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34
1912]
sacred the human body is sacred," and the bodies of these children are given
in trust to every Sanitary Authority, every one of which possesses the power
to assist in the preservation of the health and lives of the children born within
its district. It is true that no act of Parliament declares that they "must"
care for them ; but then, to use the words of Mr. F. P. Willis, one of the
Assistant Secretaries of the Local Government Board, " we have got beyond
the day when it is necessary to say you shall do it." Parliament and the
Local Government Boaxd trust the Sanitary Authorities to do the right and
proper thing for those communities committed to their charge, believing that the
great moral obligation, which most assuredly rests on them, will be quite sufficient
to induce them to discharge their plain and undoubted duty. So far as Islington
is concerned, nothing has been done up to now; and yet the Notification
of Births Act was passed six years ago. It is not because of the cost of the
Health Visitors—that is too trivial to be a real objection—but because of a
mistaken notion that their visits would be looked on as a most objectionable
interference with maternal rights, and an intrusion on the household. No such
fears need possess the minds of the members of the Borough Council, for these
objections have not been found in the innumerable places—great towns, small
towns, and rural districts—where Health Visitors have been appointed; but
on the contrary their services have been cheerfully received and readily
accepted, and, indeed, even much sought after by thousands of poor mothers,
who, not having been brought up with a knowledge of child life, or of maternal
duties, are for the most part only too pleased to avail themselves readily, if
not greedily, of the valuable assistance which their Sanitary Authorities have
placed at their disposal. The ignorance displayed in the rearing of children
has been recognised for ages, and long yeare ago Euripides declared that " the
gods turned the errors of parents to the undoing of their children." It is our
duty to see that these errors do not occur, and that the knowledge gained
by past generations should so serve the present, that future generations
shall benefit by what we have done; benefit in the possession of a manly,
healthy, vigorous human stock, and in the possession, not only of a sound body,
but a sound mind. This is what is expected of those who in civil life to-day
hold the destinies of this country in their hands; and less will not be accepted
of them; for the days have come when children can no longer be allowed to
be doomed to a premature death or to drag out a life of lingering sickness
and sorrow owing to maternal want of knowledge or other cause, if by any
practical means such evils can be prevented; and hence the concentration of
modern methods on the infants by Sanitary Authorities and on the children by
the School Authorities- This is the age of the protection of childhood and
the endowment of motherhood.