The Children's Era: What's Up With the Opening Lines?

    The Children's Era: What's Up With the Opening Lines?

      Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:
      My subject is "The Children's Era." "The Children's Era!" This makes me think of Ellen Key's book--The Century of the Child. Ellen Key hoped that this twentieth century was to be the century of the child. The twentieth century, she said, would see this old world of ours converted into a beautiful garden of children. Well, we have already lived through a quarter of this twentieth century. What steps have we taken toward making it the century of the child? So far, very, very few.
      (1-9)

      Sanger really wants to hammer this whole "Children's Era" idea home, as you might guess since the opening paragraph flows directly from the title.

      My subject is "The Children's Era." "The Children's Era!" (2-3).

      Okay, Sanger, we get it: you're talking about the Children's Era. You don't have to yell at us.

      Sanger goes on to cite Ellen Key's book The Century of the Child and to point out that we're not living in either "The Children's Era" or "The Century of the Child"…which really ruffles her feathers.

      She gets down to business by claiming that the problem is we haven't really done much to improve children's lives. This lets us know she plans to give us strategies for solving this problem in her speech.

      Wherever she's going with it, though, "The Children's Era" starts out with a bang. We're guessing Sanger would have a problem keeping her fingers off Caps Lock when hanging out in comments sections.