OUR BABIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3195, 9 June 1915, Page 78

OUR BABIES.

13 v llvgeia.

Publish’d under the auspices of the Society tor the Health of Women and Children.

" II is wiser to put up a leuoe nl the top of a pivcipicu than to maiulaiu aa ambulance at Jie bottom. **

National importance of the TEACHING OF MOTHERCRAFT. (Address by the Rev. R. S. Gray, concluded.! OUR FORTY PER CENT. OF REJECTS. There are authorities tv ho do not hesitate to attribute Autr 4'J per cent, of rejects among tiie young men applying tor army service maimy to detective musing and lack of proper care m infancy. Our average standard of health is shown to be most unsit.sfactory, and the authorities are agreed that the oniy children who have a fair chance of pencet hca.th are these fed naturally and mothered intelligently. The fact t! at two out oi live of o.:r young men volunteering for army service prove unfit is alarm.ng, lor it means that we might have had a representation of almost as many men again as wo now have. And if the same proportion applies all over the Empire, it is surely time that the nation was awake to its vital importance.—(Applause.) I submit that the facts which I have adduced, and the results achieved by the Society for the Health of Women and Children demonstrated “ the national importance of the teaching of rnothercraft. Mow is the Teaching of Motheeceaft to be Brought About? F.rst, the State itself should recognise even more generously the work of the Society. Ihero is a great deal to bo said for the position that the work should be undertaken wholly by the State. That is clearly one of the chief functions of an ideal State. I rc-cogm'se. however, that there are great difficulties in the way, and that the work can be done much more effectively in the meantime -by such a Society as this. It is not, however, too much' to ask that LARGER GOVERNMENT GRANTS TO THE SOCIETY bo made in order that there may be no portion of the whole Dominion in which mothers may not avail themselves of the services of the Flunked nurses. —(Applause.) 'The action of the Government in endeavouring to pi ice in the hands of .every mother Dr Truby King’s invaluable Handbook for Mothers was a stop in the right direction; but the Society should be freed from all financial .anxiety, and more clearly recognised as, practically, a department of the State’s necessary activities. Education of Girls in Mothercuaft. Secondly, there is urgent need of proper education of our girls in this matter. There should bo classes ui our girls’ schools and colleges. Th s has been done in some few. It should be univors ilissd. In some parts of America “Little Mothers’ Leagues ’ have been formed, in which girls are instructed in the care of children. Thirdly, there should be a determined end persistent attempt to alter the emphasis in the matter of the education of girls. There should be more discriminat or! of sex. The Almighty has discriminated, and to ignore the clear facts written in the very constitution of every girl and to treat her in the years of her adolescence as though she differed little from the other sex is to deny the basal law of her being. As one writer has said: We are not furnished in our public schools with adequate womanly ideals in history or literature, and there is a dan.gei of our having a female sex without a female character. The new love of freedom which women have lately felt inclines girls to abandon the home for the office. This matter is vital to the State. Its future depends upon its motherhood, and as far as possible it must train its girls in an atmosphere which will glorify motherhood and make it the legitimate object of every girl’s life. Present Provision for Education in Everything but Motherceaft. There must be no conflict Between intellectuality and motherhood. And we must also destroy the conception that independence is the chief end of a woman’s education, and provide for motherhood. A girl may bo taught without cost almost anything else by the bountiful provision of the State. She may become a dressmaker or a typiste or a bookkepeer. She may take advantage of the numerous facilities which exist fot training her in any other work in life; but for her chief work —the work for which the Almighty made her- —she must drift into it without preparation and trust to Providence. Our Bodies the Temples of the Almighty. If it should bn suggested that I am placing all the emphasis on what differs little from the breeding of the animal, the reply is obvious. The appeal is made to that which is deepest in the human soul—to sincerity and simplicity and sacrifice, the response to which is the only sure method by which true character can be budded. In the matter of real sainthood, the Almighty has placed no premium on iil-henlth —ascetics and physical weaklings to the contrary, notwithstanding. The human body was intended to be the temple of the Highest. It is our clear obligation to prepare it to protection. The Rights of Mother and Child. In conclusion, I plead fop the same equality of opportunity for the child which wo are coming to recognise as the right of the adult. The State has obligations to the baby no less than to the grown man. Lot ns plan and work to hasten the day when wo may be able to remove the reproach which rests on us, and when every child born ,in our midst will be given his inalienable .birthright—the CHANCE to be BORN WELL, TO LIVE, AND TO GROW UP strong and healthy. Motherhood was glorified for all time by the Immortal Son of God, and it is the work of all lovers of their fellows to attempt by all means in their power to replace the halo of glory, which has been in some measure removed.— (Applause.)