AUTHORITIES' RESPONSIBILITIES : DISCUSSION 149 



with Mr. Burns (laughter) but he did that morning; but 

 the question was : How could they get at the parents of 

 the prospective children ? They had a few thousand schools, 

 many thousands of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, and 

 millions of scholars, and it seemed to him that if only they 

 could keep the girls at school until they were 16, and the 

 boys until they were 15, and that while they were under 

 their care the schoolmasters should teach the boys some- 

 thing about parentage and the schoolmistresses should teach 

 the girls something about motherhood it seemed to him 

 that "in that way they would do a far greater amount of 

 good than they could possibly do by occasional visits in the 

 mothers' homes. Whilst he was thankful for that Confer- 

 ence, he wanted to see if they could not go a little further 

 than some of them wished. Their lady friend had talked 

 about the Mental Deficiency Bill. That was a sprat that 

 would not catch a whale it would not catch anything. It 

 would do nothing to stop the making of mental deficients 

 by the canker worm of worry. It was worry among the 

 poor that brought about mental strain, and brought forth 

 weaklings, and therefore society would have to build, not 

 upon the god of gold, but on the god of goodness before 

 they would see any great change for the better in the 

 conditions of infant mortality. 



Mr. DOUGLAS EYRE (Social Welfare Association for 

 London) said that at the Conference they were welcoming 

 representatives from various parts of the Empire, but they 

 had not heard so far of what was going on in London itself. 

 He would like to speak specially in connection with the first 

 paper read that afternoon the place of the voluntary 

 health worker in connection with infants. He could not 

 conceive, neither did he think that any social worker in 

 London could conceive, the ground being covered without 

 the voluntary health worker. They had formed a Central 

 Health Committee for London, and London, they must 

 remember, was composed of twenty-eight huge centres of 

 population gathered together under twenty-eight municipali- 

 ties. The first thing they wanted was facts, and they had 

 therefore prepared, after careful investigation, a report, 

 which wa>s now in the hands of the Local Government Board. 

 They found that of the twenty-eight medical officers of 

 health all welcomed the aid that could be given by voluntary 

 health workers. We were an island nation, and our great 

 weakness consisted in the insularity of our systems and of 

 our policy. There were an enormous number of societies 

 engaged in the same kind of philanthropic work, and the 

 great need, not only in London, but, he believed, in every 



