New Social Movement

NEW SOCIAL MOVEMENT

Features of a Socialist Sunday School In Boston.

GYMNASTIC EXERCISES WITH MUSIC

Dr. Antoinette Konikow, Organizer of Boston's Socialist Women's Club, Who Outlines Purposes of the School, Says the Aim in Not to Conflict With Other Denominational Schools.

The first Socialist Sunday school established in Boston was opened at the headquarters of the Socialist party, 699 Washington street, the other day.

The school was organized by the Socialist Women's club of Boston, which has been in existence a year, says the Boston Globe.

Men as well as women will be instructors and speakers. Among them are several former teachers. Charles Burbank, a lawyer, and George Willis Cook, author of "Ralph Waldo Emerson's Life, Writings and Philosophy," "George Eliot, a Critical Study," "Poets and Problems" and other well known books, have promised to be among the speakers. Rev. John Eills, an alumnus of Harvard college and Socialist candidate for the Massachusetts senate, has also been invited to speak and teach in the Socialist Sunday school.

The superintendent is an ex-secretary of the Young Men's Christian association. The school starts with sixty-five persons, including a good number of children. Mrs. Elizabeth Porter played the piano , and the exercises began with singing a "Marching Song" from the "Socialist Songs" compiled by Mr, Charles H. Kerr.

The following stanzas from the "Marching Song" give an idea of the character of Socialist music:

In the shops and in the slums.

Working, suffering day by day,

We are making wealth for millionaires to hold, 

But with joy we pledge out faith

To the cause of all who toil

Till the better social order shall unfold.

In the days that are to be, 

When the cause w elove is won,

We shall labor for ourselves an for our own,

Each for all and all for each,

And through many joyful years

We shall pluck the fruit that comrades brave have sown.

A favorite song is James Russell Lowell's "True Freedom." Dr. Antoinette Konikow, a physician, a graduate of Tufts Medical college and organizer of the Socialist Women's club of Boston, thus outlines the purposes of the Socialist Sunday school: The Socialist Women's club of Boston inaugurates a movement which is entirely new in this part of the country--namely, a Socialist Sunday school.

"The Socialist Sunday school is not created to antagonize the Sunday schools organized by different churches. Not to come in conflict with them, we chose the time for school in the afternoon. Socialism has just as little to do with religion as medicine, literature or science. Like the state of today, it leaves religious education to the individual and to parents.

"The chief aim of the Socialist Sunday school will be to bring our children up in the ethics of Socialist principles. For years we have had to convert young men and women to socialism who were brought up in the ethics and spirit of capitalism.

"We should not wait till our children imbibe wrong conceptions of capitalist ethics, but instill into them the right ideas of justice from their earliest years. Unfortunately the workingman has but little time for his family, and before he realizes it his children have drifted away from him spiritually. To fill out this gap, to bring a moral and spiritual tie between the overworked father and mother and their children, this school is organized.

"While we intend on one hand to give our children through this school the ethics or morals corresponding to our conceptions of economics, on the other hand we will try to give them true knowledge of present and past conditions.

"However good our schools of today are in comparison with the schools of old times, they will stick to many old methods of teaching. History is still treated by them as a succession of heroes instead of an evolution where the method of production played one of the most important roles: some pages of history are still misrepresented, corresponding to the prejudices of the class in power.

"The aim of our school, in short, will be to develop in our children the brotherly love and comradeship taught by Socialism instead of the narrowness and conservatism which always follow tradition because it is of long standing and accepted by many; to develop the spirit of independent judgment and the courage to stand up for the right principle. Whether we succeed or not will partly depend on our comrades. It is a new field, and we have but little experience. We need the good will and help of every one."

At the close of Dr. Konikow's speech, to give the children a rest from sitting, all stood, and a few minutes were spent in simple gymnastic exercises with music.