THE VALUE OF A CHILD

Evening Star, Issue 15539, 8 July 1914, Page 5

THE VALUE OF A CHILD

TO A SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER. ADDRESS BY DR ELIZABETH MACDONALD, At the conclusion of the business portion of tho meeting of the Dunedin Presbyterian Sabbath School Association last night a paper on ‘The Value of Child Study 1o the Sunday School Teacher’ was read by Dr Elizabeth H. B. Macdonald. Dr Macdonald opened by referring to the, tremendous scope of the subject, and said that the importance of knowing the nature of a child before attempting to teach it was obvious. The lecturer dwelt at some length on the different positions occupied by the Sunday school teacher and the Stat-e school teacher. Spiritual earnestness was of vital importance in the former, and there was a freedom, from dogmatic pressure which enabled him to act on conviction when he had studied the child he aspired to teach. Modern child study was the study of childern by the methods of modern science. Wo got a clearer understanding of tho value of education by a clear understanding of a child's endowment at birth. The lecturer proceeded' to refer to heredity, environment, and eugenics, and touched upon the necessity of the proper feeding of babies, and said that it was a fundamental truth that the child must do its own growing. Whether physically or mentally or spiritually, it must do it all for itself. They all knew this, but they did not trust the child enough. They wanted to pull him up, to make him grow, and (hey only injured his vital growing powers. This fundamental truth had been just rediscovered and acted upon for the first time fully and freely by Dr Maria, Montessori. Dr Macdonald went on to speak of Dr Montessori’s schools at .Rome, at which the great principle of freedom for each child to do his own growing was carried out. Continuing, she said that there was no tendency to unnatural noisiness until you had first artificially induced a condition of unnatural immobility, and proceeded to speak of the instinct- of the child to learn and occupy itself in a variety of ways, remarking that what we learned naturally, of our own impulse, was a keen delight and satisfaction. Defective early feeding was deprecated by tho speaker, and the food supplied in the days of infancy dwelt upon from a scientific point of view. Tho concluding part of Dr- Macdonald’s paper read as follows: —“ Sb it comes to this at the end ; that the teacher's part is to stand aside and watch the gro\vtb of the child under his care —to study tho child, to love him, to get to know him from the inside, to supply his urgent need, and to trust his growing powers. If this were done more conscientiously, more consistently, more wisely, perhaps we would not have the great problem, of adolescence to face. Perhaps if wc loved more and trusted more and repressed less, dogmatised loss, coerced less, our young people would have learned for themselves, as they must learn every lesson for themselves, the lesson of selfcontrol in the widest sense, and would not need to throw aside so many artificial restraints when manhood ant! womanhood claimed them. Perhaps with less crippling and less propping up, with more trustful freedom of self-development, they would not find tliemselv.es suddenly faced with, over- , whelming problems—problems which some sink under without any attempt to solve them, and which others face manfully, fighting for (heir very lives, fighting painfully and with tragic waste of precious nervous energy the battle that should have been already fought and won many times with joy and confidence. The real value of childstudy to the Sunday school or any other teacher, or any mother or trainer of the young, is to give a new viewpoint, a now vital interest in the most vitally interesting of all subjects. If we believed—really in our hearts believed —that by a more, wise and loving study of the young , child, by the exorcise of a little less dogmatic pressure on our own parts, and of more trust in the growing powers of the child, wc were actually making it possible for him to joyfully develop his own best- power, to gloriously attain his own ultimate perfection, which of us would not set-to onr task with prayer and thankfulness;- 1 For surely one of tho greatest problems oG.all in tiiis world to tho thinking man or woman is the problem of tho undeveloped lives, the stunted, starved minds and souls, the wasted, unused talents, tho joyless emptiness of life to so many human beings. I think the saddest remark of any to hear from the lips of a human being is a very common one. ‘There is nothing in life,’ they say, and I hose who say so have oftentimes started out with good endowment, of body and mind, have had high hopes and great expectations in their youth, and often have attained what wo call success. And others, struggling to attain the same material good, in their blindness envy these empty lives. To find life hard, a well-night heartbreaking straggle, a sordid battle, with no certainty of victory at the cud, is bad enough ; but to find life empty, dull, commonplace, joyless is a far greater tragedy. If is the tragedy of a life without love, without that vital interest in life and all its manifold manifestations that only comes from love, without the seeing eye and the hearing car and tho understanding heart. And it is precise!}' this that wo must gain for our children if their lives are to bo rich and full and satisf}'ing—the aim of our training and education must, be just, this-j-thai, they may have opened eyes and unsealed cars and unlocked hearts, so that. life shall cease to centre j round a narrow, undeveloped self, and widen | out. to an infinity of love and service. This, and nothing less than ibis, must be the aim of the teacher who believes that the Master I meant, something when He said: ’Be yc | therefore perfect, even as your Father which | is in Heaven is perfect.’ ' ) Dr Macdonald was warmly complimented : upon her paper, and the opinion was s( roltgly | expressed that it should be printed in full I for the benefit of the members of the associa- I Hon.