The Parents' Review

A Monthly Magazine of Home-Training and Culture

Altruism as a Factor in Education.

In reading the able paper on "Home Life," by A.F.S. in the May number of the Parents' Review, I was much struck by the part of the article dealing with the effects of Charity in a household. It is a question on which I feel so strongly, that I thought perhaps a few remarks on the subject might interest some of the Parents for which this Magazine is mainly written.

Altruism is, or should be, one form of the great factors of a child's education. I altogether fail to see why children should not be made to understand from their earliest years, that life, beautiful as it may appear on the surface to some, is a sad and weary affair to many with whom we come in contact. I know many children who are so carefully guarded and nurtured, that, till they exchange their parents' home for one of their own, they know practically nothing of all that is ugly and distasteful in life. Then their eyes are apt to be opened, and often with heart-breaking suddenness. Surely in this age of Altruism, and Philanthropic movements of all kinds, this must be radically wrong. A.F.S. says, in the above mentioned Article that by employing lady nurses we miss "a personal sympathy with the lower classes," and that through the maids, the children "gain some insight into less favored lives than theirs." I myself doubt very much whether this really is the case. In these days, when to the children of many thinking parents every man is a "gentleman," and every woman is a "lady," they hardly connect our well-dressed and a well-fed servants with the "poor." There is a more direct and practical way of bringing our children in the contact with those who really need help.

To my mind, it is the duty of parents (and especially of a mother) to set their children an example in this matter. If an intelligent child sees its mother devote a certain portion of the week to the poor, it is a more rational lesson in Altruism than the largest batch of cast-off garments distributed among a while population of paupers. "Slumming" is often a weary and distasteful task, but I think if every mother were to realize that by visiting the poor in their homes they are doing much for their own children's education, then a great amount of sorrow and misery we see around us would be relieved or avoided. Many mothers say: "I do not care to sadden my children's lives at the outset." But then I should not tell them of the cases of failure, alas! only too common. Tell them rather of the child of their own age, whose you have sent to a Convalescent Home, and who has come back with rosy cheeks and shining eyes of health and happiness. Tell them of the little boy, who cannot go to school because he has no boots, and then as them whether they will spare some of their pocket money and buy him a new pair. Any average child would be delighted to feel that he is really doing something "his very own self," to assist a child of his own age. These things are never forgotten, and make a deeper impression on a child's mind, than all the moral story books on the beauties of generosity ever written.

I remember more clearly than almost any event of my childhood, being taken at the age of six to see the invalid girl of a poor joiner in a St. Pancras slum, and bringing her some of my toys. It was always a field day when I was allowed to go and see her, or she to come and play in our nursery. I feel certain, also, that it paved the way for me in after life, in any philanthropic work I may have undertaken since. How often do you hear the remark made, "Oh I should not know what to say to poor people." This is natural enough, if a child is brought up (as many are) to believe that the poor are beings as different to ourselves as the Cyclops with one eye in the middle of their foreheads. But if a child from the very beginning sees that, in its own home, the poor are considered as good and often better than the rich, that above quoted remark would no longer be heard.

I find from personal experience that a child enjoys a School Board treat, or an old pensioners' tea, where he can help to entertain these broken-down specimens of humanity, vastly more than all the parties conjurors and magic lanterns of the Christmas holidays.

Another good way of impressing on children that they must think of the poor, is to arrange that any festivities the mother may prepare for her little ones shall also be enjoyed by the less lucky children. I always arrange at Christmas to have a double supply for the tree, and after the party is over, the tree and all its belongings (to say nothing of the untouched cakes) are sent en bloc to some home. My own children delight in stripping the tree if they know all the grandeur is to be admired later on by other youngsters.

Naturally all this must be done entirely as a matter of course, and not in the spirit of self-aggrandizement, or you will do more harm than good. Our children should grow up with the idea that philanthropy is not only a duty, but a natural part of their life, and that as soon as they are old enough to help, they will do the same as they have seen their parents do before them.

I know that a somewhat exaggerated idea on the subject of infection exists among many mothers, and prevents much good and useful work being done. I can speak from a good many years' experience, and find that you are less likely to infect your children with measles, whooping cough, and the other ills that childhood is heir to, if you visit among the poor, than if you send your littles ones to children's parties or schools. A certain amount of care is required, of course. For instance, I consider no mother has a right to visit knowingly a case of diphtheria or scarlet fever.

But I think the risk (which is a little more than you run in the streets of any large town), is quite outweighed by the pleasure that a philanthropic spirit pervading the home gives our children, and the deep and lasting impression it makes on them.

I also have hopes (futile ones perhaps!) that Altruism thus instilled into the youthful mind, may help in the future to rid us of what mass of discontented "odd" women of the upper-middle classes, who are wretched, not only because they are unoccupied, but because they lack any human interest in life.

M.E.A

Typed by Sarah Delgado, Aug. 2024