Jane Eayre Fryer

“ Harry said. That made them all laugh.
“I think the most wonderful brick work I ever saw,” said Mildred, “was in the arch of a big sewer. I couldn’t tell why the bricks didn’t all fall down. My father said the mortar held them.”
“Why, if it weren’t for bricklayers, and cement workers, and stone masons, we should be without lots of things!” exclaimed Harry. “Just imagine it, if you can.”
“That’s so,” said Wallace. “Let’s count what we know of that they build for us—sewers, bridge piers,—go on, Mildred.”
“Pavements,” added Mildred.
“Houses and chimneys,” said Ruth. ”

“ It will teach you how to save in order that suffering children elsewhere may have a chance to live. It will teach you how to prepare some of the supplies which wounded soldiers and homeless families lack. It will send to you through the Red Cross Bulletins the thrilling stories of relief and rescue. And best of all, more perfectly than through any of your other school lessons, you will learn by doing those kind things under your teacher’s direction to be future good citizens of this great country which we all love. ”

“ How do you suppose the groom and the blacksmith felt when they learned the result of the battle?
Do you know any careless people?
What do you think of them?
Can you remember ever doing something carelessly in order to finish more quickly?
Tell about it.
If you’re told to do a thing,
And mean to do it really;
Never let it be by halves;
Do it fully, freely!
—Phœbe Cary.
He liveth long who liveth well;
All else in life is thrown away;
He liveth longest who can tell
Of true things truly done each day.
What is worth doing at all is worth doing well. ”

“ When John came to the store the next morning a very angry looking grocer met him at the door. “You can go home as soon as you like. I won’t have a boy that drives my horse to death,” he said.
“Is the horse dead?” asked John, turning pale.
“It is not your fault if he is not dead. I have been up nearly all night with him, and I must get another horse to take his place until he is well.” ”

“ Emerson must have had help to build a house like that,” remarked Ruth after a pause.
“Oh, he didn’t build it, goosey,” said Wallace.
“Who did, then, Mr. Know-it-all?”
[162]
“Why, the carpenter, of course,” Wallace replied.
“Oh, I see,” exclaimed Ruth. “The carpenter builds the house for Mr. Emerson, and Mr. Emerson has time to teach you boys.”
“That is exactly right, little girl,” said her father.
“Besides, no one person can do many things well. Perhaps Mr. Emerson is a better teacher for not trying to do too many things,” Mrs. Duwell added.
“I think a carpenter is wonderful, don’t you?” ”

“ How many will that oven hold?”
“Six hundred,” said the baker, closing the door.
“Look,” cried Ruth, “they are taking them out of that other oven. There comes our loaf for breakfast, Wallace.”
Farther down the room a baker was lifting out of an oven the nut-brown loaves, bringing with them the sweet smell of fresh bread.
“Isn’t it wonderful!” said Mr. Duwell, who was almost as excited as the children. “Notice how all the men work together, everyone doing his part to help the others.” ”

“ When you step into the cage, that is the elevator, you leave the sunlight behind. The cage sinks down, down into pitch darkness, sometimes hundreds of feet. At the bottom of the shaft it is like an under-ground city. Street-like tunnels, with car tracks laid on them, run out in every direction. The coal cars are drawn by mules or by electricity.
“As you go up the tracks you see cross tunnels and the miners’ little lamps shining in dark holes that look like black caves. ”

“ The children in the class will learn, with the Duwell children, both the actual services that are rendered and the family’s complete dependence on those services. Moreover, they will acquire the splendid working ideals of interdependence and coöperation. And, finally, they will discover that the adult citizens who are rendering them these services are embodying the very civic virtues in which they themselves have been so carefully trained. ”

“ The American Red Cross has just prepared a Junior Membership with School Activities in which every pupil in the United States can find a chance to serve our country. The School is the natural center of your life. Through it you can best work in the great cause of freedom to which we have all pledged ourselves.
Our Junior Red Cross will bring to you opportunities of service to your community and to other communities all over the world and guide your service with high and religious ideals. ”

“ Do you suppose that people always felt that they should help everybody in such ways?
No; the Red Cross is not yet sixty years old.
War is thousands of years old.
In olden days when soldiers fought, there were no kind Red Cross nurses to care for the wounded. There were no faithful Red Cross dogs to search for wounded soldiers after the battle was over.
[216]
Often the suffering men died of neglect when proper nursing would have saved their lives. But no one ever thought of sending a band of women nurses to wars to help the soldiers, before the days of Florence Nightingale. ”

“ Isn’t a loaf of bread the most useful and wonderful article sold in any store in the city?”
[99]
“Why, mother, you are joking!” exclaimed Wallace.
“No, indeed, I am not. Tell me, children, what must you have in order to live?”
“Food,” replied Ruth.
“Correct; and what article of food do we most need?”
“Bread,” replied Ruth.
“I believe that is so,” said Wallace, after thinking a moment. “I am going to talk with father about it when he comes home to-night.”
“That is right; I think he will tell you something about wheat fields and bake ovens,” said Mrs. Duwell. ”

“ The notion of what constitutes adequate civics teaching in our schools is rapidly changing. The older idea was based on the theory that children were not citizens—that only adults were citizens. Therefore, civics teaching was usually deferred to the eighth grade, or last year of the grammar school, and then was mostly confined to a memorizing of the federal constitution, with brief comments on each clause. Today we recognize that even young children are citizens, just as much as adults are, and that what is wanted is not training for citizenship but training in citizenship. ”

“ It is different from most of the letters which grown people write to children, for the President writes to the children asking for their help, just as if they were grown up.
Indeed, when the grown people read the letter they wished that they could be school children again, because there was no Junior Red Cross when they were young, and they had to wait to grew up before they could help the Red Cross do golden deeds.
You see, when they were young, everybody thought, “When the children are grown up they will help us.” Then they waited for them to grow. ”

“ The bridge had caved in, and the hay wagon, full of terror-stricken children, together with the frightened horses, was swept into the water.
“Don’t jump!” shouted the driver to the [14] children, trying to guide the swimming horses shoreward; but that was impossible.
For a full minute, which seemed like hours, they were swept onward. Then,—maybe the good fairy of carefulness had planned it—they rested on a little island the top of which was just covered with water.
The white-faced driver counted the children, “All here! Thank God!” he said. ”

“ The doctor and nurse watched by the baby’s bedside until the danger was passed. Both wore happy smiles when the doctor assured the tired Duwell family that the baby would live.
“Oh, doctor, money cannot pay you for your kindness,” said Mrs. Duwell. “Through rain and snow storms, at midnight and at daybreak, you have come to help us. How tired you must often be.” ”

“ Like all texts or other helps in education, these civics readers cannot teach themselves or take the place of a live teacher. But it is believed that they can be of great assistance to sympathetic, civically minded instructors of youth who feel that the training of our children in the ideals and practices of good citizenship is the most imperative duty and at the same time the highest privilege that can come to any teacher. ”

“ Duwell. “If boys and girls had their teeth [189] examined once or twice a year, the dentist would catch the trouble in time and save them much pain.”
“I don’t suppose dentists ever want to hurt anyone,” Ruth said.
“No, indeed. I think they are very kind to be willing to do so in order to save teeth. It is dreadful to have bad teeth. Nothing tastes just right; and worse than that, bad teeth mean bad health. Good teeth are a grist mill to grind our food. Without good teeth we cannot have good health.”
“That is so,” said Wallace. “Even horses aren’t worth much after their teeth are gone.” ”

“ In September, 1917, President Wilson sent out a letter from the White House in Washington to the school children of the United States.
He told them that the President of the United States is the President of the American Red Cross, and he said that the Red Cross people wanted the children to help them in their work.
Their work, you know, is to help all those who are suffering or in need. ”

“ Emerson said, ‘dogs are tame animals now, although they used to be wild. But [166] even the dog’s house is a wooden cave which his master builds for him.’
“He told us that a long time ago people lived in caves which they dug in the earth like animals. They were cave dwellers or cave men. The reason we have better homes now is that we have greater minds than animals and have learned to use our hands and brains to build houses. ”

“ Our flag means that the United States of America is the Land of the Free, and our government stands for:
Liberty and justice for everybody; [48] Education for all children; Protection to all Americans at home or abroad.
That is the reason so many people come to this country from countries where they do not have such help from the government.
We Americans are very thankful for what our flag means.
If we are good Americans we shall live up to every one of the following duties:
To be true and faithful citizens; To do our part to carry out the laws of the government ”

“ Robin Redbreast live, and how they love their little ones.
Robins eat many other kinds of worms besides earthworms, and they eat insects, too. They work hard to feed their babies, and in this way they do a wonderful thing for us, for the insects they eat would destroy the plants which we need.
You know bread really grows on tall grasses called wheat and rye, and oatmeal grows on a grass called oats.
There are millions of insects which like wheat and rye and oats as much as we do, and they would eat up all the crops if it were not for the birds that eat the insects. ”

“ Emerson says,” observed Wallace.
“So they do; they are more dangerous to health than poi-son-ous snakes,” his father said.
“Why don’t the people clean their gutters?” asked Wallace.
“I suppose they do sometimes,” replied his father; “but Oldtown will never be clean and healthy while the dirty water from the houses is drained into the streets and alleys. Waste water must be carried off by means of pipes into a sewer. That is the work of the plumber. A good plumber is a health officer.” ”

“ The space in front of the [106] shipping platform was crowded with wagons and automobiles.
“Why, look!” said Wallace, “there are more wagons than automobiles. I should think you would use automobiles entirely.”
“No,” replied the manager, “the automobiles are better for long distances; but for short distances, where the driver has to start and stop, horses are much better. When the driver serves bread along a street he calls, ‘Come [107] Dolly,’ or whatever the horse’s name is, and the horse follows. The horse is alive; the automobile isn’t.”
“When does the delivery start?” asked Mr. Duwell. ”

“ Then they cave in and great lumps of coal fall down on the men. Sometimes gas or fire-damp collects. Then there is danger of choking or of being blown up. Sometimes, in blasting, the coal catches fire, so that the whole mine burns.”
Can you tell a story about the journey of a ton of coal from the time the miner digs it out of the mine, and boys sort out the slate, until it is put into the furnace in a house?
“Why, miners must be as brave as soldiers,” said Wallace. ”

“ Did you ever give a penny to an organ-grinder with a monkey?
If everyone stopped giving money to men who use monkeys for begging, how would it help the little monkeys?
[74]
ROBIN REDBREAST
“Cheer up! Cheer up!” sings Robin Redbreast every morning. “Listen to me! Listen to me! Oh, excuse me! I see, I see a feast!” and down he hops, hops, hops to the spot where he sees a nice fat worm wiggling out of the ground.
Perhaps it is an earthworm, perhaps it is a worse worm; but if it is an earthworm, you will have fun watching Robin. ”

“ My house is in a little grove of oak trees.
Every winter I feed several gray squirrels with nuts.
Every day about noon a big father squirrel comes and scratches on my kitchen window.
There he sits on the sill, watching with bright eyes until I open the window and throw out some nuts.
The more timid squirrels are seated on the ground looking up at the window. They catch the nuts and scamper away with them up to the tops of the trees. But not Furry. He takes nuts from my hands, and holding them in his little finger-claws, gnaws away the shell faster [81] than I can count ten. ”

“ The civic virtues previously considered are again found exemplified to a marked degree; and the threefold idea of dependence, interdependence, and coöperation through community agencies finds ample illustration.
Training for Citizenship
But it is not enough for the pupils to stop with finding out what the community is doing for them. The essential thing in this citizenship-training is for the young citizens to find out what they can do to help things along. ”

“ Duwell; “it is only the frame-work.”
“Oh,” exclaimed Wallace, “is that the way wooden houses are built?”
“It is, little city people,” replied Mr. Duwell. “No wonder you are not familiar with such a sight. City houses are not built of wood, because of the danger of fire.”
[157]
“I should like to see that house closer,” said Wallace.
“We’ll drive over there,” his father agreed, turning the horse’s head.
As they drew near, Wallace exclaimed, “Why, there’s Mr. Emerson on the porch; he is my teacher. I wonder what he is doing here.” ”