TRAINING OF AMERICAN CHILDREN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1090, 5 September 1912, Page 4

TRAINING OF AMERICAN CHILDREN.

In the Outlook tor April, Elizabeth McCracken writes on American children, she says : The English mother, whatever her rank, tries to give her children in their home what she had in her childhood's home; as well as she is able, she copies what her mother did. The conditions of her life may be entirely different lioin those of her mother, her childien may be unlike heisell in disposition ; yet she still holds to tradition in regard to their upbringing; she tries to make her home a reproduction pi her mother’s home. The American fuolher, whatever her station, does the exact opposite —she attempts to bestow upon her children what she did not possess; and she makes an effort to imitate as little as possible what her mother did. She desires her children to have that which she did not have, and for which she longed ; or that which she now thinks so much better a possession than anything she did have. Her ambition is to train her children, not after her mother’s way, but in accordance with “the most approved modern method.” This method is apt, on analysis, to turn out to be merely the reverse side of her mother’s procedure. The parents try to give to the children ideals that were not given to them ; they attempt to inculcate in the children habits that were not inculcated iu themselves.

American parents do not relinquish their authority over their children. As for government — like other wise parents, they aim to help it to develop, as soon as it

properly can, from a government of and for their children into a government by them. Self-go-vernment is live of lessons they most earnestly desire to teach their children. American fathers and mothers explain so many things to their children. And American children explain quite as gmat a number ot things to their parents. They can ; because tbev are not on’y frieuds, but lamiliar friends.