OUR BABIES.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 226, 14 June 1915, Page 3

OUR BABIES.

BY HYQEIA.) (Published by the request of the Taihape Blanket Society.) NATIONAL IMPORTANCE OF THE TEACHING OF MOTHERCRAFT. (Address by the Bov. K. S. Gray, coneluded.) Our Forty Per Cent, of Rejects. There are authorities who do not hesitate to attribute our 40 per cent, of rejects among the young men applying for army service mainly to detective nursing and lack of proper care in infancy. Our average standard of health is shown to be most unsatisfactory, and the authorities arc agreed that the only children who have a fair chance of perfect health arc those led naturally and mothered intelligently. The fact that two out of five of oar young men volunteering for army -service prove unfit is alarming, for it means that we might have had a. representation of almost as many men again as we now have. And if the same proportion applies all over the Empire, it is surely time that the nation was awake to its vital importance. —(Applause). I submit that the facts which I have adduced, and the results achieved by the Society for the Health of Women and Children, demonstrate "the national importance of the teac-hing of mothoreraft. ’ ’ How Is the Teaching of Mothoreraft to he brought about. First, the State itself should recognise even more generously the work of the Society. There is a great deal to be said for the position that the work should be undertaken wholly by the State. That is clearly one of the chief functions of an ideal State. I recognise, however, that there arc great difficulties in the way, and that the work can be done much more effectively in the meantime by such a Society as this. It is not, however, too much to ask that larger Government grants to the Society bo made in order that there may bo no portion of the Dominion in which mothers, may not avail themselves of the services of the Blanket nurses. —(Applause). The action of the Government in endeavouring to place in the hands of every mother Dr. Truby King’s invaluable Handbook for Mothers was a step in the right direction; but the Society should be freed from ail financial anxiety, and more clearly recognised as, practically, a department of the State’s necessary activities. < Education of Girls in Mothercraft. [ Secondly, there is urgent need of proper education of onr girls In this matter. There should bo classes in our girls’ schools and colleges. This has been done in some few col]egos. It should bo .univorsalised. In jv.nU't parts of America "Little Mothers’ Leagues ’ ’ have bcr.c .formed, in girls arc instructed in the care of children. Thirdly, there should, be a determined and peisistent attempt to alter iiie emphasis in the matter of the educe.ion of girls. There should be more discrimination of sex. The Almighty har discriminated, and to ignore the clear

facts wrttca. in the very constitutor! of

every girl and to treat her in the years of her adolescence as though she differed little from the other sex is to deny

the basal low. of her boiag. As one writer has said:

We are not furnished in our public

schools with adequate womanly ideals in history or literature, and there is a danger of our having a female sox without a female character. The new love of freedom which women have lately felt inclines girls to abandon the home for the office. This matter is vital to the State. Its future depends upon its motherhood, and as far as possible it must train its girls in an atmosphere which will glorify womanhood and make it the legitimate object of every girl’s life. Present Provision for Education in Everything but Mothercraft.

There must be no conflict between intellectuality and motherhood. And wo must also destroy the conception that independence is the clr jf end ff-i \ woman’s educate-re, and provide for motherhood. A girl may be taught without cost almost everything else by the bountiful provision of the State. She may become a dressmaker or a typisto or a bookkeeper. She may take advantage of the numerous facilities which exist for training her in any other work in life; but for her chief work —the work for which the Almighty made her —she must drift into it without preparation and trust to Providence. Our Bodies the Temples of the Almighty.’ If it should bo suggested that I am placing all the emphasis on what differs little from the breeding of the animal, the reply is obvious. The appeal is made to that which is deepest in the human soul —to sincerity and simplicity and sacrifice, the response to which is the only sure method by which true character can be builded. On the matter of real sainthood, tho ; Almighty has placed no premium on ill-health* —ascetics and physical weaklings to the contrary, notwithstanding. The human body was intended to be the temple of the Highest. It is our clear obligation to prepare it to perfection. The Rights of Mother and Child. In conclusion, I plead for the same equality of opportunity tor the child which wo are coming to recognise as the right of the adult. The, State has obligations to the baby no less than to the grown man. Let us plan and work to hasten the day when we may be able to remove the reproach which rests on us, and iilion every child born in our midst will bo given his inalienable birthright—the chance to be born well, to live, and to grew up strong and healthy. Motherhood was glorified for all time by the Immortal Son of God, and it is the work of all lovers of their fellows to attempt by all means in their power to replace . the halo of glory, which has been in some measure removed. —(Applause).