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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    partly, perhaps, because such are the things which they best understand. In the meanwhile, there is no one to look after the individual child, who is no more thought of than is a single lamb in a large flock. As yet, there is hardly enough interest felt in this important part of the population to call forth a general and constant inquiry into methods of management. Occasionally, some one utters a protest, such as Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell did in the report of the New York Board of Charities for 1890. There she said: “New York City supports an average population of about 14,000 boys and girls, at an expense of $1,500,000 annually, in institutions controlled by private individuals. . . . There is no official of New York City who knows or has a right to know whether these children are trained in idleness or industry, in virtue or vice.” Even if one rejects so harsh a possibility as being trained in vice, one has still a multitude of conditions that may be almost as bad. Among them one is bound to find deceit, a want of open frankness, a lack of principle, a disposition to cringe and fawn, that are destructive to a healthy mental tone. Most of all are these acquired characteristics not distinctive of the state of mind which produces fine men and women. From the start, such children are condemned to the likelihood of weak and petty characters, which the experiences of mature life are not likely to strengthen. As far as the question of industrial training in large