They seem to think that their
children are indebted to them for bringing them into the world and that
their obligation to the children is canceled by meager provision of
food, shelter, and clothing. They seem not to realize that "life is more
than fruit or grain," and deny to their children the elements of life.
=The rights of the child.=--All this is a sort of preface to the
statement that the child comes into the world endowed with certain
inherent rights that may not be abrogated. He has a right to life in its
best and fullest sense, and no one has a right to abridge this measure
of life, or to deprive him of anything that will contribute to such a
life. He goes to the school as one of the sources of life, and any one
who denies him this boon is doing violence to his right to have life. He
does not go to school to study arithmetic, but studies arithmetic as one
of the elements of life; and experience has demonstrated that arithmetic
may be learned in the school more advantageously than elsewhere. He goes
to school to have agreeable and profitable life. Each day is an integer
of life and must be made to abound in life if it is to be accounted a
success.
=Child life.=--Again, the child has a right to the quality of life that
is consistent with and congenial to his age. A seven-year-old should be
a seven-year-old, in his thinking, in his activities, in his amusements,
and in his feeling.
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