Our Babies

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 8 June 1917, Page 4

Our Babies

(By Hygeia). Published under the aaapices of tue Society for the Health of Women and Children. "It is wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice that; to maintain an ambulance at the bottom." Manhood After The War. Is the Great Race Passing or Will it Survive to Carry on the World's Civilisation? | The above is the heading of an article which appeared recently in an English paper with "Great Issues of tae War," the writer beiDg Sir Harry Johnston. The Great Sacrifice. What he fears, in common with a prominent American writer whom he quotes, is "the Passing of the Great Race," ... "what the cause of the white man all oyer the Old World, even in the New WcrJd, will suffer from the terrible holocaust" which is going on and is likely to go on for ijme time longer, destroying or hopelessly maiming the finest flower of European manhood. "Between the ages when man makes the best fatner, all too many of the most vigorous English, Scottish, Irish, and Welsfa; French, ProvencaLltalisns, Russians, Southern Siavs, Rumanians, Germans, and Hungarians are being killed by war weapons, by war Diseases, or otherwise rraae unfit as citizens in a future civilian existence »a husbands or a3 fathers." Will the Vvnite Race Perish?

"Well, this ghastly sacrifice seems to he inevitable if right ideals are to prevail and to* be firmly established in the world. To pot it coarsely, there are only about 150,000 Serbian men left to continue the Serbian people as one of the best, most vigorous, and worthy races of tne Balkan Peninsula. The beat sires amongst tne Montenegrins have already been wiped out, and very likely the same thing has to be said about Germany and Austria. We may nut for the moment regret this, because of the horrible twist the German mind has taken under the inspiration of the Hontnzolltmß and the i>picai Prussian statesmen and clergyiu- u. Nevertheless, it will be a aire to wbiie humanity if after the war there is a physically degenerate Gd many left on our hands, and a hundred times more lamentable from our own point of view will be the elimination of the best elements from the British peoples

•However, there it is, to satisfy the mad ambitions of the House of Hohenzollern, to atone for the miserable lack of statesmanship in twentieth j eentury Britain, a severe blow mast ] be dealt at the primacy of the white I man and of the best type of white man I intellectually . and physically con- | siderea. Probably the war will be i brought to an end before a complete annihilation of all men within the fighting age has taken place, and we shall be left with a considerable remnant in all these lands from which one* again with care tc build up our stock of healthy, vigorous, wholesome, handsome, intelligent human beinga. "In thinking out the problem of manhood after the war we must bend ajl onr thougrvtfofmiss, all onr energies, to seeing that every child that comes into the world—legitimately or illegitimately, healthy a; well as unhealthy —is taken the greatest care of." , Every thinking man and woman must be in complete accord with Sir Harry Johnston so fac—we are all profoundedly impressed with the gravity' of the war from the standpoint of fatherhood, —we all know ; that humanity cannot sacrifice the strongest, bravest, and most spirited of its men' in ihe prime of life, without damaging the generation that is to come; and we know also —though it does not seem to occur to Sir Harry Johnston—that the great compensating factor open to us is to redouble our attention to Motherhood and Mothercraft. In other wotda, we must fight whatever tendency there may be to Racial Deterioration, due to the -removal from cur miast of thousands of the finest of our adult males, by ensuring better Motherhood and Mothering. Oar children most be better born and better reared > —we must make better Environment compensate for impaired Heredity. Ad I said, we are in entire accord With Sir Harry Johnston in hia main I thesis; but tisere are passages in his i

article which fill as v. ith amazement, whicn are, indeed, of amazing importance as showing how a widelytravelled educated man of the highest standing who might be assumed to have gained ripe wisdom, may know nothing whatever as to the most fundamental practical factor of Racial Efficiency—viz., the ensuring of strong, healthy mothers who will nurse their babies in their own homes, Sir Harry writfls: —

As a general rale it is far better that the children of poor people

legitimate or illegitimate—should be rared for, reared beyond the dangers of infancy, by the workhouse (there is as yet no substitute for this disagreeable name) in every parish or district. I have visited a good many of these, or my wife has done so, and scarcely ever have we had to take exception to the excellent, kindly, businesslike, and modern ways they have of caring for children, and enabling them to grow up strong and healthy members of the community. Remove Stigma From State Instications. "Let all stigma henceforth be removed from these institutions, for which the State and the commune are responsible, and which are looked after and governed gratuitously by honest and enlightened citizens, male and female."

This is given as the deliberate conclusion of a noted explorer, a noted authority on the native races and wild animals of Africa, and a leading Proconsul of the British Empire, to whom was entrusted the sole and absolute control, administration, and governance of the great Uganda Protectorate. Poor-House and Foundling Hospitals No Good For Babies. Such a name naturally carries great weight and world-wide authority; yet, as I shall show next week, practical experience in the Old World aDd in America has proved conclusively that the attempt to rear babies in Poorhouses and Foundling Hospitals has almost always resulted in appalling deatb-rates the mortality ranging from 25 to 100 per cent.—every child sometimes dying within two years of admission! Apart from the question of high death-rates, children reared *in Poorhouses or Foundling Hospitals tend to be weedy, ricketty, specimens—the very reverse of what we should aim at from the point of view of National Efficiency. No Place Like Home. If babies cannot be reared in their own homes, by their own mothers, they should be boarded out with the beHt and most capable foster-parents that can be secured. The homes of these foster-mothers should be regarded as Cottage Hospitals or Sanatoria, from one to three children and kept under the kindly and helpful matronship and supervision of a highly capable, tactful, sympathetic, and specially-trained nurse.