CO-OPERATIVE HUMANITY

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 13 July 1912, Page 10

CO-OPERATIVE HUMANITY

BACHELORS AND BABIES

The National Congress of American Mothers, meeting at Chicago, has resolved that bachelors are mostly selfish men, who remain single to escape the financial burdens of matrimony, and it was urged by several speakers that all bachelors earning over £4 a week be taxed for the maintenance of one child.

Dr Ernest Coulter, who was formerly connected with the Children's Court in New York, and is considered as one of the best American authorities on social problems, supports in theory the attitude of the Mothers' Congress, and says: "A bachelor who has a good income should make it part of his business personally to interest himself in some child. The man who earns a little more than it takes to give him food, shelter and clothing, has no right to live a perfectly selfish life. He would be a happier, saner, and more useful man personally and as a citizen by realising this fact. There are many children, bright, in good health, and full of promise, but whose futures are dwarfed and lost through lack of interest by some one human being. I realised this fact seven years " ago, when I began 'big brother' work in New York. There are at present some 800 members, and during the past year we have looked into the welfare* of 2195 children. We help them to get employment, and we try to give them an idea of tEe real meaning of life and opportunity. If bachelors of more or less means would help in this work, it would mean an immense asset to the right sort of living. While many New Yorkers who live in. strictly bachelor apartments cannot take children to rear, at least they could each spend £30 a year towards the support and education of children. Another point I wish to make is that no married couple not blessed by children should feel that they have a right to maintain a home when there are so many homeless children in the world. To them it is a duty to take into their home some child deprived of its parents. Many people hesitate because they believe so much in that bugaboo, heredity. There are only three hereditary taints that affect posterity. A child of tender years can grow and be what its environment makes it. Environment is nine-tenths. I have seen 90,000 children in the Children's Court, and I become more and more convinced that a child born with a normal mind and body can grow and be anything its environment wishes for it. Let no childless couple hesitate to take over homeless and parentless infants in good health."