NOT SO NEW AS WE THOUGHT

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1014, 2 January 1911, Page 9

NOT SO NEW AS WE THOUGHT

Lincolil has beon tho hub of the woman's movement—using the phrase in its widest application— recently for practically' every, great organisation of women tin- the country sent a representative ,to that Parliament of Women,, the Conference of tho National .Union of Women Workers; This yearly assembling of feminine forces, under the standard of . the National Union has no parallel in tho annals of womcn's-societies. The delegates belong to .ever}' rank and every profession, and tho , schools of thought they represent aro not only different, they are often diametrically opposed. The National Union, however, is tho common bond that --links tlicm together for social service/and under its auspices thcy':meet: for tile- helpful exchange of ideas and tliei.concentration of effort ill the direction of those reforms affecting ;j the position of women and.'children, upon' which they are agreed. . ' ,

"Problems of Child Life and Educa-tional-Ideais" was tho - subject before tho Conference, and Lady Laura Ridding's presidential address, which immediately followed the official welconio from Mrs. Hicks, wifo of-the 'Bishop of Lincoln, took' the form of a thoughtful and informing speech on the educational ideal. Perhaps the most interesting part of the presidential address "Was tho way in -.which Lady Laura traced, one after- another, -the" .educational theories of-.to-day to a remote origin. Froebel discovered! the Kindergarten,. but Father Time- would remind /us, she said, that tho method dates -.back to the. Pyramids. -The socalled American plan of co-education she found originally systematically developed in Sparta, where the boys and girls shared the same, courso of education, while that latest panacea for the defects of our educational-system, technical education in tho, farmyard. . the garden,: and the workshop, ought bv rights to com© on'to'the; stage clad in the doublet ■ and'buckskir^df-Tudor days. •