The Father and the Mother State : Part 3

The Family and it's Members
by Anna Garlin Spencer

(Page 18 of 23)

Louisa Lee Schuyler organized and for fifty years energized and directed the work of the New York State Charities Aid Association which made over into humane and intelligent social care-taking the inherited institutions of a more ignorant and indifferent time. The first woman to serve on the State Board of Charities in New York, Josephine Shaw Lowell, whose motherhood in the family and the state knew no bounds and whose statesmanship comprehended every social relation, is not the last to so serve. "The lady with the lamp," Florence Nightingale, who pioneered in trained nursing has had many a follower in this as in other countries. The annals of all charitable agencies show that at every step, whether recognized as responsible members of the body politic or not, women have done the work in large and efficient measure when the state took over a new job of life-saving and of life-nourishment.

In the realm of penology we have moved far from the old private prison into which the noble could cast his enemy and no one question his acts. We have moved far from the early prison which was easily neglected in all sanitary as in all moral conditions, since it was then only a stopping place, often for a short time only, on the way from court condemnation to hanging or mutilation, flogging or exile. When the prison became a place for longer sojourn, and sentence to it became in itself a legal punishment, humane men and women began to feel the importance of knowing what went on in the places set aside for offenders against the law, and Howard and others set the tendency toward a more humane and reasonable treatment of criminals. We now are at work finding out who are real criminals and who are accidentally caught in the meshes of hurtful circumstances, who among the offenders against the law are mentally responsible, and who are but children of adult bodily size, and what to do for and with the intentional enemy of social order.

We have not yet learned to apply the ideals we have gained in wise and effective treatment of the small minority of men, and far smaller minority of women, who cannot or will not walk the safe and well-outlined road of the law-abiding, but we have some concepts that promise to guide us in this particular and the new Penology is born. Men and women alike are working out details of direction and shouldering the heavy social work demanded. The thing that is most conspicuous in Penology is the new attitude of courts of law, of judges and even of juries. This is an attitude of humane inquiry into causes of moral breakdown, and humane dealing with criminals as of right entitled to a fair chance. Surely this is a fatherly attitude taking the place of old punitive ideas.

Culture Aids to the Common Life. - When we come to the new work of making the streets safer for the spirit of youth, and the life of all more protected and happy by recreative measures standardized for personal uplift, we are distinctly in the area of parental functions of the modern state. It takes fatherly men and motherly women to run the public playground, and to make the parks, the museums, the settlement clubs and classes, and the children's rooms in public libraries what we now will that they shall be, - the centres of eager interest and the nursery of character development. The mention of the free public library suggests what is probably the most potent of all the higher social influences in our American life. In the large city and in the small town alike, and even in remote rural districts served by the Loan Libraries, the opportunity to find what will feed the mind and lead toward the delight of the printed page is one that has meant more to more people who were aspiring and able to become leaders in any sphere of life than has any other opportunity; perhaps than even the public school after the main essentials of early grade teaching have been gained.

To sit in a public library and watch the eager interest of each newcomer, to see the patience, the understanding, the sympathetic attitude and the earnest effort to be of utmost service which the librarian almost invariably shows, and to see the absorbed attention of the readers in what they have been assisted in selecting, is to bless the generosity and public spirit of every one who has made the public library so common a blessing. Not all books are equally helpful, not all give equal pleasure, it is true, but when one gets a book with a message in it for him, what a joy!

One often thinks of the lovely song of Emily Dickinson when sitting thus in a public library:

"He ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust;
He knew no more that he was poor
Or that his frame was dust.
He danced along the dingy ways
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book. What liberty
A loosened spirit brings!"

Many Languages in One Country. - In this connection must be noted the effort of many to limit this "bequest" to the language of the country. In another connection we have noted the difficulty that inheres in having many differing tongues in one community, the difficulty of reaching a common ideal and method of living when language is a barrier and not an aid to companionship. This barrier of language to the foreign-born is often cited as a reason why the immigrant is handicapped. It is also a reason why social efforts and religious influences often fail of success and why so many native-born Americans fail to understand the newer Americans. If, as many prophesy, the English language becomes the standard tongue for business and diplomacy and literature, all the best products of every nation being made available by translation, at least, for those speaking English, it can become that ruling tongue only by slow degrees. Meanwhile, the chasm between citizens of a common country made by differing languages may be bridged by far greater effort on the part of older Americans gifted in the use of foreign tongues.

We see women by the hundreds flocking to Europe and the East to "get local color" and perfect themselves in foreign languages, who might find at their own doors, among those illiterate in English, but with a wealth of knowledge of their own native literature and speech, men and women who would be able, if rightly approached, to exchange national values both in literature and history to mutual advantage. The need of adult education on the part of the foreign-born is not always a need to be met by condescending from above to those of low intellectual estate. It is often a mere requirement to master another form of speech by those, already linguists, or at least in possession of a broader use of language than is the average citizen of the United States. The ways of social helping in this line are many and of the highest political importance. The variety of languages spoken in the United States, however, is not so serious an obstacle to the intercommunication of our population for political information and in organization for common ends of the public good as is the shameful condition of illiteracy among the electorate.

Copyright, 1923 by J.B. Lippincott Company

About the Author

Anna Garlin Spencer (1851-1931) was an American educator, feminist, and Unitarian minister. Born in Attleboro, MA, she married the Rev. William H. Spencer in 1878. She was a leader in the women's suffrage and peace movements. In 1891 she became the first woman ordained as a minister in the state of Rhode Island.