CAUSE AND EFFECT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13995, 30 August 1907, Page 8

CAUSE AND EFFECT.

Sir,—While reading Wednesday's Times my attention was arrested by a paragraph in the Omnium Gatherum column wherein is chroniclod Iho sad fate of a child (or young woman)— Helen Anuins, of Patutalii, Poverty Bay. ProbaAily tho da to given (February 5, 1889) as that on which Helen Aquins began to attend school is a misprint for "1899." Assuming tho latter date 1o bo tho correct ono, over eight years anrl a-half would still liavo passed whilo this unfortunate youngster was getting through her standards. Sho would bo, n.t the time of passing lier final examinations, in her fifteenth year, not in her twcnt.v-fifth as tho paragraph indicates. - Assuming, then, ■ tliat Helen Aquins died a child, <lo wo not in all liUolilxjod luw'o here a case which may seryo asa.'warning to many parents? This child wont, to school at tho age of six; she 'Went through all her standards and "never missed n day at school" whilo she was doing so, Then the poor bairn went home, developed meningitis, and died. The sequence of causc and effect scema obvious, and oh, tho pity of it that such a 1 thing should bo possible among the people of this or any land 1 Scholastic fanaticism in parents and guardians of children is as bad a thing in its way as tho worst religious frenzy ever engendered in tho mind of maji. In tho minds of parents the half-blind promptings which onoourago a child to enslave itself to tho extent, of never being away from 6cliool during seven or eight years' are, I hold, of a deadly fanatical order, and. like];, to bring serious consequences in . their | train. lam not forgetting that in this ■ colony school holidays . are numerous. That, lias nothing to do _ with • my coni tention, which is that children, just because they are children, should bo discouraged from giving too rigid adherence to vulcs and ordinances devised by those who have tco often forgotten what their own outlook: upon tho world was when they wcifo children themselves, I am trespassing upon your space (in prospect) and will' only add that in my. own opinion, and in that of others of far and away higher standing in matters of education, the tendency of truancy in children is a. thing of infinitely more value tlwn its opposite-slavish submission to taslc and taskmaster. Dm ing my life many victims of this unhappy predilection liavo come under my notice, and the bad results were none the less deplorable though death did not in every instance hurry them into .oblivion, Una I l» J n6w, that when a. brat at school myself the happiest, day? I over spent were those when I was not, there. The instinct to go aroamin", to follow the butterflies and the ' bees, to,linger with tho flowering things in fields and hedgerows, to paddle in sylvan pools and streams, and to enjoy the blessed' sunshine iinlieedful of the wartinjr " tawsc "—this is tho real instinct of eliildhcod wliich brings health and joy in its train, not Brain raflammation and piemature death, as in the case oftlie hapten Helen Aquins, of Poverty : etc., •