Part 1 (1/2)
Teaching the Child Patriotism
by Kate Upson Clarke
CHAPTER I
THE APPEAL TO HISTORY
Let us suppose for aaway froes Suppose a race of men whose minds had been suddenly deadened to every recollection--can we iine a condition of such utter confusion and misery?--FREDERIC HARRISON
WE have been lately told by one of our fore the questionable duty of teaching patriotisht up children, this startling statement came like a bomb If history is to be used, as it certainly is used, inof political econoion and nearly everything else, why should we not use it also in teaching a child the value of his own country, how dearly it has been bought, and his duty to serve it?
When anybody undertakes to prove that a child who hears, for instance the story of the six ”leading citizens” of Calais offering their lives for the redemption of their city, does not feel a deeper sense of patriotism after it, he must prove that the children who eyes and working features of children listening to a spirited reading of ”Horatius at the Bridge,” or ”Herve Riel,” or the story of Nathan Hale
Your ”educator” may say that all this means merely an ”emotional spasm”
What is that but interest or enthusias the will?
Most of our intelligentwhichconsciousness of his own land, andfor it,--even to die for it--than listening to these fiery old tales of exalted patriotisyric upon the influence of a knowledge of history, President Woolley of Mt Holyoke College says: ”It is a circumscribed life which has no vision into the past, which is faovernround, no material for comparisons, no opportunity to learn from the mistakes of others, nor from their achievements”
And, in re-inforceeneral culture and useful inforained from the study of the past, and especially froe during a recent session of the New York Latin Club uttered a strong plea for the study of Latin and Greek, as an incentive to patriotism
”It is impossible,” he said, in effect, ”to read of 'the brave days of old,' of Marathon and Salaus and a hundred others of the heroes of Greece and Ro for one's country All children should belines and sound patriotism of the Iliad They not only teach patriotisher virtues, and in such an interesting way that children want to hear the stories over and over Thus their lessons beco ht in connection with these tales of heroisreater number of splendid sacrifices for one's country are never heard of Cincinnatus, Hector, Ajax, Pheidippides, have coh for any hardshi+p; but otten Every soldier can relate courageous deeds which he has witnessed but which live only in his memory or in those of his comrades In fact, we are told that heroism is so common in the present war that al instance of obscure heroism is quoted by Miss Repplier from Sir Francis Doyle:
”Dr Keate, the terrible head- miserably, and asked him as the matter The child replied that he was cold 'Cold!' roared Keate 'You irls' school'
”The boy remembered the sharp appeal to oons, he charged at the strongly intrenched Sikhs (thirty thousand of the best fightingbanks of the Sutlej And, as the as given, he turned to his superior officer, a fellow-Etonian, and chuckled, 'As old Keate would say, ”This is no girls' school,”' and rode to his death on the battlefield of Sobraon, which gave Lahore to England”
Thus does the true hero lay down his life, cheerfully and unrewarded, for his country
The anonyrand, is well typified also by Browning's ”Echetlos,” ”The Holder of the Ploughshare” This can be so read that even children of eight or ten can take it in
One wishes that a real historical event were coht the Good News fro, and fires the young iination as well, perhaps, as ”An Incident of the French Camp,” which is said to be true,--another story of an unnamed hero
It will interest those sa's ballad of ”Pheidippides,” who did
”--his part, a ht And main, and not a faintest touch of fear”