328 RURAL MICHIGAN 



staff of three to five persons, including the executive 

 secretary of the child welfare department, a physi- 

 cian, two trained nurses and a chart-maker. This 

 project is credited with the warm cooperation of 

 the ]\Iichigan Department of Health. Thousands 

 are reported to have visited the car, bringing babies 

 and young children for examination, at the fifty-two 

 places where the "Special" stopped for periods in 

 duration from two to forty-eight hours.^ "By visit- 

 ing Special," runs the report, "numbers of people re- 

 ceived their first insight into child welfare work. 

 Some towns where little or no child welfare work 

 was in progress decided to immediately undertake 

 something in that line." All committees are re- 

 ported to have stated that the visiting "Special" 

 greatly stimulated interest in child welfare. The 

 equipment of the car included an exhibit of posters 

 and other publicity material, a display of good and 

 bad toys, a model layette, and a "Don't" table. Here 

 were visible sermons against the use of pacifiers, long- 

 necked nursing bottles, pickles, doughnuts, tea, cof- 

 fee and sausage as applied to children. Literature of 

 child hygiene was freely distributed. 

 - Numbers of Michigan counties now maintain pub- 

 lic health nurses whose ministrations are primarily 

 to the inhabitants of the villages and the country, 

 since the cities are likely to provide for their own 

 needs. The University of Michigan, in the fall term 

 of 1920, inaugurated a course in the training of pub- 



'Rept. of Caroline Bartlett Crane: Childrens Bureau, 

 Washington. 



