OUR BABIES
TBI HYGEIA.I Published under the auspices of tho Society for the Health of Women aud Children. "It is wiser to put ud a fence at. the top of a precipice tlian to maintain an ambulance at tho bottom." CHILD WEIiPABE CONFERENCE, SOUTH AFBICA. An important conference was held four months ago at Cape Town, and the report, which is just to hand, affords striking evidence of tho interest that tho war has aroajted in child welfare. Lady Buxton, in a foreword to tho report, says:— The loss of life during tho war has forcibly opened our eyes to the terrible wasto of lifo which has been going on in our midst for years past.— practically unobserved. ... By far the greatest part of infantile mortality comes from preventable causes— and in the word "preventable" lies our great hope for the future. We are all honing for a new World after the war, when we shall turu our baoks'forever on our old, careless, slipshod methods. Perhaps the greatest difference, bctweeu the world before and tho world after tho war will bo the value wo set on the child lifo and child wclfaro of our country. "Wliero there is no vision tho i eoplo .pcrishoth"—and in the past there has been but little vision directed to this most vital question. But our eyes are now open, rnd full of hope and confidence we look lor tho dawning of a new day. OPENING OEKEJtQNi'Lord Buxton, the Governor-General of South Africa, speaking- at tho opening ceremony at Government House, said be congratulated the conference on having representatives of all classes, both races, and all tho Churches; and he thanked Heaven there were no politics. Babies had no politics 1 He was glad lo sec there were papers dealing wth the work done in Australia. and New Zealand. These Dominion's- vcre pioneers in this matter, in -which. South Africa, lagged behind. . . . And old economist had said that ho who could make two blades of grass grow where cne had grown before was a benefactor 1o mankind. Anr societr which enabled two healthy children to develop when; formerly there had been onlv one, was a benefactor to tho Tace. The war was bringing this lesson home. Address by Ifr. Paul B. Oluver, Mayor of Stellenbosch. Tho following are extracts from the very able opening address given by ilr. OhivcT:— . . "Wo are here to-day. to assist in carrying on tho crusade on behalf of tho child, for the purpose of giving it liberty to grow and liberty to serve. . "Prom its birth the average child is handicapped through the ignorance, poverty or.'selfishness of its parents. "The child gets an unfair start by wrong food given at wrong hours, Then to soothe its restlessness a dummy is thrust into its mouth, and when it objects the comforter is made tempting by being dipped inly some sweet abomination. The habit of mioking the dummy is formed, and the result is another handicap in the shape of a malformed mouth or adenoid growths. "Later on the child is either forced by parents and nurse to accept the forms of amusement that appeal to tho adult, instead of being allowed to amuse himself in his own simple way; or so little supervision is exercised that the child is subjected to harmful influences. "From the time he can toddle ho longs to do useful things. Nothing pleases the five-year-old child so much as lo he allowed to heln in tho kitchen or garden. . . . His efforts, imperfect though they he, should ho encouraged, hut instead parent and teacher alike, ruled by a wrong system of education, force him through a cast-iron moiild-a system which assumes that the child has no personality of his own. but. liinst be made a replica of those in chanrc of him"As the child grows older ho is taught things that hear little or no relation to the life around him, and lie becomes more and morn like a machine."
Note by "lls;ein." One great advantage of tbcao world conferences is' that they bring homo to us in a vory forcible and striking way the broad mistakes.of cur time and generation, in contrast with merely local mistakes. If we could strip the defects from modern education there is no reason why school life should not become as beneficial to tho body and as broadening to the mind HR it is now restrictive in both directions. Ono of the most obvious and unjustifiable, of nil the wrongs which wo allow.and even oncpurago parents and schools to do to llttlo children is sending them to ordinary schools, and keeping them still and imprisoned in class-rooms before, they arc six ycavs of age.
l'roper growth and activity ought to ho encouraged by keeping little children out of doors in the open air and sunshine as much as possible. Actual experience and observation have proved, beyond all possibility of doubt, that children are, doubly dwarfed and damaged—damaged in body and damaged in mind—by being sent to school too early. Parents and educational authorities between them should surely bo able to find some rational alternative to victimising tlio child, simply because on the one hand the school happens to lie a "safe, depository" free of charge; and on the other hand the schoolmaster wants ?o secure his full eoinnloment of pupils. Tn nearly every case I lind these to he the two essential grounds assigned for the. early imprisoning of children. One quite realises the difficulty of the modern mother with her solitary child or family of two and no domestic help; but it should not bn beyond the scope or. human intelligence to devise some means for keeping little children out of doors Tor the most part, rather than indoorH, even at school, in those, eases where circumstances render early banishment from the blessings of home inevitable.
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Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3160, 11 August 1917, Page 2
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975OUR BABIES Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3160, 11 August 1917, Page 2
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