Euthenics, the science of controllable environment: A plea for better living conditions as a first step toward higher human efficiency — John Shaqi
Euthenics, the science of controllable environment: A plea for better living conditions as a first step toward higher human efficiencyRichards, Ellen H. (Ellen Henrietta)
Science
Euthenics, the science of controllable environment: A plea for better living conditions as a first step toward higher human efficiency
Richards, Ellen H. (Ellen Henrietta)
Euthenics
In morals and manners the school can only give tendency or direction
to the child’s life. The school is not the best place to teach ethics.
In the family life the child himself finds his future revealed,
reflected by his relations to other members of the family. The spirit
of coöperation nurtured there will develop in the school through the
more various opportunities of relationship to others.
The earlier conditions cannot be restored, even the home training
cannot be brought back, except on the farm, and there, it is hoped, it
may be revived. The city or suburban children cannot have the
opportunity to pick up chips when too young to bring in wood; cannot
stand by and hold skeins of yarn, or go to the barn and help feed the
calves--all most interesting and provocative of endless questions.
They cannot go into the garden and pick berries or vegetables for
dinner, cannot learn how to avoid breaking the vines, or how to judge
the ripeness of the melons.
All that is probably not feasible for many, because it is not possible
to give children of this age responsibility without oversight, and
today’s elders are loath to give and are often incapable of giving
oversight.
But while these circumstances over which, apparently, we have no
control, preclude much of the valuable outdoor work, food has still to
be prepared, dishes need washing, and clothes must be mended, even if
towels and napkins are no longer hemmed by hand. Rooms are still
swept and dusted, beds are made, and chairs and tables put straight.
Has any better means of giving experience ever been devised than these
small, daily tasks which differentiate men from animals? The care of
the fixed habitation, the foresight needed to prepare the things for
the family life in the weeks and months to come, the coöperation of
all the members of the family toward one common end--all tend toward
high _human ideals_. If the wise mother only realized the value to the
child of helping in such portions as are not too heavy, of being a
part of the life, she would let nothing stand in the way of using this
natural means of development. But with foreign domestics whose idea is
to get the various duties over as soon as possible, and whose gift is
not that of teaching, how is the child to grow into the normal ways of
right daily living, unconsciously and effectively?
If the parents continue to throw all the work of education on the
school, then the school must take the best means of fulfilling the
task.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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