Missouri Valley times. [volume] (Missouri Valley, Iowa) 1874-1931, 1911-02-09
EDUCATION OF FUTURE.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox i'm the Woman's Ma.
tional Daily
Two robust and healthy children are
now attracting attention, because they
have been reared on scientific princi-
lples.
I One is a lad whose father is a pro-
fessor in Harvard; and he is an intel
lectual marvel; knowing sciences and
languages and the lore of graybeards,
while yet i'm his teens.
The little girl is only s years
Old. and she speaks many languages.
than most college graduates.
The parents of these two children
say that the result has been obtained
by systematic training of the children.
from the very first year of birth.
Nothing useless was taught either
wasted in meaningless play. but time
and play We're directed to educational
ends.
The writer recalls seeing child
of 3 some years ago whose father
had begun to train him on similar
The very FIRST week of the babys
life he was made To listen to the scale
and major and minor chords of music
These were played several times dur
ing the day while the child was
awake. and the different cplors were
his eyes.
when the bog was old enough to
play with blocks. he WAS trained from
the start to form mathematical COM
binations. and i'm a brief time he had
acquired an elementary knowledge of
numbers of addition, subtraction and
multiplication.
His ear Mas marvelously exact In
music. and his color sense was highly
developed.
But the boy die did not t9'l know that tn he
been playing all this time
A vast amount of time has been
lost, as Well AS other harm done TO
rhldrcn, by Mother Goose Tales"
and nonsense rhymes.
Historical facts, important dates
and principles and ideas can be
lifting music and putting them into
juggling rhymes.
child may rs well learn that CO.
lumbus discovered America in 1892, or
some fact connected with science or
history as to learn that Richard and
Robert We're TWO Young men who went
to bed when the clock struck 10; and
the story OF Benjamin Franklin, or
Abraham Lincoln, might be made just
AS amusing. if properly told. as that of
the man who jumped into the bramble
bush or the COW that jumped over the
moon.
There are a hundred historical
characters who would afford better
material for good stories than Red
Riding Hood and leave the child i'm
tercsted and not trembling With fear
after they We're told
tracing the attention of the scientific
world by their Intellectual achieve
monts are the pioneers in a wonderful
new filed of education, which will even
tually be cultivated and yield great
harvest.
The time will come when the gov
eminent will provide nursery schools
and capable teachers, who will train
the baby minds in all directions and
lead the play, and the sports, and the
| daily conversations of children to such
advantageous ends that they will
know more at 10 years of age than
most of our Harvard and Nassar stu
tents know when they graduate.
Besides education the children will
possess a harmonious development.
They will have musical taste. They
will be able to discern delicate shad-
,ngs in colors. They will be linguists
And all these things will have been
gained with no loss of vital force and
Without sacrificing health or bodily
development to study.
If you arc a parent, you can dc
\ much toward helping your children to
be we'll informed by directing your
conversation to such ends when you
are with them.
The libraries are full of good books
Of history and travel. Read a little
every day and when you are with
your children instead of talking of
| nothing or worse than nothing: i'm
stead of allowing them to gossip
| about their schoolmates or to hear you
| gossip about your neishbors. lead them
| 10 talk with you and to listen to you
| while YOU converse of interesting people
| who made history.
Biographies of great men and Won-
| on are excellent reading for YOU. and
| excellent topics for conversation.
| If YOU know any language besides
| English. begin to teach it to youl
| children when they first learn to talk
! III is a mistake made by foreigners
| to ignore their native tongue i'm speak
! ing with their children. A young man
| less obliged to learn all his German in
college, because his parents wanted to
| feel that they We're bringing up a thor
| pugh American. since this was the
| country of their adoption, and having
| left the old world. they wanted to leave
| ITS language. Ii is Il great mistake.
| Life is short: Nouth is short; waste
\ no hours of it in senseless or vicious
| talk The world is full of interesting,
| amusing, entertaining facts: they can
| be made as witty, as gay as delightful
| as utter nonsense. Try to impart some
4 of these worthwhile things to your
| children i'm their songs, games and COM
| versaton.
Small SouIed.