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    YOUNG AMERICAN READERS

    OUR HOME
    AND PERSONAL DUTY

    BY
    JANE EAYRE FRYER
    AUTHOR OF “THE MARY FRANCES STORY-INSTRUCTION BOOKS”

    ILLUSTRATIONS BY EDNA A. COOKE AND FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

[Illustration]

    _In these vital tasks of acquiring a broader view of
    human possibilities the common school must have a large
    part. I urge that teachers and other school officers
    increase materially the time and attention devoted
    to instruction bearing directly on the problems of
    community and national life._—WOODROW WILSON.

    THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY, PUBLISHERS
            PHILADELPHIA      CHICAGO




    COPYRIGHT 1918 BY
    THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO.


    ALL RIGHTS RESERVED




CIVICS FOR AMERICAN CHILDREN


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. Moreover, we believe that the “good citizen”
is one who is good for something in all the relationships of life.


HABIT FORMATION

Accordingly, a beginning is being made with the early school years,
where an indispensable foundation is laid through a training in “morals
and manners.” This sounds rather old-fashioned, but nothing has been
discovered to take its place. Obedience, cleanliness, orderliness,
courtesy, helpfulness, punctuality, truthfulness, care of property,
fair play, thoroughness, honesty, respect, courage, self-control,
perseverance, thrift, kindness to animals, “safety first”—these are the
fundamental civic virtues which make for good citizenship in the years
to come. Of course, the object is to establish right habits of thought
and action, and this takes time and patience and sympathy; but the end
in view justifies the effort. The boy or girl who has become habitually
orderly and courteous and helpful and punctual and truthful, and who
has acquired a fair degree of courageous self-control, is likely to
become a citizen of whom any community may well be proud.


DRAMATIZATION

The best results are found to be secured through stories, poems,
songs, games, and the dramatization of the stories found in books or
told by the teacher. This last is of great value, for it sets up a
sort of brief life-experience for the child that leaves a more lasting
impression than would the story by itself. Most of the stories told in
this reader, emphasizing certain of the civic virtues enumerated above,
will be found to lend themselves admirably to simple dramatization
by the pupils, the children’s imagination supplying all deficiencies
in costumes, scenery, and stage settings. Moreover, the questions
following the text will help the teacher to “point the moral” without
detracting in the slightest degree from the interest of the story.


COMMUNITY SERVANTS

The basis for good citizenship having been laid through habit-formation
in the civic virtues, the next step is for the children to learn how
these virtues are being embodied in the people round about them who are
serving them and their families. The baker, the milkman, the grocer,
the dressmaker, the shoemaker, the carpenter, the plumber, the painter,
the physician, the druggist, the nurse—these are the community servants
who come closest to the life-experience of the children.

How dependent each member of a community—especially an urban
community—is on all the rest, and how important it is that each shall
contribute what he can to the community’s welfare, are illustrated by
the stories of the Duwell family. Here a typical though somewhat ideal
American family is shown in its everyday relations, as a constant
recipient of the services rendered by those community agents who
supply the fundamental need of food, clothing, shelter, and medical
attendance. 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.


PUBLIC SERVANTS

The pupils are now ready to follow the services rendered by public
servants such as the policeman, the fireman, the street cleaner, the
ashes and garbage collector, the mail carrier; and by those who furnish
water, gas, electricity, the telephone, the trolley, etc.; and these
are presented in civics readers that follow this one. The civic virtues
previously considered are again found exemplified to a marked degree;
and the threefold idea of dependence, interdependence, and coö