268 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



MOTOE EDUCATION FOE THE CHILD 



By J. MADISON TAYLOR, A.B., M.D. 



PHILABBLFBIA 



OPPOETUNITY is too often regarded, by parents and educators, 

 as the equivalent of training. Many confident assertions are 

 made to the effect that enforced educative measures for the very young 

 child make for harm, and that spontaneity can be depended on to 

 direct and sustain impulse. This would be true, perhaps, if parental 

 wisdom could be relied on to provide thoroughly wholesome environ- 

 ment, normal suggestion and stimulus to varied activities. 



Unfortunately, children are compelled to adapt themselves to 

 diversities in environment which, in comparison to that of most 

 domestic animals, is profoundly to their disadvantage. Problems of 

 child-growth should be considered in the light afforded by customs 

 prevailing among breeders of valuable animals. Among animals the 

 young one is welcomed and the mother devotes herself almost wholly 

 to its best interests, at least during the critical period of lactation and 

 dependence. Thus an invaluable start is secured in the right direc- 

 tion, both in nutrition and in habit formation. How deplorably dif- 

 ferent are the duties of maternity as viewed by the large majority of 

 human mothers only those of us who have spent years m the dispen- 

 saries for sick children, or have had other direct experience of the poor, 

 can fully appreciate. The laborer must have his family near him 

 because his home must be near his work. Small consideration is given 

 to the problems of infants and youngsters who follow in the wake of 

 household necessities. 



Among breeders of animals the young ones are of paramount im- 

 portance. They constitute direct assets and the utmost effort is given 

 to develop them into salable products. The human mother must 

 primarily serve as cook and purveyor of creature comforts to the wage- 

 earning father. The animal mother gives her undivided attention to 

 her offspring till it is able to act alone in accordance with its relatively 

 higher capacity for independent functionation. Hence it is obviously 

 important that at the earliest possible stage of human existence the 

 individual shall be supplied with not only the best opportunities avail- 

 able, but intelligent guidance in motor development, in order that it 

 shall maintain its sovereignty over animals, or itself become an eflBcient 

 animal. 



Fortunately, many human mothers are supplied with reliable in- 

 stincts and solicitudes. The exigencies of city life tend overwhelm- 

 ingly to vitiate primitive impulses, to subordinate such desires and 

 capacities as make for development of the home ; to change the nest, or 



