POSTERS FOR THE HOME

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

POSTERS FOR THE HOME

I see that an exhibition lias just been held in London of posters for nursery walls (writes Edgar llowan in the Daily Chronicle), conveying a sort of health and conduct propaganda that should make our children grow up better folk than you and 1 have done. It is curious that this exhibition should have been held just at the time when L had come to the conclusion that notices stuck about the home may have their drawbacks.

The experiment began when I wrote on a piece of paper which 1 stuck above the hand basin in the bathroom:

Remember, God can see be hind vour ears.

(This, I need hardly say, was addressed to the children, and not to visitors.

It worked well for a time. Washing took on a new interest and a new thrill —a sort of Crusade and Holy War, — and 1 was encouraged to develop the idea. It was, for instance, a great saving of time and temper hitherto devoted to inspection and warning, to pin on that wall of the dining room which the children face at meals a notice which asked with a fine air of disinterested curiosity:

I wonder whether 1 washed my hands before I came to table?

When T first saw little eyes gaze on this, and little lips move as they spelled out the words. T felt that we were getting on. I had only to stick enough notices about the house and our conduct would improve out of all recognition.

I added two more notices to the bath room walls:

The best people don’t leave soapy water in the basin.

Really nice children never leave towels on the floor.

At the foot of the staircase was the we ruing '! —

Aly word, if 1 go upstairs in

dirty hoots!

And as you came in at the garden door you were faced by this useful formula for self-examination:

Have I left any of daddy’s garden tools lying about to get rusty?

Bit by bit we had every phase of life provided for. every possibility of straying from the paths of strict rectitude closed by a poster set at exactly the critical point. It was the good 1 ifo made easy—so easy, the children confessed sadly, as to be almost dull.

On the other hand. I reminded them, the bouse began to look quite interesting. There were always pictures to be taken down or rearranged to make room for a new notice, and I had to .move the little trophy over my desk, where my old tin hat. hangs in triumph over a German helmet, to pin up:

Letters to Father Christmas or the fairies must. noF be written on the back of paper on which poor old daddy is trying to write an article for our daily bread.

That was my last erv from the heart. Up to that point T thought it was a very jolly game. But now T have my doubts. The counter-offensive was hegun. Yesterday I found pinned on the front of my desk a little notice in a childish scrawl which read:

Tbe best daddies don’t tear up their cigarette pictures and throw them away.

Anri beside the shaving glass, covering my list, of work and engagements for tire dav, was:

We can’t play with the lawnmower if daddy doesn’t put it together again.

Quite apart from the fact that I’ve forgotten how to put the beastly thing together, I think perhaps it’s time to drop the whole idea of sticlcing notices about. If it encourages the practice of criticising authority it is obviously a dangerous thing.