Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

most attractive and valuable toys do not cost the most money.

Body, mind and spirit-the three are one and cannot be separated in any cut and dried fashion and in training and developing the child the nurture of the one side of his nature necessarily overlaps and effects the other, and it will be observed that in suggesting means of nurturing the child's mind and body what has been said in a measure repeats what may be said regarding the development of his heart and soul. It is possible however and we see instances on every side in which intellect has been developed at the expense of heart, and mind cultivated at the cost of bodily health-in normal, wholesome training the three should grow and expand together.

NURTURE OF THE HEART

What are some of the opportunities afforded by the visit to the toyshops for cultivating the heart of the child?

As said before, the child sees life reflected in the wares of the shop-he learns to know his own wants better. He has the opportunity of choice and as some psychologist has said, life is but a succession of choices. He sees something that he wants, oh, so much-the next moment some other wonderful thing attracts his attention-and mother helps him to discriminate, to recognize true values, to think ahead and be willing to forego present fleeting pleasures for future ones that will be more lasting, to refrain from patronizing the penny slotmachine for the joy of buying later, a Christmas gift for sister.

In selecting therefore, he may be trained to choose the permanent rather than the ephemeral, and to recognize and choose good workmanship rather than the cheap and flimsy. Does he want to be a good workman himself some day?

He exercises choice also in regard to the tastes of those for whom he buys. Something inexpensive may give far more pleasure than the costly gift, if it is just what the friend wants. In selecting a book for sister has he sister's tastes in mind rather than his own? He will not buy for her that interesting looking volume on football. We We all know the story of the woman who bought for her husband a silk dress!

When we go shopping will we decide to go to those stores that pay their emploves well even if prices are a bit higher? In other words are we willing to pay a fair

price for our purchases? Froebel has a Mother play (the Target) in which fair pay for fair work is the central theme.

We will increase the general Christmas joy by buying our gifts early in the season and as early in the day as possible so as to relieve the pressure upon the salespeople. Will we train the child at Christmas time to take home himself as many of the smaller parcels as possible so that the drivers. may not be kept out later at night than is absolutely necessary? Many of the large department stores now place large signs requesting customers to in this way make life. more livable for the weary seller behind the counter, and many of the shops close far more early at night than they did formerly.

It is a good deal of a strain to take a young child to the Christmas shops in a large city. It is a strain upon both mother and child. When she is actually shopping it is best to do so without the child if possible, and to make a point of taking the child some day for the sake of the indirect educational advantages. For this purpose the smaller local shops offer excellent opportunities and are less bewildering to the little one. It is moreover good to patronize home trade, i. e., buy at the little local shops as much as possible and so encourage and add to the Christmas cheer of the small storekeeper. How many fathers may be induced to follow Froebel's hint and take the child on an educational tour through the shops? As he gazes longingly at many delightful toys, lead the child to think of the children who may otherwise be overlooked at this happy season. Shall we spend a few of our Lincoln pennies for less fortunate children than ourselves? Shall we mend some of our last year's toys and books to give to others?

In Froebel's plan it will be noticed the parents do not buy at the time that they visit the shops-they merely look and help the child to find a the child to find a pleasure in looking and admiring even if he cannot own. And this is a very important life lesson. We must train the eyes, the ears, the mind to enjoy, to perceive and to get the benefit at every opportunity, of many things which we may never actually possess as far as legal papers are concerned. But from the observation of such we may win treasures of heart and mind that neither thieves nor moths can take from us-and one of the choicest pos(Continued on page 123)

[merged small][graphic]

HE problem of the poor mother and her infant is by no means new. For years it has been the object of serious concern to governments and municipalities, and has won the attention of physicians, philanthropists, milk dealers, sanitarian and social workers, not only in

this country, but in France, Germany, England, and other nations of Europe. It is only within recent years, however, that the great mass of people has awakened to the

fact that hundreds of thousands of infants are dying needlessly each year, and has begun to take active steps to save their lives.

Numerically to picture the problem of infant mortality is, at the best, unsatisfactory. To the expert, as well as layman, statistics convey little real impression of the suffering and pathos involved in these needless deaths. Reduced to comparative terms, however, the situation changes. Even figures now cause one to shudder; for other dread diseases shrink into insignificance when the resulting loss of life for any given year is contrasted with deaths among babies from the first to the twelfth month of their existence.

Last year, it is estimated, 150,000 deaths resulted from tuberculosis in the United States. These deaths covered the whole span of life from infancy to old age, and occurred in spite of long efforts and the expenditure of large sums of money.

Although we have no accurate figures as to the number of babies born annually in *The Survey.

the United States, a conservative estimate would be 2,500,000, of which certainly fifteen per cent or 375,000 perish during their first year. In 1908, in New York city, 16,230 infants died during the first year. The excess of these deaths, which, as will be shown later, are largely preventable, over deaths from all other causes at any other

equal period of life, is shocking.

From birth, down to the tenth year, the mortality rate declines constantly. It is highest during the first week, falls somewhat during the second week, is fairly constant the third week, and then falls more or less steadily to the twelfth month of life. The enormous death rate among infants

[graphic][merged small]

other two-thirds by casualties and those ordinary ills of infancy which may almost wholly be prevented by the exercise of reasonable intelligence and care.

The importance of pure milk in reducing infant mortality, although worthy of grave consideration, has, up to the present time, been over emphasized; in fact, it has withdrawn attention from other factors equally important, probably on account of the grim manner in which the hand of death flays down the children of the tenements in the congested portions of all American cities during the hot months.

The tragedy is well pictured in the French chart, familiar to every child specialist, called the Eifel Tower. Here we have a contrast in morbidity between children suckled and those fed upon artificial food. Among the former the ratio of deaths remains comparatively constant until we approach July and August when it rises to a considerable but not startling degree, falling shortly after wards and remaining, as at first, until the closing of the year. With the artificially fed infant, however, it is always subject to leaps and bounds. When July is reached, the leap is frightful, spouting up like a geyser of human blood. Fifteen bottle-fed babies die

[subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small]

the percentage to be even as high as twenty to one. Recently Dr. Joseph L. Winters of New York, pictured the situation truthfully when he said: "No matter how dark the tenement, how foulsome the street, how unsanitary the home or how sickening the conditions in which the child is raised, an infant, fed at the breast of a healthy woman, runs little risk of death. No medicine, no care or treatment, no proprietary food, will guarantee the life of a sick infant in the summer time. There is one remedy and one alone. That is, that the infant should be fed as God intended it to be."

But although many of us realize, and others are coming to realize, that the breast-fed baby is comparatively immune from death, the fact nevertheless remains

that thousands upon thousands of infants all over the world, are unable to obtain

maternal nourishment.

The New York Milk Committee in Manhattan Island, is feeding in the neighborhood of 750 infants. A careful statistical estimate, based upon the ratio of infants fed in its depots to the total number of infants in the areas included by them, extended to all the varyingly congested districts of the island, shows that in Manhattan, 12,500 mothers of the poorer classes (and no one knows how many of the middle classes) are forced to rely upon artificial feeding for their infants. The two main reasons for this maternal impotency, are physical disability, due to improper nourishment and disease, and industrial employment, due principally to abject poverty. Added knowledge and intelligence, not only on the part of the corporation and the man at its head and the careless spendthrift; but also for the tenement house mother, for whom much is being done, but who, through sheer ignorance, nullifies the efficacy of material relief and kindly effort -added knowledge and intelligence, I say, must be created before the problem of infant mortality can be satisfactorily solved.

The beginning of this work already has been made. Seventeen years ago, Nathan Straus, in New York city, began his memorable campaign against impure milk. Splendid have been the results achieved, but, as concerns the decrease of infant mortality, Mr. Straus attacks only one phase of the problem. Pure milk is only one factor. More important than to supply a substitute

[ocr errors]
[graphic]
[graphic][merged small][merged small]
[graphic][merged small]

from

for breast milk is to encourage breast feeding and render it possible-to remove the conditions of undernourishment and employment, which prevent women from nursing, and to educate mothers to realize, not only the importance of maternal nursing, but also the value of sanitation, infant feeding, infant hygiene, and the proper care of their infants and of themselves.

It was with this idea in mind that the New York Milk Committee in June, 1908, opened seven milk depots in New York city from which is sold certified milk from what probably is one of the best dairy herds in the United States-the Tully Farms herd.

Each depot is in the charge of a group of volunteer physicians under a senior physician elected by them. These physicians examine the babies at weekly classes, weigh them, prescribe their exact feedings and educate the mothers by talks on infant feeding and infant hygiene patterned after the well known consultations of nourishment of France. Trained nurses, employed by the committee, supervise the distribution of milk, assist the doctors at the classes, and, by visiting the homes see that the mothers actually carry out what they are told to do. At the close of each day,

these nurses telephone their exact milk orders for the day following to the central laboratory, which is generously provided by the Sheffield Farms-Slawson Decker Milk Company-and the next morning before eight o'clock, the milk, properly prepared and refrigerated, is delivered at each station.

The results have been wonderful. Sickly, emaciated children, hardly human in appearance, have become in a few months fat and rosy. Overworked mothers, who scarcely had had a night's sleep since the birth of the child, have become rested and refreshed. In the Henry Street Depot alone more than one-third of the babies who are now alive and in healthful condition were on the point of death, when they were first brought in. In Cannon street, the committee is feeding nearly 200 babies, most of whom were in bad condition when found. At the last consultation only one with a severe cold was failing to improve.

In one of the consultations at Bloomingdale Guild thirty-two babies are enrolled. The average age at which they were brought was twenty-five weeks and two days. The average weight was thirteen pounds six and four-tenths ounces, whereas the regularly accepted estimate for a nor

« AnteriorContinuar »