Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/542

524 Again, the average mother needs a thorough grounding in elementary physiology and hygiene. Five per cent of all children born in the United States die under five years of age. When this occurs, the waste of human energy both before and after birth is something appalling. Prof. A. Gr. Warner estimates that it costs about a hundred dollars in loss of labor on the part of the mother, in doctor's bills, medicine, and nursing, to bring a child into the world, in a laboring-class family; while in families where a higher standard of living prevails this may amount to hundreds or even thousands of dollars. From a purely economic standpoint it is of the utmost importance to society that a child which costs so much, not merely in money but in vital energy, should be reared to maturity. The appalling mortality of children that are born fairly normal and vital is chiefly to be accounted for by the ignorance of mothers. The average woman may not need to know how many bones there are in the body, but she does need to know the connection between rich gravies, indigestion, and bad colds. She may not need to know how to bandage a broken arm, but she does need to realize the effect of sudden changes of temperature upon the delicate infant organism. The value of applied physiology in preserving infant life and diminishing hereditary and individual disease can not be overestimated; and no woman is fit to be married who has not had a training which gives her the elements of this essential knowledge.

Finally, women need a training in ethical standards. One of the curious anomalies disclosed by the entrance of women into industrial life is that while they have higher standards of purity than men, they frequently have much lower standards of honor and honesty. They do not hesitate to outwit, deceive, and "manage" difficult husbands; they train children in dishonesty by continually violating the most common standards of sincerity and directness. Children learn far more by example than by precept: the mother who continually promises, but always finds excuses for not performing; who threatens, but does not punish; who suppresses the child's frank comments on evil actions in others, while herself gossiping about her neighbors; who pretends to dress and to live above the scale of the family income, gives an education in dishonesty and sham which can not be overcome by any amount of so-called moral training.

If to all these practical and utilitarian attainments the mother can add the graces of culture in music or art or literature, she may give the child a background for education and a resource in life beyond the power of statistics to estimate. The elevation, enrichment, and sweetening of the family life by these contributions from the mother's own storehouse of culture are a safeguard against temp