The Manual of Child Development: A Handbook for Parents and Teachers

A Word to Parents about this Manual of Child Development: "Education, if it is to mean anything, must teach us how to live." Thus, with profound truth, spoken by one of America's greatest educators, Horace Mann. The basis for living richly and fully, with lasting satisfaction, is good character. Education without character is "as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal". Good character is the rock upon which good living is built. Like a rock, however, character grows slowly. Children must not be expected to develop it overnight. It must be nurtured by parents who themselves have character and who know that it is not something one can "teach", like arithmetic or geography, but something which grows out of a child's many-sided development plus a sense of emotional security. To help parents foster this development, we have divided it into a four-fold plan: (1) Physical; (2) Mental; (3) Social and Emotional; and (4) Moral and Spiritual aspects of growth. Within the framework of these four aspects, this Manual of Child Development presents parents with (1) A Chart of Child Development, which is an outline of the average child's growth, arrived at by studies of thousands of children; (2) A section devoted to essential traits to be developed in order to form good character and personality; and (3) The four-fold plan and how to apply its physical, mental, social and emotional, and moral and spiritual aspects of your child.