524 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Again, tlie average mother needs a thorougli grounding in ele- 

 mentary 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 over- 

 estimated; 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 indus- 

 trial 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 perform- 

 ing; 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, enrich- 

 ment, and sweetening of the family life by these contributions from 

 the mother's own storehouse of culture are a safeguard against temp- 



