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of places. We had hoped to be able to progress with the building of
another nursery, but this project is still around the corner.
There are both advantages and disadvantages in a child going to a
day nursery, but I do believe the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
There are certain essential difficulties in running a day nursery, and
in the ordinary course of things somebody is sure to get measles at some
time or another, and somebody is sure to get whooping cough, and this
puts the nursery in quarantine so that admissions are delayed.
At the present time admissions to these Nurseries are governed by
the following priorities, viz:—
1. Children of mothers who are employed in industries which are
vital to production for essential home needs or for export; or
2. Children of mothers who are ill or being confined; or
3. Children of employed unmarried mothers who are anxious to keep
their babies with them but cannot do so without some provision
for the babies' care during the day.
I am sure that the scope of these nurseries should be extended.
Once again I want to emphasise that civilisation is only an affair
of yesterday so far as the history of man is concerned. Women were
never intended to be washing the crockery and cleaning the fire irons and
dusting the chairs and washing the curtains morning, noon and night,
with their children everlastingly around them, and to my mind it is the
quintessence of pathos to see some women as you do of an afternoon
pushing a pram and looking bored.
I know I shall have a large number of critics for having said women
look bored, and some people will contradict me. It is quite true that
when you stop and talk to them the proud mother's face lights up and she
is vital whilst she is showing off her baby, but I ask people to watch
these women when they are walking along and do not know that they are
being watched.
A most devoted mother should have time off and she should have
somewhere where she can place her baby for some hours, and what she
does with those few hours should be her own business. It is just as
necessary for her to have a few hours when she can go to the pictures
as it is for people who work to have time off for recreation, and I do hope
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