El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1911-11-10
By DR.. Guy Potter Benton

Fresloent OF the University Of Vermont.
y EDUCATIONAL infanticide, as I call it, is
- a wicked crime against civilization.
define educational infanticide as
the process Of pushing maturity down into
infancy. It Is the Intellectual forcing Of chill
dren, just as plants in a dollhouse are forced.
by being surrounded with the most ideal con
diHons. Their brains are encouraged to be-
come unhealthy active. Their mental pow
ers are overtaxed. Their minds work over
time.
There have been cases Of children who did
wonderful mental work at an early age. Be
fore they were six they were able to read
and write better than most grown folk. A
year or so later they we're deIving into the
ancient Greek and Roman classics for light
reading. At the age when the normal child
is romping about his play they were towing
with the Fourth Dimension.
That is what I call educational infanticidar
There are two possible ways Of edueatiDg
the children Of the age. The one method 7
have called the dollhouse method" By that
method the child is forced" and his brain
is unhealthy stimulated. It undertakes
tasks too heavy at a too early age.
The other method is the one adauta5 n
the normal development Of a man or woman
Under this method the educational Drocass
is not rapid. The child is led slowly along
the way it should 60, instead Of being pushed
OF jerked up path too steep for its feet to
negotiate without injury.
Ny idea Of a proper educational plan wouId
extend over a much longer period than the
dollhouse" method could endure.
The normal boy child begins to talk ba.
tween the ages Of one and two years He
begins to observe at once. and the next tbrae
or four years are crammed with mental ac-
QUESTIONS. The human being learn. mora
normally, between the first and fifth year Of
its existence than in all the later years OF
its life. It acquires the art of speech. If
learns to walk. 1t learns to see clearly and
to understand the words Of others. It ACQUIRES
q great mass Of general knowledge OF thu
world in which its life is to be spent.
This knowledge comes to the child. whether
Its mind is fed with other information or not
AT this age the child mind is immensely re-
ceptive. It's capabilities for assimilation ara
immense. But they cannot be taxed to tba
utmost without being strained and weakened
The normal child's mind has about all it
can do, in these years, without extra strain.
So, until the chtld is five years old, should
teach it nothing and make little or no con-
sciOus effort at its instruction
In the normal child the fifth birthday marks
the point at which it is safe and advisable to
begin instruction The child is not yet ready
for strenuous mental work by any means. It
is NO more ready for higher mathematics
than at the age CT two it was ready to run a
hundred yards in ten seconds. But the cana
bilities for learning are latent and the first
teachings should be elementary and simDle
If they are delayed, harm is done If they
are begun too soon, much greater permanent
harm is done
When the child is five years old, it may
begin to learn the alphabet, to gain some
idea Of the manner in which words are SYM
bolized in written or printed characters. It
may, in short, begin to learn to read and
write.