory which she regards +with horror. Another girl washes dishes every evening in a cheap +boarding house in order to secure the leisure in which to practise her +singing lessons, rather than to give them up and return to her former +twelve-dollar-a-week job in an electrical factory. + +The artistic expression in all these cases is crude, but the young +people are still conscious of that old sacrifice of material interest +which art has ever demanded of those who serve her and which doubtless +brings its own reward. That the sacrifice is in vain makes it all the +more touching and is an indictment of the educator who has failed to +utilize the art instinct in industry. + +Something of the same sort takes place among many lads who find little +opportunity in the ordinary factories to utilize the "instinct for +workmanship"; or, among those more prosperous young people who +establish "studios" and "art shops," in which, with a vast expenditure +of energy, they manufacture luxurious articles. + +The educational system in Germany is deliberately planned to sift out +and to retain in the service of industry, all such promising young +people. The method is as yet experimental, and open to many +objections, but it is so far successful that "Made in Germany" means +made by a trained artisan and in many cases by a man working with the +freed impulse of the artist. + +The London County Council is constantly urging plans which may secure +for the gifted children in the Board Schools support in Technological +institutes. Educators are thus gradually developing the courage and +initiative to conserve for industry the young worker himself so that +his mind, his power of variation, his art instinct, his intelligent +skill, may ultimately be reflected in the industrial product. That +would imply that industry must be seized upon and conquered by those +educators, who now either avoid it altogether by taking refuge in the +caves of classic learning or beg the question by teaching the tool +industry advocated by Ruskin and Morris in their first reaction +against the present industrial system. It would mean that educators +must bring industry into "the kingdom of the mind"; and pervade it +with the human spirit. + +The discovery of the labor power of youth was to our age like the +discovery of a new natural resource, although it was merely incidental +to the invention of modern machinery and the consequent subdivision of +labor. In utilizing it thus ruthlessly we are not only in danger of +quenching the divine fire of youth, but we are imperiling industry +itself when we venture to ignore these very sources of beauty, of +variety and of suggestion. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE THIRST FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS + + +Even as we pass by the joy and beauty of youth on the streets without +dreaming it is there, so we may hurry past the very presence of august +things without recognition. We may easily fail to sense those +spiritual realities, which, in every age, have haunted youth and +called to him without ceasing. Historians tell us that the +extraordinary advances in human progress have been made in those times +when "the ideals of freedom and law, of youth and beauty, of knowledge +and virtue, of humanity and religion, high things, the conflicts +between which have caused most of the disruptions and despondences of +human society, seem for a generation or two to lie in the same +direction." + +Are we perhaps at least twice in life's journey dimly conscious of the +needlessness of this disruption and of the futility of the +despondency? Do we feel it first when young ourselves we long to +interrogate the "transfigured few" among our elders whom we believe to +be carrying forward affairs of gravest import? Failing to accomplish +this are we, for the second time, dogged by a sense of lost +opportunity, of needless waste and perplexity, when we too, as adults, +see again the dreams of youth in conflict with the efforts of our own +contemporaries? We see idealistic endeavor on the one hand lost in +ugly friction; the heat and burden of the day borne by mature men and +women on the other hand, increased by their consciousness of youth's +misunderstanding and high scorn. It may relieve the mind to break +forth in moments of irritation against "the folly of the coming +generation," but whoso pauses on his plodding way to call even his +youngest and rashest brother a fool, ruins thereby the joy of his +journey,--for youth is so vivid an element in life that unless it is +cherished, all the rest is spoiled. The most praiseworthy journey +grows dull and leaden unless companioned by youth's iridescent dreams. +Not only that, but the mature of each generation run a grave risk of +putting their efforts in a futile direction, in a blind alley as it +were, unless they can keep in touch with the youth of their own day +and know at least the trend in which eager dreams are driving +them--those dreams that fairly buffet our faces as we walk the city +streets. + +At times every one possessed with a concern for social progress is +discouraged by the formless and unsubdued modern city, as he looks +upon that complicated life which drives men almost without their own +volition, that life of ingenuous enterprises, great ambitions, +political jealousies, where men tend to become mere "slaves of +possessions." Doubtless these striving men are full of weakness and +sensitiveness even when they rend each other, and are but caught in +the coils of circumstance; nevertheless, a serious attempt to ennoble +and enrich the content of city life that it may really fill the ample +space their ruthless wills have provided, means that we must call upon +energies other than theirs. When we count over the resources which are +at work "to make order out of casualty, beauty out of confusion, +justice, kindliness and mercy out of cruelty and inconsiderate +pressure," we find ourselves appealing to the confident spirit of +youth. We know that it is crude and filled with conflicting hopes, +some of them unworthy and most of them doomed to disappointment, yet +these young people have the advantage of "morning in their hearts"; +they have such power of direct action, such ability to stand free from +fear, to break through life's trammelings, that in spite of ourselves +we become convinced that + + "They to the disappointed earth shall give + The lives we meant to live." + +That this solace comes to us only in fugitive moments, and is easily +misleading, may be urged as an excuse for our blindness and +insensitiveness to the august moral resources which the youth of each +city offers to those who are in the midst of the city's turmoil. A +further excuse is afforded in the fact that the form of the dreams for +beauty and righteousness change with each generation and that while it +is always difficult for the fathers to understand the sons, at those +periods when the demand of the young is one of social reconstruction, +the misunderstanding easily grows into bitterness. + +The old desire to achieve, to improve the world, seizes the ardent +youth to-day with a stern command to bring about juster social +conditions. Youth's divine impatience with the world's inheritance of +wrong and injustice makes him scornful of "rose water for the plague" +prescriptions, and he insists upon something strenuous and vital. + +One can find innumerable illustrations of this idealistic impatience +with existing conditions among the many Russian subjects found in the +foreign quarters of every American city. The idealism of these young +people might be utilized to a modification of our general culture and +point of view, somewhat as the influence of the young Germans who came +to America in the early fifties, bringing with them the hopes and +aspirations embodied in the revolutions of 1848, made a profound +impression upon the social and political institutions of America. Long +before they emigrated, thousands of Russian young people had been +caught up into the excitements and hopes of the Russian revolution in +Finland, in Poland, in the Russian cities, in the university towns. +Life had become intensified by the consciousness of the suffering and +starvation of millions of their fellow subjects. They had been living +with a sense of discipline and of preparation for a coming struggle +which, although grave in import, was vivid and adventurous. Their +minds had been seized by the first crude forms of social theory and +they had cherished a vague belief that they were the direct +instruments of a final and ideal social reconstruction. When they come +to America they sadly miss this sense of importance and participation +in a great and glorious conflict against a recognized enemy. Life +suddenly grows stale and unprofitable; the very spirit of tolerance +which characterizes American cities is that which strikes most +unbearably upon their ardent spirits. They look upon the indifference +all about them with an amazement which rapidly changes to irritation. +Some of them in a short time lose their ardor, others with incredible +rapidity make the adaptation between American conditions and their +store of enthusiasm, but hundreds of them remain restless and ill at +ease. Their only consolation, almost their only real companionship, +is when they meet in small groups for discussion or in larger groups +to welcome a well known revolutionist who brings them direct news from +the conflict, or when they arrange for a demonstration in memory of +"The Red Sunday" or the death of Gershuni. Such demonstrations, +however, are held in honor of men whose sense of justice was obliged +to seek an expression quite outside the regular channels of +established government. Knowing that Russia has forced thousands of +her subjects into this position, one would imagine that patriotic +teachers in America would be most desirous to turn into governmental +channels all that insatiable desire for juster relations in industrial +and political affairs. A distinct and well directed campaign is +necessary if this gallant enthusiasm is ever to be made part of that +old and still incomplete effort to embody in law--"the law that abides +and falters not, ages long"--the highest aspirations for justice. + +Unfortunately, we do little or nothing with this splendid store of +youthful ardor and creative enthusiasm. Through its very isolation it +tends to intensify and turn in upon itself, and no direct effort is +made to moralize it, to discipline it, to make it operative upon the +life of the city. And yet it is, perhaps, what American cities need +above all else, for it is but too true that Democracy--"a people +ruling"--the very name of which the Greeks considered so beautiful, no +longer stirs the blood of the American youth, and that the real +enthusiasm for self-government must be found among the groups of young +immigrants who bring over with every ship a new cargo of democratic +aspirations. That many of these young men look for a consummation of +these aspirations to a social order of the future in which the +industrial system as well as government shall embody democratic +relations, simply shows that the doctrine of Democracy like any other +of the living faiths of men, is so essentially mystical that it +continually demands new formulation. To fail to recognize it in a new +form, to call it hard names, to refuse to receive it, may mean to +reject that which our fathers cherished and handed on as an +inheritance not only to be preserved but also to be developed. + +We allow a great deal of this precious stuff--this _Welt-Schmerz_ of +which each generation has need--not only to go unutilized, but to work +havoc among the young people themselves. One of the saddest +illustrations of this, in my personal knowledge, was that of a young +Russian girl who lived with a group of her compatriots on the west +side of Chicago. She recently committed suicide at the same time that +several others in the group tried it and failed. One of these latter, +who afterwards talked freely of the motives which led her to this act, +said that there were no great issues at stake in this country; that +America was wholly commercial in its interests and absorbed in money +making; that Americans were not held together by any historic bonds +nor great mutual hopes, and were totally ignorant of the stirring +social and philosophic movements of Europe; that her life here had +been a long, dreary, economic struggle, unrelieved by any of the +higher interests; that she was tired of getting seventy-five cents for +trimming a hat that sold for twelve dollars and was to be put upon the +empty head of some one who had no concern for the welfare of the woman +who made it. The statement doubtless reflected something of "The +Sorrows of Werther," but the entire tone was nobler and more highly +socialized. + +It is difficult to illustrate what might be accomplished by reducing +to action the ardor of those youths who so bitterly arraign our +present industrial order. While no part of the social system can be +changed rapidly, we would all admit that the present industrial +arrangements in America might be vastly improved and that we are +failing to meet the requirements of our industrial life with courage +and success simply because we do not realize that unless we establish +that humane legislation which has its roots in a consideration for +human life, our industrialism itself will suffer from inbreeding, +growing ever more unrestrained and ruthless. It would seem obvious +that in order to secure relief in a community dominated by industrial +ideals, an appeal must be made to the old spiritual sanctions for +human conduct, that we must reach motives more substantial and +enduring than the mere fleeting experiences of one phase of modern +industry which vainly imagines that its growth would be curtailed if +the welfare of its employees were guarded by the state. It would be an +interesting attempt to turn that youthful enthusiasm to the aid of one +of the most conservative of the present social efforts, the almost +world-wide movement to secure protective legislation for women and +children in industry, in which America is so behind the other nations. +Fourteen of the great European powers protect women from all night +work, from excessive labor by day, because paternalistic governments +prize the strength of women for the bearing and rearing of healthy +children to the state. And yet in a republic it is the citizens +themselves who must be convinced of the need of this protection unless +they would permit industry to maim the very mothers of the future. + +In one year in the German Empire one hundred thousand children were +cared for through money paid from the State Insurance fund to their +widowed mothers or to their invalided fathers. And yet in the American +states it seems impossible to pass a most rudimentary employers' +liability act, which would be but the first step towards that code of +beneficent legislation which protects "the widow and fatherless" in +Germany and England. Certainly we shall have to bestir ourselves if we +would care for the victims of the industrial order as well as do other +nations. We shall be obliged speedily to realize that in order to +secure protective legislation from a governmental body in which the +most powerful interests represented are those of the producers and +transporters of manufactured goods, it will be necessary to exhort to +a care for the defenseless from the religious point of view. To take +even the non-commercial point of view would be to assert that +evolutionary progress assumes that a sound physique is the only secure +basis of life, and to guard the mothers of the race is simple sanity. + +And yet from lack of preaching we do not unite for action because we +are not stirred to act at all, and protective legislation in America +is shamefully inadequate. Because it is always difficult to put the +championship of the oppressed above the counsels of prudence, we say +in despair sometimes that we are a people who hold such varied creeds +that there are not enough of one religious faith to secure anything, +but the truth is that it is easy to unite for action people whose +hearts have once been filled by the fervor of that willing devotion +which may easily be generated in the youthful breast. It is +comparatively easy to enlarge a moral concept, but extremely difficult +to give it to an adult for the first time. And yet when we attempt to +appeal to the old sanctions for disinterested conduct, the conclusion +is often forced upon us that they have not been engrained into +character, that they cannot be relied upon when they are brought into +contact with the arguments of industrialism, that the colors of the +flag flying over the fort of our spiritual resources wash out and +disappear when the storm actually breaks. It is because the ardor of +youth has not been attracted to the long effort to modify the +ruthlessness of industry by humane enactments, that we sadly miss +their resourceful enthusiasm and that at the same time groups of young +people who hunger and thirst after social righteousness are breaking +their hearts because the social reform is so long delayed and an +unsympathetic and hardhearted society frustrates all their hopes. And +yet these ardent young people who obscure the issue by their crying +and striving and looking in the wrong place, might be of inestimable +value if so-called political leaders were in any sense social +philosophers. To permit these young people to separate themselves from +the contemporaneous efforts of ameliorating society and to turn their +vague hopes solely toward an ideal commonwealth of the future, is to +withdraw from an experimental self-government founded in enthusiasm, +the very stores of enthusiasm which are needed to sustain it. The +championship of the oppressed came to be a spiritual passion with the +Hebrew prophets. They saw the promises of religion, not for +individuals but in the broad reaches of national affairs and in the +establishment of social justice. It is quite possible that such a +spiritual passion is again to be found among the ardent young souls of +our cities. They see a vision, not of a purified nation but of a +regenerated and a reorganized society. Shall we throw all this into +the future, into the futile prophecy of those who talk because they +cannot achieve, or shall we commingle their ardor, their overmastering +desire for social justice, with that more sober effort to modify +existing conditions? Are we once more forced to appeal to the +educators? Is it so difficult to utilize this ardor because educators +have failed to apprehend the spiritual quality of their task? + +It would seem a golden opportunity for those to whom is committed the +task of spiritual instruction, for to preach and seek justice in human +affairs is one of the oldest obligations of religion and morality. All +that would be necessary would be to attach this teaching to the +contemporary world in such wise that the eager youth might feel a tug +upon his faculties, and a sense of participation in the moral life +about him. To leave it unattached to actual social movements means +that the moralist is speaking in incomprehensible terms. Without this +connection, the religious teachers may have conscientiously carried +out their traditional duties and yet have failed utterly to stir the +fires of spiritual enthusiasm. + +Each generation of moralists and educators find themselves facing an +inevitable dilemma; first, to keep the young committed to their charge +"unspotted from the world," and, second, to connect the young with the +ruthless and materialistic world all about them in such wise that they +may make it the arena for their spiritual endeavor. It is fortunate +for these teachers that sometime during "The Golden Age" the most +prosaic youth is seized by a new interest in remote and universal +ends, and that if but given a clue by which he may connect his lofty +aims with his daily living, he himself will drag the very heavens into +the most sordid tenement. The perpetual difficulty consists in finding +the clue for him and placing it in his hands, for, if the teaching is +too detached from life, it does not result in any psychic impulsion at +all. I remember as an illustration of the saving power of this +definite connection, a tale told me by a distinguished labor leader in +England. His affections had been starved, even as a child, for he +knew nothing of his parents, his earliest memories being associated +with a wretched old woman who took the most casual care of him. When +he was nine years old he ran away to sea and for the next seven years +led the rough life of a dock laborer, until he became much interested +in a little crippled boy, who by the death of his father had been left +solitary on a freight boat. My English friend promptly adopted the +child as his own and all the questionings of life centered about his +young protégé. He was constantly driven to attend evening meetings +where he heard discussed those social conditions which bear so hard +upon the weak and sick. The crippled boy lived until he was fifteen +and by that time the regeneration of his foster father was complete, +the young docker was committed for life to the bettering of social +conditions. It is doubtful whether any abstract moral appeal could +have reached such a roving nature. Certainly no attempt to incite his +ambition would have succeeded. Only a pull upon his deepest sympathies +and affections, his desire to protect and cherish a weaker thing, +could possibly have stimulated him and connected him with the forces +making for moral and social progress. + +This, of course, has ever been the task of religion, to make the sense +of obligation personal, to touch morality with enthusiasm, to bathe +the world in affection--and on all sides we are challenging the +teachers of religion to perform this task for the youth of the city. + +For thousands of years definite religious instruction has been given +by authorized agents to the youth of all nations, emphasized through +tribal ceremonials, the assumption of the Roman toga, the Barmitzvah +of the Jews, the First Communion of thousands of children in Catholic +Europe, the Sunday Schools of even the least formal of the evangelical +sects. It is as if men had always felt that this expanding period of +human life must be seized upon for spiritual ends, that the tender +tissue and newly awakened emotions must be made the repository for the +historic ideals and dogmas which are, after all, the most precious +possessions of the race. How has it come about that so many of the +city youth are not given their share in our common inheritance of +life's best goods? Why are their tender feet so often ensnared even +when they are going about youth's legitimate business? One would +suppose that in such an age as ours moral teachers would be put upon +their mettle, that moral authority would be forced to speak with no +uncertain sound if only to be heard above the din of machinery and the +roar of industrialism; that it would have exerted itself as never +before to convince the youth of the reality of the spiritual life. +Affrighted as the moralists must be by the sudden new emphasis placed +upon wealth, despairing of the older men and women who are already +caught by its rewards, one would say that they would have seized upon +the multitude of young people whose minds are busied with issues which +lie beyond the portals of life, as the only resource which might save +the city from the fate of those who perish through lack of vision. + +Yet because this inheritance has not been attached to conduct, the +youth of Jewish birth may have been taught that prophets and statesmen +for three thousand years declared Jehovah to be a God of Justice who +hated oppression and desired righteousness, but there is no real +appeal to his spirit of moral adventure unless he is told that the +most stirring attempts to translate justice into the modern social +order have been inaugurated and carried forward by men of his own +race, and that until he joins in the contemporary manifestations of +that attempt he is recreant to his highest traditions and obligations. + +The Christian youth may have been taught that man's heartbreaking +adventure to find justice in the order of the universe moved the God +of Heaven himself to send a Mediator in order that the justice man +craves and the mercy by which alone he can endure his weakness might +be reconciled, but he will not make the doctrine his own until he +reduces it to action and tries to translate the spirit of his Master +into social terms. + +The youth who calls himself an "Evolutionist"--it is rather hard to +find a name for this youth, but there are thousands of him and a fine +fellow he often is--has read of that struggle beginning with the +earliest tribal effort to establish just relations between man and +man, but he still needs to be told that after all justice can only be +worked out upon this earth by those who will not tolerate a wrong to +the feeblest member of the community, and that it will become a social +force only in proportion as men steadfastly strive to establish it. + +If these young people who are subjected to varied religious +instruction are also stirred to action, or rather, if the instruction +is given validity because it is attached to conduct, then it may be +comparatively easy to bring about certain social reforms so sorely +needed in our industrial cities. We are at times obliged to admit, +however, that both the school and the church have failed to perform +this office, and are indicted by the young people themselves. +Thousands of young people in every great city are either frankly +hedonistic, or are vainly attempting to work out for themselves a +satisfactory code of morals. They cast about in all directions for the +clue which shall connect their loftiest hopes with their actual +living. + +Several years ago a committee of lads came to see me in order to +complain of a certain high school principal because "He never talks +to us about life." When urged to make a clearer statement, they added, +"He never asks us what we are going to be; we can't get a word out of +him, excepting lessons and keeping quiet in the halls." + +Of the dozens of young women who have begged me to make a connection +for them between their dreams of social usefulness and their actual +living, I recall one of the many whom I had sent back to her +clergyman, returning with this remark: "His only suggestion was that I +should be responsible every Sunday for fresh flowers upon the altar. I +did that when I was fifteen and liked it then, but when you have come +back from college and are twenty-two years old, it doesn't quite fit +in with the vigorous efforts you have been told are necessary in order +to make our social relations more Christian." + +All of us forget how very early we are in the experiment of founding +self-government in this trying climate of America, and that we are +making the experiment in the most materialistic period of all history, +having as our court of last appeal against that materialism only the +wonderful and inexplicable instinct for justice which resides in the +hearts of men,--which is never so irresistible as when the heart is +young. We may cultivate this most precious possession, or we may +disregard it. We may listen to the young voices rising--clear above +the roar of industrialism and the prudent councils of commerce, or we +may become hypnotized by the sudden new emphasis placed upon wealth +and power, and forget the supremacy of spiritual forces in men's +affairs. It is as if we ignored a wistful, over-confident creature who +walked through our city streets calling out, "I am the spirit of +Youth! With me, all things are possible!" We fail to understand what +he wants or even to see his doings, although his acts are pregnant +with meaning, and we may either translate them into a sordid chronicle +of petty vice or turn them into a solemn school for civic +righteousness. + +We may either smother the divine fire of youth or we may feed it. We +may either stand stupidly staring as it sinks into a murky fire of +crime and flares into the intermittent blaze of folly or we may tend +it into a lambent flame with power to make clean and bright our dingy +city streets. + + + * * * * * + +Printed in the United States of America. + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Spirit of Youth and the City +Streets, by Jane Addams + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH AND THE *** + +***** This file should be named 16221-8.txt or 16221-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/2/2/16221/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Diane Monico, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets + +Author: Jane Addams + +Release Date: July 6, 2005 [EBook #16221] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH AND THE *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Diane Monico, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1> +THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH AND<br /> +THE CITY STREETS +</h1> + +<hr style="width: 33%;" /> + +<p class="center">THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br /> +<small>NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS<br /> +ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO</small></p> + +<p class="center">MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED<br /> +<small>LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA<br /> +MELBOURNE</small></p> + +<p class="center">THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br /> +OF CANADA, LIMITED<br /> +<small>TORONTO</small></p> + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>THE</h3> +<h1>SPIRIT OF YOUTH</h1> +<h2>AND THE CITY STREETS</h2> + +<h5><i>By</i></h5> +<h3>JANE ADDAMS</h3> +<h5>HULL HOUSE, CHICAGO</h5> +<p class="center"> +<i>Author of Democracy and Social Ethics<br /> +Newer Ideals of Peace, etc.</i><br /> +<br /><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="center">New York<br /> +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br /> +1930<br /> +</p> +<hr style="width: 33%;" /> +<p class="center"> +<span class="smcap"><small>Copyright, 1909,</small><br /></span> +By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.<br /> +<small>Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1909</small></p> + +<p class="center"> +Norwood Press:<br /> +Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.<br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="center">TO MY DEAR FRIEND</p> + +<h3>Louise de Koben Bowen</h3> + +<p class="center">WITH SINCERE ADMIRATION FOR HER UNDERSTANDING<br /> + OF THE NEEDS OF CITY +CHILDREN AND WITH WARM<br /> + APPRECIATION OF HER SERVICE AS PRESIDENT<br /> + OF THE JUVENILE PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION<br /> + OF CHICAGO</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + +<ul class="TOC"> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I</b></a><br /> +<br /></li> +<li>Youth in the City<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></span><br /> +<br /></li> +<li> <a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II</b></a><br /> +<br /></li> +<li>The Wrecked Foundations of Domesticity<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></span><br /> +<br /></li> + <li><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III</b></a><br /> +<br /></li> +<li>The Quest for Adventure<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></span><br /> +<br /></li> +<li> <a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV</b></a><br /> +<br /></li> +<li>The House of Dreams<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></span><br /> +<br /></li> + <li><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V</b></a><br /> +<br /></li> +<li>The Spirit of Youth and Industry<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></span><br /> +<br /></li> + <li><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI</b></a><br /> +<br /></li> +<li>The Thirst for Righteousness<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></span><br /> +<br /></li> +</ul> + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>FOREWORD</h2> + + +<p>Much of the material in the following pages has appeared in current +publications. It is here presented in book form in the hope that it +may prove of value to those groups of people who in many cities are +making a gallant effort to minimize the dangers which surround young +people and to provide them with opportunities for recreation.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I" />CHAPTER I<a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a></h3> + +<h2>YOUTH IN THE CITY</h2> + + +<p>Nothing is more certain than that each generation longs for a +reassurance as to the value and charm of life, and is secretly afraid +lest it lose its sense of the youth of the earth. This is doubtless +one reason why it so passionately cherishes its poets and artists who +have been able to explore for themselves and to reveal to others the +perpetual springs of life's self-renewal.</p> + +<p>And yet the average man cannot obtain this desired reassurance through +literature, nor yet through glimpses of earth and sky. It can come to +him only through the chance embodiment of joy and youth which life +itself may throw in his way. It is doubtless true that for the mass of +men the message is never so unchallenged and so invincible as when +embodied in youth itself. One generation after another has depended +upon its young to equip it with gaiety and enthusiasm, to persuade it +that living is a pleasure, until men everywhere have anxiously +provided channels through which this wine of life might flow, and be +preserved for their delight. The classical city promoted play with +careful solicitude, building the theater and stadium as it built the +market place and the temple. The Greeks held their games so integral a +part of religion and patriotism that they came to expect from their +poets the highest utterances at the very moments when the sense of +pleasure released the national life. In the medieval city the knights +held their tourneys, the guilds their pageants, the people their +dances, and the church made festival for its most cherished saints +with gay street processions, and presented a drama in which no less a +theme than the history of creation became a matter of thrilling +interest. Only in the modern city have men concluded that it is no +longer necessary for the municipality to provide for the insatiable +desire for play. In so far as they have acted upon this conclusion, +they have entered upon a most difficult and dangerous experiment; and +this at the very moment when the city has become distinctly +industrial, and daily labor is continually more monotonous and +subdivided. We forget how new the modern city is, and how short the +span of time in which we have assumed that we can eliminate public +provision for recreation.</p> + +<p>A further difficulty lies in the fact that this industrialism has +gathered together multitudes of eager young creatures from all +quarters of the earth as a labor supply for the countless factories +and workshops, upon which the present industrial city is based. Never +before in civilization have such numbers of young girls been suddenly +released from the protection of the home and permitted to walk +unattended upon city streets and to work under alien roofs; for the +first time they are being prized more for their labor power than for +their innocence, their tender beauty, their ephemeral gaiety. Society +cares more for the products they manufacture than for their immemorial +ability to reaffirm the charm of existence. Never before have such +numbers of young boys earned money independently of the family life, +and felt themselves free to spend it as they choose in the midst of +vice deliberately disguised as pleasure.</p> + +<p>This stupid experiment of organizing work and failing to organize play +has, of course, brought about a fine revenge. The love of pleasure +will not be denied, and when it has turned into all sorts of malignant +and vicious appetites, then we, the middle aged, grow quite distracted +and resort to all sorts of restrictive measures. We even try to dam up +the sweet fountain itself because we are affrighted by these neglected +streams; but almost worse than the restrictive measures is our +apparent belief that the city itself has no obligation in the matter, +an assumption upon which the modern city turns over to commercialism +practically all the provisions for public recreation.</p> + +<p>Quite as one set of men has organized the young people into industrial +enterprises in order to profit from their toil, so another set of men +and also of women, I am sorry to say, have entered the neglected field +of recreation and have organized enterprises which make profit out of +this invincible love of pleasure.</p> + +<p>In every city arise so-called "places"—"gin-palaces," they are +called in fiction; in Chicago we euphemistically say merely +"places,"—in which alcohol is dispensed, not to allay thirst, but, +ostensibly to stimulate gaiety, it is sold really in order to empty +pockets. Huge dance halls are opened to which hundreds of young people +are attracted, many of whom stand wistfully outside a roped circle, +for it requires five cents to procure within it for five minutes the +sense of allurement and intoxication which is sold in lieu of innocent +pleasure. These coarse and illicit merrymakings remind one of the +unrestrained jollities of Restoration London, and they are indeed +their direct descendants, properly commercialized, still confusing joy +with lust, and gaiety with debauchery. Since the soldiers of Cromwell +shut up the people's playhouses and destroyed their pleasure fields, +the Anglo-Saxon city has turned over the provision for public +recreation to the most evil-minded and the most unscrupulous members +of the community. We see thousands of girls walking up and down the +streets on a pleasant evening with no chance to catch a sight of +pleasure even through a lighted window, save as these lurid places +provide it. Apparently the modern city sees in these girls only two +possibilities, both of them commercial: first, a chance to utilize by +day their new and tender labor power in its factories and shops, and +then another chance in the evening to extract from them their petty +wages by pandering to their love of pleasure.</p> + +<p>As these overworked girls stream along the street, the rest of us see +only the self-conscious walk, the giggling speech, the preposterous +clothing. And yet through the huge hat, with its wilderness of +bedraggled feathers, the girl announces to the world that she is here. +She demands attention to the fact of her existence, she states that +she is ready to live, to take her place in the world. The most +precious moment in human development is the young creature's assertion +that he is unlike any other human being, and has an individual +contribution to make to the world. The variation from the established +type is at the root of all change, the only possible basis for +progress, all that keeps life from growing unprofitably stale and +repetitious.</p> + +<p>Is it only the artists who really see these young creatures as they +are—the artists who are themselves endowed with immortal youth? Is it +our disregard of the artist's message which makes us so blind and so +stupid, or are we so under the influence of our <i>Zeitgeist</i> that we +can detect only commercial values in the young as well as in the old? +It is as if our eyes were holden to the mystic beauty, the redemptive +joy, the civic pride which these multitudes of young people might +supply to our dingy towns.</p> + +<p>The young creatures themselves piteously look all about them in order +to find an adequate means of expression for their most precious +message: One day a serious young man came to Hull-House with his +pretty young sister who, he explained, wanted to go somewhere every +single evening, "although she could only give the flimsy excuse that +the flat was too little and too stuffy to stay in." In the difficult +rôle of elder brother, he had done his best, stating that he had taken +her "to all the missions in the neighborhood, that she had had a +chance to listen to some awful good sermons and to some elegant hymns, +but that some way she did not seem to care for the society of the best +Christian people." The little sister reddened painfully under this +cruel indictment and could offer no word of excuse, but a curious +thing happened to me. Perhaps it was the phrase "the best Christian +people," perhaps it was the delicate color of her flushing cheeks and +her swimming eyes, but certain it is, that instantly and vividly there +appeared to my mind the delicately tinted piece of wall in a Roman +catacomb where the early Christians, through a dozen devices of spring +flowers, skipping lambs and a shepherd tenderly guiding the young, had +indelibly written down that the Christian message is one of +inexpressible joy. Who is responsible for forgetting this message +delivered by the "best Christian people" two thousand years ago? Who +is to blame that the lambs, the little ewe lambs, have been so caught +upon the brambles?</p> + +<p>But quite as the modern city wastes this most valuable moment in the +life of the girl, and drives into all sorts of absurd and obscure +expressions her love and yearning towards the world in which she +forecasts her destiny, so it often drives the boy into gambling and +drinking in order to find his adventure.</p> + +<p>Of Lincoln's enlistment of two and a half million soldiers, a very +large number were under twenty-one, some of them under eighteen, and +still others were mere children under fifteen. Even in those stirring +times when patriotism and high resolve were at the flood, no one +responded as did "the boys," and the great soul who yearned over them, +who refused to shoot the sentinels who slept the sleep of childhood, +knew, as no one else knew, the precious glowing stuff of which his +army was made. But what of the millions of boys who are now searching +for adventurous action, longing to fulfil the same high purpose?</p> + +<p>One of the most pathetic sights in the public dance halls of Chicago +is the number of young men, obviously honest young fellows from the +country, who stand about vainly hoping to make the acquaintance of +some "nice girl." They look eagerly up and down the rows of girls, +many of whom are drawn to the hall by the same keen desire for +pleasure and social intercourse which the lonely young men themselves +feel.</p> + +<p>One Sunday night at twelve o'clock I had occasion to go into a large +public dance hall. As I was standing by the rail looking for the girl +I had come to find, a young man approached me and quite simply asked +me to introduce him to some "nice girl," saying that he did not know +any one there. On my replying that a public dance hall was not the +best place in which to look for a nice girl, he said: "But I don't +know any other place where there is a chance to meet any kind of a +girl. I'm awfully lonesome since I came to Chicago." And then he added +rather defiantly: "Some nice girls do come here! It's one of the best +halls in town." He was voicing the "bitter loneliness" that many city +men remember to have experienced during the first years after they had +"come up to town." Occasionally the right sort of man and girl meet +each other in these dance halls and the romance with such a tawdry +beginning ends happily and respectably. But, unfortunately, mingled +with the respectable young men seeking to form the acquaintance of +young women through the only channel which is available to them, are +many young fellows of evil purpose, and among the girls who have left +their lonely boarding houses or rigid homes for a "little fling" are +likewise women who openly desire to make money from the young men whom +they meet, and back of it all is the desire to profit by the sale of +intoxicating and "doctored" drinks.</p> + +<p>Perhaps never before have the pleasures of the young and mature become +so definitely separated as in the modern city. The public dance halls +filled with frivolous and irresponsible young people in a feverish +search for pleasure, are but a sorry substitute for the old dances on +the village green in which all of the older people of the village +participated. Chaperonage was not then a social duty but natural and +inevitable, and the whole courtship period was guarded by the +conventions and restraint which were taken as a matter of course and +had developed through years of publicity and simple propriety.</p> + +<p>The only marvel is that the stupid attempt to put the fine old wine +of traditional country life into the new bottles of the modern town +does not lead to disaster oftener than it does, and that the wine so +long remains pure and sparkling.</p> + +<p>We cannot afford to be ungenerous to the city in which we live without +suffering the penalty which lack of fair interpretation always +entails. Let us know the modern city in its weakness and wickedness, +and then seek to rectify and purify it until it shall be free at least +from the grosser temptations which now beset the young people who are +living in its tenement houses and working in its factories. The mass +of these young people are possessed of good intentions and they are +equipped with a certain understanding of city life. This itself could +be made a most valuable social instrument toward securing innocent +recreation and better social organization. They are already serving +the city in so far as it is honeycombed with mutual benefit societies, +with "pleasure clubs," with organizations connected with churches and +factories which are filling a genuine social need. And yet the whole +apparatus for supplying pleasure is wretchedly inadequate and full of +danger to whomsoever may approach it. Who is responsible for its +inadequacy and dangers? We certainly cannot expect the fathers and +mothers who have come to the city from farms or who have emigrated +from other lands to appreciate or rectify these dangers. We cannot +expect the young people themselves to cling to conventions which are +totally unsuited to modern city conditions, nor yet to be equal to the +task of forming new conventions through which this more agglomerate +social life may express itself. Above all we cannot hope that they +will understand the emotional force which seizes them and which, when +it does not find the traditional line of domesticity, serves as a +cancer in the very tissues of society and as a disrupter of the +securest social bonds. No attempt is made to treat the manifestations +of this fundamental instinct with dignity or to give it possible +social utility. The spontaneous joy, the clamor for pleasure, the +desire of the young people to appear finer and better and altogether +more lovely than they really are, the idealization not only of each +other but of the whole earth which they regard but as a theater for +their noble exploits, the unworldly ambitions, the romantic hopes, the +make-believe world in which they live, if properly utilized, what +might they not do to make our sordid cities more beautiful, more +companionable? And yet at the present moment every city is full of +young people who are utterly bewildered and uninstructed in regard to +the basic experience which must inevitably come to them, and which has +varied, remote, and indirect expressions.</p> + +<p>Even those who may not agree with the authorities who claim that it is +this fundamental sex susceptibility which suffuses the world with its +deepest meaning and beauty, and furnishes the momentum towards all +art, will perhaps permit me to quote the classical expression of this +view as set forth in that ancient and wonderful conversation between +Socrates and the wise woman Diotima. Socrates asks: "What are they +doing who show all this eagerness and heat which is called love? And +what is the object they have in view? Answer me." Diotima replies: "I +will teach you. The object which they have in view is birth in beauty, +whether of body or soul.... For love, Socrates, is not as you imagine +the love of the beautiful only ... but the love of birth in beauty, +because to the mortal creature generation is a sort of eternity and +immortality."</p> + +<p>To emphasize the eternal aspects of love is not of course an easy +undertaking, even if we follow the clue afforded by the heart of every +generous lover. His experience at least in certain moments tends to +pull him on and out from the passion for one to an enthusiasm for that +highest beauty and excellence of which the most perfect form is but an +inadequate expression. Even the most loutish tenement-house youth +vaguely feels this, and at least at rare intervals reveals it in his +talk to his "girl." His memory unexpectedly brings hidden treasures to +the surface of consciousness and he recalls the more delicate and +tender experiences of his childhood and earlier youth. "I remember the +time when my little sister died, that I rode out to the cemetery +feeling that everybody in Chicago had moved away from the town to +make room for that kid's funeral, everything was so darned lonesome +and yet it was kind of peaceful too." Or, "I never had a chance to go +into the country when I was a kid, but I remember one day when I had +to deliver a package way out on the West Side, that I saw a flock of +sheep in Douglas Park. I had never thought that a sheep could be +anywhere but in a picture, and when I saw those big white spots on the +green grass beginning to move and to turn into sheep, I felt exactly +as if Saint Cecilia had come out of her frame over the organ and was +walking in the park." Such moments come into the life of the most +prosaic youth living in the most crowded quarters of the cities. What +do we do to encourage and to solidify those moments, to make them come +true in our dingy towns, to give them expression in forms of art?</p> + +<p>We not only fail in this undertaking but even debase existing forms of +art. We are informed by high authority that there is nothing in the +environment to which youth so keenly responds as to music, and yet the +streets, the vaudeville shows, the five-cent theaters are full of the +most blatant and vulgar songs. The trivial and obscene words, the +meaningless and flippant airs run through the heads of hundreds of +young people for hours at a time while they are engaged in monotonous +factory work. We totally ignore that ancient connection between music +and morals which was so long insisted upon by philosophers as well as +poets. The street music has quite broken away from all control, both +of the educator and the patriot, and we have grown singularly careless +in regard to its influence upon young people. Although we legislate +against it in saloons because of its dangerous influence there, we +constantly permit music on the street to incite that which should be +controlled, to degrade that which should be exalted, to make sensuous +that which might be lifted into the realm of the higher imagination.</p> + +<p>Our attitude towards music is typical of our carelessness towards all +those things which make for common joy and for the restraints of +higher civilization on the streets. It is as if our cities had not yet +developed a sense of responsibility in regard to the life of the +streets, and continually forget that recreation is stronger than +vice, and that recreation alone can stifle the lust for vice.</p> + +<p>Perhaps we need to take a page from the philosophy of the Greeks to +whom the world of fact was also the world of the ideal, and to whom +the realization of what ought to be, involved not the destruction of +what was, but merely its perfecting upon its own lines. To the Greeks +virtue was not a hard conformity to a law felt as alien to the natural +character, but a free expression of the inner life. To treat thus the +fundamental susceptibility of sex which now so bewilders the street +life and drives young people themselves into all sorts of +difficulties, would mean to loosen it from the things of sense and to +link it to the affairs of the imagination. It would mean to fit to +this gross and heavy stuff the wings of the mind, to scatter from it +"the clinging mud of banality and vulgarity," and to speed it on +through our city streets amid spontaneous laughter, snatches of lyric +song, the recovered forms of old dances, and the traditional rondels +of merry games. It would thus bring charm and beauty to the prosaic +city and connect it subtly with the arts of the past as well as with +the vigor and renewed life of the future.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II" />CHAPTER II<a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a></h3> + +<h2>THE WRECKED FOUNDATIONS OF DOMESTICITY</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">"Sense with keenest edge unused<br /><br /></span> +<span class="i4">Yet unsteel'd by scathing fire:<br /><br /></span> +<span class="i4">Lovely feet as yet unbruised<br /><br /></span> +<span class="i4">On the ways of dark desire!"<br /><br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>These words written by a poet to his young son express the longing +which has at times seized all of us, to guard youth from the mass of +difficulties which may be traced to the obscure manifestation of that +fundamental susceptibility of which we are all slow to speak and +concerning which we evade public responsibility, although it brings +its scores of victims into the police courts every morning.</p> + +<p>At the very outset we must bear in mind that the senses of youth are +singularly acute, and ready to respond to every vivid appeal. We know +that nature herself has sharpened the senses for her own purposes, and +is deliberately establishing a connection between them and the newly +awakened susceptibility of sex; for it is only through the outward +senses that the selection of an individual mate is made and the +instinct utilized for nature's purposes. It would seem, however, that +nature was determined that the force and constancy of the instinct +must make up for its lack of precision, and that she was totally +unconcerned that this instinct ruthlessly seized the youth at the +moment when he was least prepared to cope with it; not only because +his powers of self-control and discrimination are unequal to the task, +but because his senses are helplessly wide open to the world. These +early manifestations of the sex susceptibility are for the most part +vague and formless, and are absolutely without definition to the youth +himself. Sometimes months and years elapse before the individual mate +is selected and determined upon, and during the time when the +differentiation is not complete—and it often is not—there is of +necessity a great deal of groping and waste.</p> + +<p>This period of groping is complicated by the fact that the youth's +power for appreciating is far ahead of his ability for expression. +"The inner traffic fairly obstructs the outer current," and it is +nothing short of cruelty to over-stimulate his senses as does the +modern city. This period is difficult everywhere, but it seems at +times as if a great city almost deliberately increased its perils. The +newly awakened senses are appealed to by all that is gaudy and +sensual, by the flippant street music, the highly colored theater +posters, the trashy love stories, the feathered hats, the cheap +heroics of the revolvers displayed in the pawn-shop windows. This +fundamental susceptibility is thus evoked without a corresponding stir +of the higher imagination, and the result is as dangerous as possible. +We are told upon good authority that "If the imagination is retarded, +while the senses remain awake, we have a state of esthetic +insensibility,"—in other words, the senses become sodden and cannot +be lifted from the ground. It is this state of "esthetic +insensibility" into which we allow the youth to fall which is so +distressing and so unjustifiable. Sex impulse then becomes merely a +dumb and powerful instinct without in the least awakening the +imagination or the heart, nor does it overflow into neighboring fields +of consciousness. Every city contains hundreds of degenerates who have +been over-mastered and borne down by it; they fill the casual lodging +houses and the infirmaries. In many instances it has pushed men of +ability and promise to the bottom of the social scale. Warner, in his +<i>American Charities</i>, designates it as one of the steady forces making +for failure and poverty, and contends that "the inherent uncleanness +of their minds prevents many men from rising above the rank of day +laborers and finally incapacitates them even for that position." He +also suggests that the modern man has a stronger imagination than the +man of a few hundred years ago and that sensuality destroys him the +more rapidly.</p> + +<p>It is difficult to state how much evil and distress might be averted +if the imagination were utilized in its higher capacities through the +historic paths. An English moralist has lately asserted that "much of +the evil of the time may be traced to outraged imagination. It is the +strongest quality of the brain and it is starved. Children, from +their earliest years, are hedged in with facts; they are not trained +to use their minds on the unseen."</p> + +<p>In failing to diffuse and utilize this fundamental instinct of sex +through the imagination, we not only inadvertently foster vice and +enervation, but we throw away one of the most precious implements for +ministering to life's highest needs. There is no doubt that this ill +adjusted function consumes quite unnecessarily vast stores of vital +energy, even when we contemplate it in its immature manifestations +which are infinitely more wholesome than the dumb swamping process. +Every high school boy and girl knows the difference between the +concentration and the diffusion of this impulse, although they would +be hopelessly bewildered by the use of the terms. They will declare +one of their companions to be "in love" if his fancy is occupied by +the image of a single person about whom all the newly found values +gather, and without whom his solitude is an eternal melancholy. But if +the stimulus does not appear as a definite image, and the values +evoked are dispensed over the world, the young person suddenly seems +to have discovered a beauty and significance in many things—he +responds to poetry, he becomes a lover of nature, he is filled with +religious devotion or with philanthropic zeal. Experience, with young +people, easily illustrates the possibility and value of diffusion.</p> + +<p>It is neither a short nor an easy undertaking to substitute the love +of beauty for mere desire, to place the mind above the senses; but is +not this the sum of the immemorial obligation which rests upon the +adults of each generation if they would nurture and restrain the +youth, and has not the whole history of civilization been but one long +effort to substitute psychic impulsion for the driving force of blind +appetite?</p> + +<p>Society has recognized the "imitative play" impulse of children and +provides them with tiny bricks with which to "build a house," and +dolls upon which they may lavish their tenderness. We exalt the love +of the mother and the stability of the home, but in regard to those +difficult years between childhood and maturity we beg the question and +unless we repress, we do nothing. We are so timid and inconsistent +that although we declare the home to be the foundation of society, we +do nothing to direct the force upon which the continuity of the home +depends. And yet to one who has lived for years in a crowded quarter +where men, women and children constantly jostle each other and press +upon every inch of space in shop, tenement and street, nothing is more +impressive than the strength, the continuity, the varied and powerful +manifestations, of family affection. It goes without saying that every +tenement house contains women who for years spend their hurried days +in preparing food and clothing and pass their sleepless nights in +tending and nursing their exigent children, with never one thought for +their own comfort or pleasure or development save as these may be +connected with the future of their families. We all know as a matter +of course that every shop is crowded with workingmen who year after +year spend all of their wages upon the nurture and education of their +children, reserving for themselves but the shabbiest clothing and a +crowded place at the family table.</p> + +<p>"Bad weather for you to be out in," you remark on a February evening, +as you meet rheumatic Mr. S. hobbling home through the freezing sleet +without an overcoat. "Yes, it is bad," he assents: "but I've walked to +work all this last year. We've sent the oldest boy back to high +school, you know," and he moves on with no thought that he is doing +other than fulfilling the ordinary lot of the ordinary man.</p> + +<p>These are the familiar and the constant manifestations of family +affection which are so intimate a part of life that we scarcely +observe them.</p> + +<p>In addition to these we find peculiar manifestations of family +devotion exemplifying that touching affection which rises to unusual +sacrifice because it is close to pity and feebleness. "My cousin and +his family had to go back to Italy. He got to Ellis Island with his +wife and five children, but they wouldn't let in the feeble-minded +boy, so of course they all went back with him. My cousin was fearful +disappointed."</p> + +<p>Or, "These are the five children of my brother. He and his wife, my +father and mother, were all done for in the bad time at Kishinef. It's +up to me all right to take care of the kids, and I'd no more go back +on them than I would on my own." Or, again: "Yes, I have seven +children of my own. My husband died when Tim was born. The other three +children belong to my sister, who died the year after my husband. I +get on pretty well. I scrub in a factory every night from six to +twelve, and I go out washing four days a week. So far the children +have all gone through the eighth grade before they quit school," she +concludes, beaming with pride and joy.</p> + +<p>That wonderful devotion to the child seems at times, in the midst of +our stupid social and industrial arrangements, all that keeps society +human, the touch of nature which unites it, as it was that same +devotion which first lifted it out of the swamp of bestiality. The +devotion to the child is "the inevitable conclusion of the two +premises of the practical syllogism, the devotion of man to woman." +It is, of course, this tremendous force which makes possible the +family, that bond which holds society together and blends the +experience of generations into a continuous story. The family has been +called "the fountain of morality," "the source of law," "the necessary +prelude to the state" itself; but while it is continuous historically, +this dual bond must be made anew a myriad times in each generation, +and the forces upon which its formation depend must be powerful and +unerring. It would be too great a risk to leave it to a force whose +manifestations are intermittent and uncertain. The desired result is +too grave and fundamental.</p> + +<p>One Sunday evening an excited young man came to see me, saying that he +must have advice; some one must tell him at once what to do, as his +wife was in the state's prison serving a sentence for a crime which he +himself had committed. He had seen her the day before, and though she +had been there only a month he was convinced that she was developing +consumption. She was "only seventeen, and couldn't stand the hard +work and the 'low down' women" whom she had for companions. My remark +that a girl of seventeen was too young to be in the state penitentiary +brought out the whole wretched story.</p> + +<p>He had been unsteady for many years and the despair of his thoroughly +respectable family who had sent him West the year before. In Arkansas +he had fallen in love with a girl of sixteen and married her. His +mother was far from pleased, but had finally sent him money to bring +his bride to Chicago, in the hope that he might settle there. <i>En +route</i> they stopped at a small town for the naïve reason that he +wanted to have an aching tooth pulled. But the tooth gave him an +excellent opportunity to have a drink, and before he reached the +office of the country practitioner he was intoxicated. As they passed +through the vestibule he stole an overcoat hanging there, although the +little wife piteously begged him to let it alone. Out of sheer bravado +he carried it across his arm as they walked down the street, and was, +of course, immediately arrested "with the goods upon him." In sheer +terror of being separated from her husband, the wife insisted that +she had been an accomplice, and together they were put into the county +jail awaiting the action of the Grand Jury. At the end of the sixth +week, on one of the rare occasions when they were permitted to talk to +each other through the grating which separated the men's visiting +quarters from the women's, the young wife told her husband that she +made up her mind to swear that she had stolen the overcoat. What could +she do if he were sent to prison and she were left free? She was +afraid to go to his people and could not possibly go back to hers. In +spite of his protest, that very night she sent for the state's +attorney and made a full confession, giving her age as eighteen in the +hope of making her testimony more valuable. From that time on they +stuck to the lie through the indictment, the trial and her conviction. +Apparently it had seemed to him only a well-arranged plot until he had +visited the penitentiary the day before, and had really seen her +piteous plight. Remorse had seized him at last, and he was ready to +make every restitution. She, however, had no notion of giving up—on +the contrary, as she realized more clearly what prison life meant, she +was daily more determined to spare him the experience. Her letters, +written in the unformed hand of a child—for her husband had himself +taught her to read and write—were filled with a riot of +self-abnegation, the martyr's joy as he feels the iron enter the +flesh. Thus had an illiterate, neglected girl through sheer devotion +to a worthless sort of young fellow inclined to drink, entered into +that noble company of martyrs.</p> + +<p>When girls "go wrong" what happens? How has this tremendous force, +valuable and necessary for the foundation of the family, become +misdirected? When its manifestations follow the legitimate channels of +wedded life we call them praiseworthy; but there are other +manifestations quite outside the legal and moral channels which yet +compel our admiration.</p> + +<p>A young woman of my acquaintance was married to a professional +criminal named Joe. Three months after the wedding he was arrested +and "sent up" for two years. Molly had always been accustomed to many +lovers, but she remained faithful to her absent husband for a year. At +the end of that time she obtained a divorce which the state law makes +easy for the wife of a convict, and married a man who was "rich and +respectable"—in fact, he owned the small manufacturing establishment +in which her mother did the scrubbing. He moved his bride to another +part of town six miles away, provided her with a "steam-heated flat," +furniture upholstered in "cut velvet," and many other luxuries of +which Molly heretofore had only dreamed. One day as she was wheeling a +handsome baby carriage up and down the prosperous street, her brother, +who was "Joe's pal," came to tell her that Joe was "out," had come to +the old tenement and was "mighty sore" because "she had gone back on +him." Without a moment's hesitation Molly turned the baby carriage in +the direction of her old home and never stopped wheeling it until she +had compassed the entire six miles. She and Joe rented the old room +and went to housekeeping. The rich and respectable husband made every +effort to persuade her to come back, and then another series of +efforts to recover his child, before he set her free through a court +proceeding. Joe, however, steadfastly refused to marry her, still +"sore" because she had not "stood by." As he worked only +intermittently, and was too closely supervised by the police to do +much at his old occupation, Molly was obliged to support the humble +ménage by scrubbing in a neighboring lodging house and by washing "the +odd shirts" of the lodgers. For five years, during which time two +children were born, when she was constantly subjected to the taunts of +her neighbors, and when all the charitable agencies refused to give +help to such an irregular household, Molly happily went on her course +with no shade of regret or sorrow. "I'm all right as long as Joe keeps +out of the jug," was her slogan of happiness, low in tone, perhaps, +but genuine and "game." Her surroundings were as sordid as possible, +consisting of a constantly changing series of cheap "furnished rooms" +in which the battered baby carriage was the sole witness of better +days. But Molly's heart was full of courage and happiness, and she was +never desolate until her criminal lover was "sent up" again, this time +on a really serious charge.</p> + +<p>These irregular manifestations form a link between that world in which +each one struggles to "live respectable," and that nether world in +which are also found cases of devotion and of enduring affection +arising out of the midst of the folly and the shame. The girl there +who through all tribulation supports her recreant "lover," or the girl +who overcomes, her drink and opium habits, who renounces luxuries and +goes back to uninteresting daily toil for the sake of the good opinion +of a man who wishes her to "appear decent," although he never means to +marry her, these are also impressive.</p> + +<p>One of our earliest experiences at Hull-House had to do with a lover +of this type and the charming young girl who had become fatally +attached to him. I can see her now running for protection up the broad +steps of the columned piazza then surrounding Hull-House. Her slender +figure was trembling with fright, her tear-covered face swollen and +bloodstained from the blows he had dealt her. "He is apt to abuse me +when he is drunk," was the only explanation, and that given by way of +apology, which could be extracted from her. When we discovered that +there had been no marriage ceremony, that there were no living +children, that she had twice narrowly escaped losing her life, it +seemed a simple matter to insist that the relation should be broken +off. She apathetically remained at Hull-House for a few weeks, but +when her strength had somewhat returned, when her lover began to +recover from his prolonged debauch of whiskey and opium, she insisted +upon going home every day to prepare his meals and to see that the +little tenement was clean and comfortable because "Pierre is always so +sick and weak after one of those long ones." This of course meant that +she was drifting back to him, and when she was at last restrained by +that moral compulsion, by that overwhelming of another's will which is +always so ruthlessly exerted by those who are conscious that virtue is +struggling with vice, her mind gave way and she became utterly +distraught.</p> + +<p>A poor little Ophelia, I met her one night wandering in the hall half +dressed in the tawdry pink gown "that Pierre liked best of all" and +groping on the blank wall to find the door which might permit her to +escape to her lover. In a few days it was obvious that hospital +restraint was necessary, but when she finally recovered we were +obliged to admit that there is no civic authority which can control +the acts of a girl of eighteen. From the hospital she followed her +heart directly back to Pierre, who had in the meantime moved out of +the Hull-House neighborhood. We knew later that he had degraded the +poor child still further by obliging her to earn money for his drugs +by that last method resorted to by a degenerate man to whom a woman's +devotion still clings.</p> + +<p>It is inevitable that a force which is enduring enough to withstand +the discouragements, the suffering and privation of daily living, +strenuous enough to overcome and rectify the impulses which make for +greed and self-indulgence, should be able, even under untoward +conditions, to lift up and transfigure those who are really within +its grasp and set them in marked contrast to those who are merely +playing a game with it or using it for gain. But what has happened to +these wretched girls? Why has this beneficent current cast them upon +the shores of death and destruction when it should have carried them +into the safe port of domesticity? Through whose fault has this basic +emotion served merely to trick and deride them?</p> + +<p>Older nations have taken a well defined line of action in regard to +it.</p> + +<p>Among the Hull-House neighbors are many of the Latin races who employ +a careful chaperonage over their marriageable daughters and provide +husbands for them at an early age. "My father will get a husband for +me this winter," announces Angelina, whose father has brought her to a +party at Hull-House, and she adds with a toss of her head, "I saw two +already, but my father says they haven't saved enough money to marry +me." She feels quite as content in her father's wisdom and ability to +provide her with a husband as she does in his capacity to escort her +home safely from the party. He does not permit her to cross the +threshold after nightfall unaccompanied by himself, and unless the +dowry and the husband are provided before she is eighteen he will +consider himself derelict in his duty towards her. "Francesca can't +even come to the Sodality meeting this winter. She lives only across +from the church but her mother won't let her come because her father +is out West working on a railroad," is a comment one often hears. The +system works well only when it is carried logically through to the end +of an early marriage with a properly-provided husband.</p> + +<p>Even with the Latin races, when the system is tried in America it +often breaks down, and when the Anglo-Saxons anywhere imitate this +régime it is usually utterly futile. They follow the first part of the +program as far as repression is concerned, but they find it impossible +to follow the second because all sorts of inherited notions deter +them. The repressed girl, if she is not one of the languishing type, +takes matters into her own hands, and finds her pleasures in illicit +ways, without her parents' knowledge. "I had no idea my daughter was +going to public dances. She always told me she was spending the night +with her cousin on the South Side. I hadn't a suspicion of the truth," +many a broken-hearted mother explains. An officer who has had a long +experience in the Juvenile Court of Chicago, and has listened to +hundreds of cases involving wayward girls, gives it as his deliberate +impression that a large majority of cases are from families where the +discipline had been rigid, where they had taken but half of the +convention of the Old World and left the other half.</p> + +<p>Unless we mean to go back to these Old World customs which are already +hopelessly broken, there would seem to be but one path open to us in +America. That path implies freedom for the young people made safe only +through their own self-control. This, in turn, must be based upon +knowledge and habits of clean companionship. In point of fact no +course between the two is safe in a modern city, and in the most +crowded quarters the young people themselves are working out a +protective code which reminds one of the instinctive protection that +the free-ranging child in the country learns in regard to poisonous +plants and "marshy places," or of the cautions and abilities that the +mountain child develops in regard to ice and precipices. This +statement, of course, does not hold good concerning a large number of +children in every crowded city quarter who may be classed as +degenerates, the children of careless or dissolute mothers who fall +into all sorts of degenerate habits and associations before childhood +is passed, who cannot be said to have "gone wrong" at any one moment +because they have never been in the right path even of innocent +childhood; but the statement is sound concerning thousands of girls +who go to and from work every day with crowds of young men who meet +them again and again in the occasional evening pleasures of the more +decent dance halls or on a Sunday afternoon in the parks.</p> + +<p>The mothers who are of most use to these normal city working girls are +the mothers who develop a sense of companionship with the changing +experiences of their daughters, who are willing to modify ill-fitting +social conventions into rules of conduct which are of actual service +to their children in their daily lives of factory work and of city +amusements. Those mothers, through their sympathy and adaptability, +substitute keen present interests and activity for solemn warnings and +restraint, self-expression for repression. Their vigorous family life +allies itself by a dozen bonds to the educational, the industrial and +the recreational organizations of the modern city, and makes for +intelligent understanding, industrial efficiency and sane social +pleasures.</p> + +<p>By all means let us preserve the safety of the home, but let us also +make safe the street in which the majority of our young people find +their recreation and form their permanent relationships. Let us not +forget that the great processes of social life develop themselves +through influences of which each participant is unconscious as he +struggles alone and unaided in the strength of a current which seizes +him and bears him along with myriads of others, a current which may so +easily wreck the very foundations of domesticity.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III" />CHAPTER III<a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a></h3> + +<h2>THE QUEST FOR ADVENTURE</h2> + + +<p>A certain number of the outrages upon the spirit of youth may be +traced to degenerate or careless parents who totally neglect their +responsibilities; a certain other large number of wrongs are due to +sordid men and women who deliberately use the legitimate +pleasure-seeking of young people as lures into vice. There remains, +however, a third very large class of offenses for which the community +as a whole must be held responsible if it would escape the +condemnation, "Woe unto him by whom offenses come." This class of +offenses is traceable to a dense ignorance on the part of the average +citizen as to the requirements of youth, and to a persistent blindness +on the part of educators as to youth's most obvious needs.</p> + +<p>The young people are overborne by their own undirected and misguided +energies. A mere temperamental outbreak in a brief period of +obstreperousness exposes a promising boy to arrest and imprisonment, +an accidental combination of circumstances too complicated and +overwhelming to be coped with by an immature mind, condemns a growing +lad to a criminal career. These impulsive misdeeds may be thought of +as dividing into two great trends somewhat obscurely analogous to the +two historic divisions of man's motive power, for we are told that all +the activities of primitive man and even those of his more civilized +successors may be broadly traced to the impulsion of two elemental +appetites. The first drove him to the search for food, the hunt +developing into war with neighboring tribes and finally broadening +into barter and modern commerce; the second urged him to secure and +protect a mate, developing into domestic life, widening into the +building of homes and cities, into the cultivation of the arts and a +care for beauty.</p> + +<p>In the life of each boy there comes a time when these primitive +instincts urge him to action, when he is himself frightened by their +undefined power. He is faced by the necessity of taming them, of +reducing them to manageable impulses just at the moment when "a boy's +will is the wind's will," or, in the words of a veteran educator, at +the time when "it is almost impossible for an adult to realize the +boy's irresponsibility and even moral neurasthenia." That the boy +often fails may be traced in those pitiful figures which show that +between two and three times as much incorrigibility occurs between the +ages of thirteen and sixteen as at any other period of life.</p> + +<p>The second division of motive power has been treated in the preceding +chapter. The present chapter is an effort to point out the necessity +for an understanding of the first trend of motives if we would +minimize the temptations of the struggle and free the boy from the +constant sense of the stupidity and savagery of life. To set his feet +in the worn path of civilization is not an easy task, but it may give +us a clue for the undertaking to trace his misdeeds to the +unrecognized and primitive spirit of adventure corresponding to the +old activity of the hunt, of warfare, and of discovery.</p> + +<p>To do this intelligently, we shall have to remember that many boys in +the years immediately following school find no restraint either in +tradition or character. They drop learning as a childish thing and +look upon school as a tiresome task that is finished. They demand +pleasure as the right of one who earns his own living. They have +developed no capacity for recreation demanding mental effort or even +muscular skill, and are obliged to seek only that depending upon +sight, sound and taste. Many of them begin to pay board to their +mothers, and make the best bargain they can, that more money may be +left to spend in the evening. They even bait the excitement of "losing +a job," and often provoke a foreman if only to see "how much he will +stand." They are constitutionally unable to enjoy anything +continuously and follow their vagrant wills unhindered. Unfortunately +the city lends itself to this distraction. At the best, it is +difficult to know what to select and what to eliminate as objects of +attention among its thronged streets, its glittering shops, its gaudy +advertisements of shows and amusements. It is perhaps to the credit +of many city boys that the very first puerile spirit of adventure +looking abroad in the world for material upon which to exercise +itself, seems to center about the railroad. The impulse is not unlike +that which excites the coast-dwelling lad to dream of</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"The beauty and mystery of the ships</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And the magic of the sea."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>I cite here a dozen charges upon which boys were brought into the +Juvenile Court of Chicago, all of which might be designated as deeds +of adventure. A surprising number, as the reader will observe, are +connected with railroads. They are taken from the court records and +repeat the actual words used by police officers, irate neighbors, or +discouraged parents, when the boys were brought before the judge. (1) +Building fires along the railroad tracks; (2) flagging trains; (3) +throwing stones at moving train windows; (4) shooting at the actors in +the Olympic Theatre with sling shots; (5) breaking signal lights on +the railroad; (6) stealing linseed oil barrels from the railroad to +make a fire; (7) taking waste from an axle box and burning it upon +the railroad tracks; (8) turning a switch and running a street car off +the track; (9) staying away from home to sleep in barns; (10) setting +fire to a barn in order to see the fire engines come up the street; +(11) knocking down signs; (12) cutting Western Union cable.</p> + +<p>Another dozen charges also taken from actual court records might be +added as illustrating the spirit of adventure, for although stealing +is involved in all of them, the deeds were doubtless inspired much +more by the adventurous impulse than by a desire for the loot itself:</p> + +<p>(1) Stealing thirteen pigeons from a barn; (2) stealing a bathing +suit; (3) stealing a tent; (4) stealing ten dollars from mother with +which to buy a revolver; (5) stealing a horse blanket to use at night +when it was cold sleeping on the wharf; (6) breaking a seal on a +freight car to steal "grain for chickens"; (7) stealing apples from a +freight car; (8) stealing a candy peddler's wagon "to be full up just +for once"; (9) stealing a hand car; (10) stealing a bicycle to take a +ride; (11) stealing a horse and buggy and driving twenty-five miles +into the country; (12) stealing a stray horse on the prairie and +trying to sell it for twenty dollars.</p> + +<p>Of another dozen it might be claimed that they were also due to this +same adventurous spirit, although the first six were classed as +disorderly conduct: (1) Calling a neighbor a "scab"; (2) breaking down +a fence; (3) flipping cars; (4) picking up coal from railroad tracks; +(5) carrying a concealed "dagger," and stabbing a playmate with it; +(6) throwing stones at a railroad employee. The next three were called +vagrancy: (1) Loafing on the docks; (2) "sleeping out" nights; (3) +getting "wandering spells." One, designated petty larceny, was cutting +telephone wires under the sidewalk and selling them; another, called +burglary, was taking locks off from basement doors; and the last one +bore the dignified title of "resisting an officer" because the boy, +who was riding on the fender of a street car, refused to move when an +officer ordered him off.</p> + +<p>Of course one easily recalls other cases in which the manifestations +were negative. I remember an exasperated and frightened mother who +took a boy of fourteen into court upon the charge of incorrigibility. +She accused him of "shooting craps," "smoking cigarettes," "keeping +bad company," "being idle." The mother regrets it now, however, for +she thinks that taking a boy into court only gives him a bad name, and +that "the police are down on a boy who has once been in court, and +that that makes it harder for him." She hardly recognizes her once +troublesome charge in the steady young man of nineteen who brings home +all his wages and is the pride and stay of her old age.</p> + +<p>I recall another boy who worked his way to New York and back again to +Chicago before he was quite fourteen years old, skilfully escaping +the truant officers as well as the police and special railroad +detectives. He told his story with great pride, but always modestly +admitted that he could never have done it if his father had not been a +locomotive engineer so that he had played around railroad tracks and +"was onto them ever since he was a small kid."</p> + +<p>There are many of these adventurous boys who exhibit a curious +incapacity for any effort which requires sustained energy. They show +an absolute lack of interest in the accomplishment of what they +undertake, so marked that if challenged in the midst of their +activity, they will be quite unable to tell you the end they have in +view. Then there are those tramp boys who are the despair of every one +who tries to deal with them.</p> + +<p>I remember the case of a boy who traveled almost around the world in +the years lying between the ages of eleven and fifteen. He had lived +for six months in Honolulu where he had made up his mind to settle +when the irresistible "Wanderlust" again seized him. He was +scrupulously neat in his habits and something of a dandy in +appearance. He boasted that he had never stolen, although he had been +arrested several times on the charge of vagrancy, a fate which befell +him in Chicago and landed him in the Detention Home connected with the +Juvenile Court. The judge gained a personal hold upon him, and the lad +tried with all the powers of his untrained moral nature to "make good +and please the judge." Monotonous factory work was not to be thought +of in connection with him, but his good friend the judge found a +place for him as a bell-boy in a men's club, where it was hoped that +the uniform and the variety of experience might enable him to take the +first steps toward regular pay and a settled life. Through another +bell-boy, however, he heard of the find of a diamond carelessly left +in one of the wash rooms of the club. The chance to throw out +mysterious hints of its whereabouts, to bargain for its restoration, +to tell of great diamond deals he had heard of in his travels, +inevitably laid him open to suspicion which resulted in his dismissal, +although he had had nothing to do with the matter beyond gloating over +its adventurous aspects. In spite of skilful efforts made to detain +him, he once more started on his travels, throwing out such diverse +hints as that of "a trip into Old Mexico," or "following up Roosevelt +into Africa."</p> + +<p>There is an entire series of difficulties directly traceable to the +foolish and adventurous persistence of carrying loaded firearms. The +morning paper of the day in which I am writing records the following:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"A party of boys, led by Daniel O'Brien, thirteen years old, + had gathered in front of the house and O'Brien was throwing + stones at Nieczgodzki in revenge for a whipping that he + received at his hands about a month ago. The Polish boy + ordered them away and threatened to go into the house and + get a revolver if they did not stop. Pfister, one of the + boys in O'Brien's party, called him a coward, and when he + pulled a revolver from his pocket, dared him to put it away + and meet him in a fist fight in the street. Instead of + accepting the challenge, Nieczgodzki aimed his revolver at + Pfister and fired. The bullet crashed through the top of his + head and entered the brain. He was rushed to the Alexian + Brothers' Hospital, but died a short time after being + received there. Nieczgodzki was arrested and held without + bail."</p></div> + +<p>This tale could be duplicated almost every morning; what might be +merely a boyish scrap is turned into a tragedy because some boy has a +revolver.</p> + +<p>Many citizens in Chicago have been made heartsick during the past +month by the knowledge that a boy of nineteen was lodged in the county +jail awaiting the death penalty. He had shot and killed a policeman +during the scrimmage of an arrest, although the offense for which he +was being "taken in" was a trifling one. His parents came to Chicago +twenty years ago from a little farm in Ohio, the best type of +Americans, whom we boast to be the backbone of our cities. The mother, +who has aged and sickened since the trial, can only say that "Davie +was never a bad boy until about five years ago when he began to go +with this gang who are always looking out for fun."</p> + +<p>Then there are those piteous cases due to a perfervid imagination +which fails to find material suited to its demands. I can recall +misadventures of children living within a few blocks of Hull-House +which may well fill with chagrin those of us who are trying to +administer to their deeper needs. I remember a Greek boy of fifteen +who was arrested for attempting to hang a young Turk, stirred by some +vague notion of carrying on a traditional warfare, and of adding +another page to the heroic annals of Greek history. When sifted, the +incident amounted to little more than a graphic threat and the lad was +dismissed by the court, covered with confusion and remorse that he had +brought disgrace upon the name of Greece when he had hoped to add to +its glory.</p> + +<p>I remember with a lump in my throat the Bohemian boy of thirteen who +committed suicide because he could not "make good" in school, and +wished to show that he too had "the stuff" in him, as stated in the +piteous little letter left behind. This same love of excitement, the +desire to jump out of the humdrum experience of life, also induces +boys to experiment with drinks and drugs to a surprising extent. For +several years the residents of Hull-House struggled with the +difficulty of prohibiting the sale of cocaine to minors under a +totally inadequate code of legislation, which has at last happily been +changed to one more effective and enforcible. The long effort brought +us into contact with dozens of boys who had become victims of the +cocaine habit. The first group of these boys was discovered in the +house of "Army George." This one-armed man sold cocaine on the streets +and also in the levee district by a system of signals so that the word +cocaine need never be mentioned, and the style and size of the package +was changed so often that even a vigilant police found it hard to +locate it. What could be more exciting to a lad than a traffic in a +contraband article, carried on in this mysterious fashion? I recall +our experience with a gang of boys living on a neighboring street. +There were eight of them altogether, the eldest seventeen years of +age, the youngest thirteen, and they practically lived the life of +vagrants. What answered to their club house was a corner lot on +Harrison and Desplaines Streets, strewn with old boilers, in which +they slept by night and many times by day. The gang was brought to the +attention of Hull-House during the summer of 1904 by a distracted +mother, who suspected that they were all addicted to some drug. She +was terribly frightened over the state of her youngest boy of +thirteen, who was hideously emaciated and his mind reduced almost to +vacancy. I remember the poor woman as she sat in the reception room at +Hull-House, holding the unconscious boy in her arms, rocking herself +back and forth in her fright and despair, saying: "I have seen them go +with the drink, and eat the hideous opium, but I never knew anything +like this."</p> + +<p>An investigation showed that cocaine had first been offered to these +boys on the street by a colored man, an agent of a drug store, who +had given them samples and urged them to try it. In three or four +months they had become hopelessly addicted to its use, and at the end +of six months, when they were brought to Hull-House, they were all in +a critical condition. At that time not one of them was either going to +school or working. They stole from their parents, "swiped junk," +pawned their clothes and shoes,—did any desperate thing to "get the +dope," as they called it.</p> + +<p>Of course they continually required more, and had spent as much as +eight dollars a night for cocaine, which they used to "share and share +alike." It sounds like a large amount, but it really meant only four +doses each during the night, as at that time they were taking +twenty-five cents' worth at once if they could possibly secure it. The +boys would tell nothing for three or four days after they were +discovered, in spite of the united efforts of their families, the +police, and the residents of Hull-House. But finally the superior boy +of the gang, the manliest and the least debauched, told his tale, and +the others followed in quick succession. They were willing to go +somewhere to be helped, and were even eager if they could go together, +and finally seven of them were sent to the Presbyterian Hospital for +four weeks' treatment and afterwards all went to the country together +for six weeks more. The emaciated child gained twenty pounds during +his sojourn in the hospital, the head of which testified that at least +three of the boys could have stood but little more of the irregular +living and doping. At the present moment they are all, save one, doing +well, although they were rescued so late that they seemed to have but +little chance. One is still struggling with the appetite on an Iowa +farm and dares not trust himself in the city because he knows too well +how cocaine may be procured in spite of better legislation. It is +doubtful whether these boys could ever have been pulled through unless +they had been allowed to keep together through the hospital and +convalescing period,—unless we had been able to utilize the gang +spirit and to turn its collective force towards overcoming the desire +for the drug.</p> + +<p>The desire to dream and see visions also plays an important part with +the boys who habitually use cocaine. I recall a small hut used by boys +for this purpose. They washed dishes in a neighboring restaurant and +as soon as they had earned a few cents they invested in cocaine which +they kept pinned underneath their suspenders. When they had +accumulated enough for a real debauch they went to this hut and for +several days were dead to the outside world. One boy told me that in +his dreams he saw large rooms paved with gold and silver money, the +walls papered with greenbacks, and that he took away in buckets all +that he could carry.</p> + +<p>This desire for adventure also seizes girls. A group of girls ranging +in age from twelve to seventeen was discovered in Chicago last June, +two of whom were being trained by older women to open tills in small +shops, to pick pockets, to remove handkerchiefs, furs and purses and +to lift merchandise from the counters of department stores. All the +articles stolen were at once taken to their teachers and the girls +themselves received no remuneration, except occasional sprees to the +theaters or other places of amusement. The girls gave no coherent +reason for their actions beyond the statement that they liked the +excitement and the fun of it. Doubtless to the thrill of danger was +added the pleasure and interest of being daily in the shops and the +glitter of "down town." The boys are more indifferent to this downtown +life, and are apt to carry on their adventures on the docks, the +railroad tracks or best of all upon the unoccupied prairie.</p> + +<p>This inveterate demand of youth that life shall afford a large element +of excitement is in a measure well founded. We know of course that it +is necessary to accept excitement as an inevitable part of recreation, +that the first step in recreation is "that excitement which stirs the +worn or sleeping centers of a man's body and mind." It is only when it +is followed by nothing else that it defeats its own end, that it uses +up strength and does not create it. In the actual experience of these +boys the excitement has demoralized them and led them into +law-breaking. When, however, they seek legitimate pleasure, and say +with great pride that they are "ready to pay for it," what they find +is legal but scarcely more wholesome,—it is still merely excitement. +"Looping the loop" amid shrieks of simulated terror or dancing in +disorderly saloon halls, are perhaps the natural reactions to a day +spent in noisy factories and in trolley cars whirling through the +distracting streets, but the city which permits them to be the acme of +pleasure and recreation to its young people, commits a grievous +mistake.</p> + +<p>May we not assume that this love for excitement, this desire for +adventure, is basic, and will be evinced by each generation of city +boys as a challenge to their elders? And yet those of us who live in +Chicago are obliged to confess that last year there were arrested and +brought into court fifteen thousand young people under the age of +twenty, who had failed to keep even the common law of the land. Most +of these young people had broken the law in their blundering efforts +to find adventure and in response to the old impulse for +self-expression. It is said indeed that practically the whole +machinery of the grand jury and of the criminal courts is maintained +and operated for the benefit of youths between the ages of thirteen +and twenty-five. Men up to ninety years of age, it is true, commit +crimes, but they are not characterized by the recklessness, the +bravado and the horror which have stained our records in Chicago. An +adult with the most sordid experience of life and the most rudimentary +notion of prudence, could not possibly have committed them. Only a +utilization of that sudden burst of energy belonging partly to the +future could have achieved them, only a capture of the imagination and +of the deepest emotions of youth could have prevented them!</p> + +<p>Possibly these fifteen thousand youths were brought to grief because +the adult population assumed that the young would be able to grasp +only that which is presented in the form of sensation; as if they +believed that youth could thus early become absorbed in a hand to +mouth existence, and so entangled in materialism that there would be +no reaction against it. It is as though we were deaf to the appeal of +these young creatures, claiming their share of the joy of life, +flinging out into the dingy city their desires and aspirations after +unknown realities, their unutterable longings for companionship and +pleasure. Their very demand for excitement is a protest against the +dullness of life, to which we ourselves instinctively respond.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV" />CHAPTER IV<a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a></h3> + +<h2>THE HOUSE OF DREAMS</h2> + + +<p>To the preoccupied adult who is prone to use the city street as a mere +passageway from one hurried duty to another, nothing is more touching +than his encounter with a group of children and young people who are +emerging from a theater with the magic of the play still thick upon +them. They look up and down the familiar street scarcely recognizing +it and quite unable to determine the direction of home. From a tangle +of "make believe" they gravely scrutinize the real world which they +are so reluctant to reënter, reminding one of the absorbed gaze of a +child who is groping his way back from fairy-land whither the story +has completely transported him.</p> + +<p>"Going to the show" for thousands of young people in every industrial +city is the only possible road to the realms of mystery and romance; +the theater is the only place where they can satisfy that craving for +a conception of life higher than that which the actual world offers +them. In a very real sense the drama and the drama alone performs for +them the office of art as is clearly revealed in their blundering +demand stated in many forms for "a play unlike life." The theater +becomes to them a "veritable house of dreams" infinitely more real +than the noisy streets and the crowded factories.</p> + +<p>This first simple demand upon the theater for romance is closely +allied to one more complex which might be described as a search for +solace and distraction in those moments of first awakening from the +glamour of a youth's interpretation of life to the sterner realities +which are thrust upon his consciousness. These perceptions which +inevitably "close around" and imprison the spirit of youth are perhaps +never so grim as in the case of the wage-earning child. We can all +recall our own moments of revolt against life's actualities, our +reluctance to admit that all life was to be as unheroic and uneventful +as that which we saw about us, it was too unbearable that "this was +all there was" and we tried every possible avenue of escape. As we +made an effort to believe, in spite of what we saw, that life was +noble and harmonious, as we stubbornly clung to poesy in contradiction +to the testimony of our senses, so we see thousands of young people +thronging the theaters bent in their turn upon the same quest. The +drama provides a transition between the romantic conceptions which +they vainly struggle to keep intact and life's cruelties and +trivialities which they refuse to admit. A child whose imagination has +been cultivated is able to do this for himself through reading and +reverie, but for the overworked city youth of meager education, +perhaps nothing but the theater is able to perform this important +office.</p> + +<p>The theater also has a strange power to forecast life for the youth. +Each boy comes from our ancestral past not "in entire forgetfulness," +and quite as he unconsciously uses ancient war-cries in his street +play, so he longs to reproduce and to see set before him the valors +and vengeances of a society embodying a much more primitive state of +morality than that in which he finds himself. Mr. Patten has pointed +out that the elemental action which the stage presents, the old +emotions of love and jealousy, of revenge and daring take the thoughts +of the spectator back into deep and well worn channels in which his +mind runs with a sense of rest afforded by nothing else. The cheap +drama brings cause and effect, will power and action, once more into +relation and gives a man the thrilling conviction that he may yet be +master of his fate. The youth of course, quite unconscious of this +psychology, views the deeds of the hero simply as a forecast of his +own future and it is this fascinating view of his own career which +draws the boy to "shows" of all sorts. They can scarcely be too +improbable for him, portraying, as they do, his belief in his own +prowess. A series of slides which has lately been very popular in the +five-cent theaters of Chicago, portrayed five masked men breaking into +a humble dwelling, killing the father of the family and carrying away +the family treasure. The golden-haired son of the house, aged seven, +vows eternal vengeance on the spot, and follows one villain after +another to his doom. The execution of each is shown in lurid detail, +and the last slide of the series depicts the hero, aged ten, kneeling +upon his father's grave counting on the fingers of one hand the number +of men that he has killed, and thanking God that he has been permitted +to be an instrument of vengeance.</p> + +<p>In another series of slides, a poor woman is wearily bending over some +sewing, a baby is crying in the cradle, and two little boys of nine +and ten are asking for food. In despair the mother sends them out into +the street to beg, but instead they steal a revolver from a pawn shop +and with it kill a Chinese laundry-man, robbing him of $200. They rush +home with the treasure which is found by the mother in the baby's +cradle, whereupon she and her sons fall upon their knees and send up a +prayer of thankfulness for this timely and heaven-sent assistance.</p> + +<p>Is it not astounding that a city allows thousands of its youth to fill +their impressionable minds with these absurdities which certainly will +become the foundation for their working moral codes and the data from +which they will judge the proprieties of life?</p> + +<p>It is as if a child, starved at home, should be forced to go out and +search for food, selecting, quite naturally, not that which is +nourishing but that which is exciting and appealing to his outward +sense, often in his ignorance and foolishness blundering into +substances which are filthy and poisonous.</p> + +<p>Out of my twenty years' experience at Hull-House I can recall all +sorts of pilferings, petty larcenies, and even burglaries, due to that +never ceasing effort on the part of boys to procure theater tickets. I +can also recall indirect efforts towards the same end which are most +pitiful. I remember the remorse of a young girl of fifteen who was +brought into the Juvenile Court after a night spent weeping in the +cellar of her home because she had stolen a mass of artificial flowers +with which to trim a hat. She stated that she had taken the flowers +because she was afraid of losing the attention of a young man whom she +had heard say that "a girl has to be dressy if she expects to be +seen." This young man was the only one who had ever taken her to the +theater and if he failed her, she was sure that she would never go +again, and she sobbed out incoherently that she "couldn't live at all +without it." Apparently the blankness and grayness of life itself had +been broken for her only by the portrayal of a different world.</p> + +<p>One boy whom I had known from babyhood began to take money from his +mother from the time he was seven years old, and after he was ten she +regularly gave him money for the play Saturday evening. However, the +Saturday performance, "starting him off like," he always went twice +again on Sunday, procuring the money in all sorts of illicit ways. +Practically all of his earnings after he was fourteen were spent in +this way to satisfy the insatiable desire to know of the great +adventures of the wide world which the more fortunate boy takes out in +reading Homer and Stevenson.</p> + +<p>In talking with his mother, I was reminded of my experience one Sunday +afternoon in Russia when the employees of a large factory were seated +in an open-air theater, watching with breathless interest the +presentation of folk stories. I was told that troupes of actors went +from one manufacturing establishment to another presenting the simple +elements of history and literature to the illiterate employees. This +tendency to slake the thirst for adventure by viewing the drama is, of +course, but a blind and primitive effort in the direction of culture, +for "he who makes himself its vessel and bearer thereby acquires a +freedom from the blindness and soul poverty of daily existence."</p> + +<p>It is partly in response to this need that more sophisticated young +people often go to the theater, hoping to find a clue to life's +perplexities. Many times the bewildered hero reminds one of Emerson's +description of Margaret Fuller, "I don't know where I am going, follow +me"; nevertheless, the stage is dealing with the moral themes in which +the public is most interested.</p> + +<p>And while many young people go to the theater if only to see +represented, and to hear discussed, the themes which seem to them so +tragically important, there is no doubt that what they hear there, +flimsy and poor as it often is, easily becomes their actual moral +guide. In moments of moral crisis they turn to the sayings of the +hero who found himself in a similar plight. The sayings may not be +profound, but at least they are applicable to conduct. In the last few +years scores of plays have been put upon the stage whose titles might +be easily translated into proper headings for sociological lectures or +sermons, without including the plays of Ibsen, Shaw and Hauptmann, +which deal so directly with moral issues that the moralists themselves +wince under their teachings and declare them brutal. But it is this +very brutality which the over-refined and complicated city dwellers +often crave. Moral teaching has become so intricate, creeds so +metaphysical, that in a state of absolute reaction they demand +definite instruction for daily living. Their whole-hearted acceptance +of the teaching corroborates the statement recently made by an English +playwright that "The theater is literally making the minds of our +urban populations to-day. It is a huge factory of sentiment, of +character, of points of honor, of conceptions of conduct, of +everything that finally determines the destiny of a nation. The +theater is not only a place of amusement, it is a place of culture, a +place where people learn how to think, act, and feel." Seldom, +however, do we associate the theater with our plans for civic +righteousness, although it has become so important a factor in city +life.</p> + +<p>One Sunday evening last winter an investigation was made of four +hundred and sixty six theaters in the city of Chicago, and it was +discovered that in the majority of them the leading theme was revenge; +the lover following his rival; the outraged husband seeking his wife's +paramour; or the wiping out by death of a blot on a hitherto unstained +honor. It was estimated that one sixth of the entire population of the +city had attended the theaters on that day. At that same moment the +churches throughout the city were preaching the gospel of good will. +Is not this a striking commentary upon the contradictory influences to +which the city youth is constantly subjected?</p> + +<p>This discrepancy between the church and the stage is at times +apparently recognized by the five-cent theater itself, and a +blundering attempt is made to suffuse the songs and moving pictures +with piety. Nothing could more absurdly demonstrate this attempt than +a song, illustrated by pictures, describing the adventures of a young +man who follows a pretty girl through street after street in the hope +of "snatching a kiss from her ruby lips." The young man is overjoyed +when a sudden wind storm drives the girl to shelter under an archway, +and he is about to succeed in his attempt when the good Lord, "ever +watchful over innocence," makes the same wind "blow a cloud of dust +into the eyes of the rubberneck," and "his foul purpose is foiled." +This attempt at piety is also shown in a series of films depicting +Bible stories and the Passion Play at Oberammergau, forecasting the +time when the moving film will be viewed as a mere mechanical device +for the use of the church, the school and the library, as well as for +the theater.</p> + +<p>At present, however, most improbable tales hold the attention of the +youth of the city night after night, and feed his starved imagination +as nothing else succeeds in doing. In addition to these fascinations, +the five-cent theater is also fast becoming the general social center +and club house in many crowded neighborhoods. It is easy of access +from the street the entire family of parents and children can attend +for a comparatively small sum of money and the performance lasts for +at least an hour; and, in some of the humbler theaters, the spectators +are not disturbed for a second hour.</p> + +<p>The room which contains the mimic stage is small and cozy, and less +formal than the regular theater, and there is much more gossip and +social life as if the foyer and pit were mingled. The very darkness of +the room, necessary for an exhibition of the films, is an added +attraction to many young people, for whom the space is filled with the +glamour of love making.</p> + +<p>Hundreds of young people attend these five-cent theaters every evening +in the week, including Sunday, and what is seen and heard there +becomes the sole topic of conversation, forming the ground pattern of +their social life. That mutual understanding which in another social +circle is provided by books, travel and all the arts, is here +compressed into the topics suggested by the play.</p> + +<p>The young people attend the five-cent theaters in groups, with +something of the "gang" instinct, boasting of the films and stunts in +"our theater." They find a certain advantage in attending one theater +regularly, for the <i>habitués</i> are often invited to come upon the stage +on "amateur nights," which occur at least once a week in all the +theaters. This is, of course, a most exciting experience. If the +"stunt" does not meet with the approval of the audience, the performer +is greeted with jeers and a long hook pulls him off the stage; if, on +the other hand, he succeeds in pleasing the audience, he may be paid +for his performance and later register with a booking agency, the +address of which is supplied by the obliging manager, and thus he +fancies that a lucrative and exciting career is opening before him. +Almost every night at six o'clock a long line of children may be seen +waiting at the entrance of these booking agencies, of which there are +fifteen that are well known in Chicago.</p> + +<p>Thus, the only art which is constantly placed before the eyes of "the +temperamental youth" is a debased form of dramatic art, and a vulgar +type of music, for the success of a song in these theaters depends not +so much upon its musical rendition as upon the vulgarity of its +appeal. In a song which held the stage of a cheap theater in Chicago +for weeks, the young singer was helped out by a bit of mirror from +which she threw a flash of light into the faces of successive boys +whom she selected from the audience as she sang the refrain, "You are +my Affinity." Many popular songs relate the vulgar experiences of a +city man wandering from amusement park to bathing beach in search of +flirtations. It may be that these "stunts" and recitals of city +adventure contain the nucleus of coming poesy and romance, as the +songs and recitals of the early minstrels sprang directly from the +life of the people, but all the more does the effort need help and +direction, both in the development of its technique and the material +of its themes.</p> + +<p>The few attempts which have been made in this direction are +astonishingly rewarding to those who regard the power of +self-expression as one of the most precious boons of education. The +Children's Theater in New York is the most successful example, but +every settlement in which dramatics have been systematically fostered +can also testify to a surprisingly quick response to this form of art +on the part of young people. The Hull-House Theater is constantly +besieged by children clamoring to "take part" in the plays of +Schiller, Shakespeare, and Molière, although they know it means weeks +of rehearsal and the complete memorizing of "stiff" lines. The +audiences sit enthralled by the final rendition and other children +whose tastes have supposedly been debased by constant vaudeville, are +pathetically eager to come again and again. Even when still more is +required from the young actors, research into the special historic +period, copying costumes from old plates, hours of labor that the "th" +may be restored to its proper place in English speech, their +enthusiasm is unquenched. But quite aside from its educational +possibilities one never ceases to marvel at the power of even a mimic +stage to afford to the young a magic space in which life may be lived +in efflorescence, where manners may be courtly and elaborate without +exciting ridicule, where the sequence of events is impressive and +comprehensible. Order and beauty of life is what the adolescent youth +craves above all else as the younger child indefatigably demands his +story. "Is this where the most beautiful princess in the world lives?" +asks a little girl peering into the door of the Hull-House Theater, or +"Does Alice in Wonderland always stay here?" It is much easier for her +to put her feeling into words than it is for the youth who has +enchantingly rendered the gentle poetry of Ben Jonson's "Sad +Shepherd," or for him who has walked the boards as Southey's Wat +Tyler. His association, however, is quite as clinging and magical as +is the child's although he can only say, "Gee, I wish I could always +feel the way I did that night. Something would be doing then." Nothing +of the artist's pleasure, nor of the revelation of that larger world +which surrounds and completes our own, is lost to him because a +careful technique has been exacted,—on the contrary this has only +dignified and enhanced it. It would also be easy to illustrate youth's +eagerness for artistic expression from the recitals given by the +pupils of the New York Music School Settlement, or by those of the +Hull-House Music School. These attempts also combine social life with +the training of the artistic sense and in this approximate the +fascinations of the five-cent theater.</p> + +<p>This spring a group of young girls accustomed to the life of a +five-cent theater, reluctantly refused an invitation to go to the +country for a day's outing because the return on a late train would +compel them to miss one evening's performance. They found it +impossible to tear themselves away not only from the excitements of +the theater itself but from the gaiety of the crowd of young men and +girls invariably gathered outside discussing the sensational posters.</p> + +<p>A steady English shopkeeper lately complained that unless he provided +his four, daughters with the money for the five-cent theaters every +evening they would steal it from his till, and he feared that they +might be driven to procure it in even more illicit ways. Because his +entire family life had been thus disrupted he gloomily asserted that +"this cheap show had ruined his 'ome and was the curse of America." +This father was able to formulate the anxiety of many immigrant +parents who are absolutely bewildered by the keen absorption of their +children in the cheap theater. This anxiety is not, indeed, without +foundation. An eminent alienist of Chicago states that he has had a +number of patients among neurotic children whose emotional natures +have been so over-wrought by the crude appeal to which they had been +so constantly subjected in the theaters, that they have become victims +of hallucination and mental disorder. The statement of this physician +may be the first note of alarm which will awaken the city to its duty +in regard to the theater, so that it shall at least be made safe and +sane for the city child whose senses are already so abnormally +developed.</p> + +<p>This testimony of a physician that the conditions are actually +pathological, may at last induce us to bestir ourselves in regard to +procuring a more wholesome form of public recreation. Many efforts in +social amelioration have been undertaken only after such exposures; in +the meantime, while the occasional child is driven distraught, a +hundred children permanently injure their eyes watching the moving +films, and hundreds more seriously model their conduct upon the +standards set before them on this mimic stage.</p> + +<p>Three boys, aged nine, eleven and thirteen years, who had recently +seen depicted the adventures of frontier life including the holding up +of a stage coach and the lassoing of the driver, spent weeks planning +to lasso, murder, and rob a neighborhood milkman, who started on his +route at four o'clock in the morning. They made their headquarters in +a barn and saved enough money to buy a revolver, adopting as their +watchword the phrase "Dead Men Tell no Tales." One spring morning the +conspirators, with their faces covered with black cloth, lay "in +ambush" for the milkman. Fortunately for him, as the lariat was thrown +the horse shied, and, although the shot was appropriately fired, the +milkman's life was saved. Such a direct influence of the theater is by +no means rare, even among older boys. Thirteen young lads were brought +into the Municipal Court in Chicago during the first week that +"Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman" was upon the stage, each one with an +outfit of burglar's tools in his possession, and each one shamefacedly +admitting that the gentlemanly burglar in the play had suggested to +him a career of similar adventure.</p> + +<p>In so far as the illusions of the theater succeed in giving youth the +rest and recreation which comes from following a more primitive code +of morality, it has a close relation to the function performed by +public games. It is, of course, less valuable because the sense of +participation is largely confined to the emotions and the imagination, +and does not involve the entire nature.</p> + +<p>We might illustrate by the "Wild West Show" in which the onlooking boy +imagines himself an active participant. The scouts, the Indians, the +bucking ponies, are his real intimate companions and occupy his entire +mind. In contrast with this we have the omnipresent game of tag which +is, doubtless, also founded upon the chase. It gives the boy exercise +and momentary echoes of the old excitement, but it is barren of +suggestion and quickly degenerates into horse-play.</p> + +<p>Well considered public games easily carried out in a park or athletic +field, might both fill the mind with the imaginative material +constantly supplied by the theater, and also afford the activity which +the cramped muscles of the town dweller so sorely need. Even the +unquestioned ability which the theater possesses to bring men together +into a common mood and to afford them a mutual topic of conversation, +is better accomplished with the one national game which we already +possess, and might be infinitely extended through the organization of +other public games.</p> + +<p>The theater even now by no means competes with the baseball league +games which are attended by thousands of men and boys who, during the +entire summer, discuss the respective standing of each nine and the +relative merits of every player. During the noon hour all the +employees of a city factory gather in the nearest vacant lot to cheer +their own home team in its practice for the next game with the nine of +a neighboring manufacturing establishment and on a Saturday afternoon +the entire male population of the city betakes itself to the baseball +field; the ordinary means of transportation are supplemented by gay +stage-coaches and huge automobiles, noisy with blowing horns and +decked with gay pennants. The enormous crowd of cheering men and boys +are talkative, good-natured, full of the holiday spirit, and +absolutely released from the grind of life. They are lifted out of +their individual affairs and so fused together that a man cannot tell +whether it is his own shout or another's that fills his ears; whether +it is his own coat or another's that he is wildly waving to celebrate +a victory. He does not call the stranger who sits next to him his +"brother" but he unconsciously embraces him in an overwhelming +outburst of kindly feeling when the favorite player makes a home run. +Does not this contain a suggestion of the undoubted power of public +recreation to bring together all classes of a community in the modern +city unhappily so full of devices for keeping men apart?</p> + +<p>Already some American cities are making a beginning toward more +adequate public recreation. Boston has its municipal gymnasiums, +cricket fields, and golf grounds. Chicago has seventeen parks with +playing fields, gymnasiums and baths, which at present enroll +thousands of young people. These same parks are provided with +beautiful halls which are used for many purposes, rent free, and are +given over to any group of young people who wish to conduct dancing +parties subject to city supervision and chaperonage. Many social clubs +have deserted neighboring saloon halls for these municipal drawing +rooms beautifully decorated with growing plants supplied by the park +greenhouses, and flooded with electric lights supplied by the park +power house. In the saloon halls the young people were obliged to +"pass money freely over the bar," and in order to make the most of the +occasion they usually stayed until morning. At such times the economic +necessity itself would override the counsels of the more temperate, +and the thrifty door keeper would not insist upon invitations but +would take in any one who had the "price of a ticket." The free rent +in the park hall, the good food in the park restaurant, supplied at +cost, have made three parties closing at eleven o'clock no more +expensive than one party breaking up at daylight, too often in +disorder.</p> + +<p>Is not this an argument that the drinking, the late hours, the lack of +decorum, are directly traceable to the commercial enterprise which +ministers to pleasure in order to drag it into excess because excess +is more profitable? To thus commercialize pleasure is as monstrous as +it is to commercialize art. It is intolerable that the city does not +take over this function of making provision for pleasure, as wise +communities in Sweden and South Carolina have taken the sale of +alcohol out of the hands of enterprising publicans.</p> + +<p>We are only beginning to understand what might be done through the +festival, the street procession, the band of marching musicians, +orchestral music in public squares or parks, with the magic power they +all possess to formulate the sense of companionship and solidarity. +The experiments which are being made in public schools to celebrate +the national holidays, the changing seasons, the birthdays of heroes, +the planting of trees, are slowly developing little ceremonials which +may in time work out into pageants of genuine beauty and significance. +No other nation has so unparalleled an opportunity to do this through +its schools as we have, for no other nation has so wide-spreading a +school system, while the enthusiasm of children and their natural +ability to express their emotions through symbols, gives the securest +possible foundation to this growing effort.</p> + +<p>The city schools of New York have effected the organization of high +school girls into groups for folk dancing. These old forms of dancing +which have been worked out in many lands and through long experiences, +safeguard unwary and dangerous expression and yet afford a vehicle +through which the gaiety of youth may flow. Their forms are indeed +those which lie at the basis of all good breeding, forms which at once +express and restrain, urge forward and set limits.</p> + +<p>One may also see another center of growth for public recreation and +the beginning of a pageantry for the people in the many small parks +and athletic fields which almost every American city is hastening to +provide for its young. These small parks have innumerable athletic +teams, each with its distinctive uniform, with track meets and match +games arranged with the teams from other parks and from the public +schools; choruses of trade unionists or of patriotic societies fill +the park halls with eager listeners. Labor Day processions are yearly +becoming more carefully planned and more picturesque in character, as +the desire to make an overwhelming impression with mere size gives way +to a growing ambition to set forth the significance of the craft and +the skill of the workman. At moments they almost rival the dignified +showing of the processions of the German Turn Vereins which are also +often seen in our city streets.</p> + +<p>The many foreign colonies which are found in all American cities +afford an enormous reserve of material for public recreation and +street festival. They not only celebrate the feasts and holidays of +the fatherland, but have each their own public expression for their +mutual benefit societies and for the observance of American +anniversaries. From the gay celebration of the Scandinavians when war +was averted and two neighboring nations were united, to the equally +gay celebration of the centenary of Garibaldi's birth; from the +Chinese dragon cleverly trailing its way through the streets, to the +Greek banners flung out in honor of immortal heroes, there is an +infinite variety of suggestions and possibilities for public +recreation and for the corporate expression of stirring emotions. +After all, what is the function of art but to preserve in permanent +and beautiful form those emotions and solaces which cheer life and +make it kindlier, more heroic and easier to comprehend; which lift the +mind of the worker from the harshness and loneliness of his task, and, +by connecting him with what has gone before, free him from a sense of +isolation and hardship?</p> + +<p>Were American cities really eager for municipal art, they would +cherish as genuine beginnings the tarentella danced so interminably at +Italian weddings; the primitive Greek pipe played throughout the long +summer nights; the Bohemian theaters crowded with eager Slavophiles; +the Hungarian musicians strolling from street to street; the fervid +oratory of the young Russian preaching social righteousness in the +open square.</p> + +<p>Many Chicago citizens who attended the first annual meeting of the +National Playground Association of America, will never forget the long +summer day in the large playing field filled during the morning with +hundreds of little children romping through the kindergarten games, in +the afternoon with the young men and girls contending in athletic +sports; and the evening light made gay by the bright colored garments +of Italians, Lithuanians, Norwegians, and a dozen other nationalities, +reproducing their old dances and festivals for the pleasure of the +more stolid Americans. Was this a forecast of what we may yet see +accomplished through a dozen agencies promoting public recreation +which are springing up in every city of America, as they already are +found in the large towns of Scotland and England?</p> + +<p>Let us cherish these experiments as the most precious beginnings of an +attempt to supply the recreational needs of our industrial cities. To +fail to provide for the recreation of youth, is not only to deprive +all of them of their natural form of expression, but is certain to +subject some of them to the overwhelming temptation of illicit and +soul-destroying pleasures. To insist that young people shall forecast +their rose-colored future only in a house of dreams, is to deprive the +real world of that warmth and reassurance which it so sorely needs and +to which it is justly entitled; furthermore, we are left outside with +a sense of dreariness, in company with that shadow which already lurks +only around the corner for most of us—a skepticism of life's value.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V" />CHAPTER V<a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a></h3> + +<h2>THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH AND INDUSTRY</h2> + + +<p>As it is possible to establish a connection between the lack of public +recreation and the vicious excitements and trivial amusements which +become their substitutes, so it may be illuminating to trace the +connection between the monotony and dullness of factory work and the +petty immoralities which are often the youth's protest against them.</p> + +<p>There are many city neighborhoods in which practically every young +person who has attained the age of fourteen years enters a factory. +When the work itself offers nothing of interest, and when no public +provision is made for recreation, the situation becomes almost +insupportable to the youth whose ancestors have been rough-working and +hard-playing peasants.</p> + +<p>In such neighborhoods the joy of youth is well nigh extinguished; and +in that long procession of factory workers, each morning and evening, +the young walk almost as wearily and listlessly as the old. Young +people working in modern factories situated in cities still dominated +by the ideals of Puritanism face a combination which tends almost +irresistably to overwhelm the spirit of youth. When the Puritan +repression of pleasure was in the ascendant in America the people it +dealt with lived on farms and villages where, although youthful +pleasures might be frowned upon and crushed out, the young people +still had a chance to find self-expression in their work. Plowing the +field and spinning the flax could be carried on with a certain +joyousness and vigor which the organization of modern industry too +often precludes. Present industry based upon the inventions of the +nineteenth century has little connection with the old patterns in +which men have worked for generations. The modern factory calls for an +expenditure of nervous energy almost more than it demands muscular +effort, or at least machinery so far performs the work of the massive +muscles, that greater stress is laid upon fine and exact movements +necessarily involving nervous strain. But these movements are exactly +of the type to which the muscles of a growing boy least readily +respond, quite as the admonition to be accurate and faithful is that +which appeals the least to his big primitive emotions. The demands +made upon his eyes are complicated and trivial, the use of his muscles +is fussy and monotonous, the relation between cause and effect is +remote and obscure. Apparently no one is concerned as to what may be +done to aid him in this process and to relieve it of its dullness and +difficulty, to mitigate its strain and harshness.</p> + +<p>Perhaps never before have young people been expected to work from +motives so detached from direct emotional incentive. Never has the age +of marriage been so long delayed; never has the work of youth been so +separated from the family life and the public opinion of the +community. Education alone can repair these losses. It alone has the +power of organizing a child's activities with some reference to the +life he will later lead and of giving him a clue as to what to select +and what to eliminate when he comes into contact with contemporary +social and industrial conditions. And until educators take hold of +the situation, the rest of the community is powerless.</p> + +<p>In vast regions of the city which are completely dominated by the +factory, it is as if the development of industry had outrun all the +educational and social arrangements.</p> + +<p>The revolt of youth against uniformity and the necessity of following +careful directions laid down by some one else, many times results in +such nervous irritability that the youth, in spite of all sorts of +prudential reasons, "throws up his job," if only to get outside the +factory walls into the freer street, just as the narrowness of the +school inclosure induces many a boy to jump the fence.</p> + +<p>When the boy is on the street, however, and is "standing around on the +corner" with the gang to which he mysteriously attaches himself, he +finds the difficulties of direct untrammeled action almost as great +there as they were in the factory, but for an entirely different set +of reasons. The necessity so strongly felt in the factory for an +outlet to his sudden and furious bursts of energy, his overmastering +desire to prove that he could do things "without being bossed all the +time," finds little chance for expression, for he discovers that in +whatever really active pursuit he tries to engage, he is promptly +suppressed by the police. After several futile attempts at +self-expression, he returns to his street corner subdued and so far +discouraged that when he has the next impulse to vigorous action he +concludes that it is of no use, and sullenly settles back into +inactivity. He thus learns to persuade himself that it is better to do +nothing, or, as the psychologist would say, "to inhibit his motor +impulses."</p> + +<p>When the same boy, as an adult workman, finds himself confronted with +an unusual or an untoward condition in his work, he will fall back +into this habit of inhibition, of making no effort toward independent +action. When "slack times" come, he will be the workman of least +value, and the first to be dismissed, calmly accepting his position in +the ranks of the unemployed because it will not be so unlike the many +hours of idleness and vacuity to which he was accustomed as a boy. No +help having been extended to him in the moment of his first irritable +revolt against industry, his whole life has been given a twist toward +idleness and futility. He has not had the chance of recovery which the +school system gives a like rebellious boy in a truant school.</p> + +<p>The unjustifiable lack of educational supervision during the first +years of factory work makes it quite impossible for the modern +educator to offer any real assistance to young people during that +trying transitional period between school and industry. The young +people themselves who fail to conform can do little but rebel against +the entire situation, and the expressions of revolt roughly divide +themselves into three classes. The first, resulting in idleness, may +be illustrated from many a sad story of a boy or a girl who has spent +in the first spurt of premature and uninteresting work, all the energy +which should have carried them through years of steady endeavor.</p> + +<p>I recall a boy who had worked steadily for two years as a helper in a +smelting establishment, and had conscientiously brought home all his +wages, one night suddenly announcing to his family that he "was too +tired and too hot to go on." As no amount of persuasion could make +him alter his decision, the family finally threatened to bring him +into the Juvenile Court on a charge of incorrigibility, whereupon the +boy disappeared and such efforts as the family have been able to make +in the two years since, have failed to find him. They are convinced +that "he is trying a spell of tramping" and wish that they "had let +him have a vacation the first summer when he wanted it so bad." The +boy may find in the rough outdoor life the healing which a wise +physician would recommend for nervous exhaustion, although the tramp +experiment is a perilous one.</p> + +<p>This revolt against factory monotony is sometimes closely allied to +that "moral fatigue" which results from assuming responsibility +prematurely. I recall the experience of a Scotch girl of eighteen who, +with her older sister, worked in a candy factory, their combined +earnings supporting a paralytic father. The older girl met with an +accident involving the loss of both eyes, and the financial support of +the whole family devolved upon the younger girl, who worked hard and +conscientiously for three years, supplementing her insufficient +factory wages by evening work at glove making. In the midst of this +devotion and monotonous existence she made the acquaintance of a girl +who was a chorus singer in a cheap theater and the contrast between +her monotonous drudgery and the glitter of the stage broke down her +allegiance to her helpless family. She left the city, absolutely +abandoning the kindred to whom she had been so long devoted, and +announced that if they all starved she would "never go into a factory +again." Every effort failed to find her after the concert troupe left +Milwaukee and although the pious Scotch father felt that "she had been +ensnared by the Devil," and had brought his "gray hairs in sorrow to +the grave," I could not quite dismiss the case with this simple +explanation, but was haunted by all sorts of social implications.</p> + +<p>The second line of revolt manifests itself in an attempt to make up +for the monotony of the work by a constant change from one occupation +to another. This is an almost universal experience among thousands of +young people in their first impact with the industrial world.</p> + +<p>The startling results of the investigation undertaken in Massachusetts +by the Douglas Commission showed how casual and demoralizing the first +few years of factory life become to thousands of unprepared boys and +girls; in their first restlessness and maladjustment they change from +one factory to another, working only for a few weeks or months in +each, and they exhibit no interest in any of them save for the amount +of wages paid. At the end of their second year of employment many of +them are less capable than when they left school and are actually +receiving less wages. The report of the commission made clear that +while the two years between fourteen and sixteen were most valuable +for educational purposes, they were almost useless for industrial +purposes, that no trade would receive as an apprentice a boy under +sixteen, that no industry requiring skill and workmanship could +utilize these untrained children and that they not only demoralized +themselves, but in a sense industry itself.</p> + +<p>An investigation of one thousand tenement children in New York who +had taken out their "working papers" at the age of fourteen, reported +that during the first working year a third of them had averaged six +places each. These reports but confirm the experience of those of us +who live in an industrial neighborhood and who continually see these +restless young workers, in fact there are moments when this constant +changing seems to be all that saves them from the fate of those other +children who hold on to a monotonous task so long that they finally +incapacitate themselves for all work. It often seems to me an +expression of the instinct of self-preservation, as in the case of a +young Swedish boy who during a period of two years abandoned one piece +of factory work after another, saying "he could not stand it," until +in the chagrin following the loss of his ninth place he announced his +intention of leaving the city and allowing his mother and little +sisters to shift for themselves. At this critical juncture a place was +found for him as lineman in a telephone company; climbing telephone +poles and handling wires apparently supplied him with the elements of +outdoor activity and danger which were necessary to hold his +interest, and he became the steady support of his family.</p> + +<p>But while we know the discouraging effect of idleness upon the boy who +has thrown up his job and refuses to work again, and we also know the +restlessness and lack of discipline resulting from the constant change +from one factory to another, there is still a third manifestation of +maladjustment of which one's memory and the Juvenile Court records +unfortunately furnish many examples. The spirit of revolt in these +cases has led to distinct disaster. Two stories will perhaps be +sufficient in illustration although they might be multiplied +indefinitely from my own experience.</p> + +<p>A Russian girl who went to work at an early age in a factory, pasting +labels on mucilage bottles, was obliged to surrender all her wages to +her father who, in return, gave her only the barest necessities of +life. In a fit of revolt against the monotony of her work, and "that +nasty sticky stuff," she stole from her father $300 which he had +hidden away under the floor of his kitchen, and with this money she +ran away to a neighboring city for a spree, having first bought +herself the most gorgeous clothing a local department store could +supply. Of course, this preposterous beginning could have but one +ending and the child was sent to the reform school to expiate not only +her own sins but the sins of those who had failed to rescue her from a +life of grinding monotony which her spirit could not brook.</p> + +<p>"I know the judge thinks I am a bad girl," sobbed a poor little +prisoner, put under bonds for threatening to kill her lover, "but I +have only been bad for one week and before that I was good for six +years. I worked every day in Blank's factory and took home all my +wages to keep the kids in school. I met this fellow in a dance hall. I +just had to go to dances sometimes after pushing down the lever of my +machine with my right foot and using both my arms feeding it for ten +hours a day—nobody knows how I felt some nights. I agreed to go away +with this man for a week but when I was ready to go home he tried to +drive me out on the street to earn money for him and, of course, I +threatened to kill him—any decent girl would," she concluded, as +unconscious of the irony of the reflection as she was of the +connection between her lurid week and her monotonous years.</p> + +<p>Knowing as educators do that thousands of the city youth will enter +factory life at an age as early as the state law will permit; +instructed as the modern teacher is as to youth's requirements for a +normal mental and muscular development, it is hard to understand the +apathy in regard to youth's inevitable experience in modern industry. +Are the educators, like the rest of us, so caught in admiration of the +astonishing achievements of modern industry that they forget the +children themselves?</p> + +<p>A Scotch educator who recently visited America considered it very +strange that with a remarkable industrial development all about us, +affording such amazing educational opportunities, our schools should +continually cling to a past which did not fit the American +temperament, was not adapted to our needs, and made no vigorous pull +upon our faculties. He concluded that our educators, overwhelmed by +the size and vigor of American industry, were too timid to seize upon +the industrial situation, and to extract its enormous educational +value. He lamented that this lack of courage and initiative failed not +only to fit the child for an intelligent and conscious participation +in industrial life, but that it was reflected in the industrial +development itself; that industry had fallen back into old habits, and +repeated traditional mistakes until American cities exhibited +stupendous extensions of the medievalisms in the traditional Ghetto, +and of the hideousness in the Black Country of Lancashire.</p> + +<p>He contended that this condition is the inevitable result of +separating education from contemporary life. Education becomes unreal +and far fetched, while industry becomes ruthless and materialistic. In +spite of the severity of the indictment, one much more severe and well +deserved might have been brought against us. He might have accused us +not only of wasting, but of misusing and of trampling under foot the +first tender instincts and impulses which are the source of all charm +and beauty and art, because we fail to realize that by premature +factory work, for which the youth is unprepared, society perpetually +extinguishes that variety and promise, that bloom of life, which is +the unique possession of the young. He might have told us that our +cities would continue to be traditionally cramped and dreary until we +comprehend that youth alone has the power to bring to reality the +vision of the "Coming City of Mankind, full of life, full of the +spirit of creation."</p> + +<p>A few educational experiments are carried on in Cincinnati, in Boston +and in Chicago, in which the leaders of education and industry unite +in a common aim and purpose. A few more are carried on by trade +unionists, who in at least two of the trades are anxious to give to +their apprentices and journeymen the wider culture afforded by the +"capitalistic trade schools" which they suspect of preparing +strike-breakers; still a few other schools have been founded by public +spirited citizens to whom the situation has become unendurable, and +one or two more such experiments are attached to the public school +system itself. All of these schools are still blundering in method and +unsatisfactory in their results, but a certain trade school for +girls, in New York, which is preparing young girls of fourteen for the +sewing trade, already so overcrowded and subdivided that there remains +very little education for the worker, is conquering this difficult +industrial situation by equipping each apprentice with "the informing +mind." If a child goes into a sewing factory with a knowledge of the +work she is doing in relation to the finished product; if she is +informed concerning the material she is manipulating and the processes +to which it is subjected; if she understands the design she is +elaborating in its historic relation to art and decoration, her daily +life is lifted from drudgery to one of self-conscious activity, and +her pleasure and intelligence is registered in her product.</p> + +<p>I remember a little colored girl in this New York school who was +drawing for the pattern she was about to embroider, a carefully +elaborated acanthus leaf. Upon my inquiry as to the design, she +replied: "It is what the Egyptians used to put on everything, because +they saw it so much growing in the Nile; and then the Greeks copied +it, and sometimes you can find it now on the buildings downtown." She +added, shyly: "Of course, I like it awfully well because it was first +used by people living in Africa where the colored folks come from." +Such a reasonable interest in work not only reacts upon the worker, +but is, of course, registered in the product itself. Such genuine +pleasure is in pitiful contrast to the usual manifestation of the play +spirit as it is found in the factories, where, at the best, its +expression is illicit and often is attended with great danger.</p> + +<p>There are many touching stories by which this might be illustrated. +One of them comes from a large steel mill of a boy of fifteen whose +business it was to throw a lever when a small tank became filled with +molton metal. During the few moments when the tank was filling it was +his foolish custom to catch the reflection of the metal upon a piece +of looking-glass, and to throw the bit of light into the eyes of his +fellow workmen. Although an exasperated foreman had twice dispossessed +him of his mirror, with a third fragment he was one day flicking the +gloom of the shop when the neglected tank overflowed, almost instantly +burning off both his legs. Boys working in the stock yards, during +their moments of wrestling and rough play, often slash each other +painfully with the short knives which they use in their work, but in +spite of this the play impulse is too irrepressible to be denied.</p> + +<p>If educators could go upon a voyage of discovery into that army of +boys and girls who enter industry each year, what values might they +not discover; what treasures might they not conserve and develop if +they would direct the play instinct into the art impulse and utilize +that power of variation which industry so sadly needs. No force will +be sufficiently powerful and widespread to redeem industry from its +mechanism and materialism save the freed power in every single +individual.</p> + +<p>In order to do this, however, we must go back a little over the +educational road to a training of the child's imagination, as well as +to his careful equipment with a technique. A little child makes a very +tottering house of cardboard and calls it a castle. The important +feature there lies in the fact that he has expressed a castle, and it +is not for his teacher to draw undue attention to the fact that the +corners are not well put together, but rather to listen to and to +direct the story which centers about this effort at creative +expression. A little later, however, it is clearly the business of the +teacher to call attention to the quality of the dovetailing in which +the boy at the manual training bench is engaged, for there is no value +in dovetailing a box unless it is accurately done. At one point the +child's imagination is to be emphasized, and at another point his +technique is important—and he will need both in the industrial life +ahead of him.</p> + +<p>There is no doubt that there is a third period, when the boy is not +interested in the making of a castle, or a box, or anything else, +unless it appears to him to bear a direct relation to the future; +unless it has something to do with earning a living. At this later +moment he is chiefly anxious to play the part of a man and to take his +place in the world. The fact that a boy at fourteen wants to go out +and earn his living makes that the moment when he should be educated +with reference to that interest, and the records of many high schools +show that if he is not thus educated, he bluntly refuses to be +educated at all. The forces pulling him to "work" are not only the +overmastering desire to earn money and be a man, but, if the family +purse is small and empty, include also his family loyalty and +affection, and over against them, we at present place nothing but a +vague belief on the part of his family and himself that education is a +desirable thing and may eventually help him "on in the world." It is +of course difficult to adapt education to this need; it means that +education must be planned so seriously and definitely for those two +years between fourteen and sixteen that it will be actual trade +training so far as it goes, with attention given to the condition +under which money will be actually paid for industrial skill; but at +the same time, that the implications, the connections, the relations +to the industrial world, will be made clear. A man who makes, year +after year, but one small wheel in a modern watch factory, may, if his +education has properly prepared him, have a fuller life than did the +old watchmaker who made a watch from beginning to end. It takes +thirty-nine people to make a coat in a modern tailoring establishment, +yet those same thirty-nine people might produce a coat in a spirit of +"team work" which would make the entire process as much more +exhilarating than the work of the old solitary tailor, as playing in a +baseball nine gives more pleasure to a boy than that afforded by a +solitary game of hand ball on the side of the barn. But it is quite +impossible to imagine a successful game of baseball in which each +player should be drilled only in his own part, and should know nothing +of the relation of that part to the whole game. In order to make the +watch wheel, or the coat collar interesting, they must be connected +with the entire product—must include fellowship as well as the +pleasures arising from skilled workmanship and a cultivated +imagination.</p> + +<p>When all the young people working in factories shall come to use their +faculties intelligently, and as a matter of course to be interested in +what they do, then our manufactured products may at last meet the +demands of a cultivated nation, because they will be produced by +cultivated workmen. The machine will not be abandoned by any means, +but will be subordinated to the intelligence of the man who +manipulates it, and will be used as a tool. It may come about in time +that an educated public will become inexpressibly bored by +manufactured objects which reflect absolutely nothing of the minds of +the men who made them, that they may come to dislike an object made by +twelve unrelated men, even as we do not care for a picture which has +been painted by a dozen different men, not because we have enunciated +a theory in regard to it, but because such a picture loses all its +significance and has no meaning or message. We need to apply the same +principle but very little further until we shall refuse to be +surrounded by manufactured objects which do not represent some gleam +of intelligence on the part of the producer. Hundreds of people have +already taken that step so far as all decoration and ornament are +concerned, and it would require but one short step more. In the +meantime we are surrounded by stupid articles which give us no +pleasure, and the young people producing them are driven into all +sorts of expedients in order to escape work which has been made +impossible because all human interest has been extracted from it. That +this is not mere theory may be demonstrated by the fact that many +times the young people may be spared the disastrous effects of this +third revolt against the monotony of industry if work can be found for +them in a place where the daily round is less grinding and presents +more variety. Fortunately, in every city there are places outside of +factories where occupation of a more normal type of labor may be +secured, and often a restless boy can be tided over this period if he +is put into one of these occupations. The experience in every boys' +club can furnish illustrations of this.</p> + +<p>A factory boy who had been brought into the Juvenile Court many times +because of his persistent habit of borrowing the vehicles of +physicians as they stood in front of houses of patients, always +meaning to "get back before the doctor came out," led a contented and +orderly life after a place had been found for him as a stable boy in +a large livery establishment where his love for horses could be +legitimately gratified.</p> + +<p>Still another boy made the readjustment for himself in spite of the +great physical suffering involved. He had lost both legs at the age of +seven, "flipping cars." When he went to work at fourteen with two good +cork legs, which he vainly imagined disguised his disability, his +employer kindly placed him where he might sit throughout the entire +day, and his task was to keep tally on the boxes constantly hoisted +from the warehouse into cars. The boy found this work so dull that he +insisted upon working in the yards, where the cars were being loaded +and switched. He would come home at night utterly exhausted, more from +the extreme nervous tension involved in avoiding accidents than from +the tremendous exertion, and although he would weep bitterly from +sheer fatigue, nothing could induce him to go back to the duller and +safer job. Fortunately he belonged to a less passionate race than the +poor little Italian girl in the Hull-House neighborhood who recently +battered her head against the wall so long and so vigorously that she +had to be taken to a hospital because of her serious injuries. So +nearly as dull "grown-ups" could understand, it had been an hysterical +revolt against factory work by day and "no fun in the evening."</p> + +<p>America perhaps more than any other country in the world can +demonstrate what applied science has accomplished for industry; it has +not only made possible the utilization of all sorts of unpromising raw +material, but it has tremendously increased the invention and +elaboration of machinery. The time must come, however, if indeed the +moment has not already arrived, when applied science will have done +all that it can do for the development of machinery. It may be that +machines cannot be speeded up any further without putting unwarranted +strain upon the nervous system of the worker; it may be that further +elaboration will so sacrifice the workman who feeds the machine that +industrial advance will lie not in the direction of improvement in +machinery, but in the recovery and education of the workman. This +refusal to apply "the art of life" to industry continually drives out +of it many promising young people. Some of them, impelled by a +creative impulse which will not be denied, avoid industry altogether +and demand that their ambitious parents give them lessons in "china +painting" and "art work," which clutters the overcrowded parlor of the +more prosperous workingman's home with useless decorated plates, and +handpainted "drapes," whereas the plates upon the table and the rugs +upon the floor used daily by thousands of weary housewives are totally +untouched by the beauty and variety which this ill-directed art +instinct might have given them had it been incorporated into industry.</p> + +<p>I could cite many instances of high-spirited young people who suffer a +veritable martyrdom in order to satisfy their artistic impulse.</p> + +<p>A young girl of fourteen whose family had for years displayed a +certain artistic aptitude, the mother having been a singer and the +grandmother, with whom the young girl lived, a clever worker in +artificial flowers, had her first experience of wage earning in a box +factory. She endured it only for three months, and then gave up her +increasing wage in exchange for $1.50 a week which she earns by making +sketches of dresses, cloaks and hats for the advertisements of a +large department store.</p> + +<p>A young Russian girl of my acquaintance starves on the irregular pay +which she receives for her occasional contributions to the Sunday +newspapers—meanwhile writing her novel—rather than return to the +comparatively prosperous wages of a necktie factory which she regards +with horror. Another girl washes dishes every evening in a cheap +boarding house in order to secure the leisure in which to practise her +singing lessons, rather than to give them up and return to her former +twelve-dollar-a-week job in an electrical factory.</p> + +<p>The artistic expression in all these cases is crude, but the young +people are still conscious of that old sacrifice of material interest +which art has ever demanded of those who serve her and which doubtless +brings its own reward. That the sacrifice is in vain makes it all the +more touching and is an indictment of the educator who has failed to +utilize the art instinct in industry.</p> + +<p>Something of the same sort takes place among many lads who find little +opportunity in the ordinary factories to utilize the "instinct for +workmanship"; or, among those more prosperous young people who +establish "studios" and "art shops," in which, with a vast expenditure +of energy, they manufacture luxurious articles.</p> + +<p>The educational system in Germany is deliberately planned to sift out +and to retain in the service of industry, all such promising young +people. The method is as yet experimental, and open to many +objections, but it is so far successful that "Made in Germany" means +made by a trained artisan and in many cases by a man working with the +freed impulse of the artist.</p> + +<p>The London County Council is constantly urging plans which may secure +for the gifted children in the Board Schools support in Technological +institutes. Educators are thus gradually developing the courage and +initiative to conserve for industry the young worker himself so that +his mind, his power of variation, his art instinct, his intelligent +skill, may ultimately be reflected in the industrial product. That +would imply that industry must be seized upon and conquered by those +educators, who now either avoid it altogether by taking refuge in the +caves of classic learning or beg the question by teaching the tool +industry advocated by Ruskin and Morris in their first reaction +against the present industrial system. It would mean that educators +must bring industry into "the kingdom of the mind"; and pervade it +with the human spirit.</p> + +<p>The discovery of the labor power of youth was to our age like the +discovery of a new natural resource, although it was merely incidental +to the invention of modern machinery and the consequent subdivision of +labor. In utilizing it thus ruthlessly we are not only in danger of +quenching the divine fire of youth, but we are imperiling industry +itself when we venture to ignore these very sources of beauty, of +variety and of suggestion.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI" />CHAPTER VI<a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a></h3> + +<h2>THE THIRST FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS</h2> + + +<p>Even as we pass by the joy and beauty of youth on the streets without +dreaming it is there, so we may hurry past the very presence of august +things without recognition. We may easily fail to sense those +spiritual realities, which, in every age, have haunted youth and +called to him without ceasing. Historians tell us that the +extraordinary advances in human progress have been made in those times +when "the ideals of freedom and law, of youth and beauty, of knowledge +and virtue, of humanity and religion, high things, the conflicts +between which have caused most of the disruptions and despondences of +human society, seem for a generation or two to lie in the same +direction."</p> + +<p>Are we perhaps at least twice in life's journey dimly conscious of the +needlessness of this disruption and of the futility of the +despondency? Do we feel it first when young ourselves we long to +interrogate the "transfigured few" among our elders whom we believe to +be carrying forward affairs of gravest import? Failing to accomplish +this are we, for the second time, dogged by a sense of lost +opportunity, of needless waste and perplexity, when we too, as adults, +see again the dreams of youth in conflict with the efforts of our own +contemporaries? We see idealistic endeavor on the one hand lost in +ugly friction; the heat and burden of the day borne by mature men and +women on the other hand, increased by their consciousness of youth's +misunderstanding and high scorn. It may relieve the mind to break +forth in moments of irritation against "the folly of the coming +generation," but whoso pauses on his plodding way to call even his +youngest and rashest brother a fool, ruins thereby the joy of his +journey,—for youth is so vivid an element in life that unless it is +cherished, all the rest is spoiled. The most praiseworthy journey +grows dull and leaden unless companioned by youth's iridescent dreams. +Not only that, but the mature of each generation run a grave risk of +putting their efforts in a futile direction, in a blind alley as it +were, unless they can keep in touch with the youth of their own day +and know at least the trend in which eager dreams are driving +them—those dreams that fairly buffet our faces as we walk the city +streets.</p> + +<p>At times every one possessed with a concern for social progress is +discouraged by the formless and unsubdued modern city, as he looks +upon that complicated life which drives men almost without their own +volition, that life of ingenuous enterprises, great ambitions, +political jealousies, where men tend to become mere "slaves of +possessions." Doubtless these striving men are full of weakness and +sensitiveness even when they rend each other, and are but caught in +the coils of circumstance; nevertheless, a serious attempt to ennoble +and enrich the content of city life that it may really fill the ample +space their ruthless wills have provided, means that we must call upon +energies other than theirs. When we count over the resources which are +at work "to make order out of casualty, beauty out of confusion, +justice, kindliness and mercy out of cruelty and inconsiderate +pressure," we find ourselves appealing to the confident spirit of +youth. We know that it is crude and filled with conflicting hopes, +some of them unworthy and most of them doomed to disappointment, yet +these young people have the advantage of "morning in their hearts"; +they have such power of direct action, such ability to stand free from +fear, to break through life's trammelings, that in spite of ourselves +we become convinced that</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"They to the disappointed earth shall give</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The lives we meant to live."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>That this solace comes to us only in fugitive moments, and is easily +misleading, may be urged as an excuse for our blindness and +insensitiveness to the august moral resources which the youth of each +city offers to those who are in the midst of the city's turmoil. A +further excuse is afforded in the fact that the form of the dreams for +beauty and righteousness change with each generation and that while it +is always difficult for the fathers to understand the sons, at those +periods when the demand of the young is one of social reconstruction, +the misunderstanding easily grows into bitterness.</p> + +<p>The old desire to achieve, to improve the world, seizes the ardent +youth to-day with a stern command to bring about juster social +conditions. Youth's divine impatience with the world's inheritance of +wrong and injustice makes him scornful of "rose water for the plague" +prescriptions, and he insists upon something strenuous and vital.</p> + +<p>One can find innumerable illustrations of this idealistic impatience +with existing conditions among the many Russian subjects found in the +foreign quarters of every American city. The idealism of these young +people might be utilized to a modification of our general culture and +point of view, somewhat as the influence of the young Germans who came +to America in the early fifties, bringing with them the hopes and +aspirations embodied in the revolutions of 1848, made a profound +impression upon the social and political institutions of America. Long +before they emigrated, thousands of Russian young people had been +caught up into the excitements and hopes of the Russian revolution in +Finland, in Poland, in the Russian cities, in the university towns. +Life had become intensified by the consciousness of the suffering and +starvation of millions of their fellow subjects. They had been living +with a sense of discipline and of preparation for a coming struggle +which, although grave in import, was vivid and adventurous. Their +minds had been seized by the first crude forms of social theory and +they had cherished a vague belief that they were the direct +instruments of a final and ideal social reconstruction. When they come +to America they sadly miss this sense of importance and participation +in a great and glorious conflict against a recognized enemy. Life +suddenly grows stale and unprofitable; the very spirit of tolerance +which characterizes American cities is that which strikes most +unbearably upon their ardent spirits. They look upon the indifference +all about them with an amazement which rapidly changes to irritation. +Some of them in a short time lose their ardor, others with incredible +rapidity make the adaptation between American conditions and their +store of enthusiasm, but hundreds of them remain restless and ill at +ease. Their only consolation, almost their only real companionship, +is when they meet in small groups for discussion or in larger groups +to welcome a well known revolutionist who brings them direct news from +the conflict, or when they arrange for a demonstration in memory of +"The Red Sunday" or the death of Gershuni. Such demonstrations, +however, are held in honor of men whose sense of justice was obliged +to seek an expression quite outside the regular channels of +established government. Knowing that Russia has forced thousands of +her subjects into this position, one would imagine that patriotic +teachers in America would be most desirous to turn into governmental +channels all that insatiable desire for juster relations in industrial +and political affairs. A distinct and well directed campaign is +necessary if this gallant enthusiasm is ever to be made part of that +old and still incomplete effort to embody in law—"the law that abides +and falters not, ages long"—the highest aspirations for justice.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately, we do little or nothing with this splendid store of +youthful ardor and creative enthusiasm. Through its very isolation it +tends to intensify and turn in upon itself, and no direct effort is +made to moralize it, to discipline it, to make it operative upon the +life of the city. And yet it is, perhaps, what American cities need +above all else, for it is but too true that Democracy—"a people +ruling"—the very name of which the Greeks considered so beautiful, no +longer stirs the blood of the American youth, and that the real +enthusiasm for self-government must be found among the groups of young +immigrants who bring over with every ship a new cargo of democratic +aspirations. That many of these young men look for a consummation of +these aspirations to a social order of the future in which the +industrial system as well as government shall embody democratic +relations, simply shows that the doctrine of Democracy like any other +of the living faiths of men, is so essentially mystical that it +continually demands new formulation. To fail to recognize it in a new +form, to call it hard names, to refuse to receive it, may mean to +reject that which our fathers cherished and handed on as an +inheritance not only to be preserved but also to be developed.</p> + +<p>We allow a great deal of this precious stuff—this <i>Welt-Schmerz</i> of +which each generation has need—not only to go unutilized, but to work +havoc among the young people themselves. One of the saddest +illustrations of this, in my personal knowledge, was that of a young +Russian girl who lived with a group of her compatriots on the west +side of Chicago. She recently committed suicide at the same time that +several others in the group tried it and failed. One of these latter, +who afterwards talked freely of the motives which led her to this act, +said that there were no great issues at stake in this country; that +America was wholly commercial in its interests and absorbed in money +making; that Americans were not held together by any historic bonds +nor great mutual hopes, and were totally ignorant of the stirring +social and philosophic movements of Europe; that her life here had +been a long, dreary, economic struggle, unrelieved by any of the +higher interests; that she was tired of getting seventy-five cents for +trimming a hat that sold for twelve dollars and was to be put upon the +empty head of some one who had no concern for the welfare of the woman +who made it. The statement doubtless reflected something of "The +Sorrows of Werther," but the entire tone was nobler and more highly +socialized.</p> + +<p>It is difficult to illustrate what might be accomplished by reducing +to action the ardor of those youths who so bitterly arraign our +present industrial order. While no part of the social system can be +changed rapidly, we would all admit that the present industrial +arrangements in America might be vastly improved and that we are +failing to meet the requirements of our industrial life with courage +and success simply because we do not realize that unless we establish +that humane legislation which has its roots in a consideration for +human life, our industrialism itself will suffer from inbreeding, +growing ever more unrestrained and ruthless. It would seem obvious +that in order to secure relief in a community dominated by industrial +ideals, an appeal must be made to the old spiritual sanctions for +human conduct, that we must reach motives more substantial and +enduring than the mere fleeting experiences of one phase of modern +industry which vainly imagines that its growth would be curtailed if +the welfare of its employees were guarded by the state. It would be an +interesting attempt to turn that youthful enthusiasm to the aid of one +of the most conservative of the present social efforts, the almost +world-wide movement to secure protective legislation for women and +children in industry, in which America is so behind the other nations. +Fourteen of the great European powers protect women from all night +work, from excessive labor by day, because paternalistic governments +prize the strength of women for the bearing and rearing of healthy +children to the state. And yet in a republic it is the citizens +themselves who must be convinced of the need of this protection unless +they would permit industry to maim the very mothers of the future.</p> + +<p>In one year in the German Empire one hundred thousand children were +cared for through money paid from the State Insurance fund to their +widowed mothers or to their invalided fathers. And yet in the American +states it seems impossible to pass a most rudimentary employers' +liability act, which would be but the first step towards that code of +beneficent legislation which protects "the widow and fatherless" in +Germany and England. Certainly we shall have to bestir ourselves if we +would care for the victims of the industrial order as well as do other +nations. We shall be obliged speedily to realize that in order to +secure protective legislation from a governmental body in which the +most powerful interests represented are those of the producers and +transporters of manufactured goods, it will be necessary to exhort to +a care for the defenseless from the religious point of view. To take +even the non-commercial point of view would be to assert that +evolutionary progress assumes that a sound physique is the only secure +basis of life, and to guard the mothers of the race is simple sanity.</p> + +<p>And yet from lack of preaching we do not unite for action because we +are not stirred to act at all, and protective legislation in America +is shamefully inadequate. Because it is always difficult to put the +championship of the oppressed above the counsels of prudence, we say +in despair sometimes that we are a people who hold such varied creeds +that there are not enough of one religious faith to secure anything, +but the truth is that it is easy to unite for action people whose +hearts have once been filled by the fervor of that willing devotion +which may easily be generated in the youthful breast. It is +comparatively easy to enlarge a moral concept, but extremely difficult +to give it to an adult for the first time. And yet when we attempt to +appeal to the old sanctions for disinterested conduct, the conclusion +is often forced upon us that they have not been engrained into +character, that they cannot be relied upon when they are brought into +contact with the arguments of industrialism, that the colors of the +flag flying over the fort of our spiritual resources wash out and +disappear when the storm actually breaks. It is because the ardor of +youth has not been attracted to the long effort to modify the +ruthlessness of industry by humane enactments, that we sadly miss +their resourceful enthusiasm and that at the same time groups of young +people who hunger and thirst after social righteousness are breaking +their hearts because the social reform is so long delayed and an +unsympathetic and hardhearted society frustrates all their hopes. And +yet these ardent young people who obscure the issue by their crying +and striving and looking in the wrong place, might be of inestimable +value if so-called political leaders were in any sense social +philosophers. To permit these young people to separate themselves from +the contemporaneous efforts of ameliorating society and to turn their +vague hopes solely toward an ideal commonwealth of the future, is to +withdraw from an experimental self-government founded in enthusiasm, +the very stores of enthusiasm which are needed to sustain it. The +championship of the oppressed came to be a spiritual passion with the +Hebrew prophets. They saw the promises of religion, not for +individuals but in the broad reaches of national affairs and in the +establishment of social justice. It is quite possible that such a +spiritual passion is again to be found among the ardent young souls of +our cities. They see a vision, not of a purified nation but of a +regenerated and a reorganized society. Shall we throw all this into +the future, into the futile prophecy of those who talk because they +cannot achieve, or shall we commingle their ardor, their overmastering +desire for social justice, with that more sober effort to modify +existing conditions? Are we once more forced to appeal to the +educators? Is it so difficult to utilize this ardor because educators +have failed to apprehend the spiritual quality of their task?</p> + +<p>It would seem a golden opportunity for those to whom is committed the +task of spiritual instruction, for to preach and seek justice in human +affairs is one of the oldest obligations of religion and morality. All +that would be necessary would be to attach this teaching to the +contemporary world in such wise that the eager youth might feel a tug +upon his faculties, and a sense of participation in the moral life +about him. To leave it unattached to actual social movements means +that the moralist is speaking in incomprehensible terms. Without this +connection, the religious teachers may have conscientiously carried +out their traditional duties and yet have failed utterly to stir the +fires of spiritual enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>Each generation of moralists and educators find themselves facing an +inevitable dilemma; first, to keep the young committed to their charge +"unspotted from the world," and, second, to connect the young with the +ruthless and materialistic world all about them in such wise that they +may make it the arena for their spiritual endeavor. It is fortunate +for these teachers that sometime during "The Golden Age" the most +prosaic youth is seized by a new interest in remote and universal +ends, and that if but given a clue by which he may connect his lofty +aims with his daily living, he himself will drag the very heavens into +the most sordid tenement. The perpetual difficulty consists in finding +the clue for him and placing it in his hands, for, if the teaching is +too detached from life, it does not result in any psychic impulsion at +all. I remember as an illustration of the saving power of this +definite connection, a tale told me by a distinguished labor leader in +England. His affections had been starved, even as a child, for he +knew nothing of his parents, his earliest memories being associated +with a wretched old woman who took the most casual care of him. When +he was nine years old he ran away to sea and for the next seven years +led the rough life of a dock laborer, until he became much interested +in a little crippled boy, who by the death of his father had been left +solitary on a freight boat. My English friend promptly adopted the +child as his own and all the questionings of life centered about his +young protégé. He was constantly driven to attend evening meetings +where he heard discussed those social conditions which bear so hard +upon the weak and sick. The crippled boy lived until he was fifteen +and by that time the regeneration of his foster father was complete, +the young docker was committed for life to the bettering of social +conditions. It is doubtful whether any abstract moral appeal could +have reached such a roving nature. Certainly no attempt to incite his +ambition would have succeeded. Only a pull upon his deepest sympathies +and affections, his desire to protect and cherish a weaker thing, +could possibly have stimulated him and connected him with the forces +making for moral and social progress.</p> + +<p>This, of course, has ever been the task of religion, to make the sense +of obligation personal, to touch morality with enthusiasm, to bathe +the world in affection—and on all sides we are challenging the +teachers of religion to perform this task for the youth of the city.</p> + +<p>For thousands of years definite religious instruction has been given +by authorized agents to the youth of all nations, emphasized through +tribal ceremonials, the assumption of the Roman toga, the Barmitzvah +of the Jews, the First Communion of thousands of children in Catholic +Europe, the Sunday Schools of even the least formal of the evangelical +sects. It is as if men had always felt that this expanding period of +human life must be seized upon for spiritual ends, that the tender +tissue and newly awakened emotions must be made the repository for the +historic ideals and dogmas which are, after all, the most precious +possessions of the race. How has it come about that so many of the +city youth are not given their share in our common inheritance of +life's best goods? Why are their tender feet so often ensnared even +when they are going about youth's legitimate business? One would +suppose that in such an age as ours moral teachers would be put upon +their mettle, that moral authority would be forced to speak with no +uncertain sound if only to be heard above the din of machinery and the +roar of industrialism; that it would have exerted itself as never +before to convince the youth of the reality of the spiritual life. +Affrighted as the moralists must be by the sudden new emphasis placed +upon wealth, despairing of the older men and women who are already +caught by its rewards, one would say that they would have seized upon +the multitude of young people whose minds are busied with issues which +lie beyond the portals of life, as the only resource which might save +the city from the fate of those who perish through lack of vision.</p> + +<p>Yet because this inheritance has not been attached to conduct, the +youth of Jewish birth may have been taught that prophets and statesmen +for three thousand years declared Jehovah to be a God of Justice who +hated oppression and desired righteousness, but there is no real +appeal to his spirit of moral adventure unless he is told that the +most stirring attempts to translate justice into the modern social +order have been inaugurated and carried forward by men of his own +race, and that until he joins in the contemporary manifestations of +that attempt he is recreant to his highest traditions and obligations.</p> + +<p>The Christian youth may have been taught that man's heartbreaking +adventure to find justice in the order of the universe moved the God +of Heaven himself to send a Mediator in order that the justice man +craves and the mercy by which alone he can endure his weakness might +be reconciled, but he will not make the doctrine his own until he +reduces it to action and tries to translate the spirit of his Master +into social terms.</p> + +<p>The youth who calls himself an "Evolutionist"—it is rather hard to +find a name for this youth, but there are thousands of him and a fine +fellow he often is—has read of that struggle beginning with the +earliest tribal effort to establish just relations between man and +man, but he still needs to be told that after all justice can only be +worked out upon this earth by those who will not tolerate a wrong to +the feeblest member of the community, and that it will become a social +force only in proportion as men steadfastly strive to establish it.</p> + +<p>If these young people who are subjected to varied religious +instruction are also stirred to action, or rather, if the instruction +is given validity because it is attached to conduct, then it may be +comparatively easy to bring about certain social reforms so sorely +needed in our industrial cities. We are at times obliged to admit, +however, that both the school and the church have failed to perform +this office, and are indicted by the young people themselves. +Thousands of young people in every great city are either frankly +hedonistic, or are vainly attempting to work out for themselves a +satisfactory code of morals. They cast about in all directions for the +clue which shall connect their loftiest hopes with their actual +living.</p> + +<p>Several years ago a committee of lads came to see me in order to +complain of a certain high school principal because "He never talks +to us about life." When urged to make a clearer statement, they added, +"He never asks us what we are going to be; we can't get a word out of +him, excepting lessons and keeping quiet in the halls."</p> + +<p>Of the dozens of young women who have begged me to make a connection +for them between their dreams of social usefulness and their actual +living, I recall one of the many whom I had sent back to her +clergyman, returning with this remark: "His only suggestion was that I +should be responsible every Sunday for fresh flowers upon the altar. I +did that when I was fifteen and liked it then, but when you have come +back from college and are twenty-two years old, it doesn't quite fit +in with the vigorous efforts you have been told are necessary in order +to make our social relations more Christian."</p> + +<p>All of us forget how very early we are in the experiment of founding +self-government in this trying climate of America, and that we are +making the experiment in the most materialistic period of all history, +having as our court of last appeal against that materialism only the +wonderful and inexplicable instinct for justice which resides in the +hearts of men,—which is never so irresistible as when the heart is +young. We may cultivate this most precious possession, or we may +disregard it. We may listen to the young voices rising—clear above +the roar of industrialism and the prudent councils of commerce, or we +may become hypnotized by the sudden new emphasis placed upon wealth +and power, and forget the supremacy of spiritual forces in men's +affairs. It is as if we ignored a wistful, over-confident creature who +walked through our city streets calling out, "I am the spirit of +Youth! With me, all things are possible!" We fail to understand what +he wants or even to see his doings, although his acts are pregnant +with meaning, and we may either translate them into a sordid chronicle +of petty vice or turn them into a solemn school for civic +righteousness.</p> + +<p>We may either smother the divine fire of youth or we may feed it. We +may either stand stupidly staring as it sinks into a murky fire of +crime and flares into the intermittent blaze of folly or we may tend +it into a lambent flame with power to make clean and bright our dingy +city streets.</p> + +<hr style="width: 33%;" /> +<h6>Printed in the United States of America.</h6> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Spirit of Youth and the City +Streets, by Jane Addams + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH AND THE *** + +***** This file should be named 16221-h.htm or 16221-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/2/2/16221/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Diane Monico, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets + +Author: Jane Addams + +Release Date: July 6, 2005 [EBook #16221] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH AND THE *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Diane Monico, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + + + + +THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH AND +THE CITY STREETS + + + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO . DALLAS +ATLANTA . SAN FRANCISCO + +MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED +LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA +MELBOURNE + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +OF CANADA, LIMITED +TORONTO + + + + +THE +SPIRIT OF YOUTH +AND THE CITY STREETS + +_By_ +JANE ADDAMS + +HULL HOUSE, CHICAGO + +_Author of Democracy and Social Ethics +Newer Ideals of Peace, etc._ + +New York +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +1930 + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1909, +By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. + +Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1909 + +Norwood Press: +Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. + + + + +TO MY DEAR FRIEND + +Louise de Koben Bowen + +WITH SINCERE ADMIRATION FOR HER UNDERSTANDING OF THE NEEDS OF CITY +CHILDREN AND WITH WARM APPRECIATION OF HER SERVICE AS PRESIDENT OF THE +JUVENILE PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION OF CHICAGO + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I + +Youth in the City 3 + +CHAPTER II + +The Wrecked Foundations of Domesticity 25 + +CHAPTER III + +The Quest for Adventure 51 + +CHAPTER IV + +The House of Dreams 75 + +CHAPTER V + +The Spirit of Youth and Industry 107 + +CHAPTER VI + +The Thirst for Righteousness 139 + + + + +FOREWORD + + +Much of the material in the following pages has appeared in current +publications. It is here presented in book form in the hope that it +may prove of value to those groups of people who in many cities are +making a gallant effort to minimize the dangers which surround young +people and to provide them with opportunities for recreation. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +YOUTH IN THE CITY + + +Nothing is more certain than that each generation longs for a +reassurance as to the value and charm of life, and is secretly afraid +lest it lose its sense of the youth of the earth. This is doubtless +one reason why it so passionately cherishes its poets and artists who +have been able to explore for themselves and to reveal to others the +perpetual springs of life's self-renewal. + +And yet the average man cannot obtain this desired reassurance through +literature, nor yet through glimpses of earth and sky. It can come to +him only through the chance embodiment of joy and youth which life +itself may throw in his way. It is doubtless true that for the mass of +men the message is never so unchallenged and so invincible as when +embodied in youth itself. One generation after another has depended +upon its young to equip it with gaiety and enthusiasm, to persuade it +that living is a pleasure, until men everywhere have anxiously +provided channels through which this wine of life might flow, and be +preserved for their delight. The classical city promoted play with +careful solicitude, building the theater and stadium as it built the +market place and the temple. The Greeks held their games so integral a +part of religion and patriotism that they came to expect from their +poets the highest utterances at the very moments when the sense of +pleasure released the national life. In the medieval city the knights +held their tourneys, the guilds their pageants, the people their +dances, and the church made festival for its most cherished saints +with gay street processions, and presented a drama in which no less a +theme than the history of creation became a matter of thrilling +interest. Only in the modern city have men concluded that it is no +longer necessary for the municipality to provide for the insatiable +desire for play. In so far as they have acted upon this conclusion, +they have entered upon a most difficult and dangerous experiment; and +this at the very moment when the city has become distinctly +industrial, and daily labor is continually more monotonous and +subdivided. We forget how new the modern city is, and how short the +span of time in which we have assumed that we can eliminate public +provision for recreation. + +A further difficulty lies in the fact that this industrialism has +gathered together multitudes of eager young creatures from all +quarters of the earth as a labor supply for the countless factories +and workshops, upon which the present industrial city is based. Never +before in civilization have such numbers of young girls been suddenly +released from the protection of the home and permitted to walk +unattended upon city streets and to work under alien roofs; for the +first time they are being prized more for their labor power than for +their innocence, their tender beauty, their ephemeral gaiety. Society +cares more for the products they manufacture than for their immemorial +ability to reaffirm the charm of existence. Never before have such +numbers of young boys earned money independently of the family life, +and felt themselves free to spend it as they choose in the midst of +vice deliberately disguised as pleasure. + +This stupid experiment of organizing work and failing to organize play +has, of course, brought about a fine revenge. The love of pleasure +will not be denied, and when it has turned into all sorts of malignant +and vicious appetites, then we, the middle aged, grow quite distracted +and resort to all sorts of restrictive measures. We even try to dam up +the sweet fountain itself because we are affrighted by these neglected +streams; but almost worse than the restrictive measures is our +apparent belief that the city itself has no obligation in the matter, +an assumption upon which the modern city turns over to commercialism +practically all the provisions for public recreation. + +Quite as one set of men has organized the young people into industrial +enterprises in order to profit from their toil, so another set of men +and also of women, I am sorry to say, have entered the neglected field +of recreation and have organized enterprises which make profit out of +this invincible love of pleasure. + +In every city arise so-called "places"--"gin-palaces," they are +called in fiction; in Chicago we euphemistically say merely +"places,"--in which alcohol is dispensed, not to allay thirst, but, +ostensibly to stimulate gaiety, it is sold really in order to empty +pockets. Huge dance halls are opened to which hundreds of young people +are attracted, many of whom stand wistfully outside a roped circle, +for it requires five cents to procure within it for five minutes the +sense of allurement and intoxication which is sold in lieu of innocent +pleasure. These coarse and illicit merrymakings remind one of the +unrestrained jollities of Restoration London, and they are indeed +their direct descendants, properly commercialized, still confusing joy +with lust, and gaiety with debauchery. Since the soldiers of Cromwell +shut up the people's playhouses and destroyed their pleasure fields, +the Anglo-Saxon city has turned over the provision for public +recreation to the most evil-minded and the most unscrupulous members +of the community. We see thousands of girls walking up and down the +streets on a pleasant evening with no chance to catch a sight of +pleasure even through a lighted window, save as these lurid places +provide it. Apparently the modern city sees in these girls only two +possibilities, both of them commercial: first, a chance to utilize by +day their new and tender labor power in its factories and shops, and +then another chance in the evening to extract from them their petty +wages by pandering to their love of pleasure. + +As these overworked girls stream along the street, the rest of us see +only the self-conscious walk, the giggling speech, the preposterous +clothing. And yet through the huge hat, with its wilderness of +bedraggled feathers, the girl announces to the world that she is here. +She demands attention to the fact of her existence, she states that +she is ready to live, to take her place in the world. The most +precious moment in human development is the young creature's assertion +that he is unlike any other human being, and has an individual +contribution to make to the world. The variation from the established +type is at the root of all change, the only possible basis for +progress, all that keeps life from growing unprofitably stale and +repetitious. + +Is it only the artists who really see these young creatures as they +are--the artists who are themselves endowed with immortal youth? Is it +our disregard of the artist's message which makes us so blind and so +stupid, or are we so under the influence of our _Zeitgeist_ that we +can detect only commercial values in the young as well as in the old? +It is as if our eyes were holden to the mystic beauty, the redemptive +joy, the civic pride which these multitudes of young people might +supply to our dingy towns. + +The young creatures themselves piteously look all about them in order +to find an adequate means of expression for their most precious +message: One day a serious young man came to Hull-House with his +pretty young sister who, he explained, wanted to go somewhere every +single evening, "although she could only give the flimsy excuse that +the flat was too little and too stuffy to stay in." In the difficult +role of elder brother, he had done his best, stating that he had taken +her "to all the missions in the neighborhood, that she had had a +chance to listen to some awful good sermons and to some elegant hymns, +but that some way she did not seem to care for the society of the best +Christian people." The little sister reddened painfully under this +cruel indictment and could offer no word of excuse, but a curious +thing happened to me. Perhaps it was the phrase "the best Christian +people," perhaps it was the delicate color of her flushing cheeks and +her swimming eyes, but certain it is, that instantly and vividly there +appeared to my mind the delicately tinted piece of wall in a Roman +catacomb where the early Christians, through a dozen devices of spring +flowers, skipping lambs and a shepherd tenderly guiding the young, had +indelibly written down that the Christian message is one of +inexpressible joy. Who is responsible for forgetting this message +delivered by the "best Christian people" two thousand years ago? Who +is to blame that the lambs, the little ewe lambs, have been so caught +upon the brambles? + +But quite as the modern city wastes this most valuable moment in the +life of the girl, and drives into all sorts of absurd and obscure +expressions her love and yearning towards the world in which she +forecasts her destiny, so it often drives the boy into gambling and +drinking in order to find his adventure. + +Of Lincoln's enlistment of two and a half million soldiers, a very +large number were under twenty-one, some of them under eighteen, and +still others were mere children under fifteen. Even in those stirring +times when patriotism and high resolve were at the flood, no one +responded as did "the boys," and the great soul who yearned over them, +who refused to shoot the sentinels who slept the sleep of childhood, +knew, as no one else knew, the precious glowing stuff of which his +army was made. But what of the millions of boys who are now searching +for adventurous action, longing to fulfil the same high purpose? + +One of the most pathetic sights in the public dance halls of Chicago +is the number of young men, obviously honest young fellows from the +country, who stand about vainly hoping to make the acquaintance of +some "nice girl." They look eagerly up and down the rows of girls, +many of whom are drawn to the hall by the same keen desire for +pleasure and social intercourse which the lonely young men themselves +feel. + +One Sunday night at twelve o'clock I had occasion to go into a large +public dance hall. As I was standing by the rail looking for the girl +I had come to find, a young man approached me and quite simply asked +me to introduce him to some "nice girl," saying that he did not know +any one there. On my replying that a public dance hall was not the +best place in which to look for a nice girl, he said: "But I don't +know any other place where there is a chance to meet any kind of a +girl. I'm awfully lonesome since I came to Chicago." And then he added +rather defiantly: "Some nice girls do come here! It's one of the best +halls in town." He was voicing the "bitter loneliness" that many city +men remember to have experienced during the first years after they had +"come up to town." Occasionally the right sort of man and girl meet +each other in these dance halls and the romance with such a tawdry +beginning ends happily and respectably. But, unfortunately, mingled +with the respectable young men seeking to form the acquaintance of +young women through the only channel which is available to them, are +many young fellows of evil purpose, and among the girls who have left +their lonely boarding houses or rigid homes for a "little fling" are +likewise women who openly desire to make money from the young men whom +they meet, and back of it all is the desire to profit by the sale of +intoxicating and "doctored" drinks. + +Perhaps never before have the pleasures of the young and mature become +so definitely separated as in the modern city. The public dance halls +filled with frivolous and irresponsible young people in a feverish +search for pleasure, are but a sorry substitute for the old dances on +the village green in which all of the older people of the village +participated. Chaperonage was not then a social duty but natural and +inevitable, and the whole courtship period was guarded by the +conventions and restraint which were taken as a matter of course and +had developed through years of publicity and simple propriety. + +The only marvel is that the stupid attempt to put the fine old wine +of traditional country life into the new bottles of the modern town +does not lead to disaster oftener than it does, and that the wine so +long remains pure and sparkling. + +We cannot afford to be ungenerous to the city in which we live without +suffering the penalty which lack of fair interpretation always +entails. Let us know the modern city in its weakness and wickedness, +and then seek to rectify and purify it until it shall be free at least +from the grosser temptations which now beset the young people who are +living in its tenement houses and working in its factories. The mass +of these young people are possessed of good intentions and they are +equipped with a certain understanding of city life. This itself could +be made a most valuable social instrument toward securing innocent +recreation and better social organization. They are already serving +the city in so far as it is honeycombed with mutual benefit societies, +with "pleasure clubs," with organizations connected with churches and +factories which are filling a genuine social need. And yet the whole +apparatus for supplying pleasure is wretchedly inadequate and full of +danger to whomsoever may approach it. Who is responsible for its +inadequacy and dangers? We certainly cannot expect the fathers and +mothers who have come to the city from farms or who have emigrated +from other lands to appreciate or rectify these dangers. We cannot +expect the young people themselves to cling to conventions which are +totally unsuited to modern city conditions, nor yet to be equal to the +task of forming new conventions through which this more agglomerate +social life may express itself. Above all we cannot hope that they +will understand the emotional force which seizes them and which, when +it does not find the traditional line of domesticity, serves as a +cancer in the very tissues of society and as a disrupter of the +securest social bonds. No attempt is made to treat the manifestations +of this fundamental instinct with dignity or to give it possible +social utility. The spontaneous joy, the clamor for pleasure, the +desire of the young people to appear finer and better and altogether +more lovely than they really are, the idealization not only of each +other but of the whole earth which they regard but as a theater for +their noble exploits, the unworldly ambitions, the romantic hopes, the +make-believe world in which they live, if properly utilized, what +might they not do to make our sordid cities more beautiful, more +companionable? And yet at the present moment every city is full of +young people who are utterly bewildered and uninstructed in regard to +the basic experience which must inevitably come to them, and which has +varied, remote, and indirect expressions. + +Even those who may not agree with the authorities who claim that it is +this fundamental sex susceptibility which suffuses the world with its +deepest meaning and beauty, and furnishes the momentum towards all +art, will perhaps permit me to quote the classical expression of this +view as set forth in that ancient and wonderful conversation between +Socrates and the wise woman Diotima. Socrates asks: "What are they +doing who show all this eagerness and heat which is called love? And +what is the object they have in view? Answer me." Diotima replies: "I +will teach you. The object which they have in view is birth in beauty, +whether of body or soul.... For love, Socrates, is not as you imagine +the love of the beautiful only ... but the love of birth in beauty, +because to the mortal creature generation is a sort of eternity and +immortality." + +To emphasize the eternal aspects of love is not of course an easy +undertaking, even if we follow the clue afforded by the heart of every +generous lover. His experience at least in certain moments tends to +pull him on and out from the passion for one to an enthusiasm for that +highest beauty and excellence of which the most perfect form is but an +inadequate expression. Even the most loutish tenement-house youth +vaguely feels this, and at least at rare intervals reveals it in his +talk to his "girl." His memory unexpectedly brings hidden treasures to +the surface of consciousness and he recalls the more delicate and +tender experiences of his childhood and earlier youth. "I remember the +time when my little sister died, that I rode out to the cemetery +feeling that everybody in Chicago had moved away from the town to +make room for that kid's funeral, everything was so darned lonesome +and yet it was kind of peaceful too." Or, "I never had a chance to go +into the country when I was a kid, but I remember one day when I had +to deliver a package way out on the West Side, that I saw a flock of +sheep in Douglas Park. I had never thought that a sheep could be +anywhere but in a picture, and when I saw those big white spots on the +green grass beginning to move and to turn into sheep, I felt exactly +as if Saint Cecilia had come out of her frame over the organ and was +walking in the park." Such moments come into the life of the most +prosaic youth living in the most crowded quarters of the cities. What +do we do to encourage and to solidify those moments, to make them come +true in our dingy towns, to give them expression in forms of art? + +We not only fail in this undertaking but even debase existing forms of +art. We are informed by high authority that there is nothing in the +environment to which youth so keenly responds as to music, and yet the +streets, the vaudeville shows, the five-cent theaters are full of the +most blatant and vulgar songs. The trivial and obscene words, the +meaningless and flippant airs run through the heads of hundreds of +young people for hours at a time while they are engaged in monotonous +factory work. We totally ignore that ancient connection between music +and morals which was so long insisted upon by philosophers as well as +poets. The street music has quite broken away from all control, both +of the educator and the patriot, and we have grown singularly careless +in regard to its influence upon young people. Although we legislate +against it in saloons because of its dangerous influence there, we +constantly permit music on the street to incite that which should be +controlled, to degrade that which should be exalted, to make sensuous +that which might be lifted into the realm of the higher imagination. + +Our attitude towards music is typical of our carelessness towards all +those things which make for common joy and for the restraints of +higher civilization on the streets. It is as if our cities had not yet +developed a sense of responsibility in regard to the life of the +streets, and continually forget that recreation is stronger than +vice, and that recreation alone can stifle the lust for vice. + +Perhaps we need to take a page from the philosophy of the Greeks to +whom the world of fact was also the world of the ideal, and to whom +the realization of what ought to be, involved not the destruction of +what was, but merely its perfecting upon its own lines. To the Greeks +virtue was not a hard conformity to a law felt as alien to the natural +character, but a free expression of the inner life. To treat thus the +fundamental susceptibility of sex which now so bewilders the street +life and drives young people themselves into all sorts of +difficulties, would mean to loosen it from the things of sense and to +link it to the affairs of the imagination. It would mean to fit to +this gross and heavy stuff the wings of the mind, to scatter from it +"the clinging mud of banality and vulgarity," and to speed it on +through our city streets amid spontaneous laughter, snatches of lyric +song, the recovered forms of old dances, and the traditional rondels +of merry games. It would thus bring charm and beauty to the prosaic +city and connect it subtly with the arts of the past as well as with +the vigor and renewed life of the future. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE WRECKED FOUNDATIONS OF DOMESTICITY + + "Sense with keenest edge unused + Yet unsteel'd by scathing fire: + Lovely feet as yet unbruised + On the ways of dark desire!" + + +These words written by a poet to his young son express the longing +which has at times seized all of us, to guard youth from the mass of +difficulties which may be traced to the obscure manifestation of that +fundamental susceptibility of which we are all slow to speak and +concerning which we evade public responsibility, although it brings +its scores of victims into the police courts every morning. + +At the very outset we must bear in mind that the senses of youth are +singularly acute, and ready to respond to every vivid appeal. We know +that nature herself has sharpened the senses for her own purposes, and +is deliberately establishing a connection between them and the newly +awakened susceptibility of sex; for it is only through the outward +senses that the selection of an individual mate is made and the +instinct utilized for nature's purposes. It would seem, however, that +nature was determined that the force and constancy of the instinct +must make up for its lack of precision, and that she was totally +unconcerned that this instinct ruthlessly seized the youth at the +moment when he was least prepared to cope with it; not only because +his powers of self-control and discrimination are unequal to the task, +but because his senses are helplessly wide open to the world. These +early manifestations of the sex susceptibility are for the most part +vague and formless, and are absolutely without definition to the youth +himself. Sometimes months and years elapse before the individual mate +is selected and determined upon, and during the time when the +differentiation is not complete--and it often is not--there is of +necessity a great deal of groping and waste. + +This period of groping is complicated by the fact that the youth's +power for appreciating is far ahead of his ability for expression. +"The inner traffic fairly obstructs the outer current," and it is +nothing short of cruelty to over-stimulate his senses as does the +modern city. This period is difficult everywhere, but it seems at +times as if a great city almost deliberately increased its perils. The +newly awakened senses are appealed to by all that is gaudy and +sensual, by the flippant street music, the highly colored theater +posters, the trashy love stories, the feathered hats, the cheap +heroics of the revolvers displayed in the pawn-shop windows. This +fundamental susceptibility is thus evoked without a corresponding stir +of the higher imagination, and the result is as dangerous as possible. +We are told upon good authority that "If the imagination is retarded, +while the senses remain awake, we have a state of esthetic +insensibility,"--in other words, the senses become sodden and cannot +be lifted from the ground. It is this state of "esthetic +insensibility" into which we allow the youth to fall which is so +distressing and so unjustifiable. Sex impulse then becomes merely a +dumb and powerful instinct without in the least awakening the +imagination or the heart, nor does it overflow into neighboring fields +of consciousness. Every city contains hundreds of degenerates who have +been over-mastered and borne down by it; they fill the casual lodging +houses and the infirmaries. In many instances it has pushed men of +ability and promise to the bottom of the social scale. Warner, in his +_American Charities_, designates it as one of the steady forces making +for failure and poverty, and contends that "the inherent uncleanness +of their minds prevents many men from rising above the rank of day +laborers and finally incapacitates them even for that position." He +also suggests that the modern man has a stronger imagination than the +man of a few hundred years ago and that sensuality destroys him the +more rapidly. + +It is difficult to state how much evil and distress might be averted +if the imagination were utilized in its higher capacities through the +historic paths. An English moralist has lately asserted that "much of +the evil of the time may be traced to outraged imagination. It is the +strongest quality of the brain and it is starved. Children, from +their earliest years, are hedged in with facts; they are not trained +to use their minds on the unseen." + +In failing to diffuse and utilize this fundamental instinct of sex +through the imagination, we not only inadvertently foster vice and +enervation, but we throw away one of the most precious implements for +ministering to life's highest needs. There is no doubt that this ill +adjusted function consumes quite unnecessarily vast stores of vital +energy, even when we contemplate it in its immature manifestations +which are infinitely more wholesome than the dumb swamping process. +Every high school boy and girl knows the difference between the +concentration and the diffusion of this impulse, although they would +be hopelessly bewildered by the use of the terms. They will declare +one of their companions to be "in love" if his fancy is occupied by +the image of a single person about whom all the newly found values +gather, and without whom his solitude is an eternal melancholy. But if +the stimulus does not appear as a definite image, and the values +evoked are dispensed over the world, the young person suddenly seems +to have discovered a beauty and significance in many things--he +responds to poetry, he becomes a lover of nature, he is filled with +religious devotion or with philanthropic zeal. Experience, with young +people, easily illustrates the possibility and value of diffusion. + +It is neither a short nor an easy undertaking to substitute the love +of beauty for mere desire, to place the mind above the senses; but is +not this the sum of the immemorial obligation which rests upon the +adults of each generation if they would nurture and restrain the +youth, and has not the whole history of civilization been but one long +effort to substitute psychic impulsion for the driving force of blind +appetite? + +Society has recognized the "imitative play" impulse of children and +provides them with tiny bricks with which to "build a house," and +dolls upon which they may lavish their tenderness. We exalt the love +of the mother and the stability of the home, but in regard to those +difficult years between childhood and maturity we beg the question and +unless we repress, we do nothing. We are so timid and inconsistent +that although we declare the home to be the foundation of society, we +do nothing to direct the force upon which the continuity of the home +depends. And yet to one who has lived for years in a crowded quarter +where men, women and children constantly jostle each other and press +upon every inch of space in shop, tenement and street, nothing is more +impressive than the strength, the continuity, the varied and powerful +manifestations, of family affection. It goes without saying that every +tenement house contains women who for years spend their hurried days +in preparing food and clothing and pass their sleepless nights in +tending and nursing their exigent children, with never one thought for +their own comfort or pleasure or development save as these may be +connected with the future of their families. We all know as a matter +of course that every shop is crowded with workingmen who year after +year spend all of their wages upon the nurture and education of their +children, reserving for themselves but the shabbiest clothing and a +crowded place at the family table. + +"Bad weather for you to be out in," you remark on a February evening, +as you meet rheumatic Mr. S. hobbling home through the freezing sleet +without an overcoat. "Yes, it is bad," he assents: "but I've walked to +work all this last year. We've sent the oldest boy back to high +school, you know," and he moves on with no thought that he is doing +other than fulfilling the ordinary lot of the ordinary man. + +These are the familiar and the constant manifestations of family +affection which are so intimate a part of life that we scarcely +observe them. + +In addition to these we find peculiar manifestations of family +devotion exemplifying that touching affection which rises to unusual +sacrifice because it is close to pity and feebleness. "My cousin and +his family had to go back to Italy. He got to Ellis Island with his +wife and five children, but they wouldn't let in the feeble-minded +boy, so of course they all went back with him. My cousin was fearful +disappointed." + +Or, "These are the five children of my brother. He and his wife, my +father and mother, were all done for in the bad time at Kishinef. It's +up to me all right to take care of the kids, and I'd no more go back +on them than I would on my own." Or, again: "Yes, I have seven +children of my own. My husband died when Tim was born. The other three +children belong to my sister, who died the year after my husband. I +get on pretty well. I scrub in a factory every night from six to +twelve, and I go out washing four days a week. So far the children +have all gone through the eighth grade before they quit school," she +concludes, beaming with pride and joy. + +That wonderful devotion to the child seems at times, in the midst of +our stupid social and industrial arrangements, all that keeps society +human, the touch of nature which unites it, as it was that same +devotion which first lifted it out of the swamp of bestiality. The +devotion to the child is "the inevitable conclusion of the two +premises of the practical syllogism, the devotion of man to woman." +It is, of course, this tremendous force which makes possible the +family, that bond which holds society together and blends the +experience of generations into a continuous story. The family has been +called "the fountain of morality," "the source of law," "the necessary +prelude to the state" itself; but while it is continuous historically, +this dual bond must be made anew a myriad times in each generation, +and the forces upon which its formation depend must be powerful and +unerring. It would be too great a risk to leave it to a force whose +manifestations are intermittent and uncertain. The desired result is +too grave and fundamental. + +One Sunday evening an excited young man came to see me, saying that he +must have advice; some one must tell him at once what to do, as his +wife was in the state's prison serving a sentence for a crime which he +himself had committed. He had seen her the day before, and though she +had been there only a month he was convinced that she was developing +consumption. She was "only seventeen, and couldn't stand the hard +work and the 'low down' women" whom she had for companions. My remark +that a girl of seventeen was too young to be in the state penitentiary +brought out the whole wretched story. + +He had been unsteady for many years and the despair of his thoroughly +respectable family who had sent him West the year before. In Arkansas +he had fallen in love with a girl of sixteen and married her. His +mother was far from pleased, but had finally sent him money to bring +his bride to Chicago, in the hope that he might settle there. _En +route_ they stopped at a small town for the naive reason that he +wanted to have an aching tooth pulled. But the tooth gave him an +excellent opportunity to have a drink, and before he reached the +office of the country practitioner he was intoxicated. As they passed +through the vestibule he stole an overcoat hanging there, although the +little wife piteously begged him to let it alone. Out of sheer bravado +he carried it across his arm as they walked down the street, and was, +of course, immediately arrested "with the goods upon him." In sheer +terror of being separated from her husband, the wife insisted that +she had been an accomplice, and together they were put into the county +jail awaiting the action of the Grand Jury. At the end of the sixth +week, on one of the rare occasions when they were permitted to talk to +each other through the grating which separated the men's visiting +quarters from the women's, the young wife told her husband that she +made up her mind to swear that she had stolen the overcoat. What could +she do if he were sent to prison and she were left free? She was +afraid to go to his people and could not possibly go back to hers. In +spite of his protest, that very night she sent for the state's +attorney and made a full confession, giving her age as eighteen in the +hope of making her testimony more valuable. From that time on they +stuck to the lie through the indictment, the trial and her conviction. +Apparently it had seemed to him only a well-arranged plot until he had +visited the penitentiary the day before, and had really seen her +piteous plight. Remorse had seized him at last, and he was ready to +make every restitution. She, however, had no notion of giving up--on +the contrary, as she realized more clearly what prison life meant, she +was daily more determined to spare him the experience. Her letters, +written in the unformed hand of a child--for her husband had himself +taught her to read and write--were filled with a riot of +self-abnegation, the martyr's joy as he feels the iron enter the +flesh. Thus had an illiterate, neglected girl through sheer devotion +to a worthless sort of young fellow inclined to drink, entered into +that noble company of martyrs. + +When girls "go wrong" what happens? How has this tremendous force, +valuable and necessary for the foundation of the family, become +misdirected? When its manifestations follow the legitimate channels of +wedded life we call them praiseworthy; but there are other +manifestations quite outside the legal and moral channels which yet +compel our admiration. + +A young woman of my acquaintance was married to a professional +criminal named Joe. Three months after the wedding he was arrested +and "sent up" for two years. Molly had always been accustomed to many +lovers, but she remained faithful to her absent husband for a year. At +the end of that time she obtained a divorce which the state law makes +easy for the wife of a convict, and married a man who was "rich and +respectable"--in fact, he owned the small manufacturing establishment +in which her mother did the scrubbing. He moved his bride to another +part of town six miles away, provided her with a "steam-heated flat," +furniture upholstered in "cut velvet," and many other luxuries of +which Molly heretofore had only dreamed. One day as she was wheeling a +handsome baby carriage up and down the prosperous street, her brother, +who was "Joe's pal," came to tell her that Joe was "out," had come to +the old tenement and was "mighty sore" because "she had gone back on +him." Without a moment's hesitation Molly turned the baby carriage in +the direction of her old home and never stopped wheeling it until she +had compassed the entire six miles. She and Joe rented the old room +and went to housekeeping. The rich and respectable husband made every +effort to persuade her to come back, and then another series of +efforts to recover his child, before he set her free through a court +proceeding. Joe, however, steadfastly refused to marry her, still +"sore" because she had not "stood by." As he worked only +intermittently, and was too closely supervised by the police to do +much at his old occupation, Molly was obliged to support the humble +menage by scrubbing in a neighboring lodging house and by washing "the +odd shirts" of the lodgers. For five years, during which time two +children were born, when she was constantly subjected to the taunts of +her neighbors, and when all the charitable agencies refused to give +help to such an irregular household, Molly happily went on her course +with no shade of regret or sorrow. "I'm all right as long as Joe keeps +out of the jug," was her slogan of happiness, low in tone, perhaps, +but genuine and "game." Her surroundings were as sordid as possible, +consisting of a constantly changing series of cheap "furnished rooms" +in which the battered baby carriage was the sole witness of better +days. But Molly's heart was full of courage and happiness, and she was +never desolate until her criminal lover was "sent up" again, this time +on a really serious charge. + +These irregular manifestations form a link between that world in which +each one struggles to "live respectable," and that nether world in +which are also found cases of devotion and of enduring affection +arising out of the midst of the folly and the shame. The girl there +who through all tribulation supports her recreant "lover," or the girl +who overcomes, her drink and opium habits, who renounces luxuries and +goes back to uninteresting daily toil for the sake of the good opinion +of a man who wishes her to "appear decent," although he never means to +marry her, these are also impressive. + +One of our earliest experiences at Hull-House had to do with a lover +of this type and the charming young girl who had become fatally +attached to him. I can see her now running for protection up the broad +steps of the columned piazza then surrounding Hull-House. Her slender +figure was trembling with fright, her tear-covered face swollen and +bloodstained from the blows he had dealt her. "He is apt to abuse me +when he is drunk," was the only explanation, and that given by way of +apology, which could be extracted from her. When we discovered that +there had been no marriage ceremony, that there were no living +children, that she had twice narrowly escaped losing her life, it +seemed a simple matter to insist that the relation should be broken +off. She apathetically remained at Hull-House for a few weeks, but +when her strength had somewhat returned, when her lover began to +recover from his prolonged debauch of whiskey and opium, she insisted +upon going home every day to prepare his meals and to see that the +little tenement was clean and comfortable because "Pierre is always so +sick and weak after one of those long ones." This of course meant that +she was drifting back to him, and when she was at last restrained by +that moral compulsion, by that overwhelming of another's will which is +always so ruthlessly exerted by those who are conscious that virtue is +struggling with vice, her mind gave way and she became utterly +distraught. + +A poor little Ophelia, I met her one night wandering in the hall half +dressed in the tawdry pink gown "that Pierre liked best of all" and +groping on the blank wall to find the door which might permit her to +escape to her lover. In a few days it was obvious that hospital +restraint was necessary, but when she finally recovered we were +obliged to admit that there is no civic authority which can control +the acts of a girl of eighteen. From the hospital she followed her +heart directly back to Pierre, who had in the meantime moved out of +the Hull-House neighborhood. We knew later that he had degraded the +poor child still further by obliging her to earn money for his drugs +by that last method resorted to by a degenerate man to whom a woman's +devotion still clings. + +It is inevitable that a force which is enduring enough to withstand +the discouragements, the suffering and privation of daily living, +strenuous enough to overcome and rectify the impulses which make for +greed and self-indulgence, should be able, even under untoward +conditions, to lift up and transfigure those who are really within +its grasp and set them in marked contrast to those who are merely +playing a game with it or using it for gain. But what has happened to +these wretched girls? Why has this beneficent current cast them upon +the shores of death and destruction when it should have carried them +into the safe port of domesticity? Through whose fault has this basic +emotion served merely to trick and deride them? + +Older nations have taken a well defined line of action in regard to +it. + +Among the Hull-House neighbors are many of the Latin races who employ +a careful chaperonage over their marriageable daughters and provide +husbands for them at an early age. "My father will get a husband for +me this winter," announces Angelina, whose father has brought her to a +party at Hull-House, and she adds with a toss of her head, "I saw two +already, but my father says they haven't saved enough money to marry +me." She feels quite as content in her father's wisdom and ability to +provide her with a husband as she does in his capacity to escort her +home safely from the party. He does not permit her to cross the +threshold after nightfall unaccompanied by himself, and unless the +dowry and the husband are provided before she is eighteen he will +consider himself derelict in his duty towards her. "Francesca can't +even come to the Sodality meeting this winter. She lives only across +from the church but her mother won't let her come because her father +is out West working on a railroad," is a comment one often hears. The +system works well only when it is carried logically through to the end +of an early marriage with a properly-provided husband. + +Even with the Latin races, when the system is tried in America it +often breaks down, and when the Anglo-Saxons anywhere imitate this +regime it is usually utterly futile. They follow the first part of the +program as far as repression is concerned, but they find it impossible +to follow the second because all sorts of inherited notions deter +them. The repressed girl, if she is not one of the languishing type, +takes matters into her own hands, and finds her pleasures in illicit +ways, without her parents' knowledge. "I had no idea my daughter was +going to public dances. She always told me she was spending the night +with her cousin on the South Side. I hadn't a suspicion of the truth," +many a broken-hearted mother explains. An officer who has had a long +experience in the Juvenile Court of Chicago, and has listened to +hundreds of cases involving wayward girls, gives it as his deliberate +impression that a large majority of cases are from families where the +discipline had been rigid, where they had taken but half of the +convention of the Old World and left the other half. + +Unless we mean to go back to these Old World customs which are already +hopelessly broken, there would seem to be but one path open to us in +America. That path implies freedom for the young people made safe only +through their own self-control. This, in turn, must be based upon +knowledge and habits of clean companionship. In point of fact no +course between the two is safe in a modern city, and in the most +crowded quarters the young people themselves are working out a +protective code which reminds one of the instinctive protection that +the free-ranging child in the country learns in regard to poisonous +plants and "marshy places," or of the cautions and abilities that the +mountain child develops in regard to ice and precipices. This +statement, of course, does not hold good concerning a large number of +children in every crowded city quarter who may be classed as +degenerates, the children of careless or dissolute mothers who fall +into all sorts of degenerate habits and associations before childhood +is passed, who cannot be said to have "gone wrong" at any one moment +because they have never been in the right path even of innocent +childhood; but the statement is sound concerning thousands of girls +who go to and from work every day with crowds of young men who meet +them again and again in the occasional evening pleasures of the more +decent dance halls or on a Sunday afternoon in the parks. + +The mothers who are of most use to these normal city working girls are +the mothers who develop a sense of companionship with the changing +experiences of their daughters, who are willing to modify ill-fitting +social conventions into rules of conduct which are of actual service +to their children in their daily lives of factory work and of city +amusements. Those mothers, through their sympathy and adaptability, +substitute keen present interests and activity for solemn warnings and +restraint, self-expression for repression. Their vigorous family life +allies itself by a dozen bonds to the educational, the industrial and +the recreational organizations of the modern city, and makes for +intelligent understanding, industrial efficiency and sane social +pleasures. + +By all means let us preserve the safety of the home, but let us also +make safe the street in which the majority of our young people find +their recreation and form their permanent relationships. Let us not +forget that the great processes of social life develop themselves +through influences of which each participant is unconscious as he +struggles alone and unaided in the strength of a current which seizes +him and bears him along with myriads of others, a current which may so +easily wreck the very foundations of domesticity. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE QUEST FOR ADVENTURE + + +A certain number of the outrages upon the spirit of youth may be +traced to degenerate or careless parents who totally neglect their +responsibilities; a certain other large number of wrongs are due to +sordid men and women who deliberately use the legitimate +pleasure-seeking of young people as lures into vice. There remains, +however, a third very large class of offenses for which the community +as a whole must be held responsible if it would escape the +condemnation, "Woe unto him by whom offenses come." This class of +offenses is traceable to a dense ignorance on the part of the average +citizen as to the requirements of youth, and to a persistent blindness +on the part of educators as to youth's most obvious needs. + +The young people are overborne by their own undirected and misguided +energies. A mere temperamental outbreak in a brief period of +obstreperousness exposes a promising boy to arrest and imprisonment, +an accidental combination of circumstances too complicated and +overwhelming to be coped with by an immature mind, condemns a growing +lad to a criminal career. These impulsive misdeeds may be thought of +as dividing into two great trends somewhat obscurely analogous to the +two historic divisions of man's motive power, for we are told that all +the activities of primitive man and even those of his more civilized +successors may be broadly traced to the impulsion of two elemental +appetites. The first drove him to the search for food, the hunt +developing into war with neighboring tribes and finally broadening +into barter and modern commerce; the second urged him to secure and +protect a mate, developing into domestic life, widening into the +building of homes and cities, into the cultivation of the arts and a +care for beauty. + +In the life of each boy there comes a time when these primitive +instincts urge him to action, when he is himself frightened by their +undefined power. He is faced by the necessity of taming them, of +reducing them to manageable impulses just at the moment when "a boy's +will is the wind's will," or, in the words of a veteran educator, at +the time when "it is almost impossible for an adult to realize the +boy's irresponsibility and even moral neurasthenia." That the boy +often fails may be traced in those pitiful figures which show that +between two and three times as much incorrigibility occurs between the +ages of thirteen and sixteen as at any other period of life. + +The second division of motive power has been treated in the preceding +chapter. The present chapter is an effort to point out the necessity +for an understanding of the first trend of motives if we would +minimize the temptations of the struggle and free the boy from the +constant sense of the stupidity and savagery of life. To set his feet +in the worn path of civilization is not an easy task, but it may give +us a clue for the undertaking to trace his misdeeds to the +unrecognized and primitive spirit of adventure corresponding to the +old activity of the hunt, of warfare, and of discovery. + +To do this intelligently, we shall have to remember that many boys in +the years immediately following school find no restraint either in +tradition or character. They drop learning as a childish thing and +look upon school as a tiresome task that is finished. They demand +pleasure as the right of one who earns his own living. They have +developed no capacity for recreation demanding mental effort or even +muscular skill, and are obliged to seek only that depending upon +sight, sound and taste. Many of them begin to pay board to their +mothers, and make the best bargain they can, that more money may be +left to spend in the evening. They even bait the excitement of "losing +a job," and often provoke a foreman if only to see "how much he will +stand." They are constitutionally unable to enjoy anything +continuously and follow their vagrant wills unhindered. Unfortunately +the city lends itself to this distraction. At the best, it is +difficult to know what to select and what to eliminate as objects of +attention among its thronged streets, its glittering shops, its gaudy +advertisements of shows and amusements. It is perhaps to the credit +of many city boys that the very first puerile spirit of adventure +looking abroad in the world for material upon which to exercise +itself, seems to center about the railroad. The impulse is not unlike +that which excites the coast-dwelling lad to dream of + + "The beauty and mystery of the ships + And the magic of the sea." + +I cite here a dozen charges upon which boys were brought into the +Juvenile Court of Chicago, all of which might be designated as deeds +of adventure. A surprising number, as the reader will observe, are +connected with railroads. They are taken from the court records and +repeat the actual words used by police officers, irate neighbors, or +discouraged parents, when the boys were brought before the judge. (1) +Building fires along the railroad tracks; (2) flagging trains; (3) +throwing stones at moving train windows; (4) shooting at the actors in +the Olympic Theatre with sling shots; (5) breaking signal lights on +the railroad; (6) stealing linseed oil barrels from the railroad to +make a fire; (7) taking waste from an axle box and burning it upon +the railroad tracks; (8) turning a switch and running a street car off +the track; (9) staying away from home to sleep in barns; (10) setting +fire to a barn in order to see the fire engines come up the street; +(11) knocking down signs; (12) cutting Western Union cable. + +Another dozen charges also taken from actual court records might be +added as illustrating the spirit of adventure, for although stealing +is involved in all of them, the deeds were doubtless inspired much +more by the adventurous impulse than by a desire for the loot itself: + +(1) Stealing thirteen pigeons from a barn; (2) stealing a bathing +suit; (3) stealing a tent; (4) stealing ten dollars from mother with +which to buy a revolver; (5) stealing a horse blanket to use at night +when it was cold sleeping on the wharf; (6) breaking a seal on a +freight car to steal "grain for chickens"; (7) stealing apples from a +freight car; (8) stealing a candy peddler's wagon "to be full up just +for once"; (9) stealing a hand car; (10) stealing a bicycle to take a +ride; (11) stealing a horse and buggy and driving twenty-five miles +into the country; (12) stealing a stray horse on the prairie and +trying to sell it for twenty dollars. + +Of another dozen it might be claimed that they were also due to this +same adventurous spirit, although the first six were classed as +disorderly conduct: (1) Calling a neighbor a "scab"; (2) breaking down +a fence; (3) flipping cars; (4) picking up coal from railroad tracks; +(5) carrying a concealed "dagger," and stabbing a playmate with it; +(6) throwing stones at a railroad employee. The next three were called +vagrancy: (1) Loafing on the docks; (2) "sleeping out" nights; (3) +getting "wandering spells." One, designated petty larceny, was cutting +telephone wires under the sidewalk and selling them; another, called +burglary, was taking locks off from basement doors; and the last one +bore the dignified title of "resisting an officer" because the boy, +who was riding on the fender of a street car, refused to move when an +officer ordered him off. + +Of course one easily recalls other cases in which the manifestations +were negative. I remember an exasperated and frightened mother who +took a boy of fourteen into court upon the charge of incorrigibility. +She accused him of "shooting craps," "smoking cigarettes," "keeping +bad company," "being idle." The mother regrets it now, however, for +she thinks that taking a boy into court only gives him a bad name, and +that "the police are down on a boy who has once been in court, and +that that makes it harder for him." She hardly recognizes her once +troublesome charge in the steady young man of nineteen who brings home +all his wages and is the pride and stay of her old age. + +I recall another boy who worked his way to New York and back again to +Chicago before he was quite fourteen years old, skilfully escaping +the truant officers as well as the police and special railroad +detectives. He told his story with great pride, but always modestly +admitted that he could never have done it if his father had not been a +locomotive engineer so that he had played around railroad tracks and +"was onto them ever since he was a small kid." + +There are many of these adventurous boys who exhibit a curious +incapacity for any effort which requires sustained energy. They show +an absolute lack of interest in the accomplishment of what they +undertake, so marked that if challenged in the midst of their +activity, they will be quite unable to tell you the end they have in +view. Then there are those tramp boys who are the despair of every one +who tries to deal with them. + +I remember the case of a boy who traveled almost around the world in +the years lying between the ages of eleven and fifteen. He had lived +for six months in Honolulu where he had made up his mind to settle +when the irresistible "Wanderlust" again seized him. He was +scrupulously neat in his habits and something of a dandy in +appearance. He boasted that he had never stolen, although he had been +arrested several times on the charge of vagrancy, a fate which befell +him in Chicago and landed him in the Detention Home connected with the +Juvenile Court. The judge gained a personal hold upon him, and the lad +tried with all the powers of his untrained moral nature to "make good +and please the judge." Monotonous factory work was not to be thought +of in connection with him, but his good friend the judge found a +place for him as a bell-boy in a men's club, where it was hoped that +the uniform and the variety of experience might enable him to take the +first steps toward regular pay and a settled life. Through another +bell-boy, however, he heard of the find of a diamond carelessly left +in one of the wash rooms of the club. The chance to throw out +mysterious hints of its whereabouts, to bargain for its restoration, +to tell of great diamond deals he had heard of in his travels, +inevitably laid him open to suspicion which resulted in his dismissal, +although he had had nothing to do with the matter beyond gloating over +its adventurous aspects. In spite of skilful efforts made to detain +him, he once more started on his travels, throwing out such diverse +hints as that of "a trip into Old Mexico," or "following up Roosevelt +into Africa." + +There is an entire series of difficulties directly traceable to the +foolish and adventurous persistence of carrying loaded firearms. The +morning paper of the day in which I am writing records the following: + + "A party of boys, led by Daniel O'Brien, thirteen years old, + had gathered in front of the house and O'Brien was throwing + stones at Nieczgodzki in revenge for a whipping that he + received at his hands about a month ago. The Polish boy + ordered them away and threatened to go into the house and + get a revolver if they did not stop. Pfister, one of the + boys in O'Brien's party, called him a coward, and when he + pulled a revolver from his pocket, dared him to put it away + and meet him in a fist fight in the street. Instead of + accepting the challenge, Nieczgodzki aimed his revolver at + Pfister and fired. The bullet crashed through the top of his + head and entered the brain. He was rushed to the Alexian + Brothers' Hospital, but died a short time after being + received there. Nieczgodzki was arrested and held without + bail." + +This tale could be duplicated almost every morning; what might be +merely a boyish scrap is turned into a tragedy because some boy has a +revolver. + +Many citizens in Chicago have been made heartsick during the past +month by the knowledge that a boy of nineteen was lodged in the county +jail awaiting the death penalty. He had shot and killed a policeman +during the scrimmage of an arrest, although the offense for which he +was being "taken in" was a trifling one. His parents came to Chicago +twenty years ago from a little farm in Ohio, the best type of +Americans, whom we boast to be the backbone of our cities. The mother, +who has aged and sickened since the trial, can only say that "Davie +was never a bad boy until about five years ago when he began to go +with this gang who are always looking out for fun." + +Then there are those piteous cases due to a perfervid imagination +which fails to find material suited to its demands. I can recall +misadventures of children living within a few blocks of Hull-House +which may well fill with chagrin those of us who are trying to +administer to their deeper needs. I remember a Greek boy of fifteen +who was arrested for attempting to hang a young Turk, stirred by some +vague notion of carrying on a traditional warfare, and of adding +another page to the heroic annals of Greek history. When sifted, the +incident amounted to little more than a graphic threat and the lad was +dismissed by the court, covered with confusion and remorse that he had +brought disgrace upon the name of Greece when he had hoped to add to +its glory. + +I remember with a lump in my throat the Bohemian boy of thirteen who +committed suicide because he could not "make good" in school, and +wished to show that he too had "the stuff" in him, as stated in the +piteous little letter left behind. This same love of excitement, the +desire to jump out of the humdrum experience of life, also induces +boys to experiment with drinks and drugs to a surprising extent. For +several years the residents of Hull-House struggled with the +difficulty of prohibiting the sale of cocaine to minors under a +totally inadequate code of legislation, which has at last happily been +changed to one more effective and enforcible. The long effort brought +us into contact with dozens of boys who had become victims of the +cocaine habit. The first group of these boys was discovered in the +house of "Army George." This one-armed man sold cocaine on the streets +and also in the levee district by a system of signals so that the word +cocaine need never be mentioned, and the style and size of the package +was changed so often that even a vigilant police found it hard to +locate it. What could be more exciting to a lad than a traffic in a +contraband article, carried on in this mysterious fashion? I recall +our experience with a gang of boys living on a neighboring street. +There were eight of them altogether, the eldest seventeen years of +age, the youngest thirteen, and they practically lived the life of +vagrants. What answered to their club house was a corner lot on +Harrison and Desplaines Streets, strewn with old boilers, in which +they slept by night and many times by day. The gang was brought to the +attention of Hull-House during the summer of 1904 by a distracted +mother, who suspected that they were all addicted to some drug. She +was terribly frightened over the state of her youngest boy of +thirteen, who was hideously emaciated and his mind reduced almost to +vacancy. I remember the poor woman as she sat in the reception room at +Hull-House, holding the unconscious boy in her arms, rocking herself +back and forth in her fright and despair, saying: "I have seen them go +with the drink, and eat the hideous opium, but I never knew anything +like this." + +An investigation showed that cocaine had first been offered to these +boys on the street by a colored man, an agent of a drug store, who +had given them samples and urged them to try it. In three or four +months they had become hopelessly addicted to its use, and at the end +of six months, when they were brought to Hull-House, they were all in +a critical condition. At that time not one of them was either going to +school or working. They stole from their parents, "swiped junk," +pawned their clothes and shoes,--did any desperate thing to "get the +dope," as they called it. + +Of course they continually required more, and had spent as much as +eight dollars a night for cocaine, which they used to "share and share +alike." It sounds like a large amount, but it really meant only four +doses each during the night, as at that time they were taking +twenty-five cents' worth at once if they could possibly secure it. The +boys would tell nothing for three or four days after they were +discovered, in spite of the united efforts of their families, the +police, and the residents of Hull-House. But finally the superior boy +of the gang, the manliest and the least debauched, told his tale, and +the others followed in quick succession. They were willing to go +somewhere to be helped, and were even eager if they could go together, +and finally seven of them were sent to the Presbyterian Hospital for +four weeks' treatment and afterwards all went to the country together +for six weeks more. The emaciated child gained twenty pounds during +his sojourn in the hospital, the head of which testified that at least +three of the boys could have stood but little more of the irregular +living and doping. At the present moment they are all, save one, doing +well, although they were rescued so late that they seemed to have but +little chance. One is still struggling with the appetite on an Iowa +farm and dares not trust himself in the city because he knows too well +how cocaine may be procured in spite of better legislation. It is +doubtful whether these boys could ever have been pulled through unless +they had been allowed to keep together through the hospital and +convalescing period,--unless we had been able to utilize the gang +spirit and to turn its collective force towards overcoming the desire +for the drug. + +The desire to dream and see visions also plays an important part with +the boys who habitually use cocaine. I recall a small hut used by boys +for this purpose. They washed dishes in a neighboring restaurant and +as soon as they had earned a few cents they invested in cocaine which +they kept pinned underneath their suspenders. When they had +accumulated enough for a real debauch they went to this hut and for +several days were dead to the outside world. One boy told me that in +his dreams he saw large rooms paved with gold and silver money, the +walls papered with greenbacks, and that he took away in buckets all +that he could carry. + +This desire for adventure also seizes girls. A group of girls ranging +in age from twelve to seventeen was discovered in Chicago last June, +two of whom were being trained by older women to open tills in small +shops, to pick pockets, to remove handkerchiefs, furs and purses and +to lift merchandise from the counters of department stores. All the +articles stolen were at once taken to their teachers and the girls +themselves received no remuneration, except occasional sprees to the +theaters or other places of amusement. The girls gave no coherent +reason for their actions beyond the statement that they liked the +excitement and the fun of it. Doubtless to the thrill of danger was +added the pleasure and interest of being daily in the shops and the +glitter of "down town." The boys are more indifferent to this downtown +life, and are apt to carry on their adventures on the docks, the +railroad tracks or best of all upon the unoccupied prairie. + +This inveterate demand of youth that life shall afford a large element +of excitement is in a measure well founded. We know of course that it +is necessary to accept excitement as an inevitable part of recreation, +that the first step in recreation is "that excitement which stirs the +worn or sleeping centers of a man's body and mind." It is only when it +is followed by nothing else that it defeats its own end, that it uses +up strength and does not create it. In the actual experience of these +boys the excitement has demoralized them and led them into +law-breaking. When, however, they seek legitimate pleasure, and say +with great pride that they are "ready to pay for it," what they find +is legal but scarcely more wholesome,--it is still merely excitement. +"Looping the loop" amid shrieks of simulated terror or dancing in +disorderly saloon halls, are perhaps the natural reactions to a day +spent in noisy factories and in trolley cars whirling through the +distracting streets, but the city which permits them to be the acme of +pleasure and recreation to its young people, commits a grievous +mistake. + +May we not assume that this love for excitement, this desire for +adventure, is basic, and will be evinced by each generation of city +boys as a challenge to their elders? And yet those of us who live in +Chicago are obliged to confess that last year there were arrested and +brought into court fifteen thousand young people under the age of +twenty, who had failed to keep even the common law of the land. Most +of these young people had broken the law in their blundering efforts +to find adventure and in response to the old impulse for +self-expression. It is said indeed that practically the whole +machinery of the grand jury and of the criminal courts is maintained +and operated for the benefit of youths between the ages of thirteen +and twenty-five. Men up to ninety years of age, it is true, commit +crimes, but they are not characterized by the recklessness, the +bravado and the horror which have stained our records in Chicago. An +adult with the most sordid experience of life and the most rudimentary +notion of prudence, could not possibly have committed them. Only a +utilization of that sudden burst of energy belonging partly to the +future could have achieved them, only a capture of the imagination and +of the deepest emotions of youth could have prevented them! + +Possibly these fifteen thousand youths were brought to grief because +the adult population assumed that the young would be able to grasp +only that which is presented in the form of sensation; as if they +believed that youth could thus early become absorbed in a hand to +mouth existence, and so entangled in materialism that there would be +no reaction against it. It is as though we were deaf to the appeal of +these young creatures, claiming their share of the joy of life, +flinging out into the dingy city their desires and aspirations after +unknown realities, their unutterable longings for companionship and +pleasure. Their very demand for excitement is a protest against the +dullness of life, to which we ourselves instinctively respond. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE HOUSE OF DREAMS + + +To the preoccupied adult who is prone to use the city street as a mere +passageway from one hurried duty to another, nothing is more touching +than his encounter with a group of children and young people who are +emerging from a theater with the magic of the play still thick upon +them. They look up and down the familiar street scarcely recognizing +it and quite unable to determine the direction of home. From a tangle +of "make believe" they gravely scrutinize the real world which they +are so reluctant to reenter, reminding one of the absorbed gaze of a +child who is groping his way back from fairy-land whither the story +has completely transported him. + +"Going to the show" for thousands of young people in every industrial +city is the only possible road to the realms of mystery and romance; +the theater is the only place where they can satisfy that craving for +a conception of life higher than that which the actual world offers +them. In a very real sense the drama and the drama alone performs for +them the office of art as is clearly revealed in their blundering +demand stated in many forms for "a play unlike life." The theater +becomes to them a "veritable house of dreams" infinitely more real +than the noisy streets and the crowded factories. + +This first simple demand upon the theater for romance is closely +allied to one more complex which might be described as a search for +solace and distraction in those moments of first awakening from the +glamour of a youth's interpretation of life to the sterner realities +which are thrust upon his consciousness. These perceptions which +inevitably "close around" and imprison the spirit of youth are perhaps +never so grim as in the case of the wage-earning child. We can all +recall our own moments of revolt against life's actualities, our +reluctance to admit that all life was to be as unheroic and uneventful +as that which we saw about us, it was too unbearable that "this was +all there was" and we tried every possible avenue of escape. As we +made an effort to believe, in spite of what we saw, that life was +noble and harmonious, as we stubbornly clung to poesy in contradiction +to the testimony of our senses, so we see thousands of young people +thronging the theaters bent in their turn upon the same quest. The +drama provides a transition between the romantic conceptions which +they vainly struggle to keep intact and life's cruelties and +trivialities which they refuse to admit. A child whose imagination has +been cultivated is able to do this for himself through reading and +reverie, but for the overworked city youth of meager education, +perhaps nothing but the theater is able to perform this important +office. + +The theater also has a strange power to forecast life for the youth. +Each boy comes from our ancestral past not "in entire forgetfulness," +and quite as he unconsciously uses ancient war-cries in his street +play, so he longs to reproduce and to see set before him the valors +and vengeances of a society embodying a much more primitive state of +morality than that in which he finds himself. Mr. Patten has pointed +out that the elemental action which the stage presents, the old +emotions of love and jealousy, of revenge and daring take the thoughts +of the spectator back into deep and well worn channels in which his +mind runs with a sense of rest afforded by nothing else. The cheap +drama brings cause and effect, will power and action, once more into +relation and gives a man the thrilling conviction that he may yet be +master of his fate. The youth of course, quite unconscious of this +psychology, views the deeds of the hero simply as a forecast of his +own future and it is this fascinating view of his own career which +draws the boy to "shows" of all sorts. They can scarcely be too +improbable for him, portraying, as they do, his belief in his own +prowess. A series of slides which has lately been very popular in the +five-cent theaters of Chicago, portrayed five masked men breaking into +a humble dwelling, killing the father of the family and carrying away +the family treasure. The golden-haired son of the house, aged seven, +vows eternal vengeance on the spot, and follows one villain after +another to his doom. The execution of each is shown in lurid detail, +and the last slide of the series depicts the hero, aged ten, kneeling +upon his father's grave counting on the fingers of one hand the number +of men that he has killed, and thanking God that he has been permitted +to be an instrument of vengeance. + +In another series of slides, a poor woman is wearily bending over some +sewing, a baby is crying in the cradle, and two little boys of nine +and ten are asking for food. In despair the mother sends them out into +the street to beg, but instead they steal a revolver from a pawn shop +and with it kill a Chinese laundry-man, robbing him of $200. They rush +home with the treasure which is found by the mother in the baby's +cradle, whereupon she and her sons fall upon their knees and send up a +prayer of thankfulness for this timely and heaven-sent assistance. + +Is it not astounding that a city allows thousands of its youth to fill +their impressionable minds with these absurdities which certainly will +become the foundation for their working moral codes and the data from +which they will judge the proprieties of life? + +It is as if a child, starved at home, should be forced to go out and +search for food, selecting, quite naturally, not that which is +nourishing but that which is exciting and appealing to his outward +sense, often in his ignorance and foolishness blundering into +substances which are filthy and poisonous. + +Out of my twenty years' experience at Hull-House I can recall all +sorts of pilferings, petty larcenies, and even burglaries, due to that +never ceasing effort on the part of boys to procure theater tickets. I +can also recall indirect efforts towards the same end which are most +pitiful. I remember the remorse of a young girl of fifteen who was +brought into the Juvenile Court after a night spent weeping in the +cellar of her home because she had stolen a mass of artificial flowers +with which to trim a hat. She stated that she had taken the flowers +because she was afraid of losing the attention of a young man whom she +had heard say that "a girl has to be dressy if she expects to be +seen." This young man was the only one who had ever taken her to the +theater and if he failed her, she was sure that she would never go +again, and she sobbed out incoherently that she "couldn't live at all +without it." Apparently the blankness and grayness of life itself had +been broken for her only by the portrayal of a different world. + +One boy whom I had known from babyhood began to take money from his +mother from the time he was seven years old, and after he was ten she +regularly gave him money for the play Saturday evening. However, the +Saturday performance, "starting him off like," he always went twice +again on Sunday, procuring the money in all sorts of illicit ways. +Practically all of his earnings after he was fourteen were spent in +this way to satisfy the insatiable desire to know of the great +adventures of the wide world which the more fortunate boy takes out in +reading Homer and Stevenson. + +In talking with his mother, I was reminded of my experience one Sunday +afternoon in Russia when the employees of a large factory were seated +in an open-air theater, watching with breathless interest the +presentation of folk stories. I was told that troupes of actors went +from one manufacturing establishment to another presenting the simple +elements of history and literature to the illiterate employees. This +tendency to slake the thirst for adventure by viewing the drama is, of +course, but a blind and primitive effort in the direction of culture, +for "he who makes himself its vessel and bearer thereby acquires a +freedom from the blindness and soul poverty of daily existence." + +It is partly in response to this need that more sophisticated young +people often go to the theater, hoping to find a clue to life's +perplexities. Many times the bewildered hero reminds one of Emerson's +description of Margaret Fuller, "I don't know where I am going, follow +me"; nevertheless, the stage is dealing with the moral themes in which +the public is most interested. + +And while many young people go to the theater if only to see +represented, and to hear discussed, the themes which seem to them so +tragically important, there is no doubt that what they hear there, +flimsy and poor as it often is, easily becomes their actual moral +guide. In moments of moral crisis they turn to the sayings of the +hero who found himself in a similar plight. The sayings may not be +profound, but at least they are applicable to conduct. In the last few +years scores of plays have been put upon the stage whose titles might +be easily translated into proper headings for sociological lectures or +sermons, without including the plays of Ibsen, Shaw and Hauptmann, +which deal so directly with moral issues that the moralists themselves +wince under their teachings and declare them brutal. But it is this +very brutality which the over-refined and complicated city dwellers +often crave. Moral teaching has become so intricate, creeds so +metaphysical, that in a state of absolute reaction they demand +definite instruction for daily living. Their whole-hearted acceptance +of the teaching corroborates the statement recently made by an English +playwright that "The theater is literally making the minds of our +urban populations to-day. It is a huge factory of sentiment, of +character, of points of honor, of conceptions of conduct, of +everything that finally determines the destiny of a nation. The +theater is not only a place of amusement, it is a place of culture, a +place where people learn how to think, act, and feel." Seldom, +however, do we associate the theater with our plans for civic +righteousness, although it has become so important a factor in city +life. + +One Sunday evening last winter an investigation was made of four +hundred and sixty six theaters in the city of Chicago, and it was +discovered that in the majority of them the leading theme was revenge; +the lover following his rival; the outraged husband seeking his wife's +paramour; or the wiping out by death of a blot on a hitherto unstained +honor. It was estimated that one sixth of the entire population of the +city had attended the theaters on that day. At that same moment the +churches throughout the city were preaching the gospel of good will. +Is not this a striking commentary upon the contradictory influences to +which the city youth is constantly subjected? + +This discrepancy between the church and the stage is at times +apparently recognized by the five-cent theater itself, and a +blundering attempt is made to suffuse the songs and moving pictures +with piety. Nothing could more absurdly demonstrate this attempt than +a song, illustrated by pictures, describing the adventures of a young +man who follows a pretty girl through street after street in the hope +of "snatching a kiss from her ruby lips." The young man is overjoyed +when a sudden wind storm drives the girl to shelter under an archway, +and he is about to succeed in his attempt when the good Lord, "ever +watchful over innocence," makes the same wind "blow a cloud of dust +into the eyes of the rubberneck," and "his foul purpose is foiled." +This attempt at piety is also shown in a series of films depicting +Bible stories and the Passion Play at Oberammergau, forecasting the +time when the moving film will be viewed as a mere mechanical device +for the use of the church, the school and the library, as well as for +the theater. + +At present, however, most improbable tales hold the attention of the +youth of the city night after night, and feed his starved imagination +as nothing else succeeds in doing. In addition to these fascinations, +the five-cent theater is also fast becoming the general social center +and club house in many crowded neighborhoods. It is easy of access +from the street the entire family of parents and children can attend +for a comparatively small sum of money and the performance lasts for +at least an hour; and, in some of the humbler theaters, the spectators +are not disturbed for a second hour. + +The room which contains the mimic stage is small and cozy, and less +formal than the regular theater, and there is much more gossip and +social life as if the foyer and pit were mingled. The very darkness of +the room, necessary for an exhibition of the films, is an added +attraction to many young people, for whom the space is filled with the +glamour of love making. + +Hundreds of young people attend these five-cent theaters every evening +in the week, including Sunday, and what is seen and heard there +becomes the sole topic of conversation, forming the ground pattern of +their social life. That mutual understanding which in another social +circle is provided by books, travel and all the arts, is here +compressed into the topics suggested by the play. + +The young people attend the five-cent theaters in groups, with +something of the "gang" instinct, boasting of the films and stunts in +"our theater." They find a certain advantage in attending one theater +regularly, for the _habitues_ are often invited to come upon the stage +on "amateur nights," which occur at least once a week in all the +theaters. This is, of course, a most exciting experience. If the +"stunt" does not meet with the approval of the audience, the performer +is greeted with jeers and a long hook pulls him off the stage; if, on +the other hand, he succeeds in pleasing the audience, he may be paid +for his performance and later register with a booking agency, the +address of which is supplied by the obliging manager, and thus he +fancies that a lucrative and exciting career is opening before him. +Almost every night at six o'clock a long line of children may be seen +waiting at the entrance of these booking agencies, of which there are +fifteen that are well known in Chicago. + +Thus, the only art which is constantly placed before the eyes of "the +temperamental youth" is a debased form of dramatic art, and a vulgar +type of music, for the success of a song in these theaters depends not +so much upon its musical rendition as upon the vulgarity of its +appeal. In a song which held the stage of a cheap theater in Chicago +for weeks, the young singer was helped out by a bit of mirror from +which she threw a flash of light into the faces of successive boys +whom she selected from the audience as she sang the refrain, "You are +my Affinity." Many popular songs relate the vulgar experiences of a +city man wandering from amusement park to bathing beach in search of +flirtations. It may be that these "stunts" and recitals of city +adventure contain the nucleus of coming poesy and romance, as the +songs and recitals of the early minstrels sprang directly from the +life of the people, but all the more does the effort need help and +direction, both in the development of its technique and the material +of its themes. + +The few attempts which have been made in this direction are +astonishingly rewarding to those who regard the power of +self-expression as one of the most precious boons of education. The +Children's Theater in New York is the most successful example, but +every settlement in which dramatics have been systematically fostered +can also testify to a surprisingly quick response to this form of art +on the part of young people. The Hull-House Theater is constantly +besieged by children clamoring to "take part" in the plays of +Schiller, Shakespeare, and Moliere, although they know it means weeks +of rehearsal and the complete memorizing of "stiff" lines. The +audiences sit enthralled by the final rendition and other children +whose tastes have supposedly been debased by constant vaudeville, are +pathetically eager to come again and again. Even when still more is +required from the young actors, research into the special historic +period, copying costumes from old plates, hours of labor that the "th" +may be restored to its proper place in English speech, their +enthusiasm is unquenched. But quite aside from its educational +possibilities one never ceases to marvel at the power of even a mimic +stage to afford to the young a magic space in which life may be lived +in efflorescence, where manners may be courtly and elaborate without +exciting ridicule, where the sequence of events is impressive and +comprehensible. Order and beauty of life is what the adolescent youth +craves above all else as the younger child indefatigably demands his +story. "Is this where the most beautiful princess in the world lives?" +asks a little girl peering into the door of the Hull-House Theater, or +"Does Alice in Wonderland always stay here?" It is much easier for her +to put her feeling into words than it is for the youth who has +enchantingly rendered the gentle poetry of Ben Jonson's "Sad +Shepherd," or for him who has walked the boards as Southey's Wat +Tyler. His association, however, is quite as clinging and magical as +is the child's although he can only say, "Gee, I wish I could always +feel the way I did that night. Something would be doing then." Nothing +of the artist's pleasure, nor of the revelation of that larger world +which surrounds and completes our own, is lost to him because a +careful technique has been exacted,--on the contrary this has only +dignified and enhanced it. It would also be easy to illustrate youth's +eagerness for artistic expression from the recitals given by the +pupils of the New York Music School Settlement, or by those of the +Hull-House Music School. These attempts also combine social life with +the training of the artistic sense and in this approximate the +fascinations of the five-cent theater. + +This spring a group of young girls accustomed to the life of a +five-cent theater, reluctantly refused an invitation to go to the +country for a day's outing because the return on a late train would +compel them to miss one evening's performance. They found it +impossible to tear themselves away not only from the excitements of +the theater itself but from the gaiety of the crowd of young men and +girls invariably gathered outside discussing the sensational posters. + +A steady English shopkeeper lately complained that unless he provided +his four, daughters with the money for the five-cent theaters every +evening they would steal it from his till, and he feared that they +might be driven to procure it in even more illicit ways. Because his +entire family life had been thus disrupted he gloomily asserted that +"this cheap show had ruined his 'ome and was the curse of America." +This father was able to formulate the anxiety of many immigrant +parents who are absolutely bewildered by the keen absorption of their +children in the cheap theater. This anxiety is not, indeed, without +foundation. An eminent alienist of Chicago states that he has had a +number of patients among neurotic children whose emotional natures +have been so over-wrought by the crude appeal to which they had been +so constantly subjected in the theaters, that they have become victims +of hallucination and mental disorder. The statement of this physician +may be the first note of alarm which will awaken the city to its duty +in regard to the theater, so that it shall at least be made safe and +sane for the city child whose senses are already so abnormally +developed. + +This testimony of a physician that the conditions are actually +pathological, may at last induce us to bestir ourselves in regard to +procuring a more wholesome form of public recreation. Many efforts in +social amelioration have been undertaken only after such exposures; in +the meantime, while the occasional child is driven distraught, a +hundred children permanently injure their eyes watching the moving +films, and hundreds more seriously model their conduct upon the +standards set before them on this mimic stage. + +Three boys, aged nine, eleven and thirteen years, who had recently +seen depicted the adventures of frontier life including the holding up +of a stage coach and the lassoing of the driver, spent weeks planning +to lasso, murder, and rob a neighborhood milkman, who started on his +route at four o'clock in the morning. They made their headquarters in +a barn and saved enough money to buy a revolver, adopting as their +watchword the phrase "Dead Men Tell no Tales." One spring morning the +conspirators, with their faces covered with black cloth, lay "in +ambush" for the milkman. Fortunately for him, as the lariat was thrown +the horse shied, and, although the shot was appropriately fired, the +milkman's life was saved. Such a direct influence of the theater is by +no means rare, even among older boys. Thirteen young lads were brought +into the Municipal Court in Chicago during the first week that +"Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman" was upon the stage, each one with an +outfit of burglar's tools in his possession, and each one shamefacedly +admitting that the gentlemanly burglar in the play had suggested to +him a career of similar adventure. + +In so far as the illusions of the theater succeed in giving youth the +rest and recreation which comes from following a more primitive code +of morality, it has a close relation to the function performed by +public games. It is, of course, less valuable because the sense of +participation is largely confined to the emotions and the imagination, +and does not involve the entire nature. + +We might illustrate by the "Wild West Show" in which the onlooking boy +imagines himself an active participant. The scouts, the Indians, the +bucking ponies, are his real intimate companions and occupy his entire +mind. In contrast with this we have the omnipresent game of tag which +is, doubtless, also founded upon the chase. It gives the boy exercise +and momentary echoes of the old excitement, but it is barren of +suggestion and quickly degenerates into horse-play. + +Well considered public games easily carried out in a park or athletic +field, might both fill the mind with the imaginative material +constantly supplied by the theater, and also afford the activity which +the cramped muscles of the town dweller so sorely need. Even the +unquestioned ability which the theater possesses to bring men together +into a common mood and to afford them a mutual topic of conversation, +is better accomplished with the one national game which we already +possess, and might be infinitely extended through the organization of +other public games. + +The theater even now by no means competes with the baseball league +games which are attended by thousands of men and boys who, during the +entire summer, discuss the respective standing of each nine and the +relative merits of every player. During the noon hour all the +employees of a city factory gather in the nearest vacant lot to cheer +their own home team in its practice for the next game with the nine of +a neighboring manufacturing establishment and on a Saturday afternoon +the entire male population of the city betakes itself to the baseball +field; the ordinary means of transportation are supplemented by gay +stage-coaches and huge automobiles, noisy with blowing horns and +decked with gay pennants. The enormous crowd of cheering men and boys +are talkative, good-natured, full of the holiday spirit, and +absolutely released from the grind of life. They are lifted out of +their individual affairs and so fused together that a man cannot tell +whether it is his own shout or another's that fills his ears; whether +it is his own coat or another's that he is wildly waving to celebrate +a victory. He does not call the stranger who sits next to him his +"brother" but he unconsciously embraces him in an overwhelming +outburst of kindly feeling when the favorite player makes a home run. +Does not this contain a suggestion of the undoubted power of public +recreation to bring together all classes of a community in the modern +city unhappily so full of devices for keeping men apart? + +Already some American cities are making a beginning toward more +adequate public recreation. Boston has its municipal gymnasiums, +cricket fields, and golf grounds. Chicago has seventeen parks with +playing fields, gymnasiums and baths, which at present enroll +thousands of young people. These same parks are provided with +beautiful halls which are used for many purposes, rent free, and are +given over to any group of young people who wish to conduct dancing +parties subject to city supervision and chaperonage. Many social clubs +have deserted neighboring saloon halls for these municipal drawing +rooms beautifully decorated with growing plants supplied by the park +greenhouses, and flooded with electric lights supplied by the park +power house. In the saloon halls the young people were obliged to +"pass money freely over the bar," and in order to make the most of the +occasion they usually stayed until morning. At such times the economic +necessity itself would override the counsels of the more temperate, +and the thrifty door keeper would not insist upon invitations but +would take in any one who had the "price of a ticket." The free rent +in the park hall, the good food in the park restaurant, supplied at +cost, have made three parties closing at eleven o'clock no more +expensive than one party breaking up at daylight, too often in +disorder. + +Is not this an argument that the drinking, the late hours, the lack of +decorum, are directly traceable to the commercial enterprise which +ministers to pleasure in order to drag it into excess because excess +is more profitable? To thus commercialize pleasure is as monstrous as +it is to commercialize art. It is intolerable that the city does not +take over this function of making provision for pleasure, as wise +communities in Sweden and South Carolina have taken the sale of +alcohol out of the hands of enterprising publicans. + +We are only beginning to understand what might be done through the +festival, the street procession, the band of marching musicians, +orchestral music in public squares or parks, with the magic power they +all possess to formulate the sense of companionship and solidarity. +The experiments which are being made in public schools to celebrate +the national holidays, the changing seasons, the birthdays of heroes, +the planting of trees, are slowly developing little ceremonials which +may in time work out into pageants of genuine beauty and significance. +No other nation has so unparalleled an opportunity to do this through +its schools as we have, for no other nation has so wide-spreading a +school system, while the enthusiasm of children and their natural +ability to express their emotions through symbols, gives the securest +possible foundation to this growing effort. + +The city schools of New York have effected the organization of high +school girls into groups for folk dancing. These old forms of dancing +which have been worked out in many lands and through long experiences, +safeguard unwary and dangerous expression and yet afford a vehicle +through which the gaiety of youth may flow. Their forms are indeed +those which lie at the basis of all good breeding, forms which at once +express and restrain, urge forward and set limits. + +One may also see another center of growth for public recreation and +the beginning of a pageantry for the people in the many small parks +and athletic fields which almost every American city is hastening to +provide for its young. These small parks have innumerable athletic +teams, each with its distinctive uniform, with track meets and match +games arranged with the teams from other parks and from the public +schools; choruses of trade unionists or of patriotic societies fill +the park halls with eager listeners. Labor Day processions are yearly +becoming more carefully planned and more picturesque in character, as +the desire to make an overwhelming impression with mere size gives way +to a growing ambition to set forth the significance of the craft and +the skill of the workman. At moments they almost rival the dignified +showing of the processions of the German Turn Vereins which are also +often seen in our city streets. + +The many foreign colonies which are found in all American cities +afford an enormous reserve of material for public recreation and +street festival. They not only celebrate the feasts and holidays of +the fatherland, but have each their own public expression for their +mutual benefit societies and for the observance of American +anniversaries. From the gay celebration of the Scandinavians when war +was averted and two neighboring nations were united, to the equally +gay celebration of the centenary of Garibaldi's birth; from the +Chinese dragon cleverly trailing its way through the streets, to the +Greek banners flung out in honor of immortal heroes, there is an +infinite variety of suggestions and possibilities for public +recreation and for the corporate expression of stirring emotions. +After all, what is the function of art but to preserve in permanent +and beautiful form those emotions and solaces which cheer life and +make it kindlier, more heroic and easier to comprehend; which lift the +mind of the worker from the harshness and loneliness of his task, and, +by connecting him with what has gone before, free him from a sense of +isolation and hardship? + +Were American cities really eager for municipal art, they would +cherish as genuine beginnings the tarentella danced so interminably at +Italian weddings; the primitive Greek pipe played throughout the long +summer nights; the Bohemian theaters crowded with eager Slavophiles; +the Hungarian musicians strolling from street to street; the fervid +oratory of the young Russian preaching social righteousness in the +open square. + +Many Chicago citizens who attended the first annual meeting of the +National Playground Association of America, will never forget the long +summer day in the large playing field filled during the morning with +hundreds of little children romping through the kindergarten games, in +the afternoon with the young men and girls contending in athletic +sports; and the evening light made gay by the bright colored garments +of Italians, Lithuanians, Norwegians, and a dozen other nationalities, +reproducing their old dances and festivals for the pleasure of the +more stolid Americans. Was this a forecast of what we may yet see +accomplished through a dozen agencies promoting public recreation +which are springing up in every city of America, as they already are +found in the large towns of Scotland and England? + +Let us cherish these experiments as the most precious beginnings of an +attempt to supply the recreational needs of our industrial cities. To +fail to provide for the recreation of youth, is not only to deprive +all of them of their natural form of expression, but is certain to +subject some of them to the overwhelming temptation of illicit and +soul-destroying pleasures. To insist that young people shall forecast +their rose-colored future only in a house of dreams, is to deprive the +real world of that warmth and reassurance which it so sorely needs and +to which it is justly entitled; furthermore, we are left outside with +a sense of dreariness, in company with that shadow which already lurks +only around the corner for most of us--a skepticism of life's value. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH AND INDUSTRY + + +As it is possible to establish a connection between the lack of public +recreation and the vicious excitements and trivial amusements which +become their substitutes, so it may be illuminating to trace the +connection between the monotony and dullness of factory work and the +petty immoralities which are often the youth's protest against them. + +There are many city neighborhoods in which practically every young +person who has attained the age of fourteen years enters a factory. +When the work itself offers nothing of interest, and when no public +provision is made for recreation, the situation becomes almost +insupportable to the youth whose ancestors have been rough-working and +hard-playing peasants. + +In such neighborhoods the joy of youth is well nigh extinguished; and +in that long procession of factory workers, each morning and evening, +the young walk almost as wearily and listlessly as the old. Young +people working in modern factories situated in cities still dominated +by the ideals of Puritanism face a combination which tends almost +irresistably to overwhelm the spirit of youth. When the Puritan +repression of pleasure was in the ascendant in America the people it +dealt with lived on farms and villages where, although youthful +pleasures might be frowned upon and crushed out, the young people +still had a chance to find self-expression in their work. Plowing the +field and spinning the flax could be carried on with a certain +joyousness and vigor which the organization of modern industry too +often precludes. Present industry based upon the inventions of the +nineteenth century has little connection with the old patterns in +which men have worked for generations. The modern factory calls for an +expenditure of nervous energy almost more than it demands muscular +effort, or at least machinery so far performs the work of the massive +muscles, that greater stress is laid upon fine and exact movements +necessarily involving nervous strain. But these movements are exactly +of the type to which the muscles of a growing boy least readily +respond, quite as the admonition to be accurate and faithful is that +which appeals the least to his big primitive emotions. The demands +made upon his eyes are complicated and trivial, the use of his muscles +is fussy and monotonous, the relation between cause and effect is +remote and obscure. Apparently no one is concerned as to what may be +done to aid him in this process and to relieve it of its dullness and +difficulty, to mitigate its strain and harshness. + +Perhaps never before have young people been expected to work from +motives so detached from direct emotional incentive. Never has the age +of marriage been so long delayed; never has the work of youth been so +separated from the family life and the public opinion of the +community. Education alone can repair these losses. It alone has the +power of organizing a child's activities with some reference to the +life he will later lead and of giving him a clue as to what to select +and what to eliminate when he comes into contact with contemporary +social and industrial conditions. And until educators take hold of +the situation, the rest of the community is powerless. + +In vast regions of the city which are completely dominated by the +factory, it is as if the development of industry had outrun all the +educational and social arrangements. + +The revolt of youth against uniformity and the necessity of following +careful directions laid down by some one else, many times results in +such nervous irritability that the youth, in spite of all sorts of +prudential reasons, "throws up his job," if only to get outside the +factory walls into the freer street, just as the narrowness of the +school inclosure induces many a boy to jump the fence. + +When the boy is on the street, however, and is "standing around on the +corner" with the gang to which he mysteriously attaches himself, he +finds the difficulties of direct untrammeled action almost as great +there as they were in the factory, but for an entirely different set +of reasons. The necessity so strongly felt in the factory for an +outlet to his sudden and furious bursts of energy, his overmastering +desire to prove that he could do things "without being bossed all the +time," finds little chance for expression, for he discovers that in +whatever really active pursuit he tries to engage, he is promptly +suppressed by the police. After several futile attempts at +self-expression, he returns to his street corner subdued and so far +discouraged that when he has the next impulse to vigorous action he +concludes that it is of no use, and sullenly settles back into +inactivity. He thus learns to persuade himself that it is better to do +nothing, or, as the psychologist would say, "to inhibit his motor +impulses." + +When the same boy, as an adult workman, finds himself confronted with +an unusual or an untoward condition in his work, he will fall back +into this habit of inhibition, of making no effort toward independent +action. When "slack times" come, he will be the workman of least +value, and the first to be dismissed, calmly accepting his position in +the ranks of the unemployed because it will not be so unlike the many +hours of idleness and vacuity to which he was accustomed as a boy. No +help having been extended to him in the moment of his first irritable +revolt against industry, his whole life has been given a twist toward +idleness and futility. He has not had the chance of recovery which the +school system gives a like rebellious boy in a truant school. + +The unjustifiable lack of educational supervision during the first +years of factory work makes it quite impossible for the modern +educator to offer any real assistance to young people during that +trying transitional period between school and industry. The young +people themselves who fail to conform can do little but rebel against +the entire situation, and the expressions of revolt roughly divide +themselves into three classes. The first, resulting in idleness, may +be illustrated from many a sad story of a boy or a girl who has spent +in the first spurt of premature and uninteresting work, all the energy +which should have carried them through years of steady endeavor. + +I recall a boy who had worked steadily for two years as a helper in a +smelting establishment, and had conscientiously brought home all his +wages, one night suddenly announcing to his family that he "was too +tired and too hot to go on." As no amount of persuasion could make +him alter his decision, the family finally threatened to bring him +into the Juvenile Court on a charge of incorrigibility, whereupon the +boy disappeared and such efforts as the family have been able to make +in the two years since, have failed to find him. They are convinced +that "he is trying a spell of tramping" and wish that they "had let +him have a vacation the first summer when he wanted it so bad." The +boy may find in the rough outdoor life the healing which a wise +physician would recommend for nervous exhaustion, although the tramp +experiment is a perilous one. + +This revolt against factory monotony is sometimes closely allied to +that "moral fatigue" which results from assuming responsibility +prematurely. I recall the experience of a Scotch girl of eighteen who, +with her older sister, worked in a candy factory, their combined +earnings supporting a paralytic father. The older girl met with an +accident involving the loss of both eyes, and the financial support of +the whole family devolved upon the younger girl, who worked hard and +conscientiously for three years, supplementing her insufficient +factory wages by evening work at glove making. In the midst of this +devotion and monotonous existence she made the acquaintance of a girl +who was a chorus singer in a cheap theater and the contrast between +her monotonous drudgery and the glitter of the stage broke down her +allegiance to her helpless family. She left the city, absolutely +abandoning the kindred to whom she had been so long devoted, and +announced that if they all starved she would "never go into a factory +again." Every effort failed to find her after the concert troupe left +Milwaukee and although the pious Scotch father felt that "she had been +ensnared by the Devil," and had brought his "gray hairs in sorrow to +the grave," I could not quite dismiss the case with this simple +explanation, but was haunted by all sorts of social implications. + +The second line of revolt manifests itself in an attempt to make up +for the monotony of the work by a constant change from one occupation +to another. This is an almost universal experience among thousands of +young people in their first impact with the industrial world. + +The startling results of the investigation undertaken in Massachusetts +by the Douglas Commission showed how casual and demoralizing the first +few years of factory life become to thousands of unprepared boys and +girls; in their first restlessness and maladjustment they change from +one factory to another, working only for a few weeks or months in +each, and they exhibit no interest in any of them save for the amount +of wages paid. At the end of their second year of employment many of +them are less capable than when they left school and are actually +receiving less wages. The report of the commission made clear that +while the two years between fourteen and sixteen were most valuable +for educational purposes, they were almost useless for industrial +purposes, that no trade would receive as an apprentice a boy under +sixteen, that no industry requiring skill and workmanship could +utilize these untrained children and that they not only demoralized +themselves, but in a sense industry itself. + +An investigation of one thousand tenement children in New York who +had taken out their "working papers" at the age of fourteen, reported +that during the first working year a third of them had averaged six +places each. These reports but confirm the experience of those of us +who live in an industrial neighborhood and who continually see these +restless young workers, in fact there are moments when this constant +changing seems to be all that saves them from the fate of those other +children who hold on to a monotonous task so long that they finally +incapacitate themselves for all work. It often seems to me an +expression of the instinct of self-preservation, as in the case of a +young Swedish boy who during a period of two years abandoned one piece +of factory work after another, saying "he could not stand it," until +in the chagrin following the loss of his ninth place he announced his +intention of leaving the city and allowing his mother and little +sisters to shift for themselves. At this critical juncture a place was +found for him as lineman in a telephone company; climbing telephone +poles and handling wires apparently supplied him with the elements of +outdoor activity and danger which were necessary to hold his +interest, and he became the steady support of his family. + +But while we know the discouraging effect of idleness upon the boy who +has thrown up his job and refuses to work again, and we also know the +restlessness and lack of discipline resulting from the constant change +from one factory to another, there is still a third manifestation of +maladjustment of which one's memory and the Juvenile Court records +unfortunately furnish many examples. The spirit of revolt in these +cases has led to distinct disaster. Two stories will perhaps be +sufficient in illustration although they might be multiplied +indefinitely from my own experience. + +A Russian girl who went to work at an early age in a factory, pasting +labels on mucilage bottles, was obliged to surrender all her wages to +her father who, in return, gave her only the barest necessities of +life. In a fit of revolt against the monotony of her work, and "that +nasty sticky stuff," she stole from her father $300 which he had +hidden away under the floor of his kitchen, and with this money she +ran away to a neighboring city for a spree, having first bought +herself the most gorgeous clothing a local department store could +supply. Of course, this preposterous beginning could have but one +ending and the child was sent to the reform school to expiate not only +her own sins but the sins of those who had failed to rescue her from a +life of grinding monotony which her spirit could not brook. + +"I know the judge thinks I am a bad girl," sobbed a poor little +prisoner, put under bonds for threatening to kill her lover, "but I +have only been bad for one week and before that I was good for six +years. I worked every day in Blank's factory and took home all my +wages to keep the kids in school. I met this fellow in a dance hall. I +just had to go to dances sometimes after pushing down the lever of my +machine with my right foot and using both my arms feeding it for ten +hours a day--nobody knows how I felt some nights. I agreed to go away +with this man for a week but when I was ready to go home he tried to +drive me out on the street to earn money for him and, of course, I +threatened to kill him--any decent girl would," she concluded, as +unconscious of the irony of the reflection as she was of the +connection between her lurid week and her monotonous years. + +Knowing as educators do that thousands of the city youth will enter +factory life at an age as early as the state law will permit; +instructed as the modern teacher is as to youth's requirements for a +normal mental and muscular development, it is hard to understand the +apathy in regard to youth's inevitable experience in modern industry. +Are the educators, like the rest of us, so caught in admiration of the +astonishing achievements of modern industry that they forget the +children themselves? + +A Scotch educator who recently visited America considered it very +strange that with a remarkable industrial development all about us, +affording such amazing educational opportunities, our schools should +continually cling to a past which did not fit the American +temperament, was not adapted to our needs, and made no vigorous pull +upon our faculties. He concluded that our educators, overwhelmed by +the size and vigor of American industry, were too timid to seize upon +the industrial situation, and to extract its enormous educational +value. He lamented that this lack of courage and initiative failed not +only to fit the child for an intelligent and conscious participation +in industrial life, but that it was reflected in the industrial +development itself; that industry had fallen back into old habits, and +repeated traditional mistakes until American cities exhibited +stupendous extensions of the medievalisms in the traditional Ghetto, +and of the hideousness in the Black Country of Lancashire. + +He contended that this condition is the inevitable result of +separating education from contemporary life. Education becomes unreal +and far fetched, while industry becomes ruthless and materialistic. In +spite of the severity of the indictment, one much more severe and well +deserved might have been brought against us. He might have accused us +not only of wasting, but of misusing and of trampling under foot the +first tender instincts and impulses which are the source of all charm +and beauty and art, because we fail to realize that by premature +factory work, for which the youth is unprepared, society perpetually +extinguishes that variety and promise, that bloom of life, which is +the unique possession of the young. He might have told us that our +cities would continue to be traditionally cramped and dreary until we +comprehend that youth alone has the power to bring to reality the +vision of the "Coming City of Mankind, full of life, full of the +spirit of creation." + +A few educational experiments are carried on in Cincinnati, in Boston +and in Chicago, in which the leaders of education and industry unite +in a common aim and purpose. A few more are carried on by trade +unionists, who in at least two of the trades are anxious to give to +their apprentices and journeymen the wider culture afforded by the +"capitalistic trade schools" which they suspect of preparing +strike-breakers; still a few other schools have been founded by public +spirited citizens to whom the situation has become unendurable, and +one or two more such experiments are attached to the public school +system itself. All of these schools are still blundering in method and +unsatisfactory in their results, but a certain trade school for +girls, in New York, which is preparing young girls of fourteen for the +sewing trade, already so overcrowded and subdivided that there remains +very little education for the worker, is conquering this difficult +industrial situation by equipping each apprentice with "the informing +mind." If a child goes into a sewing factory with a knowledge of the +work she is doing in relation to the finished product; if she is +informed concerning the material she is manipulating and the processes +to which it is subjected; if she understands the design she is +elaborating in its historic relation to art and decoration, her daily +life is lifted from drudgery to one of self-conscious activity, and +her pleasure and intelligence is registered in her product. + +I remember a little colored girl in this New York school who was +drawing for the pattern she was about to embroider, a carefully +elaborated acanthus leaf. Upon my inquiry as to the design, she +replied: "It is what the Egyptians used to put on everything, because +they saw it so much growing in the Nile; and then the Greeks copied +it, and sometimes you can find it now on the buildings downtown." She +added, shyly: "Of course, I like it awfully well because it was first +used by people living in Africa where the colored folks come from." +Such a reasonable interest in work not only reacts upon the worker, +but is, of course, registered in the product itself. Such genuine +pleasure is in pitiful contrast to the usual manifestation of the play +spirit as it is found in the factories, where, at the best, its +expression is illicit and often is attended with great danger. + +There are many touching stories by which this might be illustrated. +One of them comes from a large steel mill of a boy of fifteen whose +business it was to throw a lever when a small tank became filled with +molton metal. During the few moments when the tank was filling it was +his foolish custom to catch the reflection of the metal upon a piece +of looking-glass, and to throw the bit of light into the eyes of his +fellow workmen. Although an exasperated foreman had twice dispossessed +him of his mirror, with a third fragment he was one day flicking the +gloom of the shop when the neglected tank overflowed, almost instantly +burning off both his legs. Boys working in the stock yards, during +their moments of wrestling and rough play, often slash each other +painfully with the short knives which they use in their work, but in +spite of this the play impulse is too irrepressible to be denied. + +If educators could go upon a voyage of discovery into that army of +boys and girls who enter industry each year, what values might they +not discover; what treasures might they not conserve and develop if +they would direct the play instinct into the art impulse and utilize +that power of variation which industry so sadly needs. No force will +be sufficiently powerful and widespread to redeem industry from its +mechanism and materialism save the freed power in every single +individual. + +In order to do this, however, we must go back a little over the +educational road to a training of the child's imagination, as well as +to his careful equipment with a technique. A little child makes a very +tottering house of cardboard and calls it a castle. The important +feature there lies in the fact that he has expressed a castle, and it +is not for his teacher to draw undue attention to the fact that the +corners are not well put together, but rather to listen to and to +direct the story which centers about this effort at creative +expression. A little later, however, it is clearly the business of the +teacher to call attention to the quality of the dovetailing in which +the boy at the manual training bench is engaged, for there is no value +in dovetailing a box unless it is accurately done. At one point the +child's imagination is to be emphasized, and at another point his +technique is important--and he will need both in the industrial life +ahead of him. + +There is no doubt that there is a third period, when the boy is not +interested in the making of a castle, or a box, or anything else, +unless it appears to him to bear a direct relation to the future; +unless it has something to do with earning a living. At this later +moment he is chiefly anxious to play the part of a man and to take his +place in the world. The fact that a boy at fourteen wants to go out +and earn his living makes that the moment when he should be educated +with reference to that interest, and the records of many high schools +show that if he is not thus educated, he bluntly refuses to be +educated at all. The forces pulling him to "work" are not only the +overmastering desire to earn money and be a man, but, if the family +purse is small and empty, include also his family loyalty and +affection, and over against them, we at present place nothing but a +vague belief on the part of his family and himself that education is a +desirable thing and may eventually help him "on in the world." It is +of course difficult to adapt education to this need; it means that +education must be planned so seriously and definitely for those two +years between fourteen and sixteen that it will be actual trade +training so far as it goes, with attention given to the condition +under which money will be actually paid for industrial skill; but at +the same time, that the implications, the connections, the relations +to the industrial world, will be made clear. A man who makes, year +after year, but one small wheel in a modern watch factory, may, if his +education has properly prepared him, have a fuller life than did the +old watchmaker who made a watch from beginning to end. It takes +thirty-nine people to make a coat in a modern tailoring establishment, +yet those same thirty-nine people might produce a coat in a spirit of +"team work" which would make the entire process as much more +exhilarating than the work of the old solitary tailor, as playing in a +baseball nine gives more pleasure to a boy than that afforded by a +solitary game of hand ball on the side of the barn. But it is quite +impossible to imagine a successful game of baseball in which each +player should be drilled only in his own part, and should know nothing +of the relation of that part to the whole game. In order to make the +watch wheel, or the coat collar interesting, they must be connected +with the entire product--must include fellowship as well as the +pleasures arising from skilled workmanship and a cultivated +imagination. + +When all the young people working in factories shall come to use their +faculties intelligently, and as a matter of course to be interested in +what they do, then our manufactured products may at last meet the +demands of a cultivated nation, because they will be produced by +cultivated workmen. The machine will not be abandoned by any means, +but will be subordinated to the intelligence of the man who +manipulates it, and will be used as a tool. It may come about in time +that an educated public will become inexpressibly bored by +manufactured objects which reflect absolutely nothing of the minds of +the men who made them, that they may come to dislike an object made by +twelve unrelated men, even as we do not care for a picture which has +been painted by a dozen different men, not because we have enunciated +a theory in regard to it, but because such a picture loses all its +significance and has no meaning or message. We need to apply the same +principle but very little further until we shall refuse to be +surrounded by manufactured objects which do not represent some gleam +of intelligence on the part of the producer. Hundreds of people have +already taken that step so far as all decoration and ornament are +concerned, and it would require but one short step more. In the +meantime we are surrounded by stupid articles which give us no +pleasure, and the young people producing them are driven into all +sorts of expedients in order to escape work which has been made +impossible because all human interest has been extracted from it. That +this is not mere theory may be demonstrated by the fact that many +times the young people may be spared the disastrous effects of this +third revolt against the monotony of industry if work can be found for +them in a place where the daily round is less grinding and presents +more variety. Fortunately, in every city there are places outside of +factories where occupation of a more normal type of labor may be +secured, and often a restless boy can be tided over this period if he +is put into one of these occupations. The experience in every boys' +club can furnish illustrations of this. + +A factory boy who had been brought into the Juvenile Court many times +because of his persistent habit of borrowing the vehicles of +physicians as they stood in front of houses of patients, always +meaning to "get back before the doctor came out," led a contented and +orderly life after a place had been found for him as a stable boy in +a large livery establishment where his love for horses could be +legitimately gratified. + +Still another boy made the readjustment for himself in spite of the +great physical suffering involved. He had lost both legs at the age of +seven, "flipping cars." When he went to work at fourteen with two good +cork legs, which he vainly imagined disguised his disability, his +employer kindly placed him where he might sit throughout the entire +day, and his task was to keep tally on the boxes constantly hoisted +from the warehouse into cars. The boy found this work so dull that he +insisted upon working in the yards, where the cars were being loaded +and switched. He would come home at night utterly exhausted, more from +the extreme nervous tension involved in avoiding accidents than from +the tremendous exertion, and although he would weep bitterly from +sheer fatigue, nothing could induce him to go back to the duller and +safer job. Fortunately he belonged to a less passionate race than the +poor little Italian girl in the Hull-House neighborhood who recently +battered her head against the wall so long and so vigorously that she +had to be taken to a hospital because of her serious injuries. So +nearly as dull "grown-ups" could understand, it had been an hysterical +revolt against factory work by day and "no fun in the evening." + +America perhaps more than any other country in the world can +demonstrate what applied science has accomplished for industry; it has +not only made possible the utilization of all sorts of unpromising raw +material, but it has tremendously increased the invention and +elaboration of machinery. The time must come, however, if indeed the +moment has not already arrived, when applied science will have done +all that it can do for the development of machinery. It may be that +machines cannot be speeded up any further without putting unwarranted +strain upon the nervous system of the worker; it may be that further +elaboration will so sacrifice the workman who feeds the machine that +industrial advance will lie not in the direction of improvement in +machinery, but in the recovery and education of the workman. This +refusal to apply "the art of life" to industry continually drives out +of it many promising young people. Some of them, impelled by a +creative impulse which will not be denied, avoid industry altogether +and demand that their ambitious parents give them lessons in "china +painting" and "art work," which clutters the overcrowded parlor of the +more prosperous workingman's home with useless decorated plates, and +handpainted "drapes," whereas the plates upon the table and the rugs +upon the floor used daily by thousands of weary housewives are totally +untouched by the beauty and variety which this ill-directed art +instinct might have given them had it been incorporated into industry. + +I could cite many instances of high-spirited young people who suffer a +veritable martyrdom in order to satisfy their artistic impulse. + +A young girl of fourteen whose family had for years displayed a +certain artistic aptitude, the mother having been a singer and the +grandmother, with whom the young girl lived, a clever worker in +artificial flowers, had her first experience of wage earning in a box +factory. She endured it only for three months, and then gave up her +increasing wage in exchange for $1.50 a week which she earns by making +sketches of dresses, cloaks and hats for the advertisements of a +large department store. + +A young Russian girl of my acquaintance starves on the irregular pay +which she receives for her occasional contributions to the Sunday +newspapers--meanwhile writing her novel--rather than return to the +comparatively prosperous wages of a necktie factory which she regards +with horror. Another girl washes dishes every evening in a cheap +boarding house in order to secure the leisure in which to practise her +singing lessons, rather than to give them up and return to her former +twelve-dollar-a-week job in an electrical factory. + +The artistic expression in all these cases is crude, but the young +people are still conscious of that old sacrifice of material interest +which art has ever demanded of those who serve her and which doubtless +brings its own reward. That the sacrifice is in vain makes it all the +more touching and is an indictment of the educator who has failed to +utilize the art instinct in industry. + +Something of the same sort takes place among many lads who find little +opportunity in the ordinary factories to utilize the "instinct for +workmanship"; or, among those more prosperous young people who +establish "studios" and "art shops," in which, with a vast expenditure +of energy, they manufacture luxurious articles. + +The educational system in Germany is deliberately planned to sift out +and to retain in the service of industry, all such promising young +people. The method is as yet experimental, and open to many +objections, but it is so far successful that "Made in Germany" means +made by a trained artisan and in many cases by a man working with the +freed impulse of the artist. + +The London County Council is constantly urging plans which may secure +for the gifted children in the Board Schools support in Technological +institutes. Educators are thus gradually developing the courage and +initiative to conserve for industry the young worker himself so that +his mind, his power of variation, his art instinct, his intelligent +skill, may ultimately be reflected in the industrial product. That +would imply that industry must be seized upon and conquered by those +educators, who now either avoid it altogether by taking refuge in the +caves of classic learning or beg the question by teaching the tool +industry advocated by Ruskin and Morris in their first reaction +against the present industrial system. It would mean that educators +must bring industry into "the kingdom of the mind"; and pervade it +with the human spirit. + +The discovery of the labor power of youth was to our age like the +discovery of a new natural resource, although it was merely incidental +to the invention of modern machinery and the consequent subdivision of +labor. In utilizing it thus ruthlessly we are not only in danger of +quenching the divine fire of youth, but we are imperiling industry +itself when we venture to ignore these very sources of beauty, of +variety and of suggestion. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE THIRST FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS + + +Even as we pass by the joy and beauty of youth on the streets without +dreaming it is there, so we may hurry past the very presence of august +things without recognition. We may easily fail to sense those +spiritual realities, which, in every age, have haunted youth and +called to him without ceasing. Historians tell us that the +extraordinary advances in human progress have been made in those times +when "the ideals of freedom and law, of youth and beauty, of knowledge +and virtue, of humanity and religion, high things, the conflicts +between which have caused most of the disruptions and despondences of +human society, seem for a generation or two to lie in the same +direction." + +Are we perhaps at least twice in life's journey dimly conscious of the +needlessness of this disruption and of the futility of the +despondency? Do we feel it first when young ourselves we long to +interrogate the "transfigured few" among our elders whom we believe to +be carrying forward affairs of gravest import? Failing to accomplish +this are we, for the second time, dogged by a sense of lost +opportunity, of needless waste and perplexity, when we too, as adults, +see again the dreams of youth in conflict with the efforts of our own +contemporaries? We see idealistic endeavor on the one hand lost in +ugly friction; the heat and burden of the day borne by mature men and +women on the other hand, increased by their consciousness of youth's +misunderstanding and high scorn. It may relieve the mind to break +forth in moments of irritation against "the folly of the coming +generation," but whoso pauses on his plodding way to call even his +youngest and rashest brother a fool, ruins thereby the joy of his +journey,--for youth is so vivid an element in life that unless it is +cherished, all the rest is spoiled. The most praiseworthy journey +grows dull and leaden unless companioned by youth's iridescent dreams. +Not only that, but the mature of each generation run a grave risk of +putting their efforts in a futile direction, in a blind alley as it +were, unless they can keep in touch with the youth of their own day +and know at least the trend in which eager dreams are driving +them--those dreams that fairly buffet our faces as we walk the city +streets. + +At times every one possessed with a concern for social progress is +discouraged by the formless and unsubdued modern city, as he looks +upon that complicated life which drives men almost without their own +volition, that life of ingenuous enterprises, great ambitions, +political jealousies, where men tend to become mere "slaves of +possessions." Doubtless these striving men are full of weakness and +sensitiveness even when they rend each other, and are but caught in +the coils of circumstance; nevertheless, a serious attempt to ennoble +and enrich the content of city life that it may really fill the ample +space their ruthless wills have provided, means that we must call upon +energies other than theirs. When we count over the resources which are +at work "to make order out of casualty, beauty out of confusion, +justice, kindliness and mercy out of cruelty and inconsiderate +pressure," we find ourselves appealing to the confident spirit of +youth. We know that it is crude and filled with conflicting hopes, +some of them unworthy and most of them doomed to disappointment, yet +these young people have the advantage of "morning in their hearts"; +they have such power of direct action, such ability to stand free from +fear, to break through life's trammelings, that in spite of ourselves +we become convinced that + + "They to the disappointed earth shall give + The lives we meant to live." + +That this solace comes to us only in fugitive moments, and is easily +misleading, may be urged as an excuse for our blindness and +insensitiveness to the august moral resources which the youth of each +city offers to those who are in the midst of the city's turmoil. A +further excuse is afforded in the fact that the form of the dreams for +beauty and righteousness change with each generation and that while it +is always difficult for the fathers to understand the sons, at those +periods when the demand of the young is one of social reconstruction, +the misunderstanding easily grows into bitterness. + +The old desire to achieve, to improve the world, seizes the ardent +youth to-day with a stern command to bring about juster social +conditions. Youth's divine impatience with the world's inheritance of +wrong and injustice makes him scornful of "rose water for the plague" +prescriptions, and he insists upon something strenuous and vital. + +One can find innumerable illustrations of this idealistic impatience +with existing conditions among the many Russian subjects found in the +foreign quarters of every American city. The idealism of these young +people might be utilized to a modification of our general culture and +point of view, somewhat as the influence of the young Germans who came +to America in the early fifties, bringing with them the hopes and +aspirations embodied in the revolutions of 1848, made a profound +impression upon the social and political institutions of America. Long +before they emigrated, thousands of Russian young people had been +caught up into the excitements and hopes of the Russian revolution in +Finland, in Poland, in the Russian cities, in the university towns. +Life had become intensified by the consciousness of the suffering and +starvation of millions of their fellow subjects. They had been living +with a sense of discipline and of preparation for a coming struggle +which, although grave in import, was vivid and adventurous. Their +minds had been seized by the first crude forms of social theory and +they had cherished a vague belief that they were the direct +instruments of a final and ideal social reconstruction. When they come +to America they sadly miss this sense of importance and participation +in a great and glorious conflict against a recognized enemy. Life +suddenly grows stale and unprofitable; the very spirit of tolerance +which characterizes American cities is that which strikes most +unbearably upon their ardent spirits. They look upon the indifference +all about them with an amazement which rapidly changes to irritation. +Some of them in a short time lose their ardor, others with incredible +rapidity make the adaptation between American conditions and their +store of enthusiasm, but hundreds of them remain restless and ill at +ease. Their only consolation, almost their only real companionship, +is when they meet in small groups for discussion or in larger groups +to welcome a well known revolutionist who brings them direct news from +the conflict, or when they arrange for a demonstration in memory of +"The Red Sunday" or the death of Gershuni. Such demonstrations, +however, are held in honor of men whose sense of justice was obliged +to seek an expression quite outside the regular channels of +established government. Knowing that Russia has forced thousands of +her subjects into this position, one would imagine that patriotic +teachers in America would be most desirous to turn into governmental +channels all that insatiable desire for juster relations in industrial +and political affairs. A distinct and well directed campaign is +necessary if this gallant enthusiasm is ever to be made part of that +old and still incomplete effort to embody in law--"the law that abides +and falters not, ages long"--the highest aspirations for justice. + +Unfortunately, we do little or nothing with this splendid store of +youthful ardor and creative enthusiasm. Through its very isolation it +tends to intensify and turn in upon itself, and no direct effort is +made to moralize it, to discipline it, to make it operative upon the +life of the city. And yet it is, perhaps, what American cities need +above all else, for it is but too true that Democracy--"a people +ruling"--the very name of which the Greeks considered so beautiful, no +longer stirs the blood of the American youth, and that the real +enthusiasm for self-government must be found among the groups of young +immigrants who bring over with every ship a new cargo of democratic +aspirations. That many of these young men look for a consummation of +these aspirations to a social order of the future in which the +industrial system as well as government shall embody democratic +relations, simply shows that the doctrine of Democracy like any other +of the living faiths of men, is so essentially mystical that it +continually demands new formulation. To fail to recognize it in a new +form, to call it hard names, to refuse to receive it, may mean to +reject that which our fathers cherished and handed on as an +inheritance not only to be preserved but also to be developed. + +We allow a great deal of this precious stuff--this _Welt-Schmerz_ of +which each generation has need--not only to go unutilized, but to work +havoc among the young people themselves. One of the saddest +illustrations of this, in my personal knowledge, was that of a young +Russian girl who lived with a group of her compatriots on the west +side of Chicago. She recently committed suicide at the same time that +several others in the group tried it and failed. One of these latter, +who afterwards talked freely of the motives which led her to this act, +said that there were no great issues at stake in this country; that +America was wholly commercial in its interests and absorbed in money +making; that Americans were not held together by any historic bonds +nor great mutual hopes, and were totally ignorant of the stirring +social and philosophic movements of Europe; that her life here had +been a long, dreary, economic struggle, unrelieved by any of the +higher interests; that she was tired of getting seventy-five cents for +trimming a hat that sold for twelve dollars and was to be put upon the +empty head of some one who had no concern for the welfare of the woman +who made it. The statement doubtless reflected something of "The +Sorrows of Werther," but the entire tone was nobler and more highly +socialized. + +It is difficult to illustrate what might be accomplished by reducing +to action the ardor of those youths who so bitterly arraign our +present industrial order. While no part of the social system can be +changed rapidly, we would all admit that the present industrial +arrangements in America might be vastly improved and that we are +failing to meet the requirements of our industrial life with courage +and success simply because we do not realize that unless we establish +that humane legislation which has its roots in a consideration for +human life, our industrialism itself will suffer from inbreeding, +growing ever more unrestrained and ruthless. It would seem obvious +that in order to secure relief in a community dominated by industrial +ideals, an appeal must be made to the old spiritual sanctions for +human conduct, that we must reach motives more substantial and +enduring than the mere fleeting experiences of one phase of modern +industry which vainly imagines that its growth would be curtailed if +the welfare of its employees were guarded by the state. It would be an +interesting attempt to turn that youthful enthusiasm to the aid of one +of the most conservative of the present social efforts, the almost +world-wide movement to secure protective legislation for women and +children in industry, in which America is so behind the other nations. +Fourteen of the great European powers protect women from all night +work, from excessive labor by day, because paternalistic governments +prize the strength of women for the bearing and rearing of healthy +children to the state. And yet in a republic it is the citizens +themselves who must be convinced of the need of this protection unless +they would permit industry to maim the very mothers of the future. + +In one year in the German Empire one hundred thousand children were +cared for through money paid from the State Insurance fund to their +widowed mothers or to their invalided fathers. And yet in the American +states it seems impossible to pass a most rudimentary employers' +liability act, which would be but the first step towards that code of +beneficent legislation which protects "the widow and fatherless" in +Germany and England. Certainly we shall have to bestir ourselves if we +would care for the victims of the industrial order as well as do other +nations. We shall be obliged speedily to realize that in order to +secure protective legislation from a governmental body in which the +most powerful interests represented are those of the producers and +transporters of manufactured goods, it will be necessary to exhort to +a care for the defenseless from the religious point of view. To take +even the non-commercial point of view would be to assert that +evolutionary progress assumes that a sound physique is the only secure +basis of life, and to guard the mothers of the race is simple sanity. + +And yet from lack of preaching we do not unite for action because we +are not stirred to act at all, and protective legislation in America +is shamefully inadequate. Because it is always difficult to put the +championship of the oppressed above the counsels of prudence, we say +in despair sometimes that we are a people who hold such varied creeds +that there are not enough of one religious faith to secure anything, +but the truth is that it is easy to unite for action people whose +hearts have once been filled by the fervor of that willing devotion +which may easily be generated in the youthful breast. It is +comparatively easy to enlarge a moral concept, but extremely difficult +to give it to an adult for the first time. And yet when we attempt to +appeal to the old sanctions for disinterested conduct, the conclusion +is often forced upon us that they have not been engrained into +character, that they cannot be relied upon when they are brought into +contact with the arguments of industrialism, that the colors of the +flag flying over the fort of our spiritual resources wash out and +disappear when the storm actually breaks. It is because the ardor of +youth has not been attracted to the long effort to modify the +ruthlessness of industry by humane enactments, that we sadly miss +their resourceful enthusiasm and that at the same time groups of young +people who hunger and thirst after social righteousness are breaking +their hearts because the social reform is so long delayed and an +unsympathetic and hardhearted society frustrates all their hopes. And +yet these ardent young people who obscure the issue by their crying +and striving and looking in the wrong place, might be of inestimable +value if so-called political leaders were in any sense social +philosophers. To permit these young people to separate themselves from +the contemporaneous efforts of ameliorating society and to turn their +vague hopes solely toward an ideal commonwealth of the future, is to +withdraw from an experimental self-government founded in enthusiasm, +the very stores of enthusiasm which are needed to sustain it. The +championship of the oppressed came to be a spiritual passion with the +Hebrew prophets. They saw the promises of religion, not for +individuals but in the broad reaches of national affairs and in the +establishment of social justice. It is quite possible that such a +spiritual passion is again to be found among the ardent young souls of +our cities. They see a vision, not of a purified nation but of a +regenerated and a reorganized society. Shall we throw all this into +the future, into the futile prophecy of those who talk because they +cannot achieve, or shall we commingle their ardor, their overmastering +desire for social justice, with that more sober effort to modify +existing conditions? Are we once more forced to appeal to the +educators? Is it so difficult to utilize this ardor because educators +have failed to apprehend the spiritual quality of their task? + +It would seem a golden opportunity for those to whom is committed the +task of spiritual instruction, for to preach and seek justice in human +affairs is one of the oldest obligations of religion and morality. All +that would be necessary would be to attach this teaching to the +contemporary world in such wise that the eager youth might feel a tug +upon his faculties, and a sense of participation in the moral life +about him. To leave it unattached to actual social movements means +that the moralist is speaking in incomprehensible terms. Without this +connection, the religious teachers may have conscientiously carried +out their traditional duties and yet have failed utterly to stir the +fires of spiritual enthusiasm. + +Each generation of moralists and educators find themselves facing an +inevitable dilemma; first, to keep the young committed to their charge +"unspotted from the world," and, second, to connect the young with the +ruthless and materialistic world all about them in such wise that they +may make it the arena for their spiritual endeavor. It is fortunate +for these teachers that sometime during "The Golden Age" the most +prosaic youth is seized by a new interest in remote and universal +ends, and that if but given a clue by which he may connect his lofty +aims with his daily living, he himself will drag the very heavens into +the most sordid tenement. The perpetual difficulty consists in finding +the clue for him and placing it in his hands, for, if the teaching is +too detached from life, it does not result in any psychic impulsion at +all. I remember as an illustration of the saving power of this +definite connection, a tale told me by a distinguished labor leader in +England. His affections had been starved, even as a child, for he +knew nothing of his parents, his earliest memories being associated +with a wretched old woman who took the most casual care of him. When +he was nine years old he ran away to sea and for the next seven years +led the rough life of a dock laborer, until he became much interested +in a little crippled boy, who by the death of his father had been left +solitary on a freight boat. My English friend promptly adopted the +child as his own and all the questionings of life centered about his +young protege. He was constantly driven to attend evening meetings +where he heard discussed those social conditions which bear so hard +upon the weak and sick. The crippled boy lived until he was fifteen +and by that time the regeneration of his foster father was complete, +the young docker was committed for life to the bettering of social +conditions. It is doubtful whether any abstract moral appeal could +have reached such a roving nature. Certainly no attempt to incite his +ambition would have succeeded. Only a pull upon his deepest sympathies +and affections, his desire to protect and cherish a weaker thing, +could possibly have stimulated him and connected him with the forces +making for moral and social progress. + +This, of course, has ever been the task of religion, to make the sense +of obligation personal, to touch morality with enthusiasm, to bathe +the world in affection--and on all sides we are challenging the +teachers of religion to perform this task for the youth of the city. + +For thousands of years definite religious instruction has been given +by authorized agents to the youth of all nations, emphasized through +tribal ceremonials, the assumption of the Roman toga, the Barmitzvah +of the Jews, the First Communion of thousands of children in Catholic +Europe, the Sunday Schools of even the least formal of the evangelical +sects. It is as if men had always felt that this expanding period of +human life must be seized upon for spiritual ends, that the tender +tissue and newly awakened emotions must be made the repository for the +historic ideals and dogmas which are, after all, the most precious +possessions of the race. How has it come about that so many of the +city youth are not given their share in our common inheritance of +life's best goods? Why are their tender feet so often ensnared even +when they are going about youth's legitimate business? One would +suppose that in such an age as ours moral teachers would be put upon +their mettle, that moral authority would be forced to speak with no +uncertain sound if only to be heard above the din of machinery and the +roar of industrialism; that it would have exerted itself as never +before to convince the youth of the reality of the spiritual life. +Affrighted as the moralists must be by the sudden new emphasis placed +upon wealth, despairing of the older men and women who are already +caught by its rewards, one would say that they would have seized upon +the multitude of young people whose minds are busied with issues which +lie beyond the portals of life, as the only resource which might save +the city from the fate of those who perish through lack of vision. + +Yet because this inheritance has not been attached to conduct, the +youth of Jewish birth may have been taught that prophets and statesmen +for three thousand years declared Jehovah to be a God of Justice who +hated oppression and desired righteousness, but there is no real +appeal to his spirit of moral adventure unless he is told that the +most stirring attempts to translate justice into the modern social +order have been inaugurated and carried forward by men of his own +race, and that until he joins in the contemporary manifestations of +that attempt he is recreant to his highest traditions and obligations. + +The Christian youth may have been taught that man's heartbreaking +adventure to find justice in the order of the universe moved the God +of Heaven himself to send a Mediator in order that the justice man +craves and the mercy by which alone he can endure his weakness might +be reconciled, but he will not make the doctrine his own until he +reduces it to action and tries to translate the spirit of his Master +into social terms. + +The youth who calls himself an "Evolutionist"--it is rather hard to +find a name for this youth, but there are thousands of him and a fine +fellow he often is--has read of that struggle beginning with the +earliest tribal effort to establish just relations between man and +man, but he still needs to be told that after all justice can only be +worked out upon this earth by those who will not tolerate a wrong to +the feeblest member of the community, and that it will become a social +force only in proportion as men steadfastly strive to establish it. + +If these young people who are subjected to varied religious +instruction are also stirred to action, or rather, if the instruction +is given validity because it is attached to conduct, then it may be +comparatively easy to bring about certain social reforms so sorely +needed in our industrial cities. We are at times obliged to admit, +however, that both the school and the church have failed to perform +this office, and are indicted by the young people themselves. +Thousands of young people in every great city are either frankly +hedonistic, or are vainly attempting to work out for themselves a +satisfactory code of morals. They cast about in all directions for the +clue which shall connect their loftiest hopes with their actual +living. + +Several years ago a committee of lads came to see me in order to +complain of a certain high school principal because "He never talks +to us about life." When urged to make a clearer statement, they added, +"He never asks us what we are going to be; we can't get a word out of +him, excepting lessons and keeping quiet in the halls." + +Of the dozens of young women who have begged me to make a connection +for them between their dreams of social usefulness and their actual +living, I recall one of the many whom I had sent back to her +clergyman, returning with this remark: "His only suggestion was that I +should be responsible every Sunday for fresh flowers upon the altar. I +did that when I was fifteen and liked it then, but when you have come +back from college and are twenty-two years old, it doesn't quite fit +in with the vigorous efforts you have been told are necessary in order +to make our social relations more Christian." + +All of us forget how very early we are in the experiment of founding +self-government in this trying climate of America, and that we are +making the experiment in the most materialistic period of all history, +having as our court of last appeal against that materialism only the +wonderful and inexplicable instinct for justice which resides in the +hearts of men,--which is never so irresistible as when the heart is +young. We may cultivate this most precious possession, or we may +disregard it. We may listen to the young voices rising--clear above +the roar of industrialism and the prudent councils of commerce, or we +may become hypnotized by the sudden new emphasis placed upon wealth +and power, and forget the supremacy of spiritual forces in men's +affairs. It is as if we ignored a wistful, over-confident creature who +walked through our city streets calling out, "I am the spirit of +Youth! With me, all things are possible!" We fail to understand what +he wants or even to see his doings, although his acts are pregnant +with meaning, and we may either translate them into a sordid chronicle +of petty vice or turn them into a solemn school for civic +righteousness. + +We may either smother the divine fire of youth or we may feed it. We +may either stand stupidly staring as it sinks into a murky fire of +crime and flares into the intermittent blaze of folly or we may tend +it into a lambent flame with power to make clean and bright our dingy +city streets. + + + * * * * * + +Printed in the United States of America. + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Spirit of Youth and the City +Streets, by Jane Addams + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH AND THE *** + +***** This file should be named 16221.txt or 16221.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/2/2/16221/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Diane Monico, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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