THE SCHOOL AGE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21640, 10 May 1932, Page 9

THE SCHOOL AGE

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir,— -I read with keen enjoyment the leading article entitled “The Dignity of Motherhood ” in Saturday’s issue of your paper. It is a beautiful expression of a worthy sentiment, and fortunate is the man or woman who can fully appreciate it and whose feelings run high at the memories stirred. When I passed on to read your sub-leader on the School Age, my feelings were sharply chilled. In a time of crisis such as now_ confronts us, when forces are arrayed against the stability and integrity of the home as you indicate in the second half oL your article, is there not a certain inconsistency_ or lack of imagination, in eulogising the dignity of motherhood and in supporting the saving of our country’s revenue to the extent of a few thousand pounds by raising the school age, while at the same time entirely discouraging our kindergartens? The sinister effect of such a course of action is at least threefold. It is detrimental to the small child who most needs loving nurture at a very critical period of its life, and it closes an avenue of congenial training and employment for many an adolescent girl at a time when unemployment faces her and when all her developing instincts stand most in need of stimulating and healthy contacts. Thirdly, it deprives the homes of poor or incompetent parents, often in drab surroundings, of the bright and hopeful assistance which they so often receive from kindergarten and infantroom mistresses. A country’s needs indeed are great and its state deplorable when it must pare to the “ quick ” its expenditure on the training of little children and adolescent girls in an age already deeply scarred by modern warfare and its aftermath. , Here is a cause that might well claim the attention of men and women who. in the beautiful custom of Mothers’ Day, have revered the memory of home and mother.—l am, etc., M, SALMOND, Women’s Training Institute. Dunedin, May 8.