SANITARY EDUCATION IS IMPROVING RAPIDLY 87 



years hence, when but one or two decades have passed, 

 the race will look back with pity at the present-day 

 infant mortality. We can now hardly realise what 

 small-pox used to be like a hundred years ago. 



Discoveries are grasped more quickly nowadays, 

 and their applications are more thorough than they 

 were even in the past generation. This is because of 

 the rapid means of intercourse between nations, the 

 influence of advertisement, and progressive competition. 

 As a result communities are more united than formerly, 

 and there is less dislike to pay for innovations. If the 

 suggested innovation is a reasonable one, and is certain 

 to produce beneficial results quickly, the public will 

 pay. But the matter must be suggested in a creditable 

 manner. An insect which lives and breeds in filth 

 surely any reasonable individual will help to rid us 

 of it? 



But there is the expenditure of energy to be taken 

 into account. Well, the energy expended will have its 

 reward. The health-officer who can reduce perma- 

 nently the mortality of the people in his sanitary charge 

 will deserve the credit of those who benefit mankind. 

 The man who saves life deserves far more praise than 

 the general who destroys it. Probably he will not get 

 the praise he deserves at once ; but still the knowledge 

 is there, and sooner or later the repute due to him will 

 be his. Then there is the advantage that fly-reduction 

 will reap its own reward, and that the reward will vary 

 directly with the energy expended. 



