View report page

67
The girls write permanent notes of these lessons as compositions,
and are urged to keep them for reference after they
leave school.
The classes are under the close supervision of the School
Medical Officers, one of whom is often present at the demonstration,
and visits are also paid to the preliminary classes in the
schools. It is easy to find out by a little judicious questioning
whether the children have grasped principles, or are repeating
vaguely-understood formulae, and so far this latter error seems
to have been avoided.
It might be supposed that the mothers would regard the
classes unfavourably, but experience proved the opposite. It is
quite common to hear a child ask the Matron for the patterns of
baby clothes used at the creche "because mother wants to copy
them," and, in general, the mothers are glad to have their children
taught by trained experts in this as much as in any other subject.
During the hot weather of last summer, one mother whose
baby was very ill borrowed her neighbour's little girl "because
she had been to the nursery and knew the best ways." The child
went in daily to make albumen water and sterilise the bottles and
the milk, according to the doctor's instructions. It is satisfactory
to be able to say that the baby recovered !
The value of work of this kind cannot be expressed in
statistics, but in time it should show in an increased knowledge
of the rearing of children, and in an improved level of health in
childhood. One side result, though important in its way, is that
the attitude of the girls to such subjects as infant care and home
management is altering. Perhaps it was natural that when they
were carefully taught so many other branches of skilled work they
should assume that woman's work in the home was unskilled