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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    a respectable share of the special training and know- ledge which are absolutely necessary to the realization of the possibilities of their positions. As far as one can judge, their common feeling is one of full satisfaction when their institutions have no vio- lent outbreaks of epidemic diseases, when the children have a clean exterior, when they show the effects of wholesome drilling so that all of them can make the same sort of obeisance, can march meekly and in regu- lar order, can answer certain lists of questions without too much confusion. Most of these superintendents, I believe, feel that the children are very fortunate in having so much care, so many advantages, and that the fact of their being dependent upon charity should make them supremely thankful for any fate that is better than starvation. As a matter of fact, such a system is as unprofitable as one could possibly imagine. Society has the keenest interests in the outcome of these many lives, which have the prospect of inefficiency and pau- perism before them. For each has the same range of possibilities as more fortunate children, each one has the same liability to being crushed. In the hands of a very wise guardian they might have unlimited poten- tialities for good, and with a better system these wards of the State might come to be parts of its strongest bulwarks. The natural conclusion is, that the welfare of so many lives requires the highest skill for its care. The superintendent of an institution for children should