Questions of our day / Havelock Ellis.

  • Ellis, Havelock, 1859-1939.
Date:
[1936]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Questions of our day / Havelock Ellis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    LVIII THE TWILIGHT OF PARENTHOOD? IN a book entitled The Twilight of Parenthood Dr. Enid Charles lately discussed the parenthood of the future on what she regards as a new basis. That is to say that all children are from an early age to be introduced to elementary productive labour, not only for its own sake but as a method of bringing about a many-sided development. In a system of this kind the child from the age of three would begin to be educated by learning to perform all the manual operations carried out by adults around. In this way the training of a child, instead of being a serious form of expendi¬ ture, would become an integral part of the social productive machinery. Children would learn to cook their own meals, make their own clothes, fashion simple objects of furniture. As they acquired proficiency in these and the like operations, the mental horizon would slowly be widened to include such fields of natural knowledge as might be within their capacity and interests. Dr. Enid Charles, with her husband Professor Hogben, belongs to the small but important band of scientific pioneers who are to-day seeking to give greater precision to the study of social phenomena. She is, further, among those who look forward to a change in the foundation of our society as likely to raise it to a higher level. She considers that the rational education she sketches would be impracticable in our Acquisitive Society,'' and that her opinions will be read with shock and surprise. This expectation may arouse a smile. Dr. Charles is familiar 175