OUR BABIES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12082, 10 August 1917, Page 7

OUR BABIES.

(By HYGELU Published under the auspices of the Boya.l New Zealand Society for the Health of "Women and Children " It is wiser to put up a fence at the top of & precipice thin to maintain au ambulance at the bottom." CHILD WELFARE CONFERENCE, SOUTH AFRICA. An important conference ™p held four months aan at, Cane Town and the report, which is just to ha.nd, atfords striking evidence of the interest. that the war has aroused m child v.e.fave. Lady Buxton, in a foreword to the report, says:— The loss of life during the war has forcibly opened our eyes to the terrible wast© of life which has been gome on in our midst for years past—practically unobserved. ... By far the greatest part of infantile mortality come* from preventable causes—and in the word '* preventable" lies our ar&at hope for the- future, after the war, when <ve. shall turn our We are all hoping for a- new world barks forever on our old, careless, slipshod methods. Perhaps the greate-t difference between the world before and the world after the war will he the value we set on the child life and childwelfare of our country. "Where there is no vision the people perisheth "-and in the past there has been hut little vision directed to this most vital ruiestion. But our eyes are now open, and full of hope and confidence we look for the dawning of a new day. OPENING CEREMONY.

Lord Buxton, the Governor-General of South Africa, speaking at the opening ceremony at Government House, said lie congratulated the conference on having representatives of all classes, hoth races and all the churches; and he thanked heaven there were no politics. Babies had no politics! . . ■ He. was glad to see there were papers dealing with the work done in Australia and New Zealand. Those Dominions were pioneers in this matter, in which South Africa lagged behind . . An old economist, had said that h-; who could make two blades of grass grow where one had crown before was a benefactor to mankind Any sooiotv which enabled two healthy children to develop where formerly there had been onlv one a. benefactor to the race. The. war was bringing this lesson home.

ADDRESS BY MR PAUL D OLUVER, MAYOR OF STELLEN BOSCH.

The following are extracts from the very able opening address given Iw Mr GTuver:—

"'We. are. here to-day to assist _ in carrying on the crusade on behalf of the. child, for the purpose of giving it liberty to grow and liberty to serve "'From its birth the average child is handicapped through the ignorance, poverty or selfishness of its parents. "The child gets an unfair start hv wrong food given at wrong hours Then to soothe, its restlessness a dummy is thrust into its mouth, and when it objects the comforter is msde tempting by being dipped into some sweet abomination. The habit of sucking the dummy is formed, and the result is another handicap in the shape of a malformed mouth or adenoid growths. " Later on the child is either forced by parents and nurse to accept the forms of amusement that, appeal to the adult, instead of being allowed to amuse himself in his own simple way; or so little supervision is exercised that the child is subjected to harmful influences. "From the time he. can toddle he longs to do useful things. Nothing pleases the five-year-old child so much as to be allowed to help in the kitchen or garden. ... His efforts, imperfect though they be, should be encouraged, but insteid paronr. and teacher alike, ruled by a wrong system of education, force him through a cast-iron mould, a system v.hich assumes that, tho child has no personality of his own, but must lie made a replica of those in charge, of him. "' As the child grows older he is taught things that' bear little or no relation to the life around bun, and he becomes more and more tike a machine." NOTE BY HYGEIA. One great adva.ntage of these world conferences is that they bring home to us in a -eery forcible and striking way the broad mistakes of our time and generation, in contrast, with merely local mistakes If we could St lip the defects from modern education there is no reason why school life should not become as beneficial to t\\e mind as it is now restrictive in both directions. One of the most obvious and unjustifiable of all the wrongs which we allow and even encourage parents and schools to do to little children is sending them to ordinary schools, a.nd keeping them still and imprisoned in class-rooms before they are six years of age. Proper growth and activity ought to be encouraged by keeping little children out of doors in the open air -Hid sunshine as much as possible. Actual experience and observation have proved, beyond all possibility of doubt, that children are doubly dwarfed and damaged—damaged in body and damaged in mind—by being seutto< school too early. Parents and educational authorities between them should surely be able to find some rational alternative to victimising the child, simplv because on the ope hand the school happens to be a " safe depository " free of charge; and on the other ha-id the schoolmaster wants to secure bis full complement of pupils. In nearly every case I find these to be the two essential grounds assigned for the early imprisoning of children. One quite realises the difficulty of the modern mother with her solitary child or family of two and no domestic help; but it should not be beyond the scope of human intelligence to devise some means for keeping little children out-of-doors for the most part, rather than indoors, even at school, in those cases where circumstances render early banishment from the blessings of home inevitable.