The Waterbury Democrat., 1936-12-17
Your Children
By Olive Roberts Barton

Children are far smarter than we think them.
 Funny how we go about teach- ing them things. Tn the home, that is. The school teacher does 1t differently. She knows that they won't be able to get the lessons in her grade all in day. But she never shuts her mind. If she did, she might as well go home and stay there. Instead, she says on. the first day, Here Is lot of talent. Green as grass, every bit of 1t, but they know some things, so I shall have to build on what they already know"
 Daily, after that, minute by minute, and hour by hour, she takes them slowly over the path. The first day she tries them out on original problems in multiplying, she expects wrong answers. And gets plenty. Next day, few more have caught on to carrying g." and setting down figures where they be- long. The third day there are still better results. And to the end of the term she finds improvement all along the line, until at tast, even the slowest have mastered the process.
 More Are Less Patient
 At home, the mother, strange to say, has less faith in her offspring. She remarks that it is easier to do things herself than to have the house upset by repeated blunders. If she does give Betty or Bob chance to learn, their first failure to make beds smooth or fire the furnace properly, often irritate her to tears.
 True, she has nothing to urge them on with, such as marks or place in class, but she has a privi- lege 8 teacher cannot make use of, rewards for effort. And what ever anyone says about rewards, I still maintain that they have their place in every nook and cor- ner of the world. Who would work for purely abstract non-re- turn? Some, yes, but even the tired mother who must drudge day by day without any hope of sort to tie to. Reward is not al- reward, has to have @ star of some ways in things" but in some in- ner fulfillment that at least mo- mentarily satisfies.
 Children can be influenced to- ward effort in many ways. With some youngsters, praise alone will do the job. Others need more substantial gain. But if the means used gives that striving child the ability to do a job well, it seems to be justified completely.
 Girls can learn to cook and certainly be taught. It makes me fearfully impatient to hear of wo- men forty years old going to cook ing school to try and learn how to fry an egg. What has happened to us? That is no fault of this gen. eration, but of the much footed generation that we like to compare today's awful CD children to. And 1t amazes me to hear of 8 man who cannot turn off the water in his own cellar if 1t springs 8 leak.
 Yes, I am taking chiefly today of working with the hands; strange as 1t sems, good manipulation must be accompanied by brains and sense. That is the technical part of piona playing, of painting or writing. Why not class any type of dexterity with the arts, whether 1t be a frying pan or pen? And we must teach children the rudiments of astisan- ship. beds or furnaces, the needle or the screw-driver, if we expect them ever to know the real value of the work that others may be doing for them someday, or the satisfaction of being able to turn their hands to @ living.
 Copyright, 1936, NEA Service, Incl