TEE WASTE OF CEILDREN 549 



THE WASTE OF CHILDEEN 



By Dr. Geo. B. MANGOLD 



UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 



LESS than two hundred years ago not more than one fourth of 

 the children born in London ever reached their fifth year of life. 

 The rest were ruthlessly swept aside and died without adding a single 

 iota to the sum of human service. It is a matter of utmost importance 

 to know under what conditions an advance in population is secured. 

 The beginnings of national life in Europe were accompanied by 

 energetic efforts to augment the number of each national group. Neces- 

 sarily the strength of a nation depended largely upon the size of its 

 population. Despite these efforts, the practical results were lost in 

 the many adverse circumstances which operated to neutralize their 

 effects. A comparatively slow increase of the population of nearly 

 every European country before the last quarter of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury was the natural result. Every civilization, however, whether old 

 or new, has purchased progress at considerable cost. Lives, property 

 and happiness have been sacrificed to attain this coveted goal. Civil- 

 ization spells economy. It means a fuller utilization of our powers, 

 faculties, and our mental and physical equipment, no less than a more 

 capable use of the productive forces of nature. The more primitive 

 a society, the more immediate and absolute is its subjection to environ- 

 ment. From this thraldom civilization is gradually releasing us, and 

 to-day we stand partly above our environment and in a measure mold 

 it by determining its character, and forcing its adaptation to our 

 peculiarities in addition to our own increasing adaptability to its 

 changing conditions. 



Probably in no other field of human activity has man's former 

 ignorance been more lamentable in its consequences than in that of 

 rearing children — the future parents of the race. Even the slow in- 

 crease of savage tribes is purchased at a tremendous expenditure of 

 energy, and the number of infants and little children whose physical 

 and economic cost is never compensated for by useful and productive 

 lives has been appalling. A recent investigation of the Bontoc Igorrote 

 in the Philippines indicates a mortality of 60 per cent, before the age 

 of puberty is reached. Such people have risen but little above their 

 natural environment and are quite subject to its rigors and destroying 

 processes. Decreasing cost characterizes advancing civilization, yet 

 throughout the eighteenth century the European population, being 



