ay him his wages. For a hundred thousand
such--more shame to us--this society has meant all that freedom
promised: justice to the poor man. It too has earned a place among the
forces that are working out through the new education the brighter day,
for it has taught the lesson which all the citizens of a free state need
most to learn--respect for law.

CHAPTER XIV

THE BAND BEGINS TO PLAY

"Nothing in this world of ours is settled until it is settled right."
From the moment we began the fight for the children's play there was but
one ending to that battle; but it did seem sometimes a long way off,
never farther than when, just four months ago, the particular phase of
it that had seemed to promise most was officially stamped as nonsense.
The playgrounds on top of the big schoolhouses, which were to be the
neighborhood roof-gardens of our fond imaginings, were "of little use,"
said the school committee that had them in charge. The people wouldn't
go there. So, then, let them be given up. And a school commissioner with
whom I argued the case on the way home responded indulgently that some
of my notions "were regarded as Utopian," however sincerely held.

Let me see, that was in May. The resolution I speak of had passed the
Committee on Care of Buildings on April 18.[41] To-day is the 20th of
August, and I have just come home from an evening spent on one of those
identical school-roofs under the electric lamps, a veritable fairyland
of delight. The music and the song and laughter of three thousand happy
children ring in my ears yet. It was a long, laborious journey up all
the flights of stairs to that roof, for I am not as young as I was and
sometimes scant of breath; but none sweeter did I ever take save the one
under the wild-rose hedge I told of in "The Making of an American" when
I went to claim my bride. Ah! brethren, what are we that we should ever
give up, or doubt the justice of His fight who bade us let the little
ones come unto Him and to clear the briers and thorns, that choked the
path, from their way?

[Footnote 41: On the day it was published the newspapers reported
the killing in the streets of three children by trucks.]

Seven years we hacked away at the briers in that path. It is so long
since the state made it law that a playground should go with every
public school, five since as secretary of the Small Parks Committee I
pleaded with the Board of Education to give the roof playground t