WHEN THE MOTHEES FAIL 33 



the peasant women of Norway or Sweden, where 

 breast-feeding is practically universal, and where 

 the infantile death-rate is almost the lowest in the 

 world as a consequence of that fact, ranging from 

 10 to 13 per cent." But there is an intellectual 

 and nervous development in the case of the fac- 

 tory worker in which formal education plays a rel- 

 atively small part. There is the excitement of 

 the city life, the haste and strain, with its enor- 

 mous psychological and physiological demands. The 

 woman in the great industrial centres has the osten- 

 tation of wealth constantly thrust before her, stir- 

 ring feelings of envy and of curiosity concerning the 

 life of people who are not of her world, though be- 

 longing to her race. The great drama of life is ever 

 before her with its excitation. In her own way, 

 she becomes, quite unconsciously, a student of the 

 greatest of human problems. Cheap newspapers, 

 garishly decked shops, flamboyant posters, and sen- 

 sational plays, all these and a thousand other things 

 tend to make her life highly complex as compared 

 with that of the placid peasant women of Europe. 

 Surely, it is not too much to expect that this tre- 

 mendous environmental difference, demanding as 

 it does so much more from the one than from the 

 other, should produce profound change in women's 

 lives, both physiological and psychological. As 

 the purely animal nature becomes less dominant 



