HUMANE SOCIETIES. now if we will. "We may put into his little hands, as first toys, whips, guns and swords," says President Angell, "or we may teach him, as the Quakers do, that war and cruelty are crimes. We may teach him to shoot the song bird in the springtime, with its nest full of young, or we may teach him to feed the bird and spare the nest." "Just so soon and so far as we pour into all our schools the songs, poems and literature of mercy toward these lower creatures, just so soon and so far shall we reach the roots, not only of cruelty, but of crime." To this end the society urges the formation of a band of mercy, or juvenile humane society, in every school and church, both town and country, where each child shall take the pledge, "I will try to be kind to all living creatures, and will try to protect them from cruel usage." Wherever this is done the testimony of educators is, that they are kinder to each other, and the woful persecution In addition to this, nature study is urged for of a child by children ceases. a larger place in the school curriculum. Open a child's eyes to the beauty of animal and bird life, and you open his eyes to the beauty of holiness. Prizes offered from time to time tend to stimulate a child's thought and research on these subjects. In London recently, in one day 76,617 essays were handed in from the various public schools, for which the Duchess of Fife distributed 1,200 prizes. In many states this work is required by law. The statutes of the States of Maine and Washington are identical, and read as follows: "No less than ten minutes each week shall be devoted to the systematic teaching of kindness to, not only our domestic animals, but to all living crea tures." Criminologists the world over testify to the results of this work. They say that the child who is cruel to other children and helpless animals will, when he grows up, commit every crime which does not require courage. Out of 7,000 pupils who were carefully taught humane principles in one Edinburgh school, not one ever committed a crime. Of 2,000 criminals examined in American prisons, it was found that only twelve had pets when children. It is not alone to protect suffering children and animals that we labor, but the much farther reaching and more blighting effect upon the inflicter of the suffering. In the wake of a broader knowledge we hope for the diminution of cruel sport. Man is loth to give up the idea that there can be amusement without killing something. Would that he, with Emerson, would "Name the bird without a gun; love the wood-rose, and leave it on its stem." For the hunter is ever a nature and an animal lover. He hunts because he longs for nature; he should be our ally and helper, and if we cannot bring him to enjoy a deathless sport, we must beg him to kill only what he needs for food, and that as rapidly and painlessly as possible. Sport, however, can only exist where the hunter and his quarry have an equal chance. A man with a gun against a pair of wings and the wide Heaven are fairly matched, but the shooting of a prisoned bird from a trap can be justified by no principle of sport. Within a year, at a butchers' picnic, a steer-killing contest was the entertainment furnished, where, before hundreds of women and children, two steers were led upon a high platform and killed and dressed by the contestants, the time occupied being less than fourteen minutes. There was no SEVENTH STATE CONFERENCE OF CHARITIES. pretense of sport, no time even for the animals to die. Compared to this, bull fights are humanizing. Another amusement at picnics of our state last summer were chicken chases, where women chased a chicken until it fell dead, and chickens are larger than sparrows. In our propaganda of the sacredness of all life we are met at every turn by the claim of science to destroy it. Under the guise of prolonging human life, murder, mutilation and torture of God's creatures so terrible is inflicted that if I should describe to you a single experiment I should forfeit all claim to be considered humane. Grant that vivisection has, as some scientists claim, prolonged human life, who could enjoy the added few minutes wrung from the shrieking deaths of a thousand tortured innocents? Or who is so blinded by the desire to prolong his own life that he cannot see the vivisectors' stand to be directly opposed to the principles of our country, the glory of chivalry, the triumph of Calvary, that the strong shall protect, and, if need be, lay down their lives. for the weak? Space forbids the arguments on this vast subject, but material will be furnished on application to the writer. Moderate and temperate in this as in other things, while admitting no moral right for vivisection, the Humane Society demands unequivocally two things: First, that vivisectors shall be obliged to take out a license, as in England, and in this demand we have yet to find a physician or scientist who does not agree with our position; and, secondly, that vivisection shall cease absolutely in the public schools. The immature mind learns nothing from vivisection which it could not from charts and the admirable mechanical appliances of to-day; secondly, it is the fascination of suffering, not the physical phenomena, that holds the child's attention. Fine sensibilities are blunted, tender hearts hardened, and, in addition, lurking evil tendencies are called forth by the sight of blood and wounds. Imitative by nature, children repeat the experiments at home, their bungling ignorance causing unimaginable suffering to their helpless pets. Mothers may consider themselves fortunate if their children do not vivisect each other. A copy of the Massachusetts law should be enacted in every state: "Section 1. No teacher or other person employed in any public school of this commonwealth shall, in the presence of any scholar, in said school, or any child or minor there present, practice vivisection, nor, in such presence, exhibit any animal upon which vivisection has been practiced. "Sec. 2. Dissections of dead animals, or any portions thereof, in the public schools of this commonwealth, in no instance shall be for the purpose of exhibition, but in every case shall be confined to the class room and the presence of those pupils engaged in that study to be illustrated by such dis section. "Sec. 3. Any person violating the provisions of this act shall be punisheď by a fine of not less than ten nor more than fifty dollars." And, lastly, the strongest foe we have to combat is fashion. This invisible, intangible Moloch, on whose altars all that is most beautiful must be offered. We can fix the responsibility on other offenders against life, but this impersonal power, which emanates from nowhere, no one can trace. Now she demands the skins of unborn lambs and seals, 100 to a cloak; they are out of style next season and thrown aside. Again, it is small song birds to deck her hat, to be quickly thrown aside. One Philadelphia firm ordered 5,000,000 of these song birds in a single season, 1,000,000 of them bobolinks. RESCUE WORK: CITY BOYS AND GIRLS. Every year, at nesting time, the white heron puts on a bridal plume which fashion has coveted, and now the woods are filled with piteous cries of starving nestlings,-sounding much the same in their Heavenly Father's ears, I fancy, as do the cries of young ravens. Nothing but the refusal of each individual woman to wear these things can stop this wholesale slaughter. Moderate in this as in other things, the Audubon Society says: "If you must wear feathers, wear only those which are taken from birds killed humanely for food, as cock and game birds, or shed feathers, such as ostrich and geese." struction of insects. If the appeal must be made in vain to tender-hearted woman, the commercial aspect can no longer be disguised. The bureau of agriculture estimates that song birds save $100,000,000 annually to the farmer by the deThe wholesale slaughter of birds is already making itself felt in every state. In Pennsylvania and Michigan this year the fruit crop is entirely worm-eaten, while our own Minnesota woods for miles are stripped of foliage. If there were no birds, or so few that the insects once had the upper hand, it would take but a short time for them to destroy all vegetation, and in consequence render the earth utterly unfit for life. Thus is man in his arrogant selfishness denuding his beautiful earth of plant and animal life, preparing for himself an existence without beauty and without song, and rendering ever farther distant of realization of the hope of nature-lovers voiced in Shelley's prophecy: "No longer now the winged inhabitants That in the woods their sweet lives sing away, His terrible prerogative, and stands An equal amidst equals-happiness And science dawn, though late, upon the earth.” RESCUE WORK: CITY BOYS AND GIRLS. BY MRS. ALICE W. COOLEY, SUPERVISOR OF PRIMARY WORK, MINNEAPOLIS. Friends: After the many wise and thoughtful papers and addresses to which we have listened during this conference, one cannot hope at nine o'clock in the evening to bring new thoughts or facts with regard to the importance of rescue-work. This is especially true of rescue-work for children, since, fortunately for the welfare of Minnesota, every speaker at this state conference has emphasized the necessity of beginning with the children—of so training as to prevent the ignorance, wrong-doing and crime that are threatening our nation with so many dangers. But if a woman's "last word" can be but as the sound of drum or fife to hasten the steps of the march from word to deed, we shall be glad of the opportunity to make even so slight a contribution. The many phases of the truth that we have to-day heard and objectively seen reveal to us the deep inner meaning of the one mighty underlying truth, SEVENTH STATE CONFERENCE OF CHARITIES. —that we are in the midst of a great world-movement; of a general awakening to the thought of man's duty to man as a vital part of man's duty toward God. An inevitable result of accompaniment of this intensive study of mansaving is the revelation that there must be equally intensive study of the problems of child-saving. Investigation shows it to be a fact, and not a mere sentiment, that, for every man saved (dropped from the good-for-nothing tramp ranks), hundreds of tramp children, and worse, are growing up to take his place. The truth is, that it is high time we were getting up from our knees and going to work. Before we know it, our children have become men. The child-saving problem is in some respects the most difficult; partly because few people really understand the child nature with which these problems deal. Also because, in most cases, there must of necessity be a working against, if not entire removal from, the influences that are the birthright of every child, but which in the true sense most of those that need saving have never known, viz., parents and home. This means working for them under abnormal and unnatural conditions. On the practical side, what has been done for unfortunate children? The home and the school are universally recognized as the two great child-saving institutions. We all concede that the home is the greatest, the highest, the divinelyappointed agency. But here we confront our greatest problem! How can we reach the home that does not care for its own? We may help by constantly sowing the seed-thoughts: that home-making is the world's holiest work; that children should be trained to feel this, and should be prepared for it; that mothers should guard against being so drawn into the present club-whirl as to neglect any interest of that highest and most sacred organization,—the home. Social settlements, friendly visiting, outing associations, mothers' meetings, and hundreds of other forms of personal service, are doing a noble work; but there still remain hundreds and thousands of untrained or vicious parents who are sending out hordes of lawless children, tramps or criminals in embryo, or in later stages of development. Surely if we wait to train these children until the homes are all reached, each will have become the parent of many other so-called homes, and our dangers will have correspondingly multiplied. The one most potent agency in reaching the home is the kindergarten. There is no child of kindergarten age that cannot be reached by its influences. Through the child, the trained kindergarten-mother, of warm heart and wise head, may bring to the untrained mother in the home an ideal that inspires and uplifts the mother, and thus the home. God speed the day when the state shall require us to provide for every child and for every home this saving influence at the time when such influence is most powerful for good! As Dr. Henderson has so forcibly said to us, the time has come in this country when all efforts for man-saving and child-saving are most effective only when the state establishes the means, which, then, all personal and organized service must re-enforce. But what of the school? Never was there a time when educators were so keenly alive to the fact that the one great purpose of the public school, its teachers, its equipment, and its "course of study," is to save the child. The value to this country of the work of its devoted and faithful public school teachers can never be weighed nor measured. But still an immense army of those in greatest need are outside the gates, and cannot yet be reached by the regular public school. Who make up this army? It is as nondescript as Coxey's band of older tramps. Some are at first merely chronic truants, because they neither know nor like restrictions of any kind. They have never been taught to obey, and know nothing of the meaning of obedience to law, because it has never come into their experience. These could be brought under the influence of the public school by an adequate and enforced compulsory attendance law. Many of them would soon feel stirring within them the power begotten by knowledge and the accomplishment of tasks, and, with many, some line of interest would be aroused that would prove the saving influence. Another class are truants because they hate books, and because pure book-schools recognize no other interest on the part of the child. Though our acknowledged educational leaders are unanimous in declaring the unity in development of hand and brain, and though Miss Wiltse but expresses their universal dictum when she says of them, in all reverence, "What God hath joined together let no man put asunder," it is still true, in the year of our Lord 1898, that the majority of our public schools are depriving the children of this necessary element in their complete development. We repeat the words of our pedagogical creed: "See, think, feel, tell, do," and then in our training stop short with the "tell," omitting the training to "do," which would give efficiency to the other powers. There are yet those who call this needed manual and industrial training a "fad.” We dare to look forward to the time when not only the kindergarten, but some systematic course in hand-training shall be demanded of our public schools, because it is recognized as a vital element in child-saving. By this we do not mean a technical course preparing for particular trades, but systematic hand-training that would develop such power to "do" as would, later, give skill and efficiency in various trades, or in any department of life, and would give to labor its proper dignity and respect in the mind of the child, while, at the same time, contributing to his highest brain-develop ment. Another wing of this army would not be reached by compulsory attendance, nor by any course of study in the regular public schools. For the sake of their influence over other children, they should be removed for special training, and for them disciplinary schools should be provided in every city. Those who refuse to comply with the requirements of the regular public school should be compelled to attend these disciplinary schools, in which industrial work and hand-training should be a marked feature. The classes should be small, in order that the teacher may study and endeavor to meet individual needs. The teachers should be men and women of rare and loving insight into child-life and a thorough consecration to their work. They should feel it to be a school for the purpose of saving children, not for reforming criminals; should feel their work a sacred charge, to so teach and awaken to life the best in each child, that the lower tendencies should be overcome, and the morally diseased boy become a healthy and efficient man. There is no more direct road to this goal than to give the child power to do something. Let him feel this power, and at the same time bring him into daily contact with a personality that presents high ideals in a practical, common-sense way. In many cities these parental or disciplinary schools are already established, and their reports show that merely from the eco |