KILLING WITH KINDNESS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15375, 9 August 1913, Page 1 (Supplement)

KILLING WITH KINDNESS.

BT TOHUKGA.

[ We, are told that the modern system.' of ■ education— upon the principle that f children should .be coaxed, not bullied, ; led not driven, and that their interest in / class; subjects should be kept alive by a r thousand subtle diversions—is an immense • advance over the old way of birching, flog- ; g«ng, Wing, ; and punishing. ". We are ;■ shown a generation of children generally . eager to, go to . school, and averagely able I to pass examinations in a multitude of useless subjects. And amid our feasts of .; mutual admiration and our- banquet;} of self-sufficiency and self-complacency every , man and, woman with eyes to see - and ; brains to understand perceives on the nails •of our educational system the warning ■ message: " MENE, MENE, TEKEL ' UPHARSIN!" , "Weighed in the balance " and found • wanting!" For of this truth there can i he no question that : whichsoever nation 1 will be saved before all things it is necessary that it preserve its children in , physical health •" and if any State fails in , this without doubt it shall perish everlastingly. Moral health depends on the , physical; intellectual and mental strength : cannot possibly be advanced in a whole i people by any process which undermines j virility and vitality. So- that an educa- ,>:■ tional system must be judged by- intelligent men and women undoubtedly it is judged in that Supreme Court before £which all human institutions constantly ' Stand— by its results as shown in '_ present-day examination returns and school reports, but by its results as shown in ' the bodie3 of those helpless and'defence"-' y less little children upon' whom it is imposed. ' ." '•• , The modern educational system is so , deadly because being physically de'moralisi ing it is practically universal. Few can I >* escape. Doubtless if a citizen refused to '■ submit his young children to its oppression he could obtain from any thoughtful . medical man a certificate declaring that ■ constant school, attendance under existing i conditions would be detrimental to their ' health, and could depend upon the substantiating evidence of every physician , of repute in bis city. This could only save . - ah occasional child. The ; general public is ■;• so obsessed* by the idea that ■' education"-— as school attendance is called— supremely ;• good and advisable, and the average parent ;'- is. so • blissfully ignorant of physiological problems, aiad our. social structure has been'so twisted Into conformity with the ' established educational method, that the common citizen , can no more save his children from the modern school than his j ": wife can save her daughters from the j fashions. The private school is much less ' injurious, on the average, because it is j , attended by children of a class which is ;' much more cognisant of the v value of i health and physical strength; but the j State school system is paramount, covering the overwhelming majority of all children in all but the very wealthiest class. * ■ I That the State school system; -as we have it, is destructive, of physical health cannot be questioned. ', Every doctor knows it. Every," observant teacher peri ceives it. >i The man who: denies it could • as . easilv"dehv.vth*afc" electric : lisrhtinc. as

HO eusai uvwy- mail ujcqiju; 11y u;.i.u l.. aa '-: -ireX have :•; it, .vis;. detrimental ; : '.. to : sight. i s.Yet",the '; amazing /'educational: machinery which well-meaning : ,? Frankenstein's have created for as goes grinding away as ; it" it were, a creature ef the < high. gods. Quite recently attendance at school during the full week was made compulsory. Frequently, we see rewards officially given to : children whi» for eight or ten years Lave I : never j misled an attendance. Head- j teachers': assistance'- and payments still depend upon "average attendance," and thus inspire them to pack their schools as muclv and as constantly As possible. , -The ; " average attendance" fetish may not' have the speedy* and critical effect I upon salaries which teachers generally think it has but it certainly has a speedy and critical effect upon dragging children into school. , And what -do children get j from attendance? They get blurred eyesight, crooked spines, weak joints, and j depressed vitalitynot all children, of j course, bat. many. Greatest evil of all | their nerves are constantly Being stretched and twanged. - The persistent and deliberate effort. 'to " interest stimulate,. educate" is affecting the brain of civilised childhood. We: recoil with horror from the premature exciting of physical appetites which are supposed to be peculiar to ; Asiatic palaces, but we contemplate without remorse' the slaughter of the unconscious years, wherein the normal child grows like a plant and absorbs living like a healthy little animal. With brains undaly stimulated,- with nerves stretched and played on, with the glorious senses overtaxed and monstrously excited, the rising generation enters into adultage already worn, brain-wearied, and sense-tired. Civilisation reels under its educational systems, and the uneducated barbarian musters his uncounted myriads for our overthrow. The modern school system largely owes its popularity to the fact that it relieves mothers of their children for the greater part, of the day. The ruling classes accepted it in the beginning because t'iiey were persuaded that if they "educated their "masters" the * State would be strengthened. The ruled seized upon it I with ardour because they conceived it to I be a prophylactic against inequality, as I vaccination against smallpox. In dark millrooms and crowded city streets and in the smoke-polluted air • of modern ! Babylons the essential conditions of ( human living were forgotten and ignored. ! Philanthropy set itself to "raise the school age, as though the only alternative to child-drudgery was brain-fag. Pedagogy became as subtle as priestcraft, and invented infinite ways for making the little ones whip their own souls into conformity. Society gave all its open prizes to the successful at examinations which on the whole have nothing whatever to do with the practical work of the world. The best children —the emotional, the ambitious, the earnest, the loving, the impressionable, the persevering- were the first to be caught in the coils of this crushing system, and are notoriously the most disastrously affected. What becomes of all the winning boy 3 and girls? There is a little question which has never been satisfactorily answered. Civilisation, brethren, is dying out, plainly, statistically, to common knowledge, before our eyes. This may hot be due to tho educational - system, but is j assuredly due to tho p.bnormal neuroticism | of the race, to which neuroticism the edu- ! cational system is' incontestable contribu- { tory. Democracy * has led us to racial I suicide. Popular, education has failed and ! failed hopelessly to give us that physical j strength and mental balance and emotional soundness which make Life a sacred gift and the preservation of the National Life an instinct and a duty. Wherefore it is that red war is still necessary in the worlds that Nature cannot yet throw aside her pruning-hook, that the Supreme Law still needs the brutal and inhuman peoples/ to curb tho follies of the petted . of Humanity. What civilisation needs and what civilisation is getting is to be flung ruth- , les'ily out of its comfortable security, in • vhich the bodies of children can be stunted and the nerves of children twisted ■ • ' without irreparable harm to the offending State and nation. That remedy, cruel but necessary, is visibly approaching. At any ' time civilisation at-large and our own 1 State in particular may be forced to realise < that only the physically sound can endure ) the strain and stress of unending battle, .< and that the crowning "right" of woman- : hood is to provide strong men to defend ] the State. '