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2. On "weighing day" the mother comes herself to get
advice and instruction, instead of passively submitting
to having it taken to her. She therefore values it more
and is more receptive,
3. Instruction can be given in the way it is best assimilated,
i.e., by degrees and as the child grows and develops.
4. It is possible to give teaching of a more advanced nature
to those who need it. Among the higher type of
working-class mothers there are many of these. They
will attend regularly and become capable of a genuine
child-study for which the development of their own
child offers opportunity. Child-study to be of real use
must not be restricted to experts, but must penetrate
to the parents generally. Weighing a baby regularly
and commenting on its growth and development to its
mother is one way in which to help to make the child
of real mental interest to the woman.
Milk depot work can further the education of women health
officers by giving opportunity for concentrated minute study
of the individual differences of the normal healthy infant.
There is need for centres where the child in health can be
observed widely. Hospitals give opportunity for the study of
sick children. Women inspectors and health visitors have
not now to be content with combating gross errors in infant
management, but must have an expert knowledge of infant life.
Work in connection with depot-fed infants needs so concentrated
an attention because we are ourselves responsible
for the feeding and for adapting it to individual needs, that
one is compelled to recognise and try to understand this
marked individuality of the human infant, with its own rate of
development, its own need for and capacity to assimilate
food, and its own response to environment generally.
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