HEALTHY CHILDREN.

Waipa Post, Volume XXI, Issue 1280, 12 August 1922, Page 6

HEALTHY CHILDREN.

“PLANTS, ANIMALS AND HUMAN

BEINGS.”

LECTURE BY DR. TRUBY KING. The importance of the work being carried out by the PJunket Society, and the necessity for the society being ■afforded every possible encouragement, was clearly demonstrated by Dr. Truby King, Director of Child Welfare, in the' course of an addresls on “ Plants, Animals 'and Human Beings,” which he delivered last Thursday at Palmerston North. The Nursery Stage.

At the outset Dr King pointed out that .in every (branch of nature the nursery stage ’wlasi the most important phase of life. In this connection human beings were afforded an objectlesson by plant life and the animal kingdom. Each had its own special and particular requirements, and the same applied to human beings. There were certain fundamental laws of life which must be obeyed the disobedience of which led to ultimate racial decay. Children, like plants and animals, must be raised under natural conditions in order to become fit and virile men and women, and it was in this connection that the Plunket Society played its) pant .

Civilisation Becoming Decadent, In emphasising that civilisation was in danger of becoming decadent, the lecturer pointed to the fact that between 1887 and 1919 the birth rate in London fell from 36 per 1000 to 18 per 1000, while during the war the birth rate in Prance fill to 10 per 1000. This decline had been a steady one throughout the whole of the civilised world, and it was very much more rapid (than the decadence of the one-time great nations of Greece and Rome. The falling oh in these nations was due to the degeneration of domestic life, infanticide and sterility being contributory cauv-es. The same trend was noticeable among the more highly civilised nations of to-day. One of the most striking fallacies of the present era of civilise.,jori was the pronounced drift of population to the cities. In this connection, New South Wales afforded a glaring illustration, half the population of the State being crowded into Sydney. People in cities followed the line of least resistance and leaned too heavily on artificial aids. 'Nowadays people did not give their children enough fresh air and sunlight. It was the simple vigorous life of the country that built up a virile race, and in this connection the lecturer instanced the splendid constitution of the Japanese, due to the fact that as children they were born and raised under natural conditions. Children in cities in most civilised countries were raised under conditions which were too artificial and did not tend to promote physical fitness and ' virility. For instance,

there should not be a school that did not have its swimming 'bath—one which could be used all the year round. As Herbert Spencer aptly -put it: “The proper education of children is to make them healthy animals.” Mission of Plunket Society.

For the foregoing reasons, continued Dr. King, the mission of the Plunket Society -was to see if it could not do something to start at the beginning—with the children. Its work ‘<was counter-acting the evils which he had briefly outlined, and it was significant that in New Zealand it had the great bulk of the womanhood behind it. The organisation had gradually spread, not only in New Zealand, but .also in other countries where it had since taken root. There w<as a growing recognition of the crying necesity for the work Which i;t had so nobly undertaken and for that reason there was a feeling of hopefulness abroad that the decay of civilisation would eventually be arrested. The Plunket committees throughout the Dominion was one of the ber't auguries for the future. In passing, the lecturer paid a glowing tribute to the self-sacrificing work of the Plunket nurses, whose 'salary was l by no means commensurate with the value of their services. The society’s great difficulty was! not to keep the Plunket nurses at work, but to keep them

breaking down under the strain. Dr. King then went rapidly through an interesting series of slides in order to emphasise the necessity' for Jhe provision of proper nutriment, fresh air and natural conditions generally, for both plants and animals, and showed that the s'ame precepts applied in the case of human beings.