EDUCATION IN INFANT HYGIENE : DISCUSSION 285 



expensive scientific training, was not the person to sit for nine 

 or twelve hours in the patient's house, looking after all her 

 immediate wants during labour. As a matter of fact they 

 did not do it, but they went away and left it to the women, 

 who did three-quarters of the work. But the skilled midwife 

 would do that herself. Therefore let them train midwives 

 not to be an inferior order but a lower order of specialist. 

 She quite admitted that the supreme authority in the country 

 was the chemist. (Laughter.) Because they had no quali- 

 fications they gave advice and did not charge anything. 

 But after the chemist came the midwife, and a long way 

 after came the doctor (laughter) and if the midwife always 

 sent the patient away and would not give any advice 

 immediate daily advice as to what should be done, the 

 mother would get the advice from others. If she called the 

 doctor in he would probably not give any advice at all, for 

 he would not be interested, and would very likely be very 

 much annoyed at being brought out of his way for what he 

 would think was a very trifling affair. She did not think 

 that was fair to the working people or to the midwife. 



The CHAIRMAN announced that Dr. Addison was unable 

 to be present. 



Mrs. KITSON CLARK (Leeds Babies' Welcome) said she 

 had hoped the paper of Dr. Addison would have been read 

 so that the opportunity might have been given of asking 

 what all those interested in schools for mothers would like 

 to know. The question was whether there was any chance 

 of such schools receiving grants from the Board of Educa- 

 tion. They felt that they were doing a very valuable work 

 for the State. At Leeds they spent about 800 a year and 

 had about 1,500 mothers on their books, and they did not 

 get a halfpenny from any public source whatever; they had 

 to beg for every penny. They had asked several times for 

 a grant from the authorities, but the first condition was that 

 there must be ten lessons in their course and that every 

 lesson must be not less than forty minutes long. Anyone 

 who had had experience of a babies' welcome would know 

 that such a lesson would be absolutely valueless to mothers. 

 In the first place they could not keep the infants quiet, 

 whilst if they put them into a separate room they would 

 yell. (Laughter.) But beyond that they had to consider 

 that they were dealing with women who had left school at 

 13 and had not received any teaching since; and in such 

 cases they could only put one small fact into their minds 

 at a time. With these facts before them and their lack of 

 money they thought it only waste of time to give lectures 

 to mothers of more than twenty minutes' duration. She 



