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his mother would not let him sit up one night to see something he wanted to see.
As a matter of fact children with normal upbringing overcome these disabilities with
very little difficulty and it is among children whose upbringing has been at fault that
these disabilities rise like clouds in their adult lives.
I have recently been looking at a picture of Croydon as it was 120 million years
ago when the Dinosaur commonly lived there and the Pterodactyl had learned to
fly; compared with these long ages civilisation only began—as it were—yesterday.
Man, however, is much older than civilisation and for aeons of time the
youngsters were, like destructive little monkeys, able to go to the fore-shore and
elsewhere and enjoy themselves to their hearts' content, smashing pebbles against
boulders, and father and mother never worried at all. What we have done in
civilisation is to rob the child of the sea-shore as it were, so that instead of on stones
children practise their native destructiveness on things that cost time and labour
to create. We must remember that destructiveness is a necessary phase in natural
development, not only the destruction of physical things but the destruction of
ideas also; and we must share any blame when children get into mischief.
Nothing in what I have written means I suggest a great Charter allowing children
to do wanton destruction, because all children expect, when annoying their elders,
to face condign punishment, unless of course, they are nimble enough to escape.
OPEN-AIR EDUCATION.
Question:—Why is it that the playing-fields attached to some schools
and the playgrounds of others, are not used more when the schools are
not in session?
Answer:—So far as the playing-fields are concerned there is not much
difficulty in answering this question, because grass is a very difficult thing to grow,
so that quite apart from the question of expense the main difficulty is that it can
be so easily destroyed by over-use.
With regard to the ordinary playgrounds the difficulty is, I believe, one of
supervision, both to avoid injury among players and, incidentally, injury to
premises, but I do hope these difficulties will be overcome.
The Iron Duke said that "the Battle of Waterloo was Won on the playing-fields
of Eton Very possibly he thought he was making one of his usual ordinary
commonsense statements, but his words became the common parlance of snobs,
and although oft-quoted when I was a boy had fallen very much into disrepute.