TRAINING FOR LIFE

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 3, Issue 4, 1 October 1924, Page 12

TRAINING FOR LIFE

EDITH HOWES

The Necessity for an Ideal

MISS EDITH HOWES, THE WELL-KNOWN NEW ZEALAND AUTHORESS, WHOSE BOOK, "THE CRADLE SHIP," WHICH HAS BEEN RECOMMENDED BY THE WHITE CROSS LEAGUE FOR USE IN OUR SCHOOLS, WAS REVIEWED IN "IN THE MIRROR" IN OUR AUGUST ISSUE, HERE TALKS TO PARENTS

AN ideal, that is what is wanted. No greater gift can we offer the youth of our day than just thisan ideal whereby to live. The ill-lit road of life is such a complicated, tangled thing that the few simple signposts of the past are not now sufficient. Indeed, they never were sufficient, else had we been further on the way by this time. If we can put into the young hand a quenchless lamp to light the eager feet, bypath and precipice and morass will claim the fewer victims. This lamp, this ideal, is that high sense of social responsibility which refuses to do anything that will hurt the children of to-morrow. This it is which will keep safe the children of to-day. Have we any right to let them go unlighted on their way ? “What for? What good is it all? Why should we do thus and thus?” So the young folks question among themselves, receiving no satisfying reply. Their keen, unreverent minds are quick to tear and scatter threadbare moral platitudes; they seek some motive strong enough and big enough to make their sacrifice of pleasure well worth while. There is such a motive; there is a satisfying reply to their questionings. It is bound up with biology and the long, slow processes of the ages, with social heredity and the forces of environment; yet it may be simply stated, and might hold the power of a new religion if adequately presented. “The happiness of future generations depends upon the clean living of this generation”; that is the simple statement which might furnish an all-powerful motive, a gracious ideal whereby to live. However slow real biological changes may be, the havoc wrought by certain diseases is quickly and deplorably apparent in the offspring; there is also the social heredity, the atmosphere into which the child is born, and which is the result of the thoughts and actions of its parents and their parents. To be well born is a priceless boon it is to be dowered with health, clean blood, clean environment. This generation can see to it that what is theirs of these things shall at least be passed on unimpaired. Knowledge and knowledge and more knowledge is needed, if this ideal is to guide our youth. Mere statement is

nothing to them; they must see and understand, they must know the why of things, that the motive may have force with them. Life is not so simple in any aspect that they can be trained for it in a moment. The training must start early, be continued long. All nature lies brimming with mothercare and father-care, with long and patient preparations for birth, with birth itself and the tenderness and loving sacrifice it calls forth, with the after-training among the higher animals. Why should these things, the very means of life, be hidden away as much as possible from children, be wrapped in shame and poked out of sight Shame belongs not to them, but to the twisted mind that so regards them. To the frank, unspoilt mind of the young child they are as innocent, as matter-of-fact, as any other of the wonders of the world. They may be wisely used, with ever cumulative value, to foster sympathy with other lives, to teach the power of love and the oneness of all forms of life, to make the child acquainted with the needs of growing things and the effect of environment upon them. This training, though lengthy, is not difficult. Its materials lie everywhere about us in the world, its happenings are of everyday occurrence. And if these happenings are shown to be linked with beauty and love and parent-care and the infinite endless variation of nature, the subject may take on such width and quality as to set the youthful mind free from the power of the silly yet devastating snigger that perverts the world. It was for this purpose that “The Cradle Ship” was written. With this early training given, this attitude of mind established, the necessary

personal, human teaching at adolescence should be invested with no great difficulty. Frankness and confidence between teacher and taught are there, sickly sentimentality and boring solemnity and stupid flippancy are alike absent, and some acquaintance with the general laws of life has been given. To the change in themselves, the children can be brought in the scientific spirit: the change is the beginning of the long preparation for birth. It is as adolescence proceeds that the ideal is most urgent. It is now that the children of to-morrow can be safeguarded and the children of to-day made safe. These children are taught to “play the game” in their sports: let them be taught to “play the game” towards the coming generations. They have seen how all the world hangs on good parentage; bring the lesson home, and let them see their personal responsibility for the physical, mental, and moral health of their children. Teach them to build up their vital powers, to conserve them, not to squander them, not to weaken them, not to subject them to risk of disease. Teach them that the best, the unpolluted, is necessary that the best and unpolluted may arise from them. And teach them that this is true not only physically, but mentally and spiritually; that their self-control and sacrifice arc never lost, but blossom doubly themselves and in the race. This sense of responsibility need never be a burden, need not lead to morbidness nor priggishness. Such a few words serve for guidance, if wisely used and used in time. The subject need be no obsession, but should stand dignified and beautiful among the thousand other interests of; life, a motive power silently directing all, a joyful inner sanity of mind. There are people to whom “an ideal” spells foolishness. Yet ideals are the most practical things in the world. Only through them has progress from barbarism been possible. They are the stepping-stones of humanity, the foothold of the race. Let an ideal crystallise into public opinion, and a new level of life is mounted. The day will come when public opinion will hold irresponsibility in matters of sex and birth a crime akin to murder which it is.