THREE STEPS IN RACE IMPROVEMENT 199 



And it is time all this was done. For years thoughtful people 

 have noticed that, as a rule, children are good or bad, that 

 they live or die, according to conditions about them — that 

 they are cursed or blessed by their environment. 1 



Dr. Ellis says that seventy years ago, out of every thousand 

 babies born in such cities as Manchester and Leeds, England, 

 six hundred died before they were five years old. Their en- 

 vironment helped them to die. Dr. Ashby says : " In healthy 

 children, among the well-to-do class, the mortality from measles 

 is practically nil ; in the tubercular and wasted children to be 

 found in workhouses, hospitals, and among the lower classes, 

 the mortality is enormous, no disease being attended with 

 more fatal results." Dr. Spargo gives a table of figures to 

 show what effect environment has on the death-rate of babies. 



Table showing Infantile Mortality from Eleven Given 

 Causes, and the Estimated Influence of Poverty thereon 



1 Deep poverty is one of the worst of environments, because it is so 

 inclusive in the harm it does. 



