OUR BABIES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12088, 17 August 1917, Page 7

OUR BABIES.

(By HYGBIA.) Published under thd auspices of tlia Royal New Zealand Society for the He>a.lta of Women and Children , " It is wiser to put up a. fence at tea top of a precipes thia to maintain ao aobulanc-a at the bottom." CHILD WELFARE CONFERENCE., SOUTH AFRICA An important conference was held four months ago at Capetown, and the report, which is just to hand, affords striking evidence of the interest that'' the war has aroused in child welfareLady Bust-en. in a foreword to r -he report. s:n&:-~ The loss of life during the has forcibly opened our eyes to tha terrible waste of life which has been going on in cur midst for years past practically unobserved. . . By fa.; the greatest part, of infantile mortality comes from preventable causes. Wq are all hoping for a new world aft«.r tiie war, when we eliili turn our backs for ever cu cur eld, careless. slipshod methods. Perhaps the greatest- difference between the Iv orld before and the world after the war will be the value we set. on the child life and child welfare of our country "_ Where there is no vision the peoofe perishetb "—and in the past there n.is been Nut little vision directed to this most, vital question. But our eyes are ww open, and full of hope and confidence w 0 lock 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 he congratulated the conference on having representatives of all classes, both 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. These dominions ware pioneers in this matter, in which South Africa lagged behind. .An old economist had said that he who could make two blades of grass growwhere one had grown before wa,s a. benefactor to mankind. Aiiy society 'which enabled two healthy children to develop where formerly there had been only one was a benefactor to the race. The war was bringing this lesson home. ADDRESS BY MR PAUL D. CLUVER, MAYOR OF STELLENBOSCH. The following are extracts from ih«* very able opening address given bv Mr Cluver:— "Wo 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 aud liberty to serve° " From its birth the average child is handicapped through the T enorance Po-erty, or selfishness of its parem" ' ' The child gets an unfair start by wrong food given at vronsr hours. Then to soothe its restlessness a. d-ummy is tnrust into its mouth, *nd when it objects the comforter 13 made temptm* by being dipped into some sweet aborn* lptios. The habit of sucking tho cummy 3 s formed, and the result i B another hanaicap in the shape of a maltormed mouth or adenoid growths " later on the child is either forced J>v parents and nurse to accept the forms of amusement that appeal to the adult, instead of being allowed ' to amuse hrasrff m his own simple wa.j, °C i 0 i ,!T ; t]& !J - u f >ervlsi °n is exercised that the child i» subjected to harmful in3uer.ee*., "From the time he can toddle he longs to do useful things. Nothing pleases the five-year-old child sc m-uch as to be allowed to help in thd kitchen or- garden . , . His efforts, imperfect though they be, should be encouraged, but instead parent and teacher alike, ruled by a wrong system of education, force him through a cast-iron mould —a- system which assumes that the child has no personality of his own, but must be made a. replica of those in charge of him. ".As the cluld grows older he is taught things that hear little or 110 relation to the life around hiua, and he becomes more and more like 3, machine. ' ' NOTE BY "HYGEIA." One great advantage of these World Conferences is that they bring home to us in a very forcible and "striking way the broad mistakes of our time and generation, in contrast rath merely local mistakes:. If w.<; : could strip the defects from modem ed'-icjjtion there is no reason why school life should not, become as beneficial to the body and as broadening to the mind as it is now restrictive 111 both directions. One of the mostobvious and unjustifiable of all the I'Tongs which m/ 6 allow and even eii* courage parents and schools to do to little children is sending them to ordinary schools, and keeping them still and imprisoned in class-rooms before they are six years of age Proper growth and activity ought to be encouraged \r: keeping lit til 0 children out of doors m the open air and sunshine as much as possible. Actual experience and observation ha-© proved, beyond all possibility of doubt, that children arc doubly dwarfed and. damaged—damaged in body and damaged m mind—by bsin? sent to school too earl'--. Parents and educational authorities between them should sorely be able to find some rational alternative *■-;> victimising the child, simply because on the one hand the school happens to be a. ' s.3fe depository'' free of charge, and on the other hand the schoolmaster wants to secure his full complement of pupil? In nearly every case I fmd these to be the two essential grounds assigned for the early imprifomng of children. One. ouite realises the difficulty of the modern mother with her solitarychild or familv of two and no domestic help; but it should not be beyond the scope of human intelligence to devr.se some means for keeping littJe 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.