ORPHANAGES AND ORPHANS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 489, 5 November 1948, Page 5

ORPHANAGES AND ORPHANS

Sir,-In all the comments on Mrs. Mirams’s interesting article on "Orphanages" some vital points are missed. Granting the disadvantages of institution life for children, there yet remain some positive benefits that are, now more than ever before, missing in many private homes. On the physical side, thanks partly to discipline necessary with large numbers: (1) Regular and adequate rest and sleep. (2) Good food, especially milk and vegetables, eaten as a matter of course, without @rgument. (3) A quiet regularity of life, whose comparative lack of excitements is more than» compensated for by the endless variety of play possible only to large groups of children. On the psychological side, in any Home worthy of the name, there is the immeasurable benefit of learning, while young, to be part *of a community, in sharing both work end play. In the Home known intimately to me the children are noticeably helpful, friendly with strangers, and cheerful work and play is the usual thing, disconten and quarrelling quite the exception. Most Homes must have a small proportion of children who, by reason of unfortunate early environment or habits, are not likely to be happily boarded out. For these especially, the Cottage Homes are the ideal, and it is to be hoped that it. will not be long before all Homes are in that form. Naturally, no institution can compare with a good home, their justification liés only in taking the place of a bad or non-existent

one,

ALISON

ATKINSON

(Eastbourne).