SCHOOL CHILDREN'S IDEALS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CIII, Issue 12159, 24 March 1900, Page 6

SCHOOL CHILDREN'S IDEALS.

Caelyi.e says somewhere that great men, wherever we find them and however we take them, are profitable company, and it recently occurred to Miss Catherine Dodd to discover how far the school children of England have made themselves acquainted with these desirable companions and what benefit they are deriving from their companionship. Her prime object was to ascertain whether the children had been justly accused of “paltriness of ideals,” and she obtained answers from three hundred and two Ixm? and two -hundred and eighty-nine girls in public elementary schools to the following questions :

1. Which would you rather be when you grow up, a man or a woman, and why? 2. What man or woman of whom yon have ever heard or read would you most wish to be, and why?

It may he said at once that Miss Dodd found no lack of public spirit among the children, whose ages ranged from eleven to thirteen, and they showed ample capacity for -hero-worship, although the girls seem to have a more delicate appreciation of what is noble in human nature than the boys. But the military spirit pervades most of the answers, both boyis and girls taking a keen interest in great soldiers. As the questions ■were propounded in December, the Boer war was uppermost in their minds, so that their sense of proportion ivas perhaps a little warped. It is curious that 35 per cent of the girls wish to be men, but only two o.f the boys express a desire to be women, and one of them obviously does not want to be taken seriously. The answers given by the girls to the first question fall into two or three well-defined groups. A few, forming about 3£ per cent- of the whole, belong to a superior, strong-minded type, despising men and saying so. “ Men are clumsy ; besides, men drink,” writes one, while another is of opinion that “ women just do things while men are talking.” Another small group consists of virtuous, proper-minded little women who consider the question flippant because, as one is ays, “ God made us all according to His will.” One philosophic dame remarks gravely that- “ we must be content.” There is a large division o.f rebellious’daughters of Eve, alive to the strength and freedom of men and the economic disabilities of women. They want to be men, Wellington, Nelson, or Sir Eedvers Buller for preference. The attitude of many of them is expressed in the answer of one strong-minded little soul who will probably make a man happy some clay. “ A man, of course,” is her wish. “He justhas to get up, and he finds the fire lighted and breakfast ready. He goes to his work, and when he comes home tea is ready ; then he does nothing but smoke his pipe and go out and do what he likes.” A fourth class, ■again a large one, while recognising the disadvantages of a woman’s life, the lack of political power and influence, the narrow choice of occupations, the keen competition and the poor wage, will nevertheless have nothing to do with vain regrets. Most of them havo strivings after the ideal in life. “ A lady with a lamp shall stand In the history of the land, A noble typo of good, . Heroic womanhood.” “ There is no saying like this about men,” write** one. Another, who has read Ruskin, exclaims, " Women have ‘ to suffer and be strong,’ and this is a noble lot.” Bitter

home experiences -trouble spine of the young morn-lists. “I think a woman’s life is a, splendid one if she keeps from drink,” is surely the cry of a sufferer, and -indeed the misery caused by drink continually crops up in these answers. About a third of the girls prefer to he women because of their supposed social advantages, but on the whole their replies are lacking in interest. The boys fall less naturally into groups. One of the would-be women declares, with fine scorn, “I would 'sooner be a woman, it, is an easy life,” while the other is anxious to shirk his responsibilities. There are a few young Pecksniffs, full of manufactured piety, like the boy who writes, “ I must be humble and honest, and virtue is its own reward.” When he is older he will perhaps discover that virtue too. often fails to bring its own reward. Then there are the direct, matter-of-fact boys who are aiming at a definite point and mean to obtain it, while others discuss the pros and cons and are anxious to be fair to the weaker vessel's. They generalise without the slightest hesitation. “ The female sex is good without any trouble, but it is hard for the male sex to be good,” writes o"ne; adding, by way of illustration, “ There is always more men in prison than women.” About 15 per cent desire to fight for their Queen and country, and a few recognise their duty towards their parents, while by far the greater number —about 76 per cent—are entirely selfish, expressing their reasons for desiring to be men with brutal frankness. The burden of their story is that “ a man can do as he likes.” The worry of looking after children, the drudgery of the house, the difficulty of obtaining remunerative employment and the lack of physical strength are persistently raised as objections to the estate of woman. It never strikes these young materialists that it would be proper for a man to help his wife with the babies. One boy remarks that the work at home is “ messy and never finished,” while another observes that “ a man can sleep at night, but a woman has to walk about to stop the baby from crying.” “In fact, there are too many women 1 in the world,” writes a third, apropos of the economic aspect of the question. As for the second division of the subject, Miss Dodd remarks that, apart from the military enthusiasm which comes out strongly in all the answers, the girls have a keener instinct for the ideal in literature and art than the boys. Florence Nightingale and Mr Gladstone are the heroic personages most admired by the girls, the former because “ she was brave and got used to seeing blood,” and the latter because he was “ very wise and scholarly,” and “ liked Irish beggars.” The Queen and Grace Darling come next in, the list, and Shakspere is not far behind. Wellington, Nelson, Columbus, Napoleon, and Sir Redvers Duller are all popular among the girls, while a great many of the children express a decided preference for poets and authors, Mrs Hemans, Sir Scott, Tennyson, Ruskin and “ Miss Annie Swan, w r ho gives nice advices in her paper.” The boys are strongly military in their aspirations. Lord Roberts had not yet figured in the war, but Lord Kitchener is brought into first place with Sir Redvers Buller by his Soudan campaign. Nelson and Wellington are third and fourth in their favour, Shakspere fifth, and Sir G. White and Baden -Powell equal sixth. Gladstone is next, and Mr Cecil Rhodes and Mr Kipling obtain places among the first thirteen. The “ Absent-minded Beggar ” did more for Mr Kipling's reputation than all the rest of his work put together. It is remarkable with what freedom the children quoted poetry when writing of their favourite heroes, and Miss Dodd rightly urges that poetry should find a larger place in school work. But the principal conclusion to which she comes applies to New Zealand as much as to England. “If we could humanize our school instruction by indulging the child’s capacity for heroworiihip,” she says, “we should be helping to form its disposition in a way that no amount of striving'after mechanical accuracy could rival.” And Urn answers summarised by Miss Dodd lead u.s to believe that history is as ill-taught in Great- Britain as it is in New Zealand, for the range of heroes is eadly restricted. We can understand Solomon’s unpopularity, but it is at least strange that Ban Leno should hulk as large in the eyes of schoolboys as Alfred the Great or Cromwell.