"GOOD OLD DAYS”

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XX, Issue 240, 29 September 1930, Page 9

"GOOD OLD DAYS”

AN EMPTY DREAM LIFE FOR CHILDREN NOW HAS BRIGHTER OUTLOOK. Tho first of a series of articles arranged by tho New Zealand Religious Education Council. Tho C.O.P.E.C. (Conference on Politics Economics and Citizenship) report on Education includes a chapter beaded “Environment,” in which occur the following passages:— “It will bo diiiicult for the education of a child to prove successful if ilis parents and school "masters are themselves lucking in spiritual light and strength of character.'’ Thus is emphasised the now well recognised fact that cn those nearest to him the child’s development and character primarily depend. The two most serious adverse influences arc those which may be included under the heading “bud homes,” and our imperfect arrangements in industry and economic life. EDUCATION NEEDED. A great underlying reason why these things are not taken in hand is tho exluusive lack of belief in tho possibilities or organised education. This is bused to some exteut ou tho limneu success at present achieved ahd on personal memories of inefficient and mechanical schooling. The extent to which these beliefs are held can bo measured by the amount of support given to the view that ‘ we cannot, allord to spend any more money on edu cation, and that if we did it- would be u waste. And yet it is claimed that the present century is the children’s age. There has undoubtedly grown up in less than a century a now attitude towards children. The provision for all of a chance for full development will result from the general adoption of that attitude, ns contrasted with the present very partial or sectional practical expression of enlightened realisation of tho relationship of children to tho adult community. PROGRESS IN SCHOOLS. Whatever our view of the method and means through which humanity will be improved ,und civilisation docs march forward on the feet of the children, it may be stated without fear of contradiction that schools will bo one of the agents of progress. Under the term schools the present writer would include Sunday Schools, for apart from church schools, they are tho only educational institutions, in our land at any rate, which make religion foundational to all true and worthy life. Charity schools founded mainly by religious bodies were the only schools for the common people 150 years ago, and for nearly a hundred years this condition obtained. Not one quarter of the boys and girls in England were taught even to read trad write. A GREAT PROBLEM. Child employment to-day is a great problem still, but both legislation and enlightened public opinion have made tho conditions of the “good old days” seem only as a nightmare tale that it told. Boys and girls—aye, und grown-up people too —should sometimes remind themselves of the day before yesterday. Walter Besant wrote: — “They took the cnild—boy or girl —of six years of age; they earned the little thing away from the light of heaven, and lowered it deep down into the black and gloomy pit; thej 1 placed it behind a door, and ordered it to pull this open to let the corves, or trucks, conic and go, and to keep it shut when they were not passing. The child wus set at the door in tho dark—at first they gave it a candle, which would burn for an hour or two and then go out.” The chimney sweeps, the factory workers, tho boys and girls of the farm in their thousands eked out a similar existence and survived, some of them, to a drab monotonous adulthood ending only in a pauper's grave. REEOItMS BEGIN. The Earl of Shafostbury unquesionably takes first place in the reform. Shaftesbury could and did keep ahead of reactionaries with fresh t’ucts and new arguments, and extended his sympathies and practical efforts to mine workers, to housing, to ragged schools, to missions, almost to all forms of Christian philanthropy. Truly in him was exemplified that practical Christianity which will one day solvo our social and economic dif Acuities.

The first steps of reform cover about the first half of the nineteenth century. Factory Acts beginning in 1802 arc the milestones along the road of reform. And so began that process of regulation of industry in the interests of the life and health of those employed therein, which alike reflects credit on the motives und devotion of those who carried it through and provides an object lesson m the selfishness of human nature that it was not generally the employing class that initiated reforms, but rather fought them, in a callous and shortsighted disregard of human values.

The humanitarian movement is not yet spent —what has been written is the barest outline of its genesis and early triumphs.