A WOMAN'S FARM JOURNAL - University of Illinois

- ' TEACHERS OF PATRIOTISM /
' . They Were Needed Before The War And During The Wan Tne Need For Them Now Is More Vital Than Ever
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W& fc>T
WANT to play soldier and be the
* ;'j . hero! I don't want to wipe
?• •» 'dishes!" answered the,belligerent
-' - ^ five-year-old.
^
''¦/ "0, yes, you want to be a home soldier,
* help me and hear about a hero. Heroes do
r^heu- duty first you know," and then while
„• daughter wiped as mother washed, mother
' told a story. She pictured the hamlet of
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Boston, the coming«iemy and the arrange-
~
merit for the signals for Paul Revere. She
* • emphasized the courage of the Minute Men
who entered the graveyard, climbed the
* tower of the church in the night, making
this part of the story of immediate appeal
:• to the little daughter who was "afraid in
}' the dark." She then told about the long
ride, his danger of capture and made the
matter of duty doing of high importance.
r Then as the dishes were wiped, she said,
~ "Could you learn the poem for father and
" -.repeat it to him some Sunday?"
And so, in the many dishwashings that
followed,~-Mother said the verses and
„ little Patsy repeated them until she could
say all of the inspiring poem-story.
* What had this mother done? She had
ij - Xyf JSS Shetland speaks, in this article written before the war, what she abundantly
^l : 1VI knows and what all know, who observe us Miss Shetland observes, right on the
$ ground-floor of daily contact with American citizens-in-the-making.
% As State Supervisor of Rural Schools of Minnesota and as one of Minnesota's
I- Council-of-Defence war-workers, as well as a most successful rural-school teacher,
g; MissShelland was well-equipped to prepare for the Minnesota Department ofEduca-
';:' Hon, her delightful volume: School Patriotism: Handbook tor Teachers'
Patriotic League and Little Citizens' League. This volume of nearly 200
?: '¦ ' pages is solidly packed , from cover to cover, with a wonderful variety of aids to the
'¦f. teacher who makes (lie inslillment of patriotism one of her earnest daily drives.
> . Copies of "School Patriotism" can be purchased from the Syndicate Printing
Company, Minneapolis, Minnesota, for f ifteen cents, by anyone inside the Slate or
W: out. It will be a well-spent f ifteen cents.
instilled courage and obligation 1 of duty to
home and country into that small heart,
and years later Patsy realized that mother
struck a "spark that kindles the land into
flame and its heat."
—That same mother taught her child to
know Barbara Fritchie and through the
•games that followed, both brother and sister
learn- to-reverence age and the flag.
Through infinite patience mother turned
the work hours into hours of inspiration,
through which her children learned the
qualities of patriotism—for patriotism is
love of country expressed in word and
deed. The seeds of patriotism must be
sown, the habits of service must be developed
and mothers all over the land can
utilize these hours with their children for
such purpose.
THIS mother of whom I am writing,
accomplished another thing. One of
the neighbors had sickness in the family,
;- and, in want of better transportation, she
hitched a horse to the stone boat, put a
chair upon it and Patsy against her knees
" and went to the neighbor's assistance.
'•'.' The brusque neighbor remarked somewhat
sarcastically: "Land! I suppose you
. think you are as good as Queen Victoria,
"^ riding around that way!"
J, "Certainly, as long as I behave myself!"
,was the good-natured reply. That atti-
• tude, the kindly attention to the neighbor
-and the absolute crushing of gossip at home
opened the eyes of the children to charity
of purpose, the necessity for self respect
Trad their duty to iheir neighbor.
"Why doyou gotoSundayschool.moth-
>r, when you feel so badly?" asked the lit-
" tie daughter one day.
«DECAUSE, dear, our neighbors help
JP me on week days when I lack
¦ strength and I can help them on Sunday
to learn the thing I know about." Thus
again the mother, in sickness and pain,
taught the-child that we all owe something
to the community in which we live
and to which we are "related' because we
' live in it.
Mothers sometimes ask, How can we
teach our children patriotism? I wonder
if the above instance does not answer for
!|^if one mother by such simple, direct ways
"^•n inspire her children to bravely do their
v at home, to their neighbor and the
munity, certainly others can. And with
that teaching comes reverence for others, a
desire tcTemulate them and the courage to
undertake the difficult.
It is so easy now, to carry on this patriotic
teaching because of the war which is
stirring youth ' and age to vie in doing
good. Children can be inspired by being
told what other children have done. Tell
them of the twelve-year-old girl who "kept
house for her father, raised a garden, and
put up 500 cans of tomatoes for sale so that
she might buy a Liberty Bond.
With the best chance possible for each to
do her mite in buying War Savings Stamps,
helping the Red - Cross, buying Liberty
Bonds, denying herself unnecessaries,
who could not teach patriotism ? The
child cannot give much you say. Perhaps
not, but a penny a year from each child in
the state of Minnesota would mean
$4,841.14, a penny a week would mean
$106,916.48, and, after all, it is riot the
money they save and give but the habit
set up which the child shall follow in the
coming years, which means most. If every
child learns to practice thrift in care of
food, clothes, and money, it will mean great
things in the future of .the child and the
nation.
There is another patriotic conservation
the child needs to be taught: the conservation
of health. Eighty per cent of our
children are defective physically. The
rate of American children under a year of
age is 7 per cent; the death rate of our soldiers
in Europe is only 4"per cent. Can we
not dcrsomething to help our children establish
better bodily conditions? Cannot mothers
see that they keep their teeth clean,
sleep with their windows open, and take
plenty of exercise, eat right food, follow
right physical habits? The teachers are
trying to establish better health habits, and
as they ask the children to follow the teaching,
shall not the mothers at home help the
children to carry out their directions?
Another patriotic obligation we all should
think seriously of is our co-operative community
life. Is there any danger of each
one of us becoming so interested in our
own home, own family, and own prosperity
that we forget that really our own individual
progress depends to a large extent
upon that of our neighbor and of the entire
neighborhood? "No man liveth unto him
self," says the ancient wisdom.
ANNIE E. SHELLAND
State Supervisor. Rural Schools, Minnesota
SOME years ago I called on a farmer who
was working in his seed plot. He had
selected a fertile plot of ground, enriched
and cultivated thesoil.purchasedand planted
a small amount of excellent seed, and had
painstakingly kept down the weeds so that
he might secure good clean seed for the
next year's planting. The next spring he
carefully prepared a larger field, planted
his wheat, and rightfully expected another
good crop. But—beside this field of
precious planting was a neighbor's field and
among the neighbor's seed was mustard and
sow thistle. A good heavy wind, the blowing
of seed and dirt from the last field to the
first and the crop on the first plot was ruined,
all because the neighbor failed to do his
share.
Just as a matter of self-defense, the man
I visited needed to teach his neighbor to
clean his seed before he planted it. Every
neighbor for his own sake and also for the
sake of his neighbor, needs not only to
clean the seed, but to build good roads,
good schools, good churches and co-operative
plants—creameries, laundries ,, rest
rooms, libraries, community kitchens and
the like, for community service. Any coun-
try' neighborhoOjjUcan have all the helpful
equipment and enterprises found in the
cities but only when individuals work together,
each contributing his or her share of information
and judgment, thus helping the
community group gain the necessary knowledge.
Some individual families have their older
children * and their babies examined by
nurse or doctor to see that they are in good
physical condition. ; If-a nurse or doctor
were hired to come to the township and
examine all the children and babies of the
township, each family would not only secure
the doctor's advice at half the price,
but certain neighborhood and school difficulties
would come to the surface and the
community would wake up to the need of
a mother's club to help prevent the recurrence
of certain troubles which were at the
root of illness and unruliness. The safety
of all alone is the safety of each.
THERE are a great many men hi our
country who are doing with their
political life as the farmer referred 1 to did
with his seed. They are reading carefully,
thoughtfully; they are selecting their
candidates and preparing themselves
to cast an intelligent vote. So far they
have prepared their political seed
plot and reaped the first harvest. But
they take very little precaution with their
community plot. They neither help their
neighbor select a candidate nor help him secure
knowledge on all sides of the question
at issue so that he too may cast an intelligent
vote. The result is that a good vote
is often choked out of life by the weeds of
the community plot—the unintelligent
votes. Many times the voter says, "If I
had only known—if I had only understood!"
Why did not that careful neighbor
help him to know and to.understand,
Why not do alLpossible insecure knowl-
edge on all sides of public questions, for the
community as a whole, information from
b6th friend and foe, speeches from all candidates
and a frank discussion of what the
candidates stand for before the vote is cast ?
An organization of this kind with an
adapted course of study would not only
help all the individuals concerned but
would raise the standards of the whole
American nation. Eight per cent of the
citizens of the State of Minnesota are illiterate,
nine per cent are aliens and forty^six
per cent are foreign born whq do not yet
know clearly that for which the American
government stands. And Minnesota is
just one state.
Can you, Neighbor who reads this article,
help the women of your neighborhood who
do not read.English, to learn it this year?
Can you help the foreign born and the fifty
per cent of the population who left school
before the sixth grade, to discover what
America stands for? Can you not see how
the vast army of immigrants who came to
our land in past years, are gradually realizing
that freedom for one meant freedom
for all and that the only government that
can uphold that realization, is a government
of the people, by the people and for
the people? Thousands of those same
"foreigners" are fighting in the trenches
to-day, under the Stars and Stripes.
IF
WE are to have an ideal government by
the people, they must have a knowledge
of our language, our customs, our laws, their
own individual daily needs and the needs
of the community groups which comprise
the government. One of the best ways in
which this information can be spread and
instilled is to have continuation schools or
community councils, in every township at
least. To these schools or councils the
•people gather, each giving of what he 1
knows. Here the earnest message of
each is heard by all, here come the best
speakers of the day, discussing this mass of
information and out of it the community
selects that which appeals to the most as
practical common sense. Then men are
elected "whom the spoils of office can not
buy"; men who will stand their ground
for the good of the people.
But in order to do this community work,
each of us must realize that we must give
if we would receive. . The only way to
keep the spring pyre is to keep it flowing.
So each must be willing to give of time,
effort , knowledge and pleasure until each
one in the community and the community
itsel f is so full of good things that it has become
a pure fountain head, a feeding stream
for a better, purer government.
The church must awake, and interpret
the message of the Divine as one that demands
purpose, strength and action, for
the followers of the Divine are called upon
to heal the body politic by casting out the
devils of intemperance, greed, vice, ignorance,
laziness, indifference, selfishness.
OUR nation is "a peculiar people" in
that we believe that we have certain
unalienable rights of life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness. Upon these rights,
the rights of our brother, our government
has been built. In this form of government
is embodied a belief in the brotherhood
of men. The greater share of our
business is built on faith in others.
Such business, such government, such
faith call for patriotism or service, such
service obeys the old, ever new, universal
commandment, "Love thy neighbor as
thyself." Who is our neighbor? The
(t A7"0 TEACHER should forget that she is a lieutenant in charge of her com-
¦L V . munity and school. Their response as soldiers will be in direct ratio to her
enthusiasm, her knowledge, and her co-operation with the United States Government.
A failure on her part will mean a weakness in the rear guard that may bring fatal
results to the fr ont line.
"The responsibility is great but the present and future welfare of the nations ¦
hinges upon the teacher's action. It must be remembered that great and terrible
reckonings are coming very swiftly in-these days, and. none can afford to feel that a
stone is left unturned for our present and future safety. The future depends on the
present and:
" 'The present is all thou hast for thy sure possessing;
Like the patriarch 's angel, hold it fast till it gives thee blessings.' "
—Annie E. Shetland in School Patriotism.
i
one who on this side of the ocean or
Over There is down among the thieves
of injustice and exploitation, who needs
the oil of material comfort and relief—
the wine of information and kindness and
rest in the camp of brotherly love.
He who administers such help, such healing
and such'teaching is a patriot. The
patriots of to-morrow are the children of
today. And the ones who have the best
opportunity and the greatest responsibility
of teaching these future citizens how to be
true patriots, true brothers, true Americans,
are their mothers.
SINCE I wrote this article, which was
complete at the close of the last sentence,
the prayed-for but almost unexpected
end of the war has come. The
editors of THE FARMER'S WIFE have asked
me to add a post-war paragraph to the
foregoing article. If I were to write the
article-over, now that the-Armistice is in
force arid Peace the great central theme
of world conclaves, I should still find myself
applying the same general principles
to our plans for reconstructive living.
It is still true, as I said above, "the ones
who have the best opportunity and the greatest
responsibility of teaching these future
citizens how to be true patriots, true brothers,
lrueAmericans,ARE THEIR MOTHERS.''
That the war may not have been in
vain, MOTHER must still stand , the
central force that makes for preparedness
for efficient , steadily-betteringnational
and international conditions. Since mothers
began to be there has been no "armistice"
for them—always they must fight
the unending fight for Tightness!