Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

denied to the teacher. Consequently the attention and the conscience of pupils is apt to slacken and needs constant rousing by words, or in the case of eurhythmics by music. The interest and amusement attached to watching teacher and classmates are non-existent. If one pupil requires special help or correction the rest of the class are bored and easily get out of hand. Not having seen the fault they cannot understand the correction. Ambition can only be roused by praise, not by autocriticism, as there is little chance of comparison. The teacher has to provide all the interest, amusement, criticism, encouragement and stimulus which in a sighted class arise naturally out of the activity of the pupils themselves. The voice and the music must do it all.

Fear and timidity in movement have to be patiently overcome. Apparent inattention and obstinacy are often merely a result of great physical fear. The entirely blind have in many cases no natural sense of balance; some of them cannot even stand on one foot. Among the partially blind there is a constant desire to use the eyes. This desire produces awkwardness and inattention as they become unduly interested in some triviality, and in their attempts to see they peer about, wriggle, crane their necks and contort their faces. Frequently children born blind are altogether of very poor constitution both physically and mentally. In these cases, in addition to the above difficulties, the teacher has to reckon with all those common to the teaching of deficient children. These are the unavoidable difficulties.

What, however, astonished me was that most of my young pupils had little sense of distance, direction or line, very little sense of muscular relaxation and contraction, energy or elasticity, and hardly any power of physical self-expression. Since September 1917 I have had a class of young girls between 14 and 18 years of age at the same school. These girls have had several years of physical training and learn eurhythmics easily. They have some sense of form and line, but little power of self-expression. Still, I cannot help thinking that much more should be done in the early training of the blind child with regard to the systematic development of their sense of hearing, touch and movement. I am convinced that eurhythmics will prove of great value, but I am also of opinion that all teachers of the blind should give more attention to these matters.

I have always believed that beauty of form, though usually perceived by our sense of sight, is really just as much connected with our sense of touch and movement. I have lately had two conversations

[graphic][merged small]
[graphic][graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic][graphic][graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

that have confirmed this idea. One was with a teacher of the blind who was not born blind, the other with a young man of artistic temperament, blinded in early infancy. They both proved to me that symmetry or beauty of line and form is felt by the blind as well as by the sighted. They realize it by touch and by movement. As a general rule, however, this sense remains utterly undeveloped in the blind. A sighted child learns daily and hourly from the moment of birth by the constant sight of all the beauties of nature. To make up in some way for this loss, I believe the blind child should be systematically trained to realize balance and beauty by hearing, touch and movement.1

I have been told that the loss of general vitality caused by blindness is in a great measure due to loss of that mental and psychic stimulus which the sighted receive in daily life by the sight of light and of things beautiful, pleasant, or interesting, and by the sight of motion. If that is so, then certainly eurhythmics should prove most valuable in the education of the blind, giving them just that stimulating, invigorating joy they are so much in need of. I should like to see eurhythmics introduced as part of the regular school training at every school for the blind. The children should have a short spell of eurhythmics every day.

In July 1917 I gave a short display of elementary exercises executed by my blind children at Swiss Cottage. All the teachers on the staff of the school were present and expressed astonishment at the results of the year's training. They all encouraged me to continue. the work. The immediate result of the display was the formation of the older girls' class above-mentioned.

Professor Dalcroze paid my class a flying visit one day, and was very much struck by the wonderful expression of joy in all the little faces and in the attitude of all the pupils the moment the music gave the command for the exercises to begin.

I feel myself that I am only on the threshold of my experiments in teaching eurhythmics to the blind, and that I have much still to learn as regards the best method of reaching their sensibilities. But all doubt as to the possibility or of the use of teaching them this delightful science has been quite dispelled.

The London School of Dalcroze Eurhythmics,

23, Store Street, W.C.1.

1 Further particulars regarding this work may be obtained from Mr. Percy B. Ingham, B.A., Director, London School of Dalcroze Eurhythmics, 23, Store Street, W.C.I.

THE EFFECTS OF INDUSTRY ON MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE.

By MRS. SARAH MACDONALD.

Author of "Maternity Nursing," &c.

In the discussion of a problem which so vitally concerns the wellbeing of our country, we can ill afford to ignore the aspect as it touches the industrial worker, and the munition worker in particular. As we know, the question embraces some thousands of women between the ages of 17 and 40, all working strenuously day and night, and in the enthusiasm of the " cause" the consequences are overlooked or forgotten.

Dealing with this question in munition areas, volumes could be written in regard to the effects of insanitary surroundings, housing, and sleeping accommodation alone, but that is not my object at the moment. Quite recently I read a statement made by a medical woman of some repute, to the effect that statistics did not prove that working in factories was necessarily harmful to mothers, and I feel, in view of that statement, that the time has arrived to give my own statistics, obtained by what I may term continual supervision and systematic study.

As a teacher of maternity nursing and midwifery, with a keen eye for future knowledge, I felt impelled to enter a shell factory with the object of watching the gynæcological effects of this unusually hard toil on my fellow-women. I have been fortunate in obtaining facilities for the study of various types of heavy machinery and their effects on different types of women, and it is of this I would speak. The number of girls in my charge fluctuates from 800 to 1,000, according to the necessity of output, and covering a period of one year the particular cases of which I speak number 1,054, not including the many repeated visits. These comprise industrial muscular fatigue, uterine and ovarian inflammation, gonorrhoea, leucorrhoea, prolapse uteri, hæmorrhage, endometritis, and dysmenorrhoea. The figures show that women are suffering, and that the stress and strain arising from work in connection with heavy machinery and the like will prove a menace to motherhood. Take the work of one pregnant woman, for instance. Engaged on 6-in. shells weighing approximately 84 lb.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »