Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 March 1918 — BOYS and GIRLS. FIGHTING the KAISER" [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BOYS and GIRLS. FIGHTING the KAISER"

/ / HE boy and girl enV V ■ ergy of the country 5 Is worth the services - of half a million men on the firing-line,” said Judge Ben B. Lindsey, the famous juvenile court judge, when asked hoW the children of America could help win the war. “We are in the greatest war of the world’s history,” said Secretary of the Treasury William McAdoo in his message to the youth of America, “and we must win this war. We can and we shall win, if the toys and girls of America say so, and mean it, and feel it, and live it, as the boys and girls of ’76 felt and lived and helped. “The nation needs that sort of boys and girls today. Not to beat our drums, nor to load our muskets, but to start a great work which must be done. It is the part of the boys and girls today to give an example of self-denial and sacrifice, to teach fathers and mothers, to teach the grown people of the nation that we still have in every young heart the spirit of ’76 when the boys led our soldiers into battle, and the girls fought beside their fathers at the cabin walls. The lesson is ‘thrift’ —saving to the point of sacrifice —selfdenial of everything unnecessary.” Young America needs no urging to do its part for victory. Reports from the schools show that the youngsters are making sacrifices and doing their share of war work with the spirit of the boys and girls of ’76. In Greenwich, Conn., is a remarkable school. It is self-governing, the boys and girls having equal voice in school affairs with the faculty. Every Monday morning the children and teachers hold a war council. Government policies of importance and reports of the nation’s needs are discussed. Letters and messages of human Interest from soldiers of the allies and friends In service are read and the Inspiration of brave deeds and patriotic self-denial is Impressed upon the young minds. Every member of the council who does at least one hour of war work dally is awarded a badge of citizenship. The council owns a large and businesslike gray book, in which is recorded each citizen’s activities for the day, and you will find such jottings as these: “Leigh, age seven : Cutting snips for pillow pads for the wounded, 30 minutes. Knitting squares for comforts, 20 minutes. Pasting scrap-books for soldiers, 15 minutes: 1 hour and 5 minutes.

“Billy, age thirteen: Chopping wood for 1 hour and 30 minutes and giving money to Liberty Joan fund.” “Helen, aged twelve: One and onefourth hours knitting one sock. Onehalf hour making newspaper candies.” Who will say Leigh, Billy and Helen are not hard-working patriots? Every morning the school sends a parcel of knitted work, pillows for the wounded and other much-needed articles to the Red Cross headquarters. ' Students of a fashionable girls’ school in Connecticut have pledged themselves not to use sugar, or eat bonbons w’hile the war lasts. A series of pamphlets containing war lessons which will instruct the school children in the aims and needs of the United States is to be distributed by the government. The first will deal with types of social organization. By the experience of the war it will be shown how interdependent are members of a modern social group. The

lesson for the seventh and eighth grades and the first year of high school will describe the life of a colonial family ’as an example of a fairly Independent economic unit. The lesson for the lower grades will deal with the things society makes and uses. The second pamphlet issued will deal with production and conservation. In a let j: e r to school officials President Wilson said last August:

“The urgent demands for the production and proper distribution of food and other resources has made us aware of the close dependence of individual on individual and nation on nation. The effort to keep up social and industrial organizations, in spite of th£ withdrawal of men for the army, has been revealed to the extent to which modern life has become complex and specialized. “These and other lessons of the war must be learned quickly if we are intelligently and successfully to defend our institutions. When the war is over we must apply the wisdom which we have acquired in purging and enobllng the life of the world. “In these vital tasks of acquiring a broader view of human possibilities the common school jnust have a large part. I urge teachers and other school officers to increase materially the time and attention devoted to instruction bearing directly on problems of community and national life.”