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activities and keep me on the go the whole day. Eager; intrepid; fearlessly investigating everything; getting hurt but quickly turning from tears to smiles, always reaching forward to further achievement. With what beaming delight the three-year-old tells his mother he has been right out of his depth in the swimming pool!
This is normal childhood; but it is also normal humanity; it is what it means to be human. This eagerness, fearlessness, responsiveness should go on right through life; and it can, if parents and teachers between them do not destroy it, but encourage and develop it.
What the world needs is not people who morely only know the approved answer to the expected question. Life is full of totally unexpected situations and apparently insoluble problems. We need people who are not dismayed by these and who can act with originality. We need people who feel at home in a world of conflict and difficulty; who enjoy life and who know that their enjoyment does not depend on affluence or possessions or even on safety.
So – whether you are a parent or a teacher, don’t start measuring a child’s quality by marks in an examination or by anything that is popularly called success. My six grandchildren are all different in ability, temperament and interests – and in their needs. Nobody has yet squashed them or made them afraid of life. Each will have the right to be judged on his or her own merits and contribution to the community. I hope their education will never mould them to a pattern, but will really meet their particular needs. Of course a child must gain knowledge and skill, but without a positive and vigorous personality these will be of little use, Moreover After all most of what we usefully learn has yet to be learnt after leaving school, so the preservation of eagerness is supremely important.
So we must give you a child room to grow, time to discover himself, time to gain confidence in using his ability, however limited. Don’t We mustn’t do anything to make him feel a failure. Above all, dont we mustn’t bring fear or anxiety into his life. Don’t Parents mustn’t make him a child feel that he is letting you them down if he does not fulfil your their ambitions. His life is his own to live.
[The following paragraph appears in manuscript about three inches below the end of the typescript] They are tremendously interested in the developments of skills and a child’s ability to gain knowledge, but they see this in the child’s whole set in a whole problem movement of personal development growth.
Archive reference PP/KCB 3/7/3 document 33