NEGLECTED CHILDREN. 



This subject continues to claim attention. As the trend of 

 the tide is here against us, to stem it requires constant watch- 

 fulness. Without effort, a backset would cover ground well 

 nigh reclaimed. For, however well done, this is a work like 

 that of a physician, that never stays done. Old cures will not 

 stop the breaking out of new cases. Li dealing with negligent 

 parents our main reliance has still been kindness and persua- 

 sion, appeals to their parental love and pride, their sense of 

 duty and their personal interest in view of the great importance 

 of education to their children, and the rich privileges freely 

 proffered them in the public schools. The same arguments 

 have often reached the children, and thus they have gained a 

 higher appreciation of the influence of the school upon their 

 happiness, thrift and prosperity through life. Teachers as well 

 as school officers may greatly help in this good work. It is the 

 teachers duty, or rather his privilege, to visit the parents of 

 truant or neglected children, learn the causes of delinquency 

 and secure parental cooperation. As I have urged this duty, 

 a few teachers have asked substantially — " Is that in the bond," 

 "what does the law demand?" as if the one ruling thought was — 

 what is the minimum work I must do ; but fortunately there 

 are but few teachers whose theory and practice limit their 

 duties and sympathies to the school house and school hours. 

 On the other hand, a large proportion of our teachers, bent on 

 doing the utmost good to their pupils, inquire into causes of 

 absence from school, visit pupils in sickness, and thus often win 

 the confidence and cooperation of parents otherwise captious or 

 indifferent. 



Among the causes of absenteeism is the want of proper 

 clothing. In these hard times, while many willing hands are 

 unable to find employment, this plea is by no means limited to 

 the huts or haunts of indolence, intemperence and profligacy. 

 Where parents are really too poor to provide comfortable 

 clothing, the pressing needs of their children should enlist the 

 sympathies of the benevolent. Here true charity may do as 



