A Social Study of the Russian German 69 
houses. However cleanly the homes, the people cannot escape 
the effects of odors from undrained sewage and pools of stagnant 
water, piles of manure and garbage heaps thrust upon them by 
the city, nor the more direct effect of well water contaminated by 
seepage through such polluted soil. 
Probably an important cause for infant mortality (and child 
mortality, as well) over which the individual has control, is lack 
of protection against cold. The immigrant coming from Russia 
finds here a climate much milder than the one to which he has 
been accustomed and underestimates its effect upon the weak. 
The children are not warmly enough clothed; the houses are not 
kept sufficiently and evenly heated, while crowded conditions 
often subject the child to sudden changes of temperature. It is 
not unusual for mothers to take small babies to the church when 
the building has not been ventilated or heated and to sit through 
a long service when the temperature within the house is colder 
and damper than without. Particularly is this true of week-day 
services, such as funerals, when there is no one at home with 
whom to leave the child. 
The Russian German mothers, as a rule, are not “ grossly in- 
experienced or negligent in the care of their children.” The ma- 
jority of them spent their childhood caring for babies and the 
care of children comes second nature to them in spite of their 
youth at marriage. The young married women seldom go out 
to work either in’organized industry or in the homes, and thus 
the care of their infants is not shifted upon some one else. The 
neglect of children is most apt to occur where the family is large 
and demands the mother’s work away from home, and where the 
care of the younger children falls to the lot of the older ones. or 
possibly to aged or infirm grandparents. Thus, contrary to the 
general rule, it is usually the later born who suffer neglect more 
than the first born, and the older babies instead of those under 
one year of age. 
The Russian German mother as a ids is healthy in body and 
mind, and is contented and happy in rearing her family. Her 
children are not unwelcomed as is sometimes the case elsewhere, 
and her inferests are usually narrowed down to the individual 
195 
