The Parents' Review

A Monthly Magazine of Home-Training and Culture

Our Work.

Our literary prospects for next year's issue are very good. The Parents' Review holds itself pledged to meet every reasonable (and we get none that are not reasonable) requirement of its readers. Two urgent demands during this year have been for something for the "Children's Hour," and for a definite scheme of educational study for mothers. We have been enabled to make delightful provision for the Children's Hour on two week-day, and on Sunday evenings. A contributor well known to our readers, "Vera," is at the present moment on a journey "Round the World" by the route fully opened only a few weeks ago. Her journal of what she calls "eye-opening experiences," written from a mother's standpoint and with a view to her own children, comes to us for the Children's Hour. Another delightful series for the Children's Hour is by Mrs. Epps, who has made her own children "at home" in the British Museum. They find this great national treasure-house a very palace of delights, and not as it is to many children (and grown-ups?) the scene of aimless and rather dreary wanderings. Mrs. Epps is going to tell us what to see in the British Museum, and how to see it. Last, but not least, the Rev. C. H. Chase, inspired with many thoughts for his own children during a recent visit to Palestine, gives us "Sunday Evening Thoughts for Our Children," concerning

                                          "Those holy fields
      Over whose acres walked the blessed feet
      Which, eighteen hundred years ago, were nailed,
      For our advantage, to the bitter Cross."

While speaking of "Our Children," let us beg for a Christmas Box from every house for "The Sick Children of the London Poor." We hope to tell in an early number all about the help that is being taken to these poor little sufferers; meantime, we should like to think many "P.R." little fingers were at work on flannel nightgowns and bed jackets of all sizes, on picture scrap-books, dolls, and whatever the children may think of for suffering little brothers and sisters, with chronic ailments, to whom no hospital opens its doors. *

*Address, Secretary, "Invalid Children's Aid Association" (for befriending sick children in their own homes), 18, Buckingham Street, Strand, London.

The writer of a recent article appealed to "the STUDENTS of the Parents' Review:" the feeling is gaining ground that "Education" demands more than mere reading. You read an article and forget it; you study a subject, and either reject, or make your own, a life possession, of the thought of the author, with its practical bearings. Many mothers feel that they would be the better in body and mind for the mental activity that nothing but definite study affords. We are making arrangements for a course of study on education--a three years' course--with monthly questions. This is not the place in which to disclose all our plans, but our issue for next year promises to be--may we say it ourselves?--extraordinarily rich in good things.

We were rejoicing in this prospect, in the strong sense of sympathy and impulse from our readers, in the belief that they are doing pioneer work in education, placing character-training steadily in the front, when an unsatisfactory report came from the publishers. It appears that, during the past year of most pleasant sympathetic work, the Parents' Review has been striking its roots deep but has not been spreading abroad. Now, we ask our readers to remember that the Parents' Review occupies an advanced outpost of educational thought, not tempting to publishers, not tempting to capitalists. The Parents' Review Company, directors and shareholders, are hazarding much, purely in the interests of education, and have certainly profited nothing. "The strong writers of the Parents' Review"--so an American contemporary describes them--give us their work for the sake the cause, and probably no magazine is better supported in this way. But two things must be borne in mind. First, the publishers cannot continue to take the risks of publication unless a fair profit accrue. Next, the only method of advertising open to the Parents' Review, in default of a large capital, is that the subscribers spread it from hand to hand. This is the help we definitely and urgently ask from our friends. A guinea subscription will secure that three copies be sent from the publishers to three addresses. Will all our friends who can conceivably afford a guinea, even at the cost of some self-denial, write to three friends and say, "My Christmas Box to you is an order to the publishers for the Parents' Review for the year beginning in March next. It will be sent to you month by month, and when you have learned to like it, will you introduce it in like manner to a friend of yours? Those who cannot afford a guinea, or seven shillings, to be spent in this way will probably do a great deal more by a thorough canvass of their neighbourhood and their friends for orders. "I owe a deep debt of gratitude to my friend, Mrs. --, for introducing the Parents' Review to me," a subscriber writes. Those who set to work in earnest to spread the Review will, we think, earn the gratitude of their friends and serve the cause of education, and the cause of the children is as sacred as that of the poor. We never hear of anyone giving up the Parents' Review; introduce it, and it will make its own way. We hope soon to bind our readers together in a section of the P.N.E.U. We should be a strong educational body, and our mission is propagation, but of that we shall write more fully later. One thing more. We should like to know what our friends are going to do. Will they kindly write a copy of the following order form and send it to the Editor of the Parents' Review, for the publishers? :--

Please send the Parents' Review for the year beginning March 1, 1892, to each of the following addresses :--

To Messrs. Kegan Paul and Co. (Name and Address of writer.)

Do not enclose cheques. These should be sent, by March 1, direct to the publishers. If a sufficient number of orders reaches us by December 15, we shall be able to announce, in the January number, freedom from anxiety, and shall look forward to our new issue with only happy anticipations.

Der Bücherbund.--Miss D'Esterre Keeling desires us to state that the terms for membership for those who join after March 1 will be two guineas a year; any who join before that date will continue at one guinea as heretofore. 41, Holland Road, West Kensington.

The Parents' Review School, to give home-taught children some of the advantages of school teaching and classification. Parents who wish their children to join the school after the holidays should write before January. The preliminaries take some time to arrange.

The House of Education begins work on January 13. We have been asked to receive young girls for a prolonged training. We are delighted to do so, and the longer training is to be desired, except in view of the large demand (in advance) for our students for December, 1892, both as governesses for older children and as "Tante" for the little ones.

School Directory.--We are anxious to publish month by month * a School Directory (boarding schools in each county) of reliable schools recommended by parents for the religious, moral, intellectual, and physical benefits their children are receiving in them. Such a directory is, we find, much wanted. Will our readers send us the prospectus of any school in which their children are pupils, and which fulfils these conditions?

* In our advertisement sheet.

The Fesole Club--The work of this club becomes more and more interesting. Readers who desire to join should write, with coupon, to W. G. Collingwood, Esq., Lanehead, Coniston.

Typed August 2013; Proofread by LNL, June 2024