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That statement, however, does not apply to the child of 1917.
For many years past there has been unrest and dissatisfaction
in the world of education. New methods have been tried,
superimposed for the most part on the top of the older ones, and
even more daring experiments have been made, experiments
which sought to throw over the old traditions, bag and baggage.
All these trials have so far failed, in my opinion; and one
reason for the failure has been due to the fact that educationalists
as a body have been unable to recognize the obvious truth that
the child of the twentieth century cannot be judged by the old
standards.
This truth is so evident to me that I hesitate at the necessity
to prove it. It seems incredible to me that any one of my
generation could fail to realize the extraordinary difference
between the contemporaries of his own growth and the children
of our present civilization. I could produce a dozen instances
of this difference, but one must suffice in this place. It is,
however, an example that is peculiarly typical. For I remem-
72 Race Culture and the Training of the Children
ber, and my experience has not been in any way an abnormal
one, the facility with which the children of my generation learnt
the uses of common tools. In a sense they may be said to have
inherited a certain dexterity in the handling of such things as a
hammer, knife, or saw. To-day many parents are greatly
impressed if a child of from two-and-a-half to six years old can
use one of these implements with a reasonable show of efficiency.
I have known fathers and mothers representative of the average
parent to-day who find any instance of this efficiency in their
own children an almost startling thing, and certainly matter for
boast to their relations and friends.
Unhappily the real difference goes far deeper than this
superficial effect would at first seem to indicate. The early
attempts of the modern child to employ his physical endowment
in such common and necessary acts as walking, running, sitting,
or speaking, are far below the standard of ability that I remem-
ber a generation ago. The standard of kinaesthetic poten-
tiality has been lowered. Elements that I will not attempt to
trace, lest I be tempted on to the fascinating ground of evolu-
tionary theory, have intervened most amazingly in the past
thirty years, and the most evident result of this intervention has
been the marked change in the subconscious efficiency of the
modern child.
Thus, even from the birth of the infant, our problem is not
precisely that of the old educationalists; and this primary
congenital difference between the children of two generations
has been, and is being, exaggerated in the nurseries of the
independent classes both in England and America. (Doubtless
in other countries of Europe the same effects are being produced,
but I prefer to speak only of that which I have observed and
closely studied for myself.) There is still a tendency to take
all responsibility and initiative away from the child of wealthy
parents. Nurses first and governesses later perform every
possible act of service that shall relieve the child of trouble.
It is not even allowed to invent its own games. Toys are
supplied in endless quantities expensive, ingenious toys, that
need no imaginative act to transform them into reduced models
of the motors, trains, or animals they are manufactured to
represent, and some one, some adult, is always at hand to amuse
the child and teach him how to play. I must italicize the ab-
surdity of that last sentence. For what does this teaching
Race Culture and the Training of the Children 73
mean, if it does not mean that it is seeking to substitute the.
adult idea of play for the childish one ? In my day, any old
brick played the part of a train or a horse, and in the mental
act required to see the reality under so uncompromising a guise
my imagination was exercised. Then I, and the other children
of my time, grew dissatisfied with so poor a substitute, and as
we progressed in experience, the stimulated imaginations found
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