FITTING MEMORIAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 May 1939, Page 5

FITTING MEMORIAL

TO NEW ZEALAND’S GREATEST SON. MAYOR OF MASTERTON COMMENTS APPEAL. “It was thirty-two years yesterday since the late Sir Truby King founded in Dunedin the Society for the Health of Women and Children, now popularly known as the Plunket Society,” the Mayor of Masterton (Mr T. Jordan) said today. “At that time this Dominion was losing approximately 7 per cent of its births in the first year of the life of the children. To mend this serious condition of affairs Sir Truby, with a rare singleness of purpose, devoted the rest of his days and all his skill and strength. Fortunately he was able in a wonderful way to infect others with his own dynamic enthusiasm and direction and he at once became the leader of a crusade in the interests of mothers and their children. Through the Plunket Society his influence and teaching radiated throughout New Zealand and soon spread beyond its confines into the outer world. Here, in New Zealand, the change in the figures of infant mortality bears striking testimony to the efficiency of the Plunket system and before he died in February of last year Sir Truby had the supreme satisfaction of knowing that New Zealand led the world in the care and preservation of its infant life and that the rate of infant mortality was now less than 3 percent of the births per annum.

“The leaders of the society quite naturally felt impelled in some way to commemorate their founder and they have decided that no memorial would be more fitting than one designed to foster and improve the system instituted by him. For this cause they appeal to the public of New Zealand to find the sum of £5,000. As a New Zealander and as the father of the first Plunket baby on the Masterton roll I should like to commend whole heartedly to the public of this district this memorial to New Zealand s greatest son.” . Mr Jordan has opened the fund in Masterton by making a donation of £1 Is.