What to do for Uncle Sam; a first book of citizenship

Introduction

The United States Bureau of Education lays emphasis upon the part of the schools in training for citizenship. It urges a new teaching of the subject, beginning with the home, going on to the school, and from there into community relations. The Government asks, also, that work in civics be begun in the elementary schools. The work should embody less of the details of governmental agencies, but focus instead upon the child's own community obligations and activities.

Following this thought, and taking up the program of community civics outlined by the Bureau of Education, I have written "What to Do for Uncle Sam," a first book in patriotism and citizenship. At the end of each chapter I have placed questions and suggestions which establish a contact between the classroom and community life.

The book lays emphasis on the home and the local community. The child may find many illustrations of the subjects in his own environment. There are many suggestions for handwork, excursions, and social service that establish habits of good

8 INTRODUCTION

citizenship. Community civics, social service, and devotion to our country are all combined in a practical way.

The subjects are those recommended by the Government ancl leading educators for the first teaching of the principles of democracy. They include : health, economy, conservation, civic beauty, communication, wealth, transportation, charities, education, life saving, and Junior service through Boy Scouts, Camp Fire Girls, and the Junior Eed Cross.

"What to Do for Uncle Sam" is a pioneer book in the field of patriotic teaching. Instead of being informational to the point of inhibiting constructive thought, it gives children a chance to translate national ideals into everyday civic service. It helps boys and girls to live community civics in the home, the school, and the town.

Caeolyn Shekwin Bailey.

Contents

chaptee page

Introduction 7

I Who is Our Uncle Sam? 15

Chapter I Who Is Our Uncle Sam?

A long while after you have given up the hope of ever seeing a real fairy, or a real brownie, or Santa Claus, you know just how they look. There are pictures of these story-book people that keep them in your minds. As you turn the pages and see a fairy's wings, or a brownie's cap, or old Santa's pack it seems as if you must have touched them somewhere outside of the book. And you come, at last, to believe in them as you never did when you were younger. The woods in the spring are full of fairies ; they fly down to you with the birds and hide from you in the flowers. There is a brownie wherever industry and thrift rule in a home. And Santa Claus lives in the Christmas kindness of your father and mother.

That is one strange thing about the world. Some of the greatest and best forces in it have to be dressed up in our own minds, just as you put jewels on a fairy, and a beard on Santa Claus. It makes these picture people greater for us, though, because we have to play that they are real. And there is one real thing about each. They stand for something, so they are alive, are they not, after all?

If you have an uncle who travels about a good deal, but sometimes comes to your house for a visit, you think a great deal of him. He brings you stories of what he has seen and done, and you feel like doing something important, too, to be like him. He is just as good to all the cousins as he is to you, and he has a particular place in your heart.

No one knows exactly when our Uncle Sam came first. Probably it was on a Fourth of July long ago, when the Declaration of Independence was signed. No one has ever shaken hands with Uncle Sam, but we know him from the crown of his beaver hat to his old fashioned shoes. We have seen only his picture, but he speaks to us in the greatest word of our land:

PATRIOTISM

For a good many years we thought that Uncle Sam was so busy at Washington with the President, the Senate, and Congress, and the Army and the Navy that he had little time to come to visit us in our town. There seemed to be nothing for boys and girls to do when he did visit

WHO IS OUR UNCLE SAM?

GOING TO WORK FOR UNCLE SAM them at the head of a 'parade of soldiers but to wave the Stars and Stripes, and cheer. But the United States grew, and the cities grew, and more and more peorjle found that our country was a fine place in which to live. Uncle Sam put on his seven league boots and went into every state of the Union and into every town, no matter how small, helping the people to establish their own laws that would keep the whole country safe, and good, and clean.

Uncle Sam spends most of his time at Washington, but he is apt to visit you any day. When he comes he will have much to tell you of the great place among the nations that he is making for the United States. He will ask you to help him. Most important will it be for you to have your home and your school and your town safe, and good, and clean, to welcome your Uncle Sam. Perhaps you have stood in front of a large colored poster of Uncle Sam that you pass on your way to school. He is not smiling as you have seen him in some of his former pictures, but looks sober and anxious. He points his finger at you and says :

"I WANT YOU!"

That was Uncle Sam's first thought when he decided to make our country the most helpful, and most powerful in the world. He comes all the way from Washington to your town, because he needs your help, right here at home. You wouldn't fail your own uncle; neither will you fail Uncle Sam. Boys and girls can build a great nation from their own doorsteps. Wave the Stars and Stripes, and go to work to-day for Uncle Sam.

Chapter II When He Sits Behind The Teacher's

DESK

That sounds like a joke, does it not! Whoever saw a long-legged old gentleman dressed in striped trousers, a swallow-tailed coat, and a hat decorated with stars sitting up there behind the teacher's desk.

But this is one of your Uncle Sam's little jokes; he is really a very good-natured person in spite of all the burdens that he has to carry on his shoulders. Uncle Sam goes to school every day. He has been going to school ever since your great, great grandfather sat on a hard bench in a little red schoolhouse somewhere way off in the country. One of the reasons why you have had some trouble with your lessons, and have not quite understood your new teacher, is that you couldn't see Uncle Sam in the schoolroom.

As soon as Uncle Sam decided to go to school he laid out what he calls school districts. He wanted every boy and girl in his great United States family to have a chance to grow up an intelligent citizen. So he mapped out a good many school districts at convenient distances from each other in all parts of the country. In the center of each of these districts he established a certain amount of land and on it was built a schoolliouse, always just as fine, and large, and beautiful a schoolliouse as possible. Uncle Sam called at every bouse in every district, too, to find out bow many children there were in each, and how it was possible for them to get to their school. He planned to have as feAV children as possible in each classroom so that the teacher might know them all very well. Later, his towns paid the carfare of children who lived too far away to walk to their school, and bought vehicles to carry the crippled ones.

Uncle Sam is very fond of his plan of government, and he decided next to establish a special school government. He thought about this a long time and planned it with the greatest care. Every school in every state in the Union has its officers whose duties are to appoint the teachers, decide when there shall be holidays, attend to the selection of schoolbooks, pencils, paper, and all the rest of the school supply materials; plan what studies shall be taught, appoint school nurses and doctors to care for the health of the boys and girls, repair and rebuild new schoolhouses, buy coal, and be Uncle Sam's right hand school-men generally.

Each state has its own name for these school officers : School Committee, School Directors, Board of Education, School Visitors, or something like that. Uncle Sam permits your father, and perhaps your mother, to vote to elect these officers in your li

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■H state, and the voters of your School District may have made your father or mother one of the school officers.

Uncle Sam had to raise money to pay for all this expensive system for teaching boys and girls. He wanted to give them a knowledge of figures, and land, and fine literature, and penmanship, and spelling, and useful trades free. How was he to go about doing this? There must be money for the land, and the building material, and the books, and the teachers' salaries. He decided to establish a very wise plan. This plan is known as school taxation.

Mr. Brown lives at the top of a hill in a house that is almost as large as a castle. He is rich, and he has only one boy who is to go to school. At the foot of the hill Mr. Jones lives, and works at a small salary for Mr. Brown in one of his factories. But Mr. Jones has several children to send to school. Which of the two shall pay for the schooling of all the children? Uncle Sam's taxation plan gives Mr. Brown more to pay than Mr. Jones; in fact Mr. Brown pays practically all the school expenses of the Jones boys and girls. It is possible that some person whom you do not know, and who has no children, is helping to pay the taxes that give you your school.

Uncle Sam went into his schools after he had

BEHIND THE TEACHER'S DESK 23

built them, and furnished them, and paid for them. He decided to make a few school laws that would be easy for all his boys and girls to keep. They are very few, and very simple, and are suitable for any school in any state in the Union:

Be prompt.

Be regular in attendance.

Be obedient.

Be studious.

Be respectful.

If you are all of these, Uncle Sam says that you will be successful.

There he is in your school, having worked very hard to get it ready for you. What can you do to help him?

First of all, do as Uncle Sam tells you to; obey his rules.

Forming a habit of being prompt and regular in going to school will be a fine habit for you to have established when you grow up. You can try to enjoy the study you dislike when you realize that it would not be in the course except that children all over the Union need it. Every boy and girl who is self-respecting will be orderly in the classroom.

Keeping Uncle Sam's school rules is the easiest part of this helping. Now, try to find ways of surprising him in school!

One surprise for Uncle Sam comes before you cross the threshold. He rather expects you to

trample on his school grass, and cut your name with a jack knife in the fence, and throw papers and pencil shavings in the gravel paths. Surprise him by doing none of these things.

If you have studied pictures of Uncle Sam you have discovered that although his suit and hat are not of the style of to-day, he is very particular about his personal appearance. He is never too busy to tie his necktie in a neat bow, comb his hair, and blacken his boots. This is your school surprise number two for Uncle Sam. Come to school looking just as neat and tidy as you possibly can.

Surprise number three will be to show Uncle Sam that he does not need to stay in your schoolroom, behind the teacher's desk. He has done a great deal for the children of the Union in giving them free schools, and he deserves a chance

MAKING A GOOD RECORD IN THE COOKING ROOM

BEHIND THE TEACHER'S DESK to rest from Iris duties when school opens. If a child abuses school privileges in any way, the teacher may feel that he has forfeited his right to the gift of the schools, but she cannot expel him. She must recommend to the school officers of that district that the child be expelled, and they must look up the law in the case. So it is our hard-worked Uncle Sam who has to sit in judgment on school truants and school law breakers. Save him this trouble by removing the cause. The last school surprise for Uncle Sam will be

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'PLANTING AND CULTIVATING A SCHOOL GARDEN"

what you, his boy and girl pupils, do to improve his schools. That means, in the first place, improving yourselves. Show high class standing, pass with honors into another class, make a good record in the manual training and the cooking rooms. Get along so fast that Uncle Sam, should he come on a visit to your school, will not find you, because you may be in High School or in your State University.

You can better your school, also, by planting and cultivating a school garden, and by trying to make your classroom beautiful with wild flowers and bright leaves in their season. You can help to provide good pictures and a flag for your room. You can learn Uncle Sam's favorite songs, "The Star Spangled Banner,' ' "America," and "Columbia"; his patriotic speeches; and read his Declaration of Independence over and over again.

Our Government builds the schools; but it needs every boy. and girl in the United States to keep them up to the standard of the Stars and Stripes.

QUESTIONS AND SOMETHING TO £>0

1. What does your school ask boys and girls to do in connection with promptness, order, attendance, truancy?

2. What can you do to keep the schoolroom looking well ?

3. What attention should you give to your personal appearance before coming to school?

BEHIND THE TEACHER'S DESK 27

4. Is there anything that you can do in connection with your school work to make your school stand high among the others in your town?

5. How does each of these special school classes help the home and the town: a kindergarten, a cooking class, a manual training class, a class for the blind or the crippled, a class to teach the English language to children who come to America from foreign lands?

6. How is your school helping you to have a good time, in the playground, in the gymnasium, or on special occasions ?

7. Indicate on a map of your town the location of the different free schools or as many of these as you can; and tell what special studies a boy or girl can take up in these. You could make this school map in a sand tray, also.

8. Go with your teacher to the school yard, and look over its appearance carefully. Is there anything that you can do to improve its appearance?

Chapter III Harvesting Boys And Girls Can Do

Fall seems to be about the most pleasant time of the year to boys and girls. Fields, and orchards, and gardens shine in the mellow sunlight and smell of the good things that the year's bounty has given us.

Last year, you went out to -the cornfield and picked a fat, golden pumpkin to make into a grinning Jack-o '-Lantern. You climbed up in the old apple tree and selected the largest, rosiest apple you could find to eat as you sat on. the limb and looked off over the autumn colored country. And you decided that you would rather play with the other children than help grandfather clean the garden and get it ready for winter. You wanted to rake leaves and have a bonfire, or go off to the woods and fill your pockets with nuts.

This year, though, Uncle Sam wants you to spend the crisp, sunny fall days very differently. He says that you are to stay outdoors just as much as you did last year, and you are to have the same fall fun but in a bigger, more useful kind of way. There are a great many things he wants you to do . to help your country in field, and orchard, and garden.

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There is that Jack-o '-Lantern first, which interests Uncle Sam very much indeed. You are to make one, but instead of throwing away the seeds or feeding them to the fowls as you have always done before, the Government would like you to save them. To have a good share of pumpkin seeds is.

to be sure of a good many more pumpkins next year.

There are countless kinds of important seeds that children can gather in the fall, and save for next spring's planting; squash seed, pumpkin seed, beans, peas, grains, are all seeds that will be very valuable to save. They should be carefully dried on a board in the sun, put away in labeled boxes or bags in a dry place, and watched all winter so that none may be eaten by mice. Beans form such an important food that we ought to gather all we can and dry them for eating in the form of soup in the winter. The common white bean, the lima bean, and the black bean are plentiful in this country and are almost as nourishing as meat. Boys and girls who have cultivated these in their gardens this summer may dry them for the winter and add to our country's food supply. We have always thought that the green pods of the common string bean had no value as food, but in Europe they are saved, cut up while green, salted, and preserved in cans for the winter. They may be used for flavoring soups.

The seeds of melons should be gathered, dried, and saved for planting. The rind of the citron or the watermelon makes a delicious sweetmeat if it is preserved. And when you have gathered whatever you can find in the fields for seed and

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HARVESTING IN THE GARDEN drying, get out your spade and rake and help to clear the ground of stones and roots. That will save time when the planting season comes in the spring.

The orchard is full of work for children this fall. Whether you live near a farmer who needs help, or have a few fruit trees at home, you can help pick, sort, and pack apples and pears. There are ways of making these last at home longer than they would ordinarily. The hard winter pear has never seemed to be of very great value. It seldom ripens on the trees before frost comes, and then it is apt to mellow so quickly that it spoils before we get the best nse of it. This tough, big, unpromising looking fruit may be made very useful, however, if only one knows how to use it. Boys and girls may pick the winter pears when they have reached their growth but have not entirely ripened. Be very sure that not a single pear has a bruise or speck of any kind, no matter how small. Each pear must have the stem firmly attached. When your pears are gathered, put a tiny drop of sealing wax on the blossom end and on the stem of each. This closes the pear to the air and keeps the natural juices of the fruit from escaping, which would dry it. Then place the pears, resting on the blossom end, on a shelf in some part of the house where they will be dark and cool. Look them over often to see that there- is no decay started in one, even, as this might hurt the rest of the fruit. Winter pears preserved in this way ripen slowly, and well. They often last until spring and are delicious baked with sugar as one bakes apples, or stewed with a little molasses added.

The children of Colonial days had ever so much fun in the fall drying apples for winter use. This will be quite as pleasant and a new kind of work for the child of to-day. Sour apples are better to select for drying than sweet ones. You can use the smaller apples, if they are unblemished and solid, saving the larger ones for packing and eating. Remove the stem and the blossom first. Then pare the apple with a sharp knife, as thinly as you can. These apple parings need not be thrown away. Let them simmer, with sugar, in a preserving kettle, strain the syrup, and reboil. It makes very good jelly.

The apples should then be cored, whole. There is a circular cutter for coring apples that will do this very easily. To core an apple quickly, set it upright on a board, holding it in place as you press the cutter straight clown inside. This makes a clean cut. When the apple is cored, it should be sliced crosswise in sections about ~a third of an inch thick. String these circular pieces on a cord that is stretched for drying them in a cool, dry place. If you have an attic it will be splendicl for drying such food for the winter. Bundles of herbs may be hung there, too.

Having a Club with Uncle Sam will be about the best kind of work and play that boys and girls can have this fall. In the office of the States Relation Service at Washington the Chief of the Service has a very wonderful photograph hung over his desk. It takes a large frame to hold it for it shows hundreds and hundreds of boys and girls from every

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Courtesy, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture (Jr. Extension Work) UNCLE SAM'.S CANNING- CLUB BOYS AT WORK state in the Union who have corn, and pig, and poultry, and canning clubs that form a kind of peaceful army, behind the lines, for Uncle Sam. See if you can be one of that army with your club this year.

There are a great many of Uncle Sam's books waiting for you at Washington, and telling you just how to form and carry on a club. Among the most helpful of these are, Boys' and Girls' Agricultural Clubs, Bulletin, No. 385; Farm and Home

Handicraft Clubs, No. 26; Suggestions for Boys' and Girls' Exhibits at Fairs, No. 55; Development of Boys' Club Work, No. 29; Canning of Fruits and Vegetables for Clubs, No. 853; Boys' Pig Clubs, No. 566; Boys' and Girls' Poultry Clubs, No. 562; and School Lessons on Corn, No. 653. You will find more of these books and directions for obtaining them listed on pages 206-214.

Instead of burning all the leaves in bonfires this fall, gather as many as you can in bags and bring them home to help enrich the garden for next year. Some of the leaves should be spread over the beds where there are roots and bulbs that need protection from the frost. Pile any extra leaves that you can get in a sheltered place where they can remain all winter and decay. They contain valuable chemical elements that will be important helps for fertilizing the earth next spring.

Nutting this year? Of course; and Uncle Sam wants to go with you. He says to go nutting oftener than you ever did before, and to gather more nuts. Don't eat them all at once, though. Save them, as the squirrels do, to eat when the snow flies. A basket of nuts is a whole meal in itself, often. A chestnut has oils that are a substitute for butter, a little sweetness that takes the place of sugar, and starch that makes it very valuable ground into flour. So many nuts, the white and black walnut, the hickory nut, the pecan, and the peanut can be raised in the United States, and gathering them is just the work for boys and girls. They may take . the place of meat on the table, helping to make the butcher's bills smaller.

Who is going outdoors with Uncle Sam this fall?

1. How can you get the most to eat and to plant out of the following ? A potato ; an apple ; a pumpkin ; a melon; a quart of peas or beans.

2. Did you have a garden last summer? What kinds of food did you raise in it?

3. Are there any nuts, fruits, vegetables, or important seeds that you can help to gather near your home?

4. Have you ever helped a farmer, or a market gardener, and how?

5. Is there a Government Corn Club, or a Canning Club in your town? Do you belong to it?

6. Ask your teacher if she will send to Washington to the United States Department of Agriculture for the pamphlets the Department has for children about these clubs. Perhaps you could start one of them.

7. Model some of our most valuable fruits, vegetables, or nuts in clay, or make a basket for harvesting.

8. Go for an excursion to a truck farm, a large city market, or a wharf where foodstuffs are brought in and unloaded.

Chapter IV Helping To Save Foe Him

Not long ago some of Uncle Sam's officials in one of the great cities of the United States started out to see what was becoming of the city's huge supply of food. There was a great deal of every kind sold, enough to keep a city and a half of that size from being hungry. Yet the farmers who brought in the produce, and the dealers who sold it said that there wouldn't be enough food to go around soon if it were used up so fast.

No one knew that these officials were going about. They started early in the morning and peeped into the back yards and looked at the back doorsteps where the garbage cans waited for the city teams. Then they .made a discovery. There was a great amount of good food thrown away. When these men went back to their offices and did some figuring, they found out that several thousand dollars' worth of food was being wasted every day. One strange thing about it was that the greatest waste was where it could least be afforded: it was in families where there were children.

Uncle Sam is asking us to be very economical so that the remains of last year's harvest and the

Copyright, Underwood and Underwood, N. Y.

the; best school lunch of all

fruits of this fall may last for tlie time that we shall need them. Every boy and girl in the United States can help in this saving. Who will begin to-day, this very hour?

Saving for Uncle " Sam begins at meal time. Leaving bits of nourishing food at table is a habit common to a great many boys and girls. It is very much better to turn good food into red blood and strong muscles than to throw it away. That is the first saving you can do.

Perhaps you are in the habit of cutting the

HELPING TO SAVE FOR HIM skin from your apple before you eat it. The Government says that you will be helping to grow into strong, useful citizens if you can learn to eat some of the things like the skin of an apple, that you always used to throw away. There are chemical properties, especially iron, in the skin of fruits that your bodies need. Try to eat at least one apple with its skin every day, drink a glass of milk; eat green foods in their season such as lettuce, spinach, dandelion greens, and green beans and peas. Find out with the man in the moon how good a bowl of pease porridge is, and learn to eat bread when it has been baked a day. It is better for your muscles, and there is less waste to it than when it is freshly baked.

The girl who knows what fun it is to work in the kitchen may have just twice as much fun finding out how to put the garbage man out of

THE GIRL, WHO LIKES TO WORK IN THE KITCHEN WILL FIND WAYS OP SAVING work. Suppose there are some stale rolls and a half loaf of very hard bread in the bread box. Make them into a bread pudding, or cut the bread into tiny cubes and toast them to eat with soup. You may get out the rolling pin and the bread board and crush them into bread crumbs. These can be kept in a glass jar, covered, for a long time and will help mother when she wants to roll her croquettes or meat balls. Another way of saving is to do as the French do, save all the green tops of vegetables that most people throw away, and use them in some valuable way. The tops of carrots, beets, parsnips, celery, and leeks may simmer in the soup pot on the back of the stove and make a most delicious flavoring for soup or stew.