CHILDREN AND PARENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18929, 29 January 1925, Page 12

CHILDREN AND PARENTS.

One wonders what. the. child of to-daj will be to-morrow—or. rather, when it becomes a "grown-up ?" Judging by tlis wealth of information and instruction pro vided for the modern parent to work upon, it should be far ahead and better in ever? way than the child of yesterday! But—om is doubtful. .Is popular education of much use when it comes to bringing up chit drett: in the proper . way ? Again one >i doubtful —very; says a contemporary writer. Fifty years ago the majority cf parents never dreamed of reading books to teach them to bring up their children, eithei physically or mentally, and the presentday flood of volumes on-such matters ai hygiene, child psychology, repression, com. plexes, and the like, would have made tbeii hair stand on end while they rubbed the;' eyes in amazement, not to say horror, at ;;ome of the themes contained in the nook) written for their instruction. There is at least one thing that ,tti< training of past generations spared us in a measure, and that is the "spoilt «V who was then the exception instead of th« rale, as we find to-day. The "spoil) child" is an abomination., and, at the sanH time, a terrible problem in this age p! reaction against old standards of what 11 now considered unnecessary sternness to> ward children. An authority on the subject recentu wrots: "A child who cannot <njov himself with a box of chocolates, *ho shirk! his work in order to play, whs does Tioi get up when he is called in the morning? will find tho world a difficult propositus when he grows up. I believe that in* greatest social evil of to-day is absence of Spartan ism,' particularly in tn» training of the young, and it is, of cowwi the parents' fault,.''