Our Babies

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 17 August 1917, Page 6

Our Babies

(By Hygeia). Published under the auspices of tt>« Society for the Health of Women and Children. "It is wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom." Child Welfare Conference, South Africa. An important Conference was held four months ago at Capetown, and the report, which is just to band, affords striking evidence of the interest that the War has aroused in child welfare. Lady Buxton, in a foreword to the report, says: — The lf>ss of life daring the War has forcibly opened our eyes to the terrible waste of life w l ich has been going on in our midst for years pasr—practically unobserved. . . By far the greatest part of Infantile Mortality comes from preventable causes—and in the word "preveritable" lies our great hope for the future. We are all hoping for a new World after the War, wtun we Phall turn our backs forever on our old, careless, slipshod methoas. Perhaps the greatest difference between the world before and the world aft'r the War will be. the value we set on tne Child Life and Ch'ld Welfare of our country. "Where there is no Vision the people perisheth"—e.nd in the past there has been but little Vision directed to this most vital question. But our eyes are now open, and full of hope and confidence we look for the dawning ot a new day. Opening Ceremony. Lord Buxton, the Governor-general of South Africa, speaking at the opening ceremony at Government House, said he congratulated the Conference on having representatives of all classes, both races, and all the charcheß; and he thanked Heaven there were no politics. Babies had no politics! He was glad to see there were papers dealing with the work done in Australia and New Zealand. These Dominions were pioneer 3in this matter, in which South Africa lagged behind. . . An old economist had said that he who could make two blades of grass grow where one had grown bey fore was a benefactor to mankind. Any Society which enabled two healthy children to develop where formerly there bad been only one was a benefactor to the race. The War was bringing this lesson home. Address by Mr Paul D. Cluver, Mayor of Stellenboach. The following are extracts from the very able opening address given by Mr Cluver:— "We are here to-day to assist ic carrying on the crusade on behalf oi the child, fur the purpose of giving il liberty to grow and liberty to serve. From its birth tne average child ~\i handicapped through the ignorance, poverty, or selfishness of its parents. "The child gets an unfair start bj wrong food given at wrong hours. Then to soothe its restlessness a dummj is thrust into its mouth, and when ii objects the comforter is made tempting by being dipped into some sweei abomination. The habit of sucking . the dummy is formed, and the resuli is another handicap in the shape of i mal-formed mouth or adenoid growths. "Jjater on the chilri is either forcec by parents aud nurse to accept th< forms of amusement that appeal to tin adult, instead of being allowed t< amuse himself in his own simple way or so little supervision is exercisec that the child is subjected to harmfu influences.

"From the time he can toddle he longs t<. f'o useful things. Nothing p'enses tt.e five-year-old child so much as tu be allowed to help in the kitchen or garden. . His t-fforts, imperfect though they be, should be encouraged, bat instead parent and teacher alike, ruled by a-wrong system of Education, force him t. rough a cast-iron mould—a. Bystem which assumes that the child has no personality of his own, but must be made a replica of those in cnargr of him. "As the child grows older he is taught things that bear little or no relation to the life around him, and he becomes more and more like a machine. Note by Hygeia. One great advantegejof these World

Conferences is that they brine home to ; ns in a very forcible and striking way the broad mistakes of our time and generation, in contrast with merely loc'l mistakes. If we could strip the defects from modern Education thers is no reason why school life should not become as beneficial to the body and as broadening to the mind as it ia now restrictive in both directions. One of the most obyions and unjustifiable of all the wrongs which we allow and even encourage parents and schools to do to little children is sending them to ordinary schools, and keeping them still and imprisoned in claBS-rooms before tbey are six years of age. Proper growth and activity ought to be 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 arid damaged—damaged in body and damaged in mind —by being sent to school too early. Parents and educational authorities between them should MiMly be able to find some rational alternative to victimising the child, simply because on the one hand the school happens to be a "safe depository" free of charge; and on the other hand the Schoolmaster wants to secure his fall complement of pupils. In nearly every case I find these to be the two essential grounds assigned for the early im prisoning of children.

One quite realises the difficulfy of the modern mother with her solitary child or family of two and no domestic help; but it should not be beyond the scope of human intelligence to devise some means for keeping little children oat-of-doors for the most part, rather than indoors, even at school, in those cases where circumstances render early banishment from the blessings of home inevitable. ,