PLUNKET SOCIETY

Otago Witness, Issue 4057, 15 December 1931, Page 65

PLUNKET SOCIETY

ANNUAL MEETING OF DUNEDIN BRANCH ADDRESS BY DR LAWSON. The annual meeting of the Dunedin branch of the Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children was held in the Council Chambers, Town Hall, on Friday afternoon. The Mayor (Mr R. S. Black) presided. The Mayor, in moving the adoption of the annual report and balance sheet, said that he was sure that they must give pleasure to everyone associated with the society. Like most good things the society had been started in Dunedin, and of all the societies founded in the city for the public welfare none stood out like the Plunket Society’. It was 24 years since the society had started in a very small way. There had been much shrugging of shoulders and even open criticism, but the reward of those who had been responsible for its inception was disclosed in the report. The past year had been a difficult one for the society, but it had responded nobly, comforting and helping those who had been affected by unemployment. The Rev. J. J. Cairney, in seconding the motion, congratulated the society on its record and said that in times such as the present its position was one to be proud of. Those who were able to look back to the inception of the society must have found great pleasure in reading the report. To confess ignorance of the work of the Plunket Society was to confess oneself a back number. He would like to make a plea to enlist the sympathies of those who did not know as much of the society as they should. A healthy and happy citizenship could be obtained only if a start was made with the children. It was the duty of all who had the interests of the community at heart not only to spread knowledge of the society’ but to help it financially.

Mr J. A. Johnstone said that the society was deserving of the practical support of the people as a whole. One of the objects of the society’ was to create an endowment fund. The fund had now reached £13.000. but it had not been possible, in view of the existing conditions, to obtain the sum of £20.000 that had been aimed at. He thought that men in their bequests to organisations functioning for the public welfare should lay aside something to enable the fund to be increased. The motion was carried. OFFICE-BEARERS. The following office-bearers were elected: —President, Mrs J. A. Johnstone; vice-presidents—Lady Allen, Lady Sidey, Lady Ross. Mesdames J. Al. Gallaway, Joseph M’George, J. M. Ritchie; committee—Lady Sim, Mesdames A. Barnett, A. Begg, James Begg, R. S. Black, T. Brown, F. H. Carr, Cairney, L. F. Cleghorn, Sandford Cox, Cunninghame, Dove, Fraser, Garth Gallaway, J. A. Hanan, J. C. M'George. M'Laren, Mandeno, Marshall Macdonald, D. Reid. G. R. Ritchie, K. Ross, T. C. Ross, Solomon, N. Speight, W. B. Taverner, John Watson, Williams, W. Wilson, Sister Norah, Misses Oppenheim. Joachim, F. and N. Reid, and Downie Stewart, Mesdames Arundel and Livingstone (Mosgiel), Dow and Stewart (Outrain) ; Advisory Board—Sir Thomas Sidey, M.L.C., Messrs Peter Barr, F. H. Carr, P. L. Halsted, Leslie Harris, J. A. Johnstone, G. R. Ritchie, P. R. Sargood, D. Tannock, D. E. Theomin, L. G. Tuck, Dr C. E. Hercus, Sir Truby King. “EVOLUTION AND EDUCATION.” An address on “ Evolution and Education ” was given by Dr R. Lawson (Professor of education at the University of Otago). Dr Lawson said that workers in any profession should see their work in some perspective. They must see their work

against a background. The Plunket Society was concerned not only with the education oil the mothers, but also with the education of the children. Education in its widest sense could be defined as the total of all influences that played upon the living organism from birth to death. The paramount influence with which the society was concerned was undoubtedly physical, but that was education. The child by watching his or her mother acquired a sense of values, and it must not be overlooked that children drank in influences very early in their lives. There was certain informal education that everyone must get, but civilised man had created certain formal education which was given in schools, colleges, and universities. The Plunket Society was improving the surroundings of children and, by improving their environment, making it possible for them to reach the highest stages to which man could aspire. ' The adult human being was different from an infant. That might seem a platitude, but everyone had not always known it. The opinion had been held by first class scientific minds that an infant was merely a small adult. A child, however, did not have all the physical organs developed nor did it have the mental development of an adult. Each human being in his ascent from the first cell climbed over the history’ of the race, and, as he climbed, he repeated the story of evolution, not only physically but in mind as well. The small boy, as the result of some imprint left in the human mind, returned to the bow and arrow. There was opposition, however, between evolution and education. The idea of evolution was, to his mind, the greatest thought ever promulgated by a human being. In part it rested upon the struggle for existence. The animals and plants that had survived in the course of evolution showed some successful variation. With animals the variations have been cruelty, strength, and courage. In human beings, in the course of evolution, the love of the mother for her child had spread through villages and towns, and was now’ spread over the whole world. This, however, involved a new factor altogether. Nature had given survival to the fittest, and now a challenge was being issued to Nature. Previously children had survived when they were fit, but now people were being kept alive who, under ordinary circumstances, would not be alive. He knew of two families, one of nine and one of eight, each of which had cost the State £3OOO, and would probably cost more. The best had to be done for every human being who came on the scene, but the halt and the weak were laying a burden of taxation on the fit, w’hich would ultimately cripple them, and the standard of life would in the circumstances go down. This was not a myth. It was a plain statement of fact. He felt frankly puzzled himself. A British judge had recently stated that society must take notice of these things. The judge had stated that the mentally deficient must not be allowed to propagate their kind, and he believed that it would ultimately come to that. He did not wish members of the society to be disheartened, but what he was saying might help to give them a philosophic background for their work.

Another aspect of the question was heredity. Each child had a certain social heredity, and the Plunket Society’s work was largely concerned with an improvement in the social heredity of every child under its care. Humanitarian work was creating further difficulties for the world. The main difficulty was that there were no means of telling of what benefits a person might give to humanity. “ Some mute, inglorious Milton ” might be blind. A person might not be normal, but might confer some benefit on humanity emotionally.

On the motion of Mr J. A. Hanan, M.L.C., Dr Lawson was accorded a vote of thanks for his address.