Our Babies

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 10 August 1917, Page 4

Our Babies

(By Hygeia).

Published under the aaßpicea cf tne Society for the Health of Women and Children. * "It ia wiser to pat up a fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom."

Trustees "of the* Future. I wonder who first called children the "Trustees of the Future!" One lean scarcely imagine a happier inspiration or incentive .to do the very best for the rising generation than is conveyed in this profound saying. Indeed, one wonders that its frequent citation has failed to bring about a higher general standard of efficiency in the rearing of infants and young children and in the after-care of boys and girls throughout school life. The Plunket Society has done so much to bring home to the community the great injustice to the race, due to the average modern mother failing to make the best of- her opportunities in the first few most momentous years etf , her cbild_'slife, that I am not going to insist further on this point in the present article. Just now my mind is specially impressed with a company of Boy Scouts I saw on their way to join

the Bag Day procession in Dnnedin. Bands were playing, Sags flying, • streamers waving, so that the boys marching in military formation, under the gaze of the public, had every, incentive to hold themselves well; yet we all felt that we had seldom seen a more round-shouldered, slouching squad. Youngsters such fas these have no chance of raising oar grade of national efficiency, unless some radical change takes place in our education system and our appreciation of the national need for strong, healthy, well-reared, well-set-up hoys and girls. "Neglect of the Body in Modern Education.

There has been a great deal of talk about the provision in our schools for

physical training; but, while some advance has been made, the time and attention given to ensuring proper bodily growth and development and good physical form are stilt utterly inadequate and disproportionate to what is expended on so-called "mental training." There might, perhaps, be some excuse for this favouring the mind at the expense of the body, if the mind were really benefited by ignoring the claims of the physical side, of our beingj but when we know that quite the reverse is the case, there is no excuse for continuing the double sacrifice of mind and body involved in* dinging to the fatuous errors of the last century. The Wisdom of John Locke. We have only to go back to the time of Vt illiam and Mary - in England to find the most striking refutation of ] our modern, one-sided education system in the illuminating reflections of John Locke, of whom it been said "the Germans have uniformly attributed an important part in the foundations of education to one Englishman and one only—the philosopher Locke." In his discourse on "Study" Locke says: Our bodies and our minds are neither of them capable of continual work, and, if .we take not a just measure ■ of oar strength, in endeavouring to do a great deal we shall do nothing ate all. I am sure the principal end why we are to get knowledge here is to make use of it for the benefit of ourselves and others in this world; but if by gaining it we destroy our health, we labour for a thing that will be useless in our hands. ... He that sinks his vessel by overloading it, though it be with gold and silver and precious stones, will give his owner hut an ill account of his voyage. Locke is best known to the world as a man of gifeat learning and as a most profound and original thinker; buc it was the fact cf his being a physician also that made him realise the absurdity of not devoting due time and attention tw developing the health and strength of the body along with the training of the mind. He of all men, had he lived to a later date, could have been relied on to back up Herbert Spencer's plea for the rearing of all children as "healthy animals;" and no one realised

more clearly than Locke that tb j young cannot be reared in proper' health and hardihood without their, ■pending a considerable proportion of \ the day taking active exercise and' recreation in tb« open air durirg sun- ' light. If hia regimen for very young | children sometimes erred on the side of Spartan rigour, the whole trend of \ Locke's advice as to the rearing of \ a strong, vigorous race—strong and I well disciplined, in mind as well as in I body—was full of profoand-wisdom and common sense. England ought to be | proud that an Englishman wrote such j passages as the' following 250 years ago; but her Education Authorities ought to be ashamed that they paid no heed to the advice: — Locke on Swimming and Air. I shall not need here to mention Swimming, when be is of an age able to leacn and baa anyone to teach him. It is that saves many a man's life; and the Romans thought it so necessary that they ranked it with Letters, and it was the common phrase to mark one ill-educated and eood for nothing that -k'he had neither learnt to read nor to swim;" Nee literas didicit nee natare. But, besides the gaining a Skill which may serve bim at need, the advantages to Health by often bathing in cold water during the heat of summer are so many that I tbink nothing need be said to encourage it. 1 , Air.

Another thing that is of great advantage to everyone's Health, but especially Children's, is to be much in the Open Air, and little as may be by the Fire, aven in Winter. By this he will accustom himself also to heat and Cold, Shine and Rain—all which, if a Man's Body will not endure, it will serve him to very little Purpose in this World; and when he is grown up, it is too late to begin to use him to it. It must be got early, and by degrees. Thus the body may be brought to bear almoßt anything. If I should advise him to play in the wind and sun without a hat, I doubt whether it could be borne. There would a Thousand Objections be made against it, which at last would amount to no more, in truth, than being Sunburnt. And if my young Master be to be kept always in the Shade, and never exposed to the Sun and Wind for fear of his Complexion, it may be a good way to make him a Beau, but not a Man of Business. And although greater regard be to be bad to Beauty in the Daughters; yet I will take the liberty to say, that the more they are in the air the stronger and healthier they will be; and tn*e nearer they come to the Hardships of their Brothers in their Education, the greater Advantage will they receive from it all the remaining Part «jf their Lives.

Have we not a right to insist, as Locke and Herbert Spencer insisted, that an adequate proportion of the time spent at school should be devoted to the Growth, Training and development of the Body? Have we not a right to demand that (in addition to any time now allowed for exercise) every boy and girl in our" schools should have an hour taken from the best and sunniest part of the day for the purpose of properly-organised and systematic exercise and recreation? The impetus given to their health, vigour, and spirits would bs of inestimable •value to themselves and to the race. And who would grudge the hour thus taken from wearily bending over deska in dull, stuffy, overcrowded, ill-venti-lated c'.asßrooras? The: benefit derived by the teachers would be second only to the benefit derived by the pupils, provided that the tesc hers directed and took part in the r?cre--ation and outing. At this supreme c;risi3 of history, with the proofs and rtisults of our folly in neglecting the first needs of growing boys and*girls staring us in the face, it is high time to tackle the problem of training the mind without stunting and spoiling the body. We want a common-seGse scheme of education—a scheme whiicb will build up national physique and! fitness, not impair it. . v