Elementary civics

Preface

We have not attempted to carry our any stereotyped idea of a text hook in Civics. Our aim has been to give the child of the upper grammar grades such an understanding of his relation ro other people as mil make him a | citizen. Thai understanding can come only with a knowledge of rlu- difficulties the human race has had in learning to live and work together. An appreciation of the advantages to him of the present stage ( >f ation can he gained only with a knowledge of rlu- slow and patient steps which have brought us to that A zeal foi carrying the human race still Further Forward in its ability to live

and work together can he inspired in the hearts of all our children only when the advantages of the present and tinfuture are made to stand out against tin- disadvantages of the past. It is Faith that we all need; and by faith we

mean the belief that We can bring to pass rlu good We desire for the human race,

We have told the store, therefore, of a few of tinsmith's which our ancestors have had in order to obtain and transmit to us some of the things which we now consider essential to our comfort and happiness. The child can grasp the idea of a mountain as early as he can grasp the phenomenon of erosion on that mountain. In the same way, he can grasp the great movements of socu ty as easily as he can grasp the petty derails iA~ township or county organization. Big things, if taught as simply, an to grasp as little things. If the child is ever to have the proper perspective he must see the great background against which the little details stand out.

We cannot afford to wait for the High School to proiv PREFACE

vide the background, for that would bar all but the few. We cannot afford to leave it to the continuation schools, for they may be too busy and they, like the High School, do not reach all. We cannot afford to trust the child who has been studying history through the grades to make his own connection of that history with the present. But somewhere in the grades, before he is lost to the school world, we must help him to make it. That is what this book attempts to do.

It is not supposed that the pupils will be expected to memorize facts from this book. The chapters are for reading and discussion, and most of the questions call for thought and investigation rather than memorization. Some of the questions may be regarded as too difficult for some pupils. However, they will be suggestive to the teacher, who must use her own judgment as to the application. A comparison between American institutions and those foreign institutions out of which they have grown is made as often as possible. It cannot be done too often. No matter if the pupil does go to High School and to the University, and studies history, sociology and civil government, we do not fear that he can ever have too much of this sort of training for citizenship.

The authors desire to express their gratitude to Dr. Albert Leonard, Superintendent of Schools, New Rochelle, N. Y., Dr. John L. Tildsley, Principal of the High School of Commerce, New York, Howard Strong, Secretary of the Minneapolis Civic and Commercial Association, for the time and care they have given to reviewing this manuscript, and for the helpful criticisms they have offered.

Charles McCarthy.

Flora Swan.

Jennie McMullin.

Contents

PACE

LKTBODUCTIOW vii

A WOBD TO mi BOY! kMD GOU WHO Ki\i< Tin - BOOS ix

Introduction

On the whole the teaching of civics in our public schools has been disappointing. I lure have been brilliant exceptions. I cachets, imaginative and resource till, have here and (here hit upon stimulating methods. Pupils

have- been taken to visit local institutions and have been

led to examine tin- administration of them. In one town

tlu school garden area is apportioned in accordance with the provisions of the Federal land law. In many places elections are held with all the formalities «>t legal balloting.

Devices like these OUght not in themselves to be oxerestimated. They are significant of new ideals and a new

spirit. The best teachers are rebelling against conventional methods and traditional text-books. Until recently these

texts have dealt with the technicalities of political machinery. I he vast majority <>t teachers have lacked the proper perspective and the first-hand contacts with community life and its problems.

A new conception is making its way into the teaching of citizenship. It is the philosophy of social evolution. Institutions are seen not as static, but as the outcome of past conditions, as serving a social purpose in a given

situation, then as gradually modified in adjustment to inw problems. This evolutionary point (A view, which has transformed all the sciences and is so essential to an interpretation of social development, has been too <. \- clusively a conception of higher, to some extent of secondary, education.

viii INTRODUCTION

Moreover, political activities have been thought of too much as existing in and for themselves. There seems to have been an idea that governmental affairs could somehow be understood apart from the economic and social life of city, state, or nation. This fallacy of abstraction has too generally made civics a detached,- mechanical, rather dull pursuit. There has been little appeal to imagination, and a failure to establish the causal connections which give any study vividness and vitality.

The present volume represents an attempt to make the study of government interesting and significant. The why as well as the how is emphasized. An historical background for modern conceptions of political activity is suggested. The concrete problems which have been forced upon city and state by the Industrial Revolution are presented in such a way as to command attention and challenge reflection. The community is represented as a living, growing, changing thing which is constantly reshaping and extending its political machinery to serve its changing and widening purposes.

The attempt to present these ideas to pupils in the upper grades of the elementary school is distinctly worth while. The authors have rendered a notable service in preparing a volume which ought to stimulate the new spirit of social interpretation, and provide the definite, concrete material with which such interpretation must deal. All friends of social science and all who are interested in the efficient teaching of civics in the public schools will warmly welcome this little book.

George E. Vincent.

The University of Minnesota April 8, 1916

A WORD TO THE BOYS AND GIRLS WHO READ THIS BOOK

One hundred and thirty years ago, at the close of the American Revolution, Josiah Tucker, the learned Dean of Gloucester, said " As to the future grandeur of America, and its being a rising empire, under one head, whether republican or monarchical, it is one of the idlest and most visionary notions that ever was conceived even by writers of romance. The mutual antipathies and clashing interests of the Americans, their difference of governments, habitudes and manners indicate that they will have no centre of union and no common interest. They never can be united into one compact empire under any species of government whatever; a disunited people till the end of time, suspicious and subdivided into little commonwealths or principalities, according to natural boundaries, by great bays of the sea and by vast rivers, lakes and ridges of mountains."

Every country and every age has its Josiah Tucker. Maybe you yourself are a Josiah Tucker. If you are, study this little book and stop being one. We want to produce men and women for America who will never say about a thing that is good, " It can't be done "; but who will say, " Let us see if somewhere it is not already done; if it is, we will learn there how to do it; if it is not, we will never stop until we ourselves find the way."

Chapter I Living Together

The Strong Despoil the Weak. The savage family slept peacefully in its cave. They were all dreaming of the feast of deer's meat they were to have on the morrow. While they dreamed, a big cave dweller from the neighboring hills slunk through the dark woods towards the cave. A few minutes later he slunk back into the woods, bearing a heavy burden. When the family awoke there was consternation. Their feast had disappeared. It was the big robber again, they knew at once. It was too much. Three times they had been raided by this thief.

But what could they do? He was so strong that if the father of the family attacked him, the father would surely be killed, and then who would hunt deer for the family? The cave mother had a bright idea. " The next cave dweller," said she, " is not quite so strong as you. Why don't you compel him to help you fight that giant? You could conquer him, and together you could manage the giant."

" I'll do it," said the cave father, and he started at once.

The Weak Combine Against the Strong. The scheme worked smoothly. When the cave father had conquered his weaker neighbor and the two together had the giant in their power, they decided that the giant might be a valuable ally against other enemies. So the three agreed to consider themselves as relatives, and to form a clan which would conquer other hostile individuals or groups.

Thus a strong man was made to respect the rights of the weak; and the strong and the weak alike learned that what an individual cannot do, the collected strength of many can do.

Civilization. States Grow Larger. When we study history, we study the steps which the human race has taken in learning to live together. We call the progress it makes " civilization." If we could continue to watch our savages, we should see that they progress in three directions. At first, the family group that slept in the cave was against every other family group, and expected attacks from other family groups at any time. The family was a little state all by itself. But by and by we find that this family has conquered or been conquered by another family or families, and that they all live peaceably with each other while at war with everyone else. The state has thus become a larger group; a clan. Follow them far enough down the road of civilization and you will find that clans have been welded into larger groups called tribes. Follow still further and you will find the tribes organized into cities, then cities organized into nations, and finally nations organized into great empires like the British and Russian empires today. Thus the number of people who can live peaceably together in one state is increasing; the state is growing larger.

More and More of the Citizens Desire to Take Part in Government. Our savages are progressing in a second way.

LIVING TOGETHER 3

All the families in the neighborhood had suffered from the raids of the big cave man, but one family took the lead in his punishment, and that family became the ruling family of the clan. Follow the clan a little further and you will find that other families wish to help in making the plans as well as in doing the fighting. They think that if cooperation is more efficient than individual effort in fighting, it will also be more efficient in planning.

Activities of the State Constantly Widen. 1 he re is still a third direction in which our savages are progressing. \\ hen

the two pursued the thief they were cooperating for tin- purpose of protection against violence. As time has pa they and their descendants — and we are their descendants — have learned to cooperate for many purposes other than protection against physical violence.

Three little children were playing " house M not long ago. A big chair stood where they wanted to locate then garden. Each tot tried again and again to move the chair. Finally two of them accidentally pushed it at the same time. They were surprised to see it move. They had learned a lesson in cooperation. Just so older people have learned to cooperate in order to build comfortable houses, good roads, and schools, to fight dirt and disease, and to do hundreds of things which they can do better together than they can do separately.

Our histories have emphasized the stories of the struggle of states to grow larger. We are going to spend most of our time talking about the progress we are making within the state, in extending self-government to more and more citizens of the state and in learning to do more and more things together which we once did separately. Before we are ready to think about ourselves, however, we need to refresh our minds with the story of how we come to have self-government instead of one-man rule.

The Difficulties of Self-government. Self-government is easy in the family, because the group is small. Father, mother, and the older children can come together to talk things over. It is harder for the city, because it is more difficult for its citizens to come together to talk things over. It is still harder in a nation. The ancient Greeks learned how to let all the free men of the city take part in the government of the city so long as their number permitted them to assemble in one meeting place. The Romans founded a larger state than the Greeks had done, and they were unable to work out a plan by which all the free men of the empire could take part in governing themselves, In many cities of the Roman Empire the free men governed, but that was the extent of democracy in the Roman Empire.

Since it was so difficult to have self-government in a large state, how does it happen that although the world is being united into larger and larger states, these states are growing more democratic ?

Self-government in a Large State Made Possible By the Representative System. The device which made that possible is representative government, i.e., government through a small number of people selected by the real rulers, the mass of the people, to put into operation the will of the latter. For this device we are indebted to the Teutonic immigrants into the Roman Empire. Different groups of these Teutons, such as the French, the Dutch and the Germans have worked out various forms of representative government- The form which is most copied by the rest of the world,

LIVING TOGETHER 5

however, is the form which was worked out by the group which settled in the island of Britain, now England. That is why we have to study England a while before we are ready to understand our own or any other form of government.

QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER I

i. What is civilization?

2. Are you civilized? Prove it.

3. What are the three directions in which civilization has moved?

4. In which stage is your state the family, clan, tribe, city, or nation stage? Prove it. Give examples of people in each of the other stages.

5. Would you rather be in the family stage or the nation stage? Why?

6. What do we call a state in which one person is permitted by the people to manage their affairs? Would you like to live in a state like that? Why?

7. What do we call a state in which many of the people help to manage their affairs? Would you like to live in a state like that? Why? In which of these two states would the amount of intelligence used in government be greater? Why?

8. Would you be ruled better by a king?

9. Read this description of the great ruler of the Roman Empire, Marcus Aurelius, by the historian Bury:

" To come to the aid of the weak, to mitigate the lot of slaves, to facilitate manumission, to protect wards, were the objects of Marcus as of hie predecessor."

Now read this paragraph from West's Ancient World:

" The five good emperors end with Marcus Aurelius. His son, Cornmodus, was an infamous wretch who repeated the crimes and follies of the worst of his predecessors. He was finally murdered by his officers."

Which is better, a monarchy or a democracy? Why?

Chapter II How England Worked Out Representative Government For The World

The English. Nobody sat down and thought out the scheme of representative government and then put it into practice. The English stumbled upon it, in a way. The English consist of a layer of Celts whom the Romans conquered and civilized, and then three layers of Teutons, or Germans. The first German layer was put on in the fifth century when the Angles, Saxons and Jutes migrated to England; the second set of Germans, the Danes, arrived in the ninth century, just as the first set had succeeded in welding itself into one group and had absorbed much of the Roman civilization which they found there. Three hundred years later, in 1066, when the Danes and Saxons had become one nation, the third and last Germanic people, the Normans, arrived. As each people had come, they had found the inhabitants united under landlords to whom and to whose castles they looked for protection against the invaders. Each conquest meant a change of landlords, for the conquerors took the castles and lands into their possession. So when the Normans came in 1066, William the Conqueror turned out the landlords and made his own friends lords of the castles as fast as he took possession of them.

Self-government for the English Landlords. It had been the custom among the German tribes before they moved into

BEGINNINGS OF REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 7

the Roman Empire, and it continued to be their custom afterwards, for the leader or king to call together all the chief men of the tribe for consultation on important matters, such as deciding upon war, and determining the amount of provisions to be furnished by each. Since these chief men were given the large estates, they became great landlords; so that when the king called together his great council he really called a meeting of all the landlords. In the feudal period, practically everyone held land from a lord, so that the king thus reached everyone in his kingdom. When the king had subdued England thoroughly, he began to make war upon other countries: upon France, and upon the Turks. On account of these distant wars the necessity for calling the Great Council became more frequent, as did the demands upon the landlords for money in place of provisions. Some of the great landlords began to sell off their land in order to get money to go to war or to buy the comforts and luxuries with which contact with Europe and Asia made them acquainted. Thrifty peasants thus had a chance to become small landowners.

Representation for the Small Fanner. Much land was sold, and the small landowners were freed from the power of the landlords. Consequently, when the king called together a Great Council of his landlords, there was a large number of peasant owners whom he never reached. This would not do, but of course not all these small landowners could be called in: the assembly would be too large. As a solution to this problem in 1253 the small landowners in each county were directed to send one of their number to meet with the great landlords.

Representation for the Property Owners in the Towns. Meanwhile, other people besides the farmers were becoming independent of the landlords. Domestic and foreign trade was developing and an ever increasing number were leaving the land and gathering together into groups to make things to sell. Towns thus sprang up everywhere and the townspeople often secured their independence from their landlord by buying or forcing charters of privilege from him. Thus the landlords were not free to tax them and when the king called together his Great Council, he was no longer able to reach all the people in his kingdom. Consequently, in 1265 the property owners in the towns were directed to send one or more of their number to the Great Council to meet with the great landlords and with the representatives of the small landlords. Gradually the representatives of towns and small landowners cliqued together and it became the custom for matters to be presented to the great landlords in one room or house and to the representatives of the small landowners and property owners of the towns in another room. Thus developed the House of Landlords, or Lords, and the House of Commons.

Objection of Farmers and Townsmen to Representation. At first the small landowners and townspeople did not like to send representatives, because they could not see that they benefited by it. Every time they were called they knew they were going to be asked for money. Neither did the men selected like to go; in fact, there are cases on record of their running away and having to be brought back by the sheriff* and forced to serve.

Growing Popularity of Representative Government. Soon, however, they found out that sending representatives was

BEGINNINGS OF REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 9

not entirely bad. If the king asked them for money, they could make a bargain with him. You have read in the constitution of the United States man}' things which seem to you to have little meaning; the rights of members of Congress to be free from arrest during the session and in going to and returning from it; the rights of freedom of speech and of the press; the right of petition; the right not to have soldiers quartered in your house in time of peace, and many others. Practically all these fundamental rights were originally not rights at all, but simply one side of a bargain made with the king; they were the privileges which the English king sold to the people through their representatives in return for the money which the representatives promised the king from the people. On account of these bargains, the people came to cherish this system of representation.

Defects. The system was rude and imperfect. Usually the well-to-do classes in the towns were organized into guilds which selected the representatives. The rest of the population, unorganized and poor, had nothing to say about it. Their representation was unfairly distributed. Little towns were represented and big ones were not. Within the towns only a few could vote. This was true in the American colonies as well as in England. By the latter part of the eighteenth century there was a loud demand for better representation. The people wanted to vote for representatives, and they wanted the representatives to be fairly distributed. This demand was increased by that greatest event of modern times — the Industrial Revolution. How man)' of you know what is meant by the Industrial Revolution ? Some of you know more about the French Revoluio ELEMENTARY CIVICS

tion than you do about the Industrial Revolution, and yet the Industrial Revolution is far more important to most of you.

The Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution is the change from the use of hand power to the use of water, steam and other forms of power, together with the changes in living which have come from this change in industry. The Industrial Revolution has had so much to do with making the world more democratic, that we need a separate chapter to show how it has done it.

QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER II

i. Name the countries which have representative government.

2. Name the countries which have democratic government. What is the difference between representative and democratic government? What is the relation between the two?

3. What has become of the Great Council which the English king used to call together?

4. Why did the great landlords help the king to rule?

5. How did the small farmers come to help the king and the landlords to rule?

6. How did the well-to-do townspeople come to help the king and the landowners to rule?

7. What was the origin of the House of Commons?

8. Why did the farmers and townsmen not want to have anything to do with government at first? Why did they change their minds? Do you know any people like them now?

9. Would democratic government be possible in a state the size of the United States without the use of the representative system.

10. In order to have democratic government, is it necessary to have everybody vote on every question of government? Is it necessary that each one should vote on the question of the number of men required to man a battleship? On the kind of trees to be planted in a park in his vicinity? Why?

Chapter III The Industrial Revolution And The Ballot

No matter in which of the forty-eight states of the United States you live, your father, if he is a citizen, can vote. If you live in one of eleven states your mother likewise can vote. You yourself will vote when you have reached the legal age. How do you come to have this right? We must go back again to England to find out; back to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution there.

Why the Workmen Wanted to Vote. The Industrial Revolution helped to bring about political revolution in this way. The use of water power and steam power made machinery so big and expensive that it took the work out of the homes into buildings called factories; and men who had been working at home with their little tools had to give them up and go into the factory. Thus the number of men who belonged to a guild and had some property in the shape of a shop and tools, decreased; and the number of detached workers increased. These workmen without property realized how much had been gained in the past from the king through representation. Gradually they came to understand that great numbers of them must always work in some one else's factory, using some one else's tools, during the hours when they were expected to work, without any hope of individually owning their own tools and work-place; that is, without any hope of becoming capitalists. They began to see that they needed in some way to control the conditions under which they worked; that there were things which they needed to get from the men who owned the land and factories and that if they were represented in Parliament, their representatives could bargain with the representatives of the property-owning classes just as the representatives of the property-owning classes had bargained with the king. So they began to agitate for the right to vote for representatives. They tried to secure this right at first by peaceful organization and agitation. Not succeeding in this, they resorted to burning haystacks, breaking windows and barricading streets.

Effort to Obtain the Privilege. In 1832 they succeeded in obtaining a uniform property qualification for towns and counties somewhat lower than it had been in most places before; in 1867 after a long struggle, the qualification was again lowered; again in 1864; ana * the probabilities are that by this time every sane man in England would be able to vote for members of the House of Commons if the war had not interrupted the agitation for manhood suffrage as well as the agitation for woman suffrage.

The Desire for the Ballot Spreads to the Women. But the ballot agitation does not end there. The same industrial revolution which took the work of the men out of their homes into the factory, has also taken the work of the women out of the homes into the factory. The women have been forced, like the men, only more slowly, to follow their work from the home to the factory. As they have gone into the workshop, they have found themselves confronted by the same problems of long hours, low wages, and bad sanitation which have confronted the men. The women

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND THE BALLOT 13

have been slower to react under it, partly because many of them stay in the industry only a short time before they marry, and so do not have the same interest in permanent

The Schoolhouse as a Voting Place (Los Angeles)

improvement of working conditions as the men, who know that they are going to stay with the industry; partly because the married woman at home, even though she may want to improve the conditions in which her husband and children work, finds it hard to reach other women and work cooperatively to that end. But they are gradually overcoming the obstacles in the way of organization, and learning to work together, instead of separately, for their common good; and the demand for the right to vote for representatives who may bargain for them is only one manifestation of increasing skill in the business of learning to live together.

The Desire for the Ballot Extends to Asia and India. The desire to vote is not confined to English men and English women. Throughout the nineteenth century the Italians, the French, the Germans, the Russians, in fact all the peoples of Europe have striven in their own countries for the right to vote. Today the same struggle is going on in the countries of Asia — in China, and in India. When we assume a superior attitude toward these " foreigners " we are likely to forget that seventy-five years ago white male citizens were working for the ballot in the states of the United States, in many of which property ownership or membership in a certain church was required of the voter. Thus we find that everywhere, as people grow more intelligent, they have opinions about their community life which they want to express by the use of the ballot.