Are the children today smarter than the Victorian children? Can they read Latin, Play the piano, Write poetry?

Question

and novels, Paint portraits and landscapes,Do needlework?

The Victorians had no computers but imagine what they could have done if they had. Why cant the children today be as smart as them?

Answer 1

Because now there into knives and crack.....

Answer 2

well its not on the school curriculam anymore. we do things like maths, and science nowadays.

Answer 3

at least they would have known how to spell "tire" if they existed back then.

Answer 4

what kind of question is that. they could do those things because they were taught that. and had good discipline.

Answer 5

no but they can TWOC cars, ram raid shops, and find a reputable dealer for drugs.

Answer 6

well one would have to take into consideration that education was not readily available to all the children of the time. it was in fact a privileged few had  access to centres of learning. one has to remember that children of five years  old often worked a sixteen hour day.

yes to days children have all the advantages of the modern world that have come along. we now  live in what is called the information age. some times its to much information to soon for some children.

So i suppose if Victorian children had computers then they would need electricity as well  so you see to change some aspect of the past you have to change it all.

Answer 7

Children are the same how ever far you go back,they adapt to the conditions surrounding their own little worlds and act accordingly to the adults teaching them.

Answer 8

Most Victorian children would never have got the chance to be educated. Are children now chimney sweeps and working in workhouses? Nope.

Answer 9

There is a link between the level of automation and computerisation and the level of stupidity of the general public. As everything gets done for you by machines you lose all the skills that once were taught. Never mind complicated things I know people who can`t even change a tyre or fill a washer bottle on a car.

Answer 10

Just think of all we would not have today if they had computers then. Music, literature, art...the list is endless. Scarey, isn't it?

Answer 11

Some can...

At least they don't get punished for being left-handed nowadays.

Answer 12

The Victorian Era ran from 1837 to 1901 and was called such because of Queen Victoria's reign in England. It was an era of much prosperity for the English because profits gained from the overseas British Empire, as well as from industrial improvements at home, allowed a large, educated middle class to develop.

But it was still hard for the average person to own a piano due to the enormous expense. (Like today)

The reason so many ladies in that era did needlepoint is because the auto matic sewing machine hadn't been invented yet.

The reason they wrote poetry and painted portraits is becauise they didn't have other forms of entertainment. No TV, no movies, no newcasts, and so many other things weren't in existence,

I look at their medical knowledge and how they bled people to get rid of bad blood. I look at how they believed so much in

superstitions and the like to guide them day by day. I look at their complete lack of hygiene except the very wealthy. I look at how the Bubonic Plague almost wiped Europe out. I look at so many things we know and so much that they did not and I come to the conclusion that WE are much more advanced.

Just because they played a piano or did things like needlepoint doesn't put them one up on us.

                           Steve

Answer 13

You do have a good point there. I think that because the children years ago didn't have computers and computer games etc, they used their talents more to their ability. They had to think more about the more "classical" things to do. The children of today seem to be stuck in a kind of rut, just talking to friends on the internet instead of face to face more, playing sport more online instead of in real life and generally not having as much motivation as children of many years ago...

Answer 14

oh plus women didnt have priviledges then

their role was to look after the children and wait for a man to "choose" one of their daughters to get married.

women's poetry were not recognised as "first class" work just because they were women.

so why dont dont you go and sit your a*se somewhere coz you're obviously ignorant

Answer 15

Smarter? Perhaps - certainly more knowledge is absorbed.

Well rounded? No, they are more myopic.

Answer 16

I find some clever answers a little silly. The children of to-day are no more or less intelligent than they were but the circumstances of theri lives are different and their education is. They can read novels but why should they when they have other distractions such as computers. they can paint portraits and landscapes if taught but life has speeded up so much thathey have to keep up with other things. The Victorians you are talking about were very much in a minority let us never forget that.

However in my dealings with some 7 year olds I am often distreesed by their lack of general knowledge butthat does not reflect intelligence only the circumstances in which they live  .

Answer 17

why is reading latin, playing the piano, or writing poetry considered smart? children today may not do these things that are considered skillfull or "deep", but they have more important things to do, like get a good education to make a decent living. learning those second hand skills would take too much time.

Answer 18

I think my daughters would beat the Victorians at Nintendo. :¬)

They can also paint, draw, and do needlework - and play a musical instrument each.  My girls can also play sports that would have been forbidden them 100 years ago.

By the way, you forgot the apostrophe on can't.

Answer 19

Only rich, privileged children were so accomplished. Most Victorian children were busy working or dying.

Answer 20

You must be referring to children of your country/continent. I agree with one of the answers here, that is children are no more or no less intelligent that they were a few hundred years ago. Much depends on the life circumstances, experiences made available to children.

However, one source of 'mass dumbing down' that is in powerful operation today is TV. Watching TV moulds your imagination in a manner so that it becomes passive, say as compared to listening to, or reading stories ( which requires the mind to form visual images, draw connections etc). Similarly, mechanisation has also made us much un-skilled. Cooking, carpentary, many such skills are being lost to our civilisation. Yet, there are other areas, where other skills are being picked up, one of this is acting speedily, as speed is much valued in our times.finger dexterity, thanks to typing etc.

Finally, at any cross section of time, there are some individuals who surpass others in terms of their sheer genius. In our times, as in other eras, such people are also in plenty - and women, blacks, brown coloured people - all have the possibility of such recognition, denied to them all through human history.

Answer 21

They are certainly luckier in that they don't have to go down mines or do a 12 hour shift in the mills or even sent up a chimney with a brush

Answer 22

Not every child back then was ability to do those things

And if you can't raise your children so they would play piano, write poems ( OI! and some 8 years old can put computer together, not just take it apart)

And you have no idea what Asian kids can do back there in there country still.

Answer 23

Children today are as smart as Victorian children, but we aren't taught like them anymore. Could you ask a Victorian child to program a computer? No, because it wasn't around then. Could you ask most children today to do needlework? Probably not, because it's almost not around now either. It's just times that have changed, there were plenty stupid Victorian children who could read Latin because it was forced into them.

And- it was just the rich ones that did any of that. Know the word 'poorhouse'? Doubt they taught piano in there :|