AN EXPERIMENT IN CITIZEN TRAINING. 113 



fair? " (if it is in relation to a situation simple enough for a child 

 to see all the bearings of) will be enough to make him choose in- 

 stantly the right course. That is just what the first hour of freedom 

 aims at giving — opportunities for seeing one another in clear and 

 simple relations. It affords an excellent preparation, too, for the 

 second hour when, to carry out the original idea, it might be said 

 that a higher state of civilization is attained, and consequently it 

 becomes necessary to build upon the simple fundamental law an 

 apparently complicated system if justice and freedom are to be 

 assured each member. It is soon found that the club (or society, 

 to carry out the larger view of club life) should consist of members 

 who not only are ready to comply with a general law, but who as indi- 

 viduals also possess certain characteristics. The wish to discuss these 

 characteristics makes the first raison d'etre of the business meeting. 

 A few of the simpler rules of parliamentary law (which, by the way, 

 typifies in itself almost perfectly the law of freedom and justice in 

 complicated relations) are learned from Cushing's Manual. Officers 

 are elected, and then the momentous question arises for discussion, 

 " Do we want as members of our club boys who gamble, steal, smoke, 

 or swear? " We can not wonder much that these are popular sports on 

 the East Side. An overcrowded tenement house is not an inspiring or 

 healthy place to play in. Baseball is forbidden, and running games 

 are almost impossible in the streets. Roller skating and bicycling can 

 not be said to have many devotees for obvious reasons. Thus boys 

 of naturally fine characters are driven to stealing and gambling as 

 the only fields in which to exercise their imaginations, and in which 

 to find excitement and diversion. Of the reasons for these " sports " 

 being wrong, a surprising number have never thought. However, 

 in speaking in public before one's peers, it is possible from the mo- 

 ment the first word is uttered to feel ideas springing into life which 

 one was never conscious of having had before, and to hear one's self 

 arguing eloquently for some cause in which one had little interest 

 two minutes before. The first attempt at self-expression calls to- 

 gether the hitherto scattered fragments of thoughts and impressions, 

 and forms them into deep-rooted convictions. This happens all the 

 time in the business meeting, when the necessity for making their 

 own laws sets all the boys to thinking, and most of them to talking 

 also. It is a bad boy indeed who will do very often what he has 

 convinced himself is wrong. 



After days of excited talk nearly every one in the club is ready 

 to admit that it is wrong to steal and gamble, foolish to smoke, and 

 vulgar to swear, and ready to make a law to the effect that these 

 practices are forbidden to the members. The question of punish- 

 ment for possible backsliders naturally comes next. The first ideas 



VOL. LII. — 10 



