Horace Fletcher - That Last Waif; or, Social Quarantine

THAT LAST WAIF
OR
SOCIAL QUARANTINE

Matthew , xviii; 1, 2 and 14

1. At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

2. And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them.

14. Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish?

Copyright, 1898
By HORACE FLETCHER

"It was Juvenal who said, 'The man's character is made at seven; what he then is, he will always be.' This seems a sweeping assertion, but Aristotle, Plato, Lycurgus, Plutarch, Bacon, Locke, and Lord Brougham, all emphasize the same idea, while leading educators of a modern day are all united upon this point." [Sarah B. Cooper, to the National Conference of Charities and Correction of the United States and Canada.]

"This institution was established as the result of a quickened public conscience on the subject of waifs of the State, a comprehensive understanding of the relation of the State to the child, and the demonstrated effect of such institutions in decreasing crime." [The American Journal of Sociology, May, 1898, page 790.]

"Waif," as herein employed, applies to all neglected or abused children, and not especially to those who have lost their parents, or have been abandoned.

While the evidence of the kindergartners may seem extreme as to the possibility of making useful citizens of all children, the unanimity of their enthusiasm must be taken as very strong evidence.

The plea for a social quarantine which shall establish protection for helpless infancy during the period of present neglect, and when the cost is insignificant, is made in the belief that, once attracted to the idea of the possibility of social quarantine, which is nothing if not complete, popular sentiment will demand a continuance of organized protection for each member of society as long as he may be helpless or weak, without reference to an age limit.

Immediate special attention, however, should be given to the victims of the "sweaters," to unsanitary work-rooms and other environing conditions provided by conscienceless (usually alien) employers, and to the prevention of children being employed in occupations where temptation is so strong as to be a menace to unformed character.

When first published, five years ago, this appeal for better care of children born into unfortunate environment met with very favorable reception, especially from practical child educators and child economists; and the author received numerous requests to address gatherings of altruists in various parts of the country. He responded to some forty of these invitations, and met with warmest encouragement and the assurance that the sentiment of this book was shared pretty generally, when the facts in the case were understood. In meeting men of all kinds in the outside world, as well as women from whom a generous sympathy might be expected, he found that any scheme offering care and protection for neglected children excited the sympathy and enlisted the assistance of all classes, and most readily the aid of people in the more lowly walks of life, who came nearer to the need and realized the want. The wealthy Christian mother of the Avenue would respond to the suggestion of a more efficient care for the helpless ones with "We should certainly do all that we can for these poor little unfortunates, for Christ's sake;" while the ruddy barkeeper, who unwillingly pushed out the bottle to a parent of neglected kids in the slums, when talked to about an effective quarantine to protect the neglected ones, would say, "Certainly; yes, indeed! for Christ's sake give the babies a chance."

In both cases the sympathy and sentiment were the same, and the author believes it to be universal. All that is needed to guard against helplessness is concentration of interest, for a little time, on this one elementary need, and the full measure of reform will soon be in effective operation.

While the conferences above referred to were being held, the author had opportunity to learn the existing conditions, relative to the greatest and most fundamental needs in approaching and perfecting a reform of the kind recommended, and learned that uncertain, irregular, or otherwise faulty nourishment is the cause of much perversion among the poor, and is especially harmful to the young among them. The author had just completed his initial experiments, and had published the booklet "What Sense? or, Economic Nutrition," and by them saw a way to provide teachers, mothers, and other child protectors with a teachable theory of nutrition that seemed to him to be scientific but simple, and which had been most gratifyingly effective wherever it had been intelligently tried.

But in the course of these lecture conferences it developed that more than the unsupported word of a layman was necessary in order to even command attention in a matter that everybody thought they knew all about themselves, and in whose general opinion the whole world joined. It did not seem credible, although quite logical, that health, morals, temperament, physical efficiency, and all the requirements of virtue and good citizenship could be mended or modified by mere attention to the ingestion of food and more careful eating.

As time went on it seemed evident to the author that not only was a right intelligence, relative to the initial act of nutrition, helpful in conserving health, but that it was fundamentally necessary to physical efficiency, mental clearness, and moral tone, and that all work, which was done by educators without this basic knowledge as an underlying necessity of teaching or training, could but be simply ameliorative and not curative in its effect; and, failing to be able to say the convincing word himself, it seemed necessary for the author to interest the highest physiological authority in the subject and make demonstration a means of convincing them. This, in order that they might speak to deaf ears with the effectiveness of the megaphone, while poor lay I, the author, could not raise my voice above a whisper.