MY GREETING TO THE YOUTH’S COMPANION
By Jane Addams
A HUNDRED years since The Youth's Companion first gladdened the hearts of youthful America! A successful century of the first journal devoted to young people!
That is a remarkable record for any institution in this swiftly changing land of ours, and I am glad to join in greeting The Youth's Companion and its readers, many of them the great-great-grandchildren of the boys and girls who first knew it. The very existence of The Youth's Companion, and of the juvenile literature that has followed in its train, is responsible for the altered attitude of adults toward children and of children toward adults that has marked our era as the century of the child. Some of the best minds of the last fifty years have been devoted to ascertaining how children may be most wisely fed, clothed and educated. Parents and teachers have benefited quite as much as the children from these labors. Healthier, happier people -- grown-ups as well as children -- are the product of the century of the child.
One of the finest aspects of this changed attitude of adults toward children is its universality. The least favored child of the least favored family benefits from this new attitude when he goes to public schools, which have as their motive his all-around development rather than his inadequate drill in the three R's; when he goes to the clinic, which frees him of the abnormal growths that hamper his mental and physical development, corrects his defective eyesight, takes care of his teeth and builds up his badly nourished body.
The last decade has witnessed a rapid spread of "child guidance clinics" at which children who are unhappy and unable to adjust themselves to their environment are helped to solve their problems. At these clinics parents and teachers are likewise enlightened. When The Youth's Companion was founded such children would ordinarily have been punished as "stubborn and incorrigible." Misconduct after they grew a bit older would have been even more harshly dealt with.
It is only twenty-seven years ago that the first juvenile court in the world was started -- I am happy to say in Chicago. Only seventeen years ago a psychopathic clinic was opened in connection with it. It was much later that the state itself founded the Institute for Juvenile Research. This corps of trained probation officers and psychiatrists make us realize that in every case there is some underlying cause for so-called "bad conduct." The causes for misconduct are not yet fully understood, but a sincere effort is being made to fathom the secrets of the mind and of the emotions. Scientists already know enough to sympathize with the child and to make him realize that he is understood.
All these changes have come about because people realize the importance and promise of childhood. The founding of The Youth's Companion in 1827 was one of the first manifestations of that changed attitude. The founder perceived that children had interests of their own. He encouraged them to express themselves, to have confidence in their own point of view. As children more and more came into their own, other publications cultivated that rich and growing field. At Hull House the children have always enjoyed the dean of children's magazines, and it has been the most popular one in the Boys' Club reading-room. Here is to another century of happy service to young America!
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