HOME AND EDUCATION

...But the papers in these sessions overlapped just as the agencies must necessarily combine in actual practice...

...Pure air, even if it is shut in, tempts one to breathe more deeply than impure air...

...This high death rate of infants averaging about 130 to every 1,000 living births, with the enormous economic and biologic waste involved, seems a sufficient reason, does it not, for the organization of such an association as this, and for its appeal to all thinking people to lend their hearty aid and support toward securing in their respective states, such registration of births and deaths as may furnish accurate statistics upon which to base effective study...

...pictorial placards with brief texts in many languages, are posted in public places, where they tell their story and teach their lesson at a glance...

...Of the cities, Boston, which claims the best registration system, registers only 96 per cent, while Baltimore, Chicago and New Orleans, the United States census authorities declare, have "the most utterly worthless registration of births" of all the great cities in the civilized world...

...Another Baby Dead...

...Since January 1910 it has maintained an office at Baltimore from which the work of the society is directed...

...Everywhere movements are springing up for the protection of childhood from the evils resulting from poverty and bad environment, and for its healthy and normal development...

...The body frees itself of carbon dioxide and takes in oxygen much more easily when the air is good...

...It is of little use to make the poor mother understand that her baby must have pure bottled milk, if the father thinks that the cheaper milk of the corner grocery is quite good enough...

...Rub tho butter into the flour, add the other dry ingredients, and the ginger and syrup...

...The need of this instruction is felt especially among the foreign population in the large cities, where the father is the actual head of the household...

...There is another reason why it is economical to keep the air fresh within the house...

...Helen Putnam emphasized in this connection the need of giving to boys, in school, instruction corresponding to that which the girls receive in the domestic science courses, in order that they, too, may be better fitted for home making and parenthood...

...One every ten seconds, six every minute, three hundred and sixty every hour...

...This was graphically portrayed in the form of a great fish hook, the barb representing the beginning of life, with the curve sweeping down for the years of youth and middle life, and not rising to an equal height until extreme old age is reached...

...Only a few of our states have even approximately correct registration of births (90 per cent., or one birth omitted for every ten that occur...

...Educating the Public AMONG the important educational agencies, the "publicity campaign," the effort to reach the people directly, takes its place beside the schools with their more formal instruction in medicine and nursing, sanitation and hygiene, home making in all its branches, and biologic science...

...The necessity for education of this sort before even the most deeply significant facts can make an adequate impression, was illustrated by a remark overheard at the exhibition...

...add the lemon juice and starch and boil five minutes...

...preserved ginger, Boil together the ginger, sugar and water for ten minutes...

...At every flash a baby dies...

...What the "Fish Hook" Shows AMONG the points dwelt on most strongly at this meeting and emphasized in the accompanying exhibition, were the great importance of accurate vital statistics in any study of infant mortality, and the need of a general registration system in the United States...

...If a person goes from a close room out into the fresh air, he instinctively takes a long, deep breath...

...They look as if they had never been tempted to breathe deeply in all their lives...

...The Association was organized last November as the result of the Conference on Prevention of Infant Mortality held in New Haven at that time by the American Academy of Medicine...

...The control of the man over the purse strings is another reason for educating him in his duties as a father...

...The exhibition is another means relied upon for reaching the public...

...But in the campaign for better conditions for child life in the large cities, the social workers have come up constantly against the ignorance and indifference of the fathers, and have come to feel the importance of instructing them also as to the needs of the children and their duties towards them...

...There must be the wider and more general education whose purpose is to rouse the social conscience and give the individual the power to see the facts of infant mortality in their true social relations...

...L. E. Holt of Columbia University, expressed in his address the belief that the problem of excessive infant mortality can never be completely solved because of the impossibility of removing its two chief causes, poverty and ignorance, still the Association is attacking the problem with courage and enthusiasm...

...The clerks are all hollow-chested...

...I know a store which is notoriously poorly ventilated...

...Although one of the most eminent authorities on the diseases of children, Dr...

...The very act of breathing deeply quickens the circulation and increases the amount of heat within the body, which after all is the place where people want heat...

...Fathers' classes must take their place beside mothers' classes...

...Another baby dead," said one of them with a laugh, and they went on their way to look at the other exhibits, with no realization apparently that "Another baby dead" meant not simply a tiny, ineffective life snuffed out, sad as that is in itself, but also a tremendous waste of energy and social capital...

...The child is the great national asset...

...There is the same kind of difference between pure indoor air and foul indoor air that there is between the average indoor air and the average outdoor air, only the difference is not so great...

...Hitherto on entering the home for the purpose of securing better care for the children, the instruction of the mother alone has been sought...

...Other speakers were more optimistic...

...Besides this wider education directed towards arousing the public conscience there must be special education in the causes of infantile diseases and methods of prevention, needed alike, though in varying forms and degrees, by physicians and nurses, social workers, mothers and—yes, fathers...

...In looking over the exhibits, it seemed that little had been omitted which would contribute to this end...

...Fresh Air and the Coal Bill IT IS often said that it takes less heat to warm fresh air than foul air but no one has ever been able to prove it...

...For the purposes of program-making, the agencies of prevention were roughly classified at this meeting as philanthropic, public, municipal, state and federal, medical, and educational, one session being given to the consideration of each group...

...Add the eggs well beaten and the milk...

...The charts exhibited by the United States Census Bureau, compiled from the statistics available in this country and from other countries where more accurate records are kept, show that the death rate in the first year of life is greater than at any subsequent age up to eighty or eighty-five...

...and perhaps most important of all, the newspapers are enlisted in the work of public instruction...

...Accepting the statement on one of the charts exhibited, that "the era of modern sanitary civilization may be marked by the dates upon which various countries begin to record infant mortality," it is not flattering to us to learn that the United States ranks in this respect with China and Turkey, and is likely to fall behind them both unless it bestirs itself soon...

...The fact is, then, not that it is easier to heat fresh air than foul, but that at a given temperature, 68 degrees for example, we are much more likely to feel warm if the air is pure than if it is impure...

...You can make yourself take long breaths of stale air, but you soon tire of it, or forget to do it...

...Just as the light flashed, a party of young women passed by...

...What really is true is that it takes less heat to make us feel warm in fresh air than in foul and for all practical purposes this amounts to the same thing...

...The one arranged for this meeting will remain in Baltimore until November 16, after which it is possible that it may be taken to other cities...

...It is entitled "The Girl Who Disappears...

...This must be carried on along two lines...

...We are annexing new portions of it every day...

...Out of this developing interest in the welfare of the child as the most important of social factors, and the newly awakened sense of responsibility towards it, has grown the American Association for Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality, whose first annual meeting and exhibition took place in Baltimore, November 9-11...

...The batter should be just thin enough to pour SAUCE 1 cup of water, 2 tablespoonfuls of sugar, 2 tablespoonfuls of ginger, Juice of 1 lemon, 2 tablespoonfuis of chopped 1/2 teaspoonful of cornstarch...

...that neglected childhood inevitably means race deterioration...

...We are coming to understand as never before that well born and well cared-for children alone can assure the steady development and advance of the race...

...This is too bad, for it is such a helpful theory and leads to so many good practices...

...In conducting this campaign, free leaflets and bulletins are distributed by the municipal and state health departments...

...A chart showing the agencies employed by the municipal Health Department of Chicago and the United Charities in the summer campaign of 1909 illustrated such combination, including visiting nurses, district medical inspectors, lecturers, municipal milk and sanitary inspection, free dispensaries, hospitals, fresh air sanitariums, etc...

...In Boston the movement has already begun, several classes for the instruction of fathers having been formed during the past year under the direction of the Milk and Hygiene Association in the districts where some of the milk stations were situated...

...When they gets bigger, I beats 'em...

...More and more fully are we recognizing not only the truth of the old saying that to the child belongs the future, but that the child is the future...

...The article by General Bingham, former Chief of Police of New York City, in Hampton's for November, is one of the best contributions that has been made of late to the literature of the White Slave Traffic...

...The amount of milk depends on the dryness of the crumbs...

...Its objects, as the name indicates, are the study of infant mortality in all its relations, and the dissemination of knowledge concerning its causes and prevention...

...It is intended to make it a feature of the annual meetings, in order that in connection with the papers and addresses, all the known factors which cause a high infant death rate may be shown in concrete form, together with simple and logical means of prevention...

...One of the striking exhibits was an electric light bulb with the legend beneath it, "Watch the light flash...

...The business of being a baby must be classed as 'an extra hazardous occupation,'is the way one of the wall-posters at the Baltimore exhibition described the present risks of babyhood, while the spirit which the Association wishes to arouse found expression in such others as "A square deal for the baby," and "Let conservation begin at home...

...A frequent answer of the mother in these families to the inquiries of the social worker or the visiting nurse is, "I not know—I ask my man," and yet the father's understanding of his duties to his children is too often that of the man who said, "When they's little, I plays with 'em...

...Increased oxygen means a stirring up of fire within just as an open draft means more heat in the furnace...

...A milk dispensary in actual operation and a consultation room with mothers bringing in their babies for advice and aid, gave a practical illustration of this part of the work...

...It aims to quicken the already aroused sense of responsibility towards the child and to stimulate definite plans for lessening the dangers that surround its early years...

...In the statement of one of them lay that spirit of hope and of faith in our power of achievement, which makes many hard things possible: "Utopia is a country that isn't so far off as it used to be...

...So valuable did one of the speakers consider this last method of propaganda that he recommended the addition of a trained newspaper man to the official staff of every health department in order that its messages might be conveyed to the public in the most attractive and telling form...

...and that a high infantile death rate, rather than a low birth rate, is the true race suicide...

...Conducted by BELLE CASE LA FOLLETTE and CAROLINE L. HUNT The Child—the Great National Asset By LUCY C. DANIELS THOMPSON THE CENTURY of the child," Ellen Key calls the twentieth century, and certainly so far as its first decade is concerned, the general trend of social and philanthropic endeavor justifies the name...

...Ginger Pudding 1 cup of bread crumbs, 2 tablespoonfuls of milk, 3/4 cup of flour, 1 tablespponful of chopped 3/8 of a cup of butter, preserved ginger, 2 eggs, 2 tablespoonfuls of ginger 1/2 cup of sugar, syrup, 1 teaspoonful of baking powder...

...There were also models of nurseries, childrens' hospital wards, and fresh air sanitariums, representations of the work of the visiting nurses, typical placards and posters, exhibits of suitable clothing for infants, proper beds and correct feeding methods, while moving pictures gave vivid demonstration of the dangers from flies and impure milk...

...Statistical charts and models illustrated the death rate of infants and the proportion of deaths due to various diseases...

...And the moral in either case is: Ventilate...

...WHILE statistical information is of primary importance in the study of infant mortality, education has first place in the work of prevention...