THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Wednesday, October 15, 1941. MAKING THE MAN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24738, 15 October 1941, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Wednesday, October 15, 1941. MAKING THE MAN

It might be a thought for parents in these days that war is not the only destroyer of manhood. Some two months ago we had occasion to comment on reports, presented to Parliament, in which pointed reference was made to the tendency for crime and misdemeanour among juveniles to increase. Those responsible for these reports—which were the reports of the Prisons Board, the Controller-general of Prisons and the Chief Probation Officer—were agreed that the most likely explanation of the decline in standards of youthful behaviour disclosed by the statistics was lack of discipline, parental control and proper training. We suggested that parents as a whole would have to assume larger and more definite responsibilities for the training and guidance of their children if youthful delinquency was not to becoige a familiar and depressing feature of the social order. In much the same strain a statement has now been issued by the Auckland Headmasters’ Association, as the sequel to a detailed investigation into the activities of primary school children before and after school hours, and their bearing on non-attendance at school. This statement, which we printed yesterday, merits the closest study by all parents. It refers to, and has no fault to find with, the employment of children in set work before or after school provided the conditions of such employment are strictly governed by the need for .ensuring that the hours worked, and the work itself, are not prejudicial to health, that the children receive sufficient sleep and proper meals, and that their enjoyment of healthy recreation is not curtailed. The committee responsible for the inquiry made the disturbing discovery that in the case of many children these conditions are entirely neglected. Further than that, it found that during the school week thousands of children were permitted to attend theatres or other places of amusement at night, and that among parents there was much inattention to the welfare of their children from a health point of view and a lamentable lack of supervision of their leisure activities. These are facts which, on the evidence available, it is unfortunately impossible to dispute. Too many children are permitted to absent themselves from their homes for long periods in the day or night, and their comings and goings, because of parental indifference, are largely unquestioned. Their attention to cheap-jack broadcasts is often not discouraged, and may even be encouraged when the tastes of adult members of the household take no account of what may be harmful for youthful hearing. The Auckland Headmasters’ Association deplores the fact that, where child delinquency grows logically from neglect on the part of parents, there is no provision in the Child Welfare Act enabling parents to be themselves brought before a court to answer for their evasion of a primary responsibility. It does seem useless to hope for any improvement in the statistics relating to juvenile crime while parents refuse to acknowledge their own obligations. Moral and physical guidance, from a child’s earliest years right through the formative period of adolescence, must profoundly affect character in the later years of full citizenship. The State has a right to expect parents to realise that their responsibilities are inescapable, and that, through neglect or an almost criminal selfishness on their part, a child’s adult prospects may be ruined before manhood or womanhood is even reached.