MENAGE OF ONLY CHILD

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 88, 13 April 1935, Page 29

MENAGE OF ONLY CHILD

%r-.-, •■■■■■ :..-.•.■.■ The only child is a threat to our civilisation. - '- ■

To the modern boy effort is repugnant; ' ' - "■• . . '■ • ■ •■': •'■

The war has been blamed for faults In post-war boyhood which are: really due to the quick tempers, of their fathers. ''■'' : ■ .■", : , '■■' ■■ ' ■.■' ■"' ■ '*■ ■'••

These points were emphasised by Dr. H. Crichton-Miller, founder and senior physician of the Institute, of Medical Psychology at the' Public School Masters' Conference, at Harrow, recently, states the "Daily Telegraph/ *•■' Dr. Crichton-Miller thought that the bangs and crashes of the air raids meant less.to,the child than to the parents.. In.the influence of, the war many people found a popular' 'and rather melodramatic.explanation of an abnormal child, but the abnormality was more probably due to the temper of the father since he came back from the war. - ... , ; . . . • •;

Among post-war influences not directly associated with the , war was the mechanisation of life. A great problem of modern life was the elimination, of human-effort. •

If a boy wanted to make an assignation with a friend a hundred yafds away, his firsts idea was not to walk the hundred yards, but to ring up his friend.

"The idea that the telephone is installed to save time is eclipsed by the idea that it is there to save effort, and if father put in the telephone to save

his time, Peter uses it ; to avoid' effort."

Schoolmasters would have to -deal more and more with a generation -of very suggestible youngsters who would take ready-made opinions much more willingly than did their : fathers or grandfathers. Schoolmasters should encourage boys to'think for them--selves.' , ' ■■■-•<•''. >'- '••-•- ''■•[ '',' . ; ..; .

Chjldren interpreted things in terms of calculability, 'and \ a stable background was all thEit.matter'ed to them. The post-war attitude, towards marriage did not give a child stable background. Unstable-home' life had led to a. generation of boys who, were particularly apprehensive aboiit vicissitudes of life. ■ ■ ...... .;.,;'■■:;:.; ;,,.^ -..;

Another feature of. post-war life was the small family.. ;' ':■■.

"One of the.1 things wijl probably wreck our civilisation, ultimately," said Dr. Crichton-Miller, "will be j when we have a House of Commons; -a 'Cabinet, editors of'newspapers, and. so. on, who:are'"all 'only.'sons—or only daughters. Then people will wake up and see that the problem of,'the small family is not merely, a question of economics."

"You are dealing with a generation of schoolboys who are. afraid of beirig ignored or devalued by .the adult. There is the pernicious type; which demands a tactful:;shubbihg,. -.and too often gets neither .the tact; nor; the. snub. They are the outcome of the smal] family." ; •:;■■••.:'.;■.■■