OUR BABIES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 638, 28 January 1914, Page 6

OUR BABIES.

Published under the auspices of the Society for the Health of Women and Children. " It is wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom."

I WOULD GIVE HEALTH TO EVERY CHILD.

(By George W. Wilder.)

The following letter from Mr George W Wilder, president of the Butterick Publishing Company, to Mr Theodore Dreiser, editor of the Delineator, was not intended for publicaton but it is so virile, the suggestions so new, that the editor, in order that it may reach the public in all its original force, has decided to make the chances of his chief's disapproval and print it:—

"Dear Dreiser, —lf I were a National Santa Claus I'd give to evsry child the loving arms of a mother and a good home. I'd give to every mother knowledge of how to care for her child. Good homes for all children born to this nation in 25 yeara would give its moral plane boost such as it never had. Knowledge of how to care for and train the child given to every mother (I mean knowledge of the fundamentals—feeding, clothing, washing) in 25 years would make this people physical giant. " 'A sound mind in a sound body'— nothing is more to be desired. And there can be no influence greater to bring about the first than a good home; none greater to bring about the second than th« knowledge among mothers of bow to care for their children to huild up (even how not to undermine) the physique which Nature endowed them.

"Dear Dreiser, we've been of some help in the year just past in finding lovnig hearta and moral humes for a fwe of these little ones—maybe 500, mayhap 1000. We found for them good influences upon whom no one can tell what other influences might have come. And through them on down the ages to the end of earhly tthings good shall be where evil might hava been. The immorality of the soul some question. There is no question of the immortality of influence. And Gabriel, keeping the Book up yonder, may possibly have used the tears of joy shed by these children and their new-found mothers to wipe away some of your sins, and even mine, recorded on his pages. Yet there is so much more to do, and I want you to push, push, push, this Child-rescue Work harder this year than ever. Give me one letter fro:n a woman's heart to whom the joys of motherhood bavt> come through this campaign. Of course, 1 want the approval of these officials—l don't mean just what I say. But we are finding homos for other little children; and one letter telling the joy brought to some woman's heart through a little child will get more results than 100 'approvals.' "The Hirshberg series will do some good in educating mothers in the care of their children. But we can reach ao few, and only those who can afford the money the Delineator costs. And this ib true of every publication that may be working along the same line. Those who can't afford the money also need knowledge. BvJove! I have a thought! Last summer the Health Department of New York City gave out little printed slips of advice on the earn of children in hut weather. If this is in their power it's aIBO in their power to give advice for cold weather —for all weathers—for all the year. This power should be bestowed upon the Health Department everywhere by legislation of the State or cities. I want you to agitate this idea (we'll call it 'The Delineator Health Idea') in every issue and in every way—that the health departments in every city in this country be authorise] to buy some one book on the care of children (there are a number of such books already in print), and give one copy to every mother on the birth of a child.

"This seems such a helpful suggestion to the second division of my Santa Ciaus wish. The State can't give home 9to homeless children, but through the powers of its health departments it can gwe information to mothers on the care of their children. The New York Board has gone the one short step that confesses the power. Now, let's make them go the journey. Such books might cost the State 20 or 25 cents, each. The lives they would save —the children grown to healthy men and women that under present conditions die in early youth or come up pallid, colourless creatures, the germ of vitality batted over the head at its beginning —would bring the' State a return for such investment that never can be estimated.

"How many timea you and I have heard some woman—intelligent, too, but not (when her firat-born came) an intelligent mother—tearfully tell how she lost that first-born because she 'did not know thing of how to care for it.' To many a young mother. I've given a copy of Dr Emmet Holt's book on children, to receive her bbssings because she learned from it that a healthy child cries two hours a day for exercise, and that hers wasn't sick because it cried that way. How many other mothers hearing their children takng that same exerciise, have thought them hungry or sick stuffed them with food they did not need and could not handle, and made them sick! The ruined digestions of childhood ruined by too much food, ruined by too little food, ruined by improper food —become the weakened digestion of manhood that saps vitality and makes the child born with 100 per cent, of life man with only half that gift. "The numberless other pointß on health equally important and more vital that may be given mothers a layman like myself does not know. But they are in the books I have in mind, so simply stated that any mother may understand. The States or the municipalities should get these books for mothers and save the children. Free school books for the fundamentals of education can be had in

many States. How much more important are the fundamentals of health." It will be noted that most of the suggestions of Mr Wilder are already in existence and being carried out by the Society, not only in New Zealand, but, by the distribution of literature as far afield as Great Britain, Canada, Philippine Islands, Australia, and, as a result of Dr King's visit to the Contnent, in many leading cities in Germany and France.