The Child in the World of Tomorrow

A film, The Declaration of the Rights of the Child, made by Radder Badden (Swedish Save the Children Federation), was shown at the opening session of the conference and was followed by three addresses. Prof. Gunner Myrdal, former Director of International Studies, Stockholm, in a stark analysis of the economic and political factors of the present and the near future, gave the conference a sombre but challenging sense of realism. Dr. Georges Sicault, Director of the European office of UNICEF, provided the facts of the children’s need and the nature of the resources available through international and national agencies. Prof. L. J. Lewis, University of London Institute of Education, identified the new emphasis and skills that the child will need in the world of tomorrow and stressed the importance of fresh thinking about human values as they impinge on the child as an individual and as a member of society. The discussion groups considered child welfare in (1) rural, (2) semi-urban and (3) urban conditions. The approach started with the premises that medicine and psychology have provided considerable insight into the laws which condition the normal development of the child and that the object of all child welfare action is to favour the normal development of the child and to protect children who are exposed to the danger of maladjustment by compensating for the harmful influences affecting their environment. In each group attention was paid to the role of the family, the school and society in preparing the child for adult life, and attempts were made to identify the critical phenomena of change in the structure of, and their impact in the three different social milieux for which adjustment must be made. . The second session was concerned with the adapting of child welfare work and methods to the requirements of changing society. Attention was given to the working out of the policy and action of child welfare organizations within the framework of general planning and to the delimitation of their task in relation to the work done for the benefit of children by the United Nations and its special agencies. In directing attention to the three types of social environment-rural, semi-urban, and urban-the Congress gave attention both to the common features of children’s needs and to those features which are peculiar to the particular environments, and in all groups attention was drawn to the need for programmes of activities aimed at preventing juvenile maladjustment.