MODERN PARENTS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 55, Issue 3927, 16 July 1937, Page 6

MODERN PARENTS

Modern parents indulge their boys too much, and are apt to place them on a pedestal. Their desire is to give them too much pleasure, and discipline is thereby sacrificed. In this way boys, and girls, too, are given a wrong conception of life. Fifty years of teaching boys, both of the modern and the pre-war era, prompted Mr Gresham Robinson, retiring headmaster of Essendon Grammar School, Melbourne, to these conclusions, states an exchange. Mr Robinson's experience tells him that there is always one subject in which a boy will do really well, and it is the duty of his teacher to find that subject. Boys, he said, should not be forced by parents to take up a trade or profession for which they have no aptitude. The boy should be allowed to take up the calling for which he shows a liking. If a boy desired to become a street sweeper, he should be allowed to do so, for if his enthusiasm runs that way, he will not remain a street sweeper for long. He would most likely end by being a city cleansing or sanitation contractor, or expert. Mr Robinson considers that boys and girls in Australia are allowed by their parents to see at too early an age. talkies that are far too sophisticated. This, he says, develops restlessness, a wrong perspective of life, and often an idea of luxury that is incompatible with their surroundings.