The Club Smoking Room

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 6, 8 February 1908, Page 26

The Club Smoking Room

By

HAVANA

IT is quite a mistake,” said the doctor, “to suppose that mothers understand by instinct the art of properly caring for and rearing children. The more civilised we get the less do we seem to be able to properly train and bring up our young. A cat is a far more perfect mother than most women. The kittens are taught in their play all the things most needed to equip them for the battle of life. Nature is, of course, always the best guide provided she is left alone. But we try to improve on nature with only too often the most disastrous results. Many women refuse to rear their offspring by the means prpovided by nature, and have recourse to all manner of artificial foods. I believe that these patent concoctions, soothing syrups, and impure milk supplies are responsible for half the mortality we find amongst infants. Nor is this state of things confined to the poor. The working woman is often unable to spare the time to attend to her child preperly : she is partly the bread winner ofthe family, and there is, consequently, some excuse for her. But the society woman has no such excuse, her time is her own, yet she neglects her children because they hinder her social pleasures and engagements There is far less infant mortality amongst uncivilized races, and less in the country than in the towns. The most highly civilized people bid fair to be swamped by the coloured races from the sheer inability to keep up their numbers. The first step towards a white New Zealand is to improve the numbers and the physique of our native population.” <s> ‘‘We can never,” replied the parson, “go against the laws of nature and prosper. The engineer, the electrician, the mechanician can only succeed by finding out natural laws and obeying them. I believe we check children too much in their play, and from the start accustom them to an artificial life. The complaint is as old as the time of Socrates that men devote far more attention to racing horses and cattle than to bringing up their own children. You will remember that in his defence before his judges the Greek philosopher contrasts the care that most men bestow on colts and breeding stock with the utter indifference with which they regard their own sons and daughters. The best possible trainer, he says, must be found for a promising colt regardless of expense while the cheapest and most incompet cut tutor is thought good enough for a promising boy. But a good many mothers fail, I believe, from sheer ignorance. You would lie surprised at the appalling lack of even the most elementary knowledge betrayed by some people. I have known women with a deep rooted conviction that an infant should always have a little of whatever its mother has and 1 have actually heard of parents giving what they call just a. taste of bottled stout and onions to their offspring. With all our multiplication of Subjects of study, the study of infant life preservation has been sadly neglected.” V “The true aim of all modern educa-

tion,” commented the cynic, “is to teach us the things of the least possible use to us. We learn how to write, but we never learn what to write, and in a similar way we learn how to read, but we are never taught that is best for us to read. The youngest child in our schools knows by wearisome reiteration that ‘The fat pig is up,’ and that Tom has a bat, but it never learns that ‘God is love.’ It is not to be expected that our future mothers should be taught anything about the care of infants, they are far too busily occupied in learning that Acheen Head is the most northerly point in Sumatra, and that Stewart Island is famous for tin and oysters. lam glad that Lady Plunket has undertaken a crusade against our lamentable ignorance in things essential.” «■«>«> “I see,” remarkeel the lawyer “that our University Senate is proposing a good many attractions in our examinations. Perhaps they will include a paper on the proper management of feeding bottles amongst the subjects for matriculation. I feel awfully sorry that the people at Home refused to recognise our new degrees. Fancy how delightful it would be to go forth to the world as a Bachelor of Pedagogy or a Bachelor of Commerce. If our stipendiary magistrates are to be called upon to pronounce judgment on the propriety or otherwise of pictures in our magazines, the senate, since it refuses to recognise theology amongst its many subjects, might still use the old'D.D. degree and make a doctorate of decency. Sergeant Hendry and Mr. Anthony Comstock, of the United States, might be appointed joint examiners. The questions and answers could be issued as a supplement to the Australasian edition of ‘Punch.’ ” “We are all getting so beastly well educated,” chipped in a prominent local manufacturer, "that soon we shall have no working classes at all. I could find room for fifty more girls in my business, but I can’t get them for love or money. An advertisement for twenty girls brought me only one solitary applicant, a good lady who gave the gaol as her last place of residence. All our young women nowadays want to take to office work. They learn bookkeeping, typewriting and shorthand, and consider all factory work as beneath them. They could earn twice as much in a good factory as they ever can do in an office, and yet an advertisement for any kind of clerical post will bring you shoals of answers, while no amount of wages will get you a good factory hand. The scarcity of labour- is going to be one of the most critical problems of the future. The price of raw material is going up in nearly all manufacturing concerns, and if the cost of labourincreases in proportion we shall have to raise the price of our products all round. Many of us have forward contracts, and we stand to lose considerable sums. Apart from this, we are unable to extend and develop our business. As you know, the profits in any manufacturing concern are dependent on your volume of trade. What I mean is, that the profit on selling a thousand articles is

much more than double that on selling five hundred. It is only after we have built up a fair trade that we begin to derive any return for our own labour and our capital invested, and it is very hard that when we have pushed our business forward to a paying point, we should be hampered only by lack of hands. I see that the ‘Times’ correspondent says that the whole of the Pacific coast of America is being kept back for want of men to work it. Fruitgrowers are actually cutting down their trees because they find it impossible to get men to pick and pack the fruit. In ’Frisco hotel cooks are getting £3O a month, and domestic servants get £l2 to £l5. The domestic bids fair to be the millionaire of the future.”