Dr. Konikow says we can either teach children Socialism, or let them learn from capitalism.

‘Socialist Sunday School’ by Dr. Antionette F. Konikow from Labor Advocate (Providence). Vol. 3 No. 3. September 12, 1914.

Is the Socialist Sunday School just a fad or is it an institution for the good of our children?

Some of the comrades, especially the so-called intellectual ones, make great many objections against schools.

Some claim that children are too small to take sides, that they are, induced to repeat “ready made” ideas like parrots, which is obviously objectionable; others protest because children ought not to be drawn into the industrial strife, “let them be happy as long as they are children,” others fear that our school methods and teachers are unsatisfactory; others, at least, consider that the moral education of children ought to be left in the hands of their parents.

To solve this important question and come to a just conclusion about these grave objections one must first of all possess some knowledge of the child’s psychology, also a clear idea of the aims pursued by the promoters.

Some idealists conceive the possibility of bringing up a child without any prejudices. That it can reach maturity without accepting any settled notions about things. They do not realize, that it is just in the nature of a child to “take sides,” that absolute tolerance and impartiality as a result of long experience and deep knowledge. It is a characteristic of childhood, youth and ignorance to come quick to conclusions. A child is always inquiring and demands “definite” answers. From the other side we are continually forced by life itself to give our children some definite statements about morals or manners, or social conceptions. For example we try to imbue them on every occasion with the idea that it is wrong to lie, wrong to be selfish, wrong to abuse others and prominent other moral tenets. We do not notice even these daily instructions of ethics. And still the whole moral make-up of a child just depends on these everyday statements and examples.

The child imitates our manners, our language and our conception of life.

The time comes when the child learns other words, other ideas, other conceptions. They will clash with the moral world he had seen before and he will have to decide which conception is wrong and which is right. All the inducements of his friends to wait, not to take sides will be in vain. He might even profess to be impartial, but certain inclinations and favorable decisions will be already formed in his brain. Our children, the children of the working class usually receive less at home, than the children of the middle class. Their parents are both too much preoccupied with the drudgery of the home and the making of a living.

In their life the school and the street become the main influences for good or for evil. When the Socialist Sunday School opens its door to our children they have already hundreds of “ready made ideas,” hundreds of conceptions; they already have “taken sides.” Take, for example, the little school paper read by our children in our schools, “The Current Events.” This paper simply breathes capitalist morality. Every issue is an echo of ideas expressed and approved by the capitalist press. While instructing the children on political issues the word Socialism or Socialist party is never mentioned. During the great excitement of the Lawrence strike, its issues were never mentioned, while unimportant events from the life of our politicians were discussed. Who are the greatest men living in our country was one of the puzzles offered to the children. The answer was: Morgan, Carnegie, Teddy Roosevelt, etc.

In school itself, obedience and personal endeavorism is given as the key to success. Patriotism is the acme of life.

How do our “non-partisans” admirers like this picture of our school conditions? And do they realize that impressions received in childhood have a much deeper trace in our souls, than all influences of later years?

School and street daily, hourly urge their crude lessons of individualism and competition upon our children. For every word in favor of Socialism every child hears ten or more against it. But such is the extreme fairness of our comrades, so thoroly disgusted are they with the experiences of their own youth, that rather than take the slightest chance of giving a child “set ideas,” they are ready to leave them entirely under the sway of capitalist conceptions. For after all it is not a question, whether the child should grow up “free” or under Socialist influence.

PDF of full issue: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92063933/1914-09-12/ed-1/seq-3/