200 THE NEXT GENERATION 



Make no effort to remember the figures in the two columns ; 

 they are merely an estimate. They do not claim to be exact, 

 but they do point a great truth. They draw attention to the 

 fact that when young children are surrounded by evil condi- 

 tions, by deep poverty and by the kind of environment which 

 goes with such poverty, they die of diseases from which they 

 should have recovered. 



In 1892 almost 1000 babies and children under the age 

 of five died in Rochester, New York. At that time babies 

 and grown folks too used whatever milk was brought to them 

 by the dealers, for in those days no special attention was paid 

 either to the quality of the milk or to its cleanness. 



In 1904, however, there was a different death rate for the 

 babies. Instead of 1000, only 500 died that year; and yet 

 since 1892 the population of the city had increased by 

 30,000 people. The explanation was at hand. It rested with 

 the milk supply. Somewhere between 1892 and 1904 the 

 Health Department of Rochester decided that the babies of 

 Rochester should have clean milk for their everyday diet. 

 Thereafter they had it, and everybody acknowledged that clean 

 milk did more than any other one thing to cut the death rate 

 in two. They said that no part of the environment is more 

 important for babies than nourishment. 1 



Students of living conditions are saying more and more 

 positively that, for the good of the race, every kind of environ- 

 ment for the children must be properly looked after. They 

 are also saying that even environment will not do everything. 

 It is for this reason that they have taken their final step in 

 race improvement, to the study of which we now turn. 



1 For full description of the clean-milk crusade in Rochester see " Town 

 and City," chap. xx. 



