Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 10, Number 47, DeMotte, Jasper County, 10 October 1940 — Kathleen Norris Says: [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Kathleen Norris Says:

England Sends Us Her Children (Bell Syndicate —WNU Service.)

By KATHLEEN NORRIS

IT IS a real joy and satisfaction to the hearts of American women to know that we are to have as our guests this year several thousand little refugees from war-torn England. That they are trusting us with their children at this time is sure proof of the confidence and affection that naturally exists between the two great countries. Even those of us who have been most positive against any plan of intervention in this or any other foreign combat, are eager to extend a welcome to the small girls and boys who are to be sent away for awhile to safety. So they will come trooping over; they will file down from the ships a little scared and more than a little homesick; they wall be absorbed into thousands of homes. And for a few days all will be harmony, interest, eagerness to make them feel comfortable and happy. For a few days. Then the real test will come for both visitors and visited. And we must all hope that when this test comes we will not fail. Agaifi America Sets Example. * This |is perhaps the first time in the history of the world that one nation hak thus extended hospitality to the children of another. America is often first in setting some example that the whole world presently follows. And surely she has never originated a more important one than this. If it succeeds we will have knitted our hearts to those of England forever. Trade treaties, franchisesi, taxes, these are coldblooded necessities between nations, and misunderstandings and bitterness may easily upset them. But when we say to their children: “Come to us for safety and kindness and good times and friendship,” we do something that goes far higher than any business agreement goes; we begin a new type of international exchange that may be the opening of a better day. If it had! been the fashion in Europe, during the past 600 or 800 years, to exchange children when children were in danger, how different might be the history of the world! For we have to remember that the alignment of warring forces has been different in all the wars. For example, 20 years ago French children might well have been sent into Italy or Spain, for France and Italy were on the same side then. Russia might well have welcomed English children, for Russia was one of England’s allies. So that th|is is a very solemn and significant thing that we are doing. We are saying to England: “we be of one blood, thou and I.” We are saving her the keenest pang that her danger knows, the fear for her | children, and we are proving that, even though we are not with her in war, what we can do for her without war we are eager to do. Creates Domestic Problem. But the taking of a strange child into any home is a serious thing. If that child is a small baby it means that one woman’s time is given completely over to the baby. If the child is older—and the ages of these children supposedly will range from 6 to 16, then the problem is infinitely complicated. Instead of straightahead nursery service with bottles and cribs and vegetable soups, the

foster mother may in some cases have to deal with temperament, with lack of training, with perhaps a total ignorance of politeness and manners, with homesickness and strangeness and unhappiness. All these children won’t come from the better homes. We have many of those fortunate babies already; the ones who could come over with a good nurse in charge, and are rapturously absorbed by rich grandmothers and friends. Most of the children who are coming will behave much as our own American children would if they were suddenly transplanted from New York or Boston or any other American city and suddenly transported to England. Ernest Thompson-Seton once gave in one of his books the jungle’s rule: “if it’s strange, it’s hostile,” and children still retain many of the instincts of the jungle. In handling these guests we must use infinite patience and tact, and an entirely unreasonable amount of kindness. They mustn’t be disciplined, or subjected to rules, even as much as our own children are. No woman who wants to shelter one should undertake it unless she is willing to regard the experiment with the utmost seriousness, and expects no surety of personal pleasure or return from it whatsoever. Keep Arrivals Together. My own hope is that America, rather than scattering the small English arrivals, will keep many of them together in something as like a great boarding-school as possible; will find good-hearted Englishwomen who will understand them, and act as nurses, cooks, guardians, teachers for them. That would seem to me a far truer hospitality than the seemingly-kindlier one of giving them to individual foster-mothers in scattered homes. There must be in our various cities many empty buildings that could easily be fitted with cots and lockers and refectory tables, and equipped very simply to meet the needs of small children. There are certainly, in all our communities, experienced mothers, doctors, diet specialists to keep an eye on the visitors, and be sure that they have plenty of outside pleasures and excursions. Handle With Mass Efficiency. We should make this an undertaking entirely separate from the ordinary line of our charities and sympathies, and handle it with mass efficiency, and with the proper publicity to prevent the difficulties that will be inevitable if the Smiths and the Bakers and the Johnsons all are permitted to stretch out welcoming hands to small Londoners who, within three weeks will have every member of the household in a state of complete bewilderment and discomfort. ' These little war-scared folk are a sacred responsibility; we want them always to remember their American visit as a time of happiness and affectiom; we want them to go back as so many separate ambassadors of friendship between one great country and another.

CHIU) REFUGEES Child refugees sent from England to America for safety offer this country the greatest opportunity in history to promote international friendship. Kathleen Norris warns that it is terribly important that these children receive unusually kind and considerate treatment. They are living in a foreign land among total strangers with different customs. After all, she points out, they ure only children with children’s temperament, ill manners and homesickness. 1

That they are trusting us with their children at this time is sure proof of the confidence and affection that naturally exists between the two great countries.