PARENTAL CONTROL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13722, 11 April 1908, Page 4

PARENTAL CONTROL.

Sir,—ln the Old Country I knew a number i of juvenile thieves from "quite respectable" | homes, and noted how the leaders were in- j variably the much-thrashed boys at home. This, and other reasons, disincline me to regard the birching Mr. Kettle so much regrets ordering as an effective cure or prevention. A more effectual one, I fancy, would be to rna':e the parents more responsible, financially in trivial cases, but with imprisonment for more serious offences, whet"e gross neglect to train the child in the common ethics of citizenship is proved. Too much stress at present seems to be laid on numbers. The parents who die leaving from 12 to 18 children are "notable old settlers," worthy of press paragraphs." But. numbers are not all in the making of a State, and the parental duty is not fulfilled by breeding and rearing only. We want lads and lassies to be sound, bodily, mentally, and morally, and parents to reserve enough energy, time, and .interest in such children as they Lave wisely to watch their all-round growth, and to cheek the forming of undesirable acquaintances. The standpoint of one New Zealand father who boasted that he ''never inquired what his boy did when outside the home"—a lack which had the natural result, to his grief and surprise—is not one which should be encouraged. Where the pressure of life is great, there is too much tendency to be only too glad to have "got rid of the children for a time at anyrate," when they are not under observation, and it is thus often that these "quite respectable" families produce prison material; petty thefts are overlooked if from a neighbour thrashed if from home. But however "respectable the parents it. is primarily they who are to blame, and they who should have their responsibility brought home to .them by the State. Mary Wheeler Irvine