The Parents' Review

A Monthly Magazine of Home-Training and Culture

The "P.R" Letter Bag

The "P.R." Letter Bag.

[The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of Correspondents.]

Dear Editor,—Possibly you may consider the enclosed brief notes worthy of insertion in the journal. Yours, &c., J. C. Curtis.

6. The Beach, Walmer.

Teachers From a Parent's Point of View.

Page 893 of the Parents' Review for Nov., in an article on "Parent's from a teacher's point of view," contains an invitation to parents to express their views on the most common mistakes made by teachers.

I had hoped some society or some parents with larger experience than my own would have taken up this challenge.

The writer complains of the erroneous judgments of parents, based on the faulty evidence of their children. The remedy for this would seem to lie in teachers giving parents the fullest possible information regarding their children's life at school; both regarding work and play.

School magazines help to supply this want, particularly when they are issued not less often than once a term.

Again, do all schools send with the term report copies of the term examination papers?

Now, when it is necessary for a child to have coaching in a particular subject during the holidays, how often is this intimation sent only with the term report, which reaches the parent after the holidays have actually begun, in place of a week or two before, so that the parent might make the necessary arrangements beforehand?

As to the general complaint of the inroads on teachers' time that correspondence with parents makes, what would be thought of any other business concern which did not make proper arrangements for clerical work generally and correspondence with their clients in particular?

Do all teachers avail themselves of the most efficient and time-saving methods of conducting correspondence, namely, by employing a shorthand and typewriter on their staff?

Do all teachers invite parents to report on their children during the holidays and have they a report form for parents to fill in, to show parents on what points teachers wish for information?

Dear Editor,—I thought the following extract from the letter of a former St. Leonard's member who wished to join a London branch might interest your readers:—"Though not a mother but a Sunday school teacher and one much interested in the education of the young, I have found the magazines and meetings of this Society of so much use to me in my work, I am anxious to join again. I wonder if it has occurred to others of how much use this Society can be to Sunday school teachers in helping them to understand the nature of their scholars and thus be able to teach them better, also if it has occurred to Sunday school teachers how much they can be helped by it. Speaking from experience, I have not only received much help personally, but have been able to help the parents of the children in the training of their young through it."

At the same time I would like to mention that an active interest in the P.N.E.U. is being taken by our Colonial members, a branch of the P.N.E.U. is likely to be formed in Melbourne, a lady at Bulawayo has interested six of her friends in the P.N.E.U., and they all now take in the Parents' Review, and a lady at Brisbane has collected a small circle of friends who meet and discuss articles appearing in the Parents' Review, which they all take in. Would it not be possible for more Colonial members to fowm reading circles of this description, where they are unable to obtain enough members to start a branch?

Yours faithfully, F. Noel Armfield. Sec. P.N.E.U.

Dear Editor,—I wonder whether any of your readers could tell me of a little French girl from 7 to 10 years old, who knows little or no English, who would come and stay with my little girl for from one to three months (not longer), so that they might chatter French together. I do not like to advertise or to answer advertisements, as I am afraid of getting an ill-bred child or one whose parents might disappear, leaving the child entirely on my hands; but want someone who can be recommended by a thoroughly reliable person. I should be very grateful for any hints as to the best way to set about finding a child. There must be many French families in London who would be glad of the chance, if one could only come across them. Of course I could give highest references as to my own position, etc., etc., and the child would have every care and comfort, and could, if desired, go to school with my little girl, or I would not mind paying a small sum weekly to the parents. I should also be glad if any member could tell me the best paper in which to advertise for foreign ladies as governesses, companions, etc.

Yours truly, Lilian Carmen Eversholt Eastcote, Middlesex, January 21st, 1903

Dear Editor,—I write on behalf of myself and the other members of the Library Sub-committee of the Central Executive Committee of the P.N.E.U., 26, Victoria Street, London, S.W.

May we, through you, ask readers of the Parents' Review for suggestions as to books, not already in our catalogue, which they would be glad to see in our Lending Library?

Over and above our usual funds for buying books, we now and again receive from Branches and from private individuals presents of money which we at once lay out in purchases. We have been able, just recently, to make a substantial addition to the Library from one of these sources.

On the selection of new volumes we expend a good deal of time and thought, but we should be really grateful if our friends will help us by suggesting the titles of books it would be desirable for us, in the general interest, to acquire. Our ambition is to obtain, for the grown-up section of the Library, all the books, and only those, which have ever strengthened any parents for their life-work, and helped them to get, as from a tower, a wide and true view of things.

Besides this, we have greatly at heart the formation of a first-rate library of selected Children's Books (a library classified according to the ages of the readers) such as has nowhere else, to our knowledge, been attempted, strange as the omission may seem. We long to see every description of feeble printed rubbish banished en bloc from nurseries and playrooms by the children themselves, and, if they get hold of the right children's books—the vivid, able, marrowy books—from the beginning, this process will inevitably follow. I was struck by the excellent letter, signed "G.L.F." which appeared in the February Parents' Review, on the subject of a Standard Child's Library, and I would say "Amen" heartily to every word of it, Readers of the Parents' Review can greatly assist us in our endeavours to create such a library in Victoria Street if they will be so kind as to send us the titles of books that taught themselves when young, or are now teaching their children to "see and love all that is good and noble in this world rather than what is trivial and worthless." We few individuals of the Library Committee cannot hope to keep pace with all the suitable good books that issue from the press. We appeal for suggestions from a larger circle.

I am, dear Editor,
Sincerely yours,
Florence Mary Parsons
12, Warwick Road,
Paddington, London, W.

Proofread by Leslie Noelani Laurio, December 2008