The development of the child / by Nathan Oppenheim.

  • Nathan Oppenheim
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The development of the child / by Nathan Oppenheim. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    opposite of the change, the varying activity and the spontaneity of individual training. An adult whose growth is finished, whose organism is at rest, might possibly exist without much injury in a condition of stagnation. His needs lie mainly in the way of repair of used-up tissue. But with the growing infant or child, the demands are far greater. They look for the elaboration of entirely new material upon which func- tional development rests. And where such healthful exercise is deficient, the expected development cannot appear. Naturally, then, one finds that children massed in large institutions are backward, are prone to stu- pidity, are lacking in a healthy mental curiosity. Their spontaneity is crushed by rules and regulations that are not framed with a clear view to their best interests. In order to subserve those interests, the person in charge of the institution should be of remarkable strength of mind and character. By slow degrees people are beginning to appreciate the necessity of employing as teachers such persons as have proved themselves thoroughly capable. The opinion is slowly — but very slowly — gaining ground, that the real teacher is not some young woman in need of pin money, or a girl who wishes to keep herself busy in the time between graduation and marriage. The part of the public that pretends to think is steadily coming to feel that those who have control of numbers of children for an important part of each working day,