The Child and its Training in Thinking.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 36, 10 November 1911, Page 7

The Child and its Training in Thinking.

By ROSE MICKEY*

(QUESTION TO EDITOR.—"I see you are taking some interest in children. Could you explain when a child is old enough to think, and how can it think about anything it has not seen or heard; also how can you train up a child to think independently.—John Mackie, Seddoiwille.).

If two or three young children from one family are examined and contrasted with two or three young children from another family, it will soon be found that just as one family has certain characteristics of face and form not possessed by the other family, so the one family has certain mental characteristics which are distinguishable from the mental characteristics of the other family.

From this, we infer that mental as well as bodily peculiarities are transmitted from parents to their children — heredity is an element in mental development.

Another element —and an important one too —is environment.

So, taking these prominent factors into consideration, it is an impossibility to lay down a hard and fast rule for every child. What would suffice for one, would not answer at all for another. The following is a general ' idea of when a child is old enough to think: From the ago of one to seven, years the will is practically lacking, but commences in time to assert itself; yet it is not till the end of the period, that any voluntary attention evinces itself. The mind is passive and inactive. From the age of seven to fourteen the mind becomes* less and less passive and more and more active. It is no longer solely acted upon by its environment. It begins to re-act upon it. The materials gained by sense perception are stored up in the memory, and, aided by the reasoning faculties which now strongly assert them selves, some' attempt is made to elaborate them into new forms.

Towards the. end of this period the higher reasoning powers are used with considerable effect. A child can think about something it has not seen, felt or heard by associating the known with the unknown, to associate by similarity, to appeal to the child's imagination.

To train a child to think iindependently, there is no reason to worry on that score. Tlie mind and thinking faculties are free; they are dependent upon nothing. Of course, in young children the thinking faculties, as I have'tried*■ to explain, are not highly developed, hence it does not take much to create chaos in the mind.

To foster independent thinking, encourage reading. Place good, sensible books" before a~'child, books in which their judgment will be brought into play : allow the child to think and act for'itself, the latter, of course, providing it is right.