PRESIDENT'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS 27 



life. As countries become urbanized and they all are 

 becoming urbanized communities concentrate; the popula- 

 tion gets denser per mile and denser per acre, and unfortu- 

 nately denser per house; and in every land the countryside 

 is yielding to the town life, with the result that the early years 

 of life in urban communities are denied the quiet, the rest, 

 and the fallow conditions so essential for a happy, healthy 

 childhood. It even goes beyond this; and just as the 

 physical history of all of us, I believe, begins with our 

 grandmothers, so the life of a baby is measured now in city 

 life more by its pre-natal condition than by its post-natal 

 environment. I am glad that the doctors, who have been, 

 I am pleased to say, the backbone of this movement, are 

 increasingly giving their attention to that aspect of the 

 subject. Modern conditions of themselves quite apart from 

 housing, money, and the means of commanding the mere 

 physical comforts of life the modern conditions of city life 

 are inimical to childhood. Housing conditions, the atmos- 

 phere, the aggregation, the food, the noise, and the stress 

 of city life may be harmful even education when undertaken 

 too early may not be altogether the wisest thing for the 

 physique. It may be that even where the physique is good 

 certain types of education are not fitted for certain physical 

 characteristics. It is not an accident that clergymen and 

 gardeners have the longest and on the whole the best and 

 worthiest lives. Clergymen and gardeners have an almost 

 perfect condition of life and environment for developing the 

 physical, the moral, and the mental faculties. What we have 

 got to do is not to dispossess the clergyman and the gardener 

 of their good conditions, but to try by every means within 

 our power to approximate the life of every other section 

 of the community to that of which the clergyman and the 

 gardener now have a comparative monopoly. 



How can that be done ? I do not believe it can be done 

 all at once anything that can be secured all at once is not 

 worth having; but I want, if I may, to give one or two 

 illustrations. One of the healthiest, as it is one of the 

 prettiest and one of the wealthiest communities I know in 

 the world, is the parish of Hampstead. Hampstead at one 

 end of the scale had an infant mortality of 62 per 1,000 in 

 1912 very creditable indeed, but given their conditions it 

 ought to be less than 50. Shoreditch, at the other end of 

 the scale in London, had an infant mortality of 123 per 1,000, 

 or just double. Social, economic, and financial conditions 

 are to a great extent responsible for the difference between 

 Hampstead and Shoreditch. But you have not reached a 

 final conclusion when you state the proposition in that way. 



