Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Recent Social Trends in the United States, Vol. 2: Report of the President's Research Committee on Social Trends; With a Foreword by Herbert Hoover, President of the United States
N the course of the larger social movements described in the other I chapters Whatever is. Being done to and for children is significant, not only for child welfare today but also for the entire social life in the future, When today's children will take their places as adults. The treat ment of the child may be considered as a forecast of social change because in the status and nurture of the child are expressed the knowledge and the hopes and values Of a people which they are building into the future society.
It is appropriate, therefore, to consider What changes are taking place in the ideas and conceptions about childhood and in the purposes Of child care. It is as important to see where the movement is going, and what ideas and conceptions are guiding it, as to measure how far it has gone, since the rate Of progress is governed so largely by the acceptance of these ideas and values.
One Of the most important discoveries of the past thirty years is that the child is not a small sized adult, but is a growing, developing, ever changing individual, Whose treatment must differ not merely in degree but in kind from that received by the adult. The importance accorded to the child as a child is behind all child welfare programs.
The discovery of the child has been accompanied by a gradual accept ance Of the principle of variability among children and a giving up of the belief that children are essentially alike and should be treated alike. The willingness to recognize individual differences in all aspects Of the child is bringing far reaching modifications in child nurture and a respect for the individual as a unique person. What this may mean to childhood and to adult life may be foreseen in the changes already initiated by the accept ance of this principle in medical care, mental hygiene, education and the special care Of children.
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