CHILDREN IN RUSSIA

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21416, 7 March 1935, Page 9

CHILDREN IN RUSSIA

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PIiESS. j Sir, —"His Majesty the Baby" was the title of a famous picture, about 40 years ago, in "Punch," I think—a big policeman stopping the traffic in a crowded London street, to let a baby gel across. In room 221, Manchester street, on Sunday evening, we vverr: told that the babies are "Their Majesties" to-day in Soviet Russia and their reign lasts through childhood, 'l he State lias decided that the mother is not the best person possible to train its iuture citizens. Russia has combed the world to get the best system of child training established, recognising, .o most of the churches do, the indelible nature of the impressions on the mind in the plastic stage. The lecturer was piled with many questions about the status of women, where all have to put their shoulder to the wheel for the common good. We were told that marriage and divorce were as simple as the State could make them, and instead of the result being a wave of licentiousness, there was a noticeable tightening up of the reins of morality. When the Soviet was finding its feet it withstood some staggering blows, from famine, pestilence, and war; but since then the population lias increased from 160 to 200 millions in two decades. Yes, the child has a right royal time in Russia. For instance, in a crowded train car the children sit and the adults stand, and there is a children s entrance end. There is no country where children are better cared for than in Kussia, which seems to bo a bit of the Spirit Summerland slipped down to earth, as the fervent irishman sings about Erin.—Yours, etc.. PETER TROLOVE. March 5, 1935.