Woman’s Work in Many Spheres

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 158, 24 September 1927, Page 8

Woman’s Work in Many Spheres

No. 4. Mrs. W. H. Parkes

YyRAPPED in the enthusiasm which a great aim can inspire, Mrs. W. H. Parkes, president ot the Plunket Society, would like to devote all her time to further the interests of mothers and children. “I took up the Plunket Society really because of my enthusiastic admiration for Sir Truby King and his aims,” said Mrs. Parkes to an interviewer.” I was second president of the society here, but I had to give up the work owing to ill-health. When I was able to take it up again I was very much impressed with the need of a Karitane Hospital for the city. “So I explained my views at a meeting of the society. Judge my surprise when the late Sir Arthur Myers telephoned before breakfast next morning to say that the idea had so impressed him that he wished to give £5,000 toward it. And not long after Mr. and Mrs. A. C. Caughey offered to the society their fine home in Mount Albert. Dr. Truby King thought the house with its grounds were ideal for a hospital, and so. now it is our Karitane. You can understand why I say that Auckland has been very generous to

the society. By the time the next annual meeting came round we had easily raised the £15,000 we set out to g:et and had enough over to build the mother’s cottage in the Karitane grounds. It is here we carry on the greatest propaganda of all—mothercraft. “One of our most valuable ways of disseminating the system is through the Registrar of Births. Whenever an infant is registered we are notified, and can offer our nurses’ services. So we get into homes and help, and educate mothers in the proper care of infants in such points as the preparation of foods. “The system and the society is educative in every way, and that is why it must, of course, be entirely free. We are often asked why we don’t make some slight charge for the services given, but of course that would prevent many from coming to our nurses. Those who need the society most are sometimes not able to pay anything. "I have been interested in many movements, but in none so much as in the Plunket Society. For here we are dealing with the greaest national asset, the children, and propagating the knowledge of the greatest vocation of all —motherHbcid. No one would think of sending a youth into business without training, but girls are called to the highest of duties without any proper instruction. “Of course the grandmas don’t usually approve of the Plunket system. They quote their own experiences, but I always maintain that it was the survival of the fittest in their day. An old lady came to me after my address to a new branch, and said to me, ‘Mrs. Parkes, I always thought I knew something about babies, having reared 16 of them, but I’ll admit that you know more about them than I ever did.’ ” And that was a merited complimeni; to the assiduous study Mrs. Parkes has given every aspect of the work of the society. H.I.M.