Page:The Woman Socialist - Snowden - 1907.djvu/62

 Teach the mothers as soon as possible. Teach them that gin is not the proper nourishment either for themselves or their infants. Teach them the terrible power of heredity. Teach them the beauty of cleanliness in person, dress, and home. Teach them the value of sleep to a little child. Teach them regular habits. Teach them to feed their children themselves whenever possible. Teach them a hundred matters of vital concern in their own and their children's lives. Teach them at once, for the children are dying. But besides this, examine the social system which makes these shiftless mothers possible. Find out the root-cause of the ignorance and carelessness. And then remove it.

Miss Margaret M'Millan, in a pamphlet lately published, declares that thirty per cent. of the infants who die prematurely do so because they are prematurely born. Marriage has taken place before the mother was sufficiently matured herself to bear a healthy child. Or the children have come too quickly, and the mother has had no time to regain her strength between the births. Physicians have declared, out of their wisdom, that a woman does not attain