Part 29 (1/2)

Vocational Training for Girls. Isabelle McGlaufin.

_Education_, April, 1911.

A Healthy Race; Woman's Vocation. C. M. Hill. _Westminster Review_, January, 1910.

Social Adjustment. S. Nearing. Pages 128-148, ”Dependence of Women.” Macmillan.

Purposes of Women. F. W. Saleeby, M.D. _Forum_, January, 1911.

Does the College rob the Cradle? H. Boice. _Delineator_, March, 1911.

The College Woman as a Home Maker. M. E. Wooley. _Ladies'

Home Journal_, Oct. 1, 1910.

The American Woman and her Home. Symposium. _Outlook_, April 17, 1910.

Teaching the Girl to Save. Home-Training Bulletin No. 7. 2 cents. Wm. A. McKeever, Manhattan, Kan.

CHAPTER XX

_CONCLUSION, AND FUTURE OUTLOOK_

In concluding this volume we wish again to remind parents of the necessity of working for specific results in the rearing of their children. Modern man, unlike his ancestor, who roamed over the earth, is a creature of complex and highly refined make-up which no primitive or natural environment could possibly produce. The forces that work upon his character development are so radically different from those which formed the life of his remote forbears as possibly to account for the contrasts in the two forms of finished personality.

Although there is evidence to support the theory that man belongs to the general evolutionary scheme of animal life, the progress of the race has been so very slow that a thousand years of time can show no very distinct improvement either in physical form or mental quality. While the human young is exceedingly plastic as an individual,--yielding easily from one side of his inherent activities to another,--the race is relatively fixed and stable.

STRIVE FOR PRECONCEIVED RESULTS

Parents and other instructors of the young must therefore accept their charges as made up of very complex potentialities of learning and achievement--each a bundle of latent characters transmitted to him from the ancestral line. Many of these inherited characters are too weak in any given individual ever to show in his life conduct; many others will come to the surface only in response to proper stimuli and practice; still others will break out and show a predominance almost in defiance of any training intended to counteract them.

But the teacher and trainer of the infant child may accept the theory that the latter, if taken in time, can be bent and modified many ways in his character formation; that such plasticity is, however, always subject to the relative strength or weakness of the many inherited apt.i.tudes and activities latent within the individual.

There is no good reason, therefore, why the parent should not begin early to build up the character of his child in accordance with a preconceived plan; provided such plan do no violence to any of nature's stubborn and inexorable laws. The parent may also accept this task as a long and tedious undertaking, and expect to get results in proportion as he works intelligently for them. The farmer does not even think of producing good crop results from his land without hard work and much thought; then, why should he expect so delicate a plant as the human young to reach satisfactory maturity without much care and consideration? By far the greatest sin against the child is neglect of his training.

CONSULT EXPERT ADVICE

We must not be unmindful of the necessity of a balanced schedule of activities for the child. The vegetable plant must have air, sunlight, moisture, nitrogen, and so on, to support its growth. If one of these essential elements be lacking, the result is fatal to the fruitage. So with the child. If the best character results are to be expected, certain essential elements must be put into use. We have named them as play, work, recreation, and social experience. But as one approaches the individual problem of child training it does not prove so simple and easy as these terms imply. When and how to give each of these necessary exercises, how much of each to furnish, the means thereof, and the like--these and many other such questions begin to arise.

When the parent reaches the point of perplexity in dealing with his child, it is a fairly good indication that his interest is aroused, at least. But what is to be done? Simply the same thing he would do at the point of perplexity in the wheat propagation, _consult an expert_. If one of the work mules becomes lame or reveals a bad disposition, should the owner take it to an electrician for advice? If the family cow becomes locoed or shows an unusual result in her milk product, should one consult a piano tuner? Yet, strange to say, parents are often known to do similarly in dealing with the perplexing problems of child-rearing. Consult the popular magazines and the book shelves any day and you will find many lengthy dissertations on the boy and the girl, written not infrequently by persons who have spent a lifetime studying _something else_. But they are very fond of children and they mistake this fondness for knowledge of an expert kind; and worst of all, they offer it as such.

The farm parents who wish to receive expert advice in the treatment of their children must learn to consult directly or through literature only those who have made a long and intensive study of child problems. And in the latter case they need not expect to obtain all necessary help from one source alone. Usually the child-study expert is a specialist in only one certain part of the field. For example, at the University of Pennsylvania under Dr. Lightner Witmer, there has been made a specialty of the sub-normal child. We should probably obtain from that source more expert help in that one phase of child welfare than from any other source in America. If one wishes reliable help on the subject of diseases of children, he should naturally expect to obtain it from some medical authority, from one Who has spent long years practicing in a general hospital for children. One of the very few great sources of information on the general psychology of child development is Clark University, where many child-welfare problems have been worked out by experts under the able direction of Dr. G. Stanley Hall.

MEET EACH AWAKENING INTEREST

A very reliable general rule of guidance for the parent child trainer is to strive to furnish intensive practice for each and every childish and juvenile interest at the time of its awakening. As stated in Chapter II the most predominant interests in the young emerge in response to the unfoldment of instincts and the development of organic growths within.

Perhaps all do so. But the point of importance for the parent is to meet each of these awakenings at the time of its highest activity with intensive training. The instinct to play, to fight, to steal, to run away, to work (?), to fall in love, to engage in some occupation, to marry and make a home, to have children--these have been named as especially important by virtue of their awakening successively the individual's interests in matters of great consequence to character development.