THE YOUNG IDEA

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1269, 9 July 1914, Page 4

THE YOUNG IDEA

TKACHING THROUGH

PEAY,

The youngster who has been taught to behave himself reasonably well is doubly fortunate if his mother still stands at the helm to puide the development of his mental habits. Childish curiosity, properly handled, grows into the eager interest in the unknown that is a never failing characteristic of the bright mind. The love of stories may be made the foundation of a real literary state, and leads in a natural way to the study of reading, tbe acquirement of an extensive vocabulary and the accumulation of a large fund of general information. The natural fondness for creating, “making things,” may aid in numberless ways the development of dexterity and naturally and without friction the child may learn to write. The love of riddles and puzzles, so universal among children, might just as well lead them gradually into all kinds of mental arithmetic, for ever banishing the dread of mathematics.

Most important of all, the habit of obedience lays the foundation for power of attention which soon becomes tbe habit of concentration, the absolute essential of good scholarship. All this and much more may be accomplished in the work and play of every day home life, without friction and incomparably better than at school where individual needs, though recognised by all good teachers, cannot possibly be met. It is the colossal mistake of our educational method, absurd if it were not so serious, that we kill by starvation the natural gifts and strength of our babies, and later require them to spend years at arbitrary and artifical tasks in a vain effort to resuscitate what we have thoughtlessly neglected.