TALKS ON HEALTH

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 December 1934, Page 10

TALKS ON HEALTH

THE DULL CHILD. (By a Family Doctor). Children differ in the degree of intelligence. We all know sharp, precocious children and dull children. If a child is dull and is always at the bottom of the class, an attempt must be made to discover the cause. It is a wicked thing to punish a child for some defect which he cannot help; it would be more logical to punish the parents, school teacher, or doctor who had failed to find out that something was wrong. If a little boy is deaf and cun only hear a part of what the teacher says, he cannot be expected to be on the same level as the other children. He may be very intelligent, but suffer from adenoids, which block up the hearing apparatus. If a careful examination has been made and it becomes clear that no remediable defect can be adduced to explain the dullness the problem is then to know what to do for the best.

SUBJECTS FOR SPECIAL CARE. It is better to send him to a special school where the teacher can give individual attention. When the boy leaves school ho should be sent to some institution where he can be taken care of and given suitable work. These children who are deficient in common sense and are yet bad enough to be classed as insane are a source of great anxiety. If left to make their own way in the world, they always get into trouble. How often you read of a case in the courts whore the prisoner is found guilty, but is detained for the condition of his mind to be enquired into before he is punished. BENEFIT OF CONTROL. It is unfair to leave these young people to fight the battle of life when they arc not provided with the mental equipment that will enable them ■to struggle against difficulty and temptation. It is worse with the female sex than with the male. This is a land of liberty, but no one wants to give a mentally deficient girl libel ty to go downhill to misery and disease. The wise and ordered discipline of an institution will give the young people- protection from themselves and their perverted ideas, they will be well fed and kept clean, and givn such employment as they are capable of doing. It is much cheaper in the end to keep these cases under control than to let thoni run wild and become thieves and vagabonds.

A SERIOUS PROBLEM. We do not want these mentally deficient people to breed their like. There are quite enough human problems to deal with without having an army of idiots and semi-insane men and women complicating matters. The proper way to deal with insanity is to cut it off at the supply. It is misery to the babies to be born of mentally defective parents; it is misery to the babies when they arc grown up to have to struggle in the streets for their living; it is misery for the police and magistrates and prison doctors to have to deal with them; and it is misery for the taxpayer to have to provide for a hundred thousand defective children when he has hard work to find bread and butter and milk for his own little lot. A WORD TO WOMEN. I do hope the women especially will tackle this question. It ought not

to be beyond the wit of man to devise a scheme to deal with mentally deficient girls and boys. I will not have them running about the streets, and I will not have them becoming fathers and mothers and reproducing their horrid kind. Mercy they shall have, love they shall have, but not liberty—liberty to make our country less pleasant to live in. RELIGIOUS MANIA. The best antidote for religious mania is free social intercourse with wholesome-minded young people. The 1 girl who is beginning to brood over religious books and dismally to complain that she is a lost soul must be packed off to a jolly picnic with other young people of both sexes. A sound religion should form the basis of everyone’s mind, but it is a bad sign when religion makes a young girl melancholy. Religion should be a thing of hope and courage, not of gloom and despair. The duty rests with the parents to guide their daughter’s mind. It may be necessary to take away all her religious books for the time being. Let her go for walks in the fields and get thoroughly tired, so that she sleeps well at night and does not lie awake brooding over the condition of her soul. It is all a question of degree. Everyone has something wrong with his soul, except, of course, doctors; and that man is a poor creature who never feels within him a desire to be a better man. But I cannot allow depression and religion to go hand in hand. Good parents, hearken to the words of wisdom; you are to deal with the early stages of melancholia at once without waiting for further developments, and you must act boldly and with a firm hand.

HOBBIES FOR BOYS. Mothers, one of your most import--5 ant duties is to see that your boys 1 are never left idle, wandering about l * with nothing to do. They, will get 13 into mischief, and perhaps something d worse than mischief, if you do not ! - keep them occupied. You must des vise all sorts of means to give them 3 a healthy interest in life. Let their 1 leisure hours be well filled up with 1 hobbies and pastimes. Encourage your boys to go in for every, game 3 that makes them move about; out- ■ door exercise is the best way for- a ’ -boy to let off his superfluous energy. 1 Let him join the scouts, let him join 3 the local band and learn to play an '* instrument. Buy him a camera or a bicycle, or show' him how to start 1 collecting stamps or butterflies. Give him a box of paints, a fretsaw, or a box of tools; let him build a kennel for his dog or a hutch for his rabbits or guinea pigs. Study your own boy and seo what his likes and dislikes are, and encourage all his good ■ natural tendencies. But if you want him to be healthy, to be a credit to his mother and the pride of his father, keep him from idleness and loafing.