THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, JULY 6, 1918. THE CARE OF THE CHILDREN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16895, 6 July 1918, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, JULY 6, 1918. THE CARE OF THE CHILDREN

The formal opening of the latest' addition to Auckland's public hos- S pital—the Princess Mary Hospital I for Children—is an event of major importance. I*. marks a definite advance in organised effort to cope with the physical perils that attach to a growing city. After all allowance has been made for the superior sanitation that comes with enlight ened municipal management, and for other ameliorating conditions, it remains true that the larger a town becomes the more it is threatened with dangers originating in impure air, insufficient sunlight, and the nervous restlessness that congested population engenders. A noted English medical authority has seriously stated that " the lungs of the Esquimau are a pearly white; of the average Briton, a dirty grey; of (he Londoner, coal-black—which is, indeed, to be expected, since they are full of coal." The gradation indicates the levy on health that is made by the social instinct when its mandate summons men to dwell together. The same expert declares that tuberculosis is the most deadly of all diseases, and that its incidence varies directly with density of population. Such significant facts call for serious pondering and for practical measures. Associated with them is this striking result of investigation—that the growing child of the city is more victimised by its baneful conditions than is the adult Such diligent students as Dr. James Cantlie and Dr. Harry Campbell were unable to find, between themmore than half-a-dozen specimens of the true Londoner in all Londonsuch being defined as those all four of whose grandparents were born in London. Dr. Saleeby asserts that, but for the constant access of fresh blood from without, London would bo depopulated in three generations. Thus is. set in a startling way the problem that modern sanitary skill seeks to solve. It cannot succeed alone. It needs the aid of that medical service which the hospital, and especially the children's hospital, is qualified to render. Since as yet the best that good city sanitation can accomplish is the lessening, not the removal, of the conditions prejudicial to young life, it rests with the healing art to build up the bodies weakened by malnutrition and attacked by disease, and, since to these perils the poorer mass of the people are most exposed, this ministry must be made accessible in a public institution, open especially to them and their children. While as yet even our largest New Zealand j city is not comparable to a great metropolis of the old world in size , or conditions, it must be anticipated ; tha*, progress will bring with increase of population an increase lof need for such an institu-

jo - i ! tion. Having due regard to the \ 1 relation of this need to the means ■ | available to meet it, there is little | I doubt, that even the splendid pro- I J virion now completed by public ex- J j pen'diture, combined with private j generosity, will prove none too great. I But the erection of the Princess | I Mary Hospital for Children is more I j than a notable advance in Auck- i j land's organised effort to cope with j ; the physical ills to which city flesh I ' j is especially heir, It is a civic and j

national acknowledgment, in its. ministry to ailing and needy child > life, of (he place that modern civili- j sation gives to childhood. How different once! In the philosophy and practice of ancient Greece a child was prized only when robust. Socrates, so Plato declares, urged that weak children should be put to death- Raskin has pointed out that there are no children in ancient Creek art. In the Roman Empire the children of the poor, and the sickly children of the rich, were often left to be devoured )),v wild beasts. YouvulUvuxs ntt&ltf be res- j cued by strangers—to be trained for \\\e. wvytSsl purposes. Yttlauvows ( beggars deliberately nm'imn) eh))-) facfl Vft o\\\ct Vq Wvm. The , undent sages complacently regarded I many o( these things. Seneca de-1 dared that it was reason, not wrath, that led men to drown sickly cliil- ( dren. Spartans, Norsemen, Gauls-j .all were alike in this merciless dis- { ' regard, and the .savage peoples of ', to-day do but stand in this respect j 'where Greek and Goth stood ecu-; furies ago. Slowly a change has! | come, retarded ever and anon, it: ,'must be owned, by the opposition of ignorance or greed. In England, ; where even the domestic method of ! manufacture had pit some shackles on childhood, the factory system of the late eighteenth century brought.' a renewed serfdom. The passage of ! England's first labour law. in 1802, | found children only three years old employed in the cotton factories, | ami it was not until IS-13 'hat chil- j dren under ten were forbidden to j be so employed. Their liberation i from such dwarfing and distorting j conditions was not accomplished j without fears for industry. Daniel i O'Connell prophesied that this loss j of youthful labour would cause Manchester to become a tomb. To-day lives are counting for more than looms, and we are awake to the criminal folly of such exploitation of young bodies and souls, and to the national truth in the statement that " the child's sob in the > silence curses deeper than the strong: man in his wrath." Medical skill is now devoted with enthusiasm to the saving of the sickly and the strengthening of the weak among the ehildten, and education patiently encourages the faltering young idea. War has impressed what peace began to whisper, that— the old dictum of William Harrison's "Description of England"—" a wall of men is far better than stacks of corn or | bags of money." It is true that' even in New Zealand childhood has not yet come fully into its own, that there is still permitted here and ! there the practice of child-slavery, i Our city streets furnish some in I stances of this, and there are conn-: try areas, especially those devoted' to dairying, where the practice is prevalent to the extent of nullifying: much that the State would do to: educate its youth. Robbed of play, i enslaved to toil, limited in oppor-, tunity for the best culture in body , \nd mind, these children make us nware of duties to them and to our-' selves not yet fully done. But the' very emphasis with which appeal is made for their well-being is an evi-j I dence of advance. As a community, i we are not callous about these dis-' abilities. Their exposure is a dial- \ knge to us. Let but the cause of offence to the little ones be clearly | revealed, and the heart of the com- ! munity will demand its lemoval. It: is this spirit that has found expres- j sion in the building to be formally! opened to-day, a spirit that has ; power to make our country's future secure and great.