OUR BABIES

Waikato Times, Volume 84, Issue 13203, 19 June 1915, Page 6

OUR BABIES

By HYGEIA. Published under the ausmces of the Society for the htshlih oi Wouicu and Children. "It is wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom." NATIONAL IMFORTANCE OF THE TEACHING OF MOTHERCRAFT. (Address by the Rev. R. S. Gray, concluded). OUR FORTY PER CENT. OF REJECTS. There are authDrities who do not hesitate to attribute our 40 per cent, of rejects among the young men applying for army service mainly to defective nursing and lack of proper care in infancy. Our average standard of health is shown to be most unsatisfactory, and the authorities are agreed that the only children who have had a fair chance of perfect health are those fed naturally and mothered intelligently. The fact that two out of five of our young men volunteering for army service prove unfit is alarming, for it means that we might have had a representation of almost as many men again as we have now. And if the same proportion applies all over the Empire, it is surely time that the nation was awake to its vital importance.— (Appiause). I submit that the facts which I have adducedand the results achieved by the Society for the Health of Women and Children, demonstrate "the national impoitance of the teaching of mothercraft."

How is the Teaching of Mothercraft to be Brought About?

First, the State itself should recognise even more generously the work of the Society. There is a great deal to ba 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. 1 recognise, 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

be 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 Plunket nurses.—Applause. The action, of the Government in endeavouring to place in the hands of every mother Dr. Truby King's invaluable handbook for Mothers was a step 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 nceessary activities. Education of Girls in Mothercraft.

Secondly, there is urgent need of proper education of our girls in this matter. There should be classes in our girls' schools and colleges. This has been done in some few. It should be universalised. 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 and presistent attempt to alter the emphasis in the matter of the education of girls. There should be more discrimination 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 t«e 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 danger of our having a female sex without a female character. The new love of feedom 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 Mothercraft.

There must to 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 mothprhood. A girl may be taught without cost almost anything el3e by the bountiful provision of the State. She may become a dressmaker or a typistc or a book-keeper. She may take advantage of the numerous facilities which exist for 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 be suggested that 1 am placing all the emphasis on what differs little from the breeding of the animal, the reply is obvious. The appeal is made so that which is deepest in the human soul —to sincerity and simplicity and sacrifice, their response to which is the only sure method by which true character can be builded. In the matter of real sainthood, the Almighty has placed no premium on ill-health —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 perfection.

The Rights of Mother and Child

In concljsion, I plead for the same equality of opportunity for the child which we are coming to recognise as the right of the aduit. The State has obligations to the baby no less than to the grown man. Let us plan and woik to hasten the day when we 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 ha«o of glory, which has in some measure removed. —(Applause).