ORIGINAL SIN.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 178, 28 July 1913, Page 7

ORIGINAL SIN.

SHiEY SEN'riMENTAUTY. CHILD STUDY. Sir James Ci-schrtoii Browne, in his presidential address to the Child-Study Society, which held its annual conference at Liverpool University at the end ot May. commended the pathology of childHood as a frtritfrul field of study. There were many large schools, he said, in which it would be impODsible to find ten children sound in wind and Emb, but all the ills which undermined childhood were preventable or csrrmWe when taken in time. Organric «**"—«'» of the heart was a phase of jusenlle pathology which bad not received proper attention. Returns showed that at least 1 per cent of school children suffered from it. The chief eanse was rheumatism, which in an 1031010113 form might play havoc before its presence was suspected, and for which, therefore, a vigilant outlook should be kept. Sir James devoted a considerable portion of bis address to a criticism of the Montessori school system in her Children's Homes in Home. He was not blind to the attractions of the system, but he eonld not admit that our present educational system in this country, with all its faults, was founded on distrust of the child. He suggested that Dr. llontessori's theories should be weighed well in the light of ancient wisdom and modern experience before being made the basis of costly experiments. OBiCEQJAX SIN IN BABrES. Dr. Monteesori, moving l about in the smiling and refreshing oasis she had created around her, he said, took too propitious aaid sanguine a view ol human nature. She proceeded on the assumption that all babies were born good: she ignored the doctrine ot original sin; faults and vices are educational inrpianta-trons, jest as diseased "were due to bacterial invasions, and bacterial diseases and faults and vices were both best resisted by healthy growth. Criminal statistics negatived the allborn good hypothesis, and too many parents and teachers were alive to faults and vices that dated from the cradle, and for which no educational indiscretions were responsible. We had daily experience in thi3 country that freedom in children, freedom from instruction, freedom from discipline was anything but salutary in its mental effects. But the freedom of the iiorrtessori child homes was by no means equivalent to natural freedom. It was, after all, more nominal than real. Tbe sway was there, but it was gentle and disguised, and sometimes, indeed, sank into nambypambykra, as when they were told that they must not say to "a child who has spilt a p"a±efnl of cookies on tbe floor: "For merey-'s sake, do look what you are doing!" because it was their business, as his leaders and guides in this world, to do that for him. There was a wide grdf between true kindness and silly sentimentality. *