PARENTAL EDUCATION, an organized effort to pro vide systematic parental training which will insure harmonious and efficient functioning of parent and child in the rapidly chang ing civilization. (For England see SCHOOL AND THE HOME.) The movement has grown in the U.S. from scattered groups in the '9os to definite organizations of national proportions. The major programme of agencies engaged in this work is to translate research materials of sociological and biological science into popular terms of use to parents.
The National Congress of Mothers, founded in 1897 by Mrs. Theodore W. Birney, became in 1908 the National Congress of Mothers and Parent-Teacher Associations, and in 1924 the Na tional Congress of Parents and Teachers. It has affiliated branches in all but one State, a membership of over i,000,000, and com mittees on every phase of child welfare. Its programme has stressed social contact of parent and teacher, discussion of school problems and, more recently, child study.
Association of the Horace Mann school, Teachers' college, of Columbia university, the United Parents' Associations of Greater New York Schools was formed. Its contribution has been the search for a technique to provide popular parental education in a cosmopolitan, congested centre. It conducted the Parents' Ex position (1928). In 1922 the American Child Health Association evolved from an older organization to continue the interpretation of findings and discoveries of specialists to the lay public. It is assisted by the State Bureau of Infant and Maternity Hygiene, baby clinics and hospital courses for pregnant mothers.
Outstanding work has been done in colleges and universities with nursery schools (q.v.) and home management facilities such as the Merrill-Palmer schools, Detroit, Mich., University of Min nesota, University of Chicago, Cornell university, Iowa State college and Vassar college. Many not having nursery schools co-operate with other agencies, as in the case of the University of Cincinnati, which has been aided by the Mothers' Training Cen tre to form a nursery school where parents observe the play, occupations and methods suited to the pre-school child. In 1926 this movement crystallized in a national organization under Miss Patty Hill.
Other agencies are the American Home Economics Association, founded by Mrs. Ellen H. Richard (1907) to emphasize the sig nificance of home making, and the American Social Hygiene Asso ciation (1914), which assists parents to give proper sex instruction. The U.S. Bureau of Education, the Federal Board of Vocational Education, the Federal Children's Bureau and the U.S. Depart ment of Agriculture have made valuable contributions by fur nishing lecturers and outlines for reading courses and through study groups. Some municipalities and State departments of education and several private organizations maintain training courses.