THE CHILDREN OF THE DOMINION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 62, 10 September 1910, Page 10

THE CHILDREN OF THE DOMINION.

(BY "A TEACHER.") (For the- Post.) I. THEHI NEED. Thousands and thousands of children in this Dominion leave their homes every morning to place themselves for the day under the care of the State, there to be trained in tho ways that are supposed to make for their future welfare and the welfare of the nation. '" A splendid system, ours !" say the optimists. Is it? Employers of youthful labour say no, doctors say no, thinkers say no ; oven tho easily satisfied parent is beginning to look askance at the schools and to surmise vaguely that something is wrong. Much is wrong. Our present system is an anachronism, an out-of-date failure. Physically, mentally, morally, we are shattering the health of the children of this Dominion. We are committing crimes against them which in their inarticulate unconsciousness they are powerless to resent, but which m later years will be held by them as hated causes of failure and misery and evildoing. Wo herd them in unhealthy, diseaseladen -rooms, compelling them to long brain-labour in air foetid with their imprisoned breaths; we ruin their eyesight; we weaken and exhaust their intellectual energy; we neglect thenmoral tramng. A splendid system, ours 1 ±o whom are we to look for its reform? Teachers, however willing, can do but little, hampered as they are by the dead-weight of officialdom over them, by their unhealthy, energy-de-stroying surroundings, by the enormous difficulties under which they work. Officialdom itself is too busy keeping down expenses. It is to the public that we must look, to the parents who send their children to school, pay taxes to keep them there, elect representatives to decide what shall there be done. Until the people themselves wake to the dangers of the situation, until they realise and urge ; the crying need of a rational treatment of their children, reform is not possible. No. need can be greater than this. No public question should po3sess a more burning interest, for nothing more afiects the future 'progress and power, honour and happiness of the nation than the training of its children. . Here are a hundred and fifty thousand little ones. Before them stretch the three-score years of joy and sorrow which each must face. Whether joy or sorrow predominate depends largely upon the start we give them now. Give them health, mental keenness, moral understanding, and we shall rear a race of men and women almost limitless in power— strong, alert, instinctive on the side of right in all great public questions. Deal with them as we are dealing now, injuring their health, benumbing their brains, perverting their moral sense, and we must bear the stigma of having produced a peevish, half-edu-cated charactcless people. The blame will be ours, the failure and sufferine theirs. ° We are a young and vigorous country. The hardy pioneer spirit has never yet died from amongst us. We are still keen for reform, eager to lead the van. In this one instance only, this most vital point of consideration for the child, we lag sorely behind. Here many of the older, more slowly-moving countries are ahead of us. With our climate, our freedom from the severest forms of poverty, our inheritance of health and hardihood from adventurous fathers, wo ought to produce a marvellous race. But tremendous reforms in education must take place first. These reforms will cost money. Everywhere in officialdom the cry is raised that education becomes yearly more expensive. But that is as it should be, if only the money were well spent ; the present expenditure is certainly not justified by results. In the past education has received too small a share of the people's money. 'More and more, as we awake to the needs of the children, we should be willing to spend freely on their behalf, knowing that no other investment can bring in. a return of such tremendous value. Money spent in true education would save millions at present spent on prisons, reformatories, hospitals, and asylums, would bring in millions more in advanced trade and scientific progress.