I^TFAKTILE MORTALITY. 701 



These female inspectors receive, as a rule, but a small salaiy, and 

 in certain towns their work is to some extent supervised or supple- 

 mented by unpaid educated lady visitors. Here again the woman's 

 province is all her own. The house is her citadel. What does a man 

 know about a house and its domestic management, even alDout the 

 very house he lives in? 



The woman can afford a guidance in those small matters of 

 domestic economy and the affairs of babydom in a way no mere man 

 can do. No, we must employ women to teach women the lost art of 

 mothering. We must get into touch with the mothers of to-day if w© 

 are to get into touch -with the mothers of the future. 



But what is wanted is quiet educative work rather than official 

 inspection. 



Education on this question niust? be general rather than special. 

 We must not drive, but lead ; not dictate, but patiently suggest. The 

 late Sir Benjamin Richardson, M.D., in one of his delightful lectures 

 on " Woman as a Sanitary Reformer," said : — 



" If what Pope said of man be tnie — - 



Men should he taught as though you taught them not, 

 And things unkuo-xn be told as things forgot." 



In respect to the sex still more susceptible and impressionable, 

 especially when those truly feminine duties which are connected with 

 domestic health and happiness form the subject of advancement, it 

 may with equal truth be said : — 



Women should ne'er be taught a thing unknown, 



It should be credited as all their own. 



The influence of woman is all potent for good or for evil in her 

 sphere of life and duty. 



If all the mothers who are capable of nursing their infants could 

 but be encouraged to do so, the artificial feeding necessary for the 

 remainder could be so supervised that the dangers attributed to the 

 food factor in infantile mortality would lose much of their present 

 significance. 



