Democratic messenger. [volume] (Snow Hill, Md.) 1869-1973, 1882-04-01
THE SCIENCE OF CHILDHOOD.
Every Young Girl Should be Taught
the Science of the kindergarten
Address by Prof Adler.

Before the Society for Ethical Gull
ture, in New York City, Prof. Adler
closed his present series of discourses
on the "Posit on of Woman" by an adj
dress on the "Science of Childhood -
He spoke, in part, as follows:
Raphael's greatest painting is that of
mother holding her child. This paint
ing has been adored as that of divin
ity. And there is something worthy of
alteration in such painting-the
majesty and mystery of the Eternal rest
on the maternal relation. But in order
properly to fulfill their vocation,
mothers need higher intellectual prep
aration for their duties. What may be
called the science of childhood should
be their particular domain. The physi-
cal, mental and moral development of
the child, and the laws that govern this
development, they should investigate
and seek to understand. Here is n dis
tinct branch of psychology for whose
cultivation women are especially fitted.
But because women have rarely been
properly trained to investigate in the
scientific spirit, and to record and gen
eralize on their observations, therefore
thew have contributed so little to our
knowledge of the evolution of the in
FAINT intellect, and it has been reserved
for men to enter the nursery with view
to study and inquiry. Some of the
most eminent of modern men-Darwin
among the rest-have applied them-
selves to this task, and the results they
have reached are sufficient to show the
great Importance of this branch of sci.
ence and the profound scientific prob
lens upon which it can shed light. The
study Of childhood has obvious bearings
upon the problem of the origin of Ian
guage, the origin of myths, and in gen
eral upon the problem OF the growth of
reason. In every human child reason
is, as it were, born anew. l have men,
toned this dawning science of child
hood to show how false it is to suppose
that women can attain to higher intel
lectual life only in the profess ions and
away from the home. The home life
may become a highly intellectual life if
women are only rightly fitted for 1t, and
it is not true that women's minds need
stop growing when children are born to
them. On the contrary, their minds
should then take new start onward IN
intellectual culture; their intellects
should grow in the growth of their chill
rem.
But it is not enough to study the sci
ence of childhood in theory. 1t has its
most practical applications. Children
are like flowers, and as every one likes
flowers, so every one likes children.
But it is one thing to love flowers in
general way and another thing to love
them with the instructed and yet tender
love of the gardener, who knows all that
is harmful, all that is helpful, to his
plants. and what will foster their growth
and what will hinder it. So should
mothers love their children. In the first
three wears child should be almost ex-
clusively in the care of its mother.
From the third to the sixth year-the
kindergarten age-the child should be
mainly IN charge of its mother.
Mothers are the best kindergartners,
and a knowledge of the kindergarten
system should be included as part OF
every young girls education. And even
later on the intellectual sympathy be-
tween the mother and her children
should not be broken, and noble moth
ers are those who go on studying with
their sons and daughters, to be their
helpers in this as in all things. And so
at the close of these discourses, as at the
beginning, we appeal to women to edu-
cate themselves, for their own sakes, for
the sake of society, which they will thus
refine and educate, and for the sake of
their children, whose educators they,
the mothers, are to be. But how can
they truly educate these unless they
themselves are truly educated?