CMP Review 2023-05-23

CMP Review 2023-05-23

May 23, 2023

“Life rushes; it seldom walks or trots quietly,” wrote Dr. Helen Webb. “Typewriters, telephones, motor-cars and aeroplanes tend to make people pack their days full to bursting, and many of us find that we are expected, with these aids, to get through as much in a day as former generations did in a week or more.”

These words from 1928 make us wonder what Dr. Webb would write of our lifestyles today. Have iPhones, electric cars, and the internet made people pack even more into their days? Are we now expected to get through in an hour as much as her generation did in a day?

Dr. Webb was alarmed by the impact that this hectic lifestyle was having on the children of her day. She outlined a multi-pronged approach for parents to secure “a quiet growing time” for their little ones. Not surprisingly, her program involves habit, atmosphere, and ideas. But she insisted that these be balanced. “What we aim at,” she wrote, “is the balanced stability … which, moved by the slightest touch, ultimately returns to equilibrium.”

If Dr. Webb’s advice was well-received in her era of typewriters, how much more should it be in our era of keyboards? Instead of pointing us to big tech and big power, she points to the little things. Because the quiet growing time depends on small things. Read or listen to Dr. Webb’s timely paper on why small things matter, available here.

📷: @aolander

@artmiddlekauff