A CHANCE FOR EVERY CHILD

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 30 July 1924, Page 8

A CHANCE FOR EVERY CHILD

One clear issue of social justice was commended to the united goodwill and constructive energy' of men and women of all parties by Air J. L. Garvin in the Shaftesbury lecture. He referred to tlio principle of equal opportunityabove all, as applied to the purpose of giving every child a chance, and a full chance, to make the very best of life, which, lie said, is the only way in which the principle of equal opportunity can be applied. “For adults beyond a certain age, it is too late to redress the balance of unfair disadvantage under which, us regards both health and education and its later openings ot success, they may have been born and bred,” said Air Garvin. “But you will never get the vast majority of the people in a- democratic age to believe that children should come into the world, disqualified as it were, from the cradle, and deprived from tlie beginning of the prospect of full mental and physical development. There never can ho equality of luck, faculty and achievement. Hardly any two persons, for instance, are capable of making an equally good use of the same sums of money or of the same areas and qualities of soil. As well contend that y r ou can always make two great pianists by providing any two students with two grand pianos of the same kind and two identical stools. Somo people do wonders in spite of limited opportunities, and other people throw the fairest opportunities away. You cannot guarantee equal use of equal chances. But what you can and must give more and more to every human being—-and you can only do it by beginning with every child—is the fair equality of chance. You can sweep away as far as public legislation anil voluntary agencies can do it, the artificial restrictions and barriers from the path of talents and abilities and aspirations in working-class life. What is the sense of talking of making the best, as we must, of our latent economic assets in respect of power and transport if wo do not give at least as much thought to making the very best of our latent human asset? There is only one way of replacing the human and economic losses of the war and grappling with the abnormal and unprecedented difficulties of the sequel. We have to work at all costs, and by every single means to our hand, for a broader and higher development of character and brains.”