Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/236

 small bathtub studying the technique of the baby's bath. Some of the girls had brought babies with them, for almost all of them are at least partly responsible for the care of one or more children. There was a moving pathos in the gravity with which these matrons before their time discussed the problems of their craft; and yet it was also the finest kind of a game and they evidently enjoyed it heartily. Many of them come from ignorant homes where the parents know next to nothing of hygiene. Their teachers tell of the valiant efforts of these children to convert their mothers to more sanitary ways efforts—which are happily often successful. In one home, where the father was a tailor, the baby was kept in a room where the pressing was done, the air was hot and heavy with steam. The small daughter, who was a member of the Little Mothers' League, insisted on the baby being removed to another room. Two children in another school, who had been told of the importance of keeping the baby's milk on ice, tried to make home-made ice-boxes, which their fathers, becoming interested, promised to finish for them.

One wishes that all this might be only an enchanting game for these children, and that it would not be necessary for them to put it into practice every day, with tired little arms and aching backs. He must be stiff-hearted indeed who can watch these gatherings, their tousled little heads and bare legs, their passionate