Child hygiene / by S. Josephine Baker.

  • Sara Josephine Baker
Date:
[1925]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Child hygiene / by S. Josephine Baker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    viewing all history of the care of children, it seems evident that civilization may be measured in its progress by a nation’s attitude toward its children. There can be no question that the concern of the state for children has been, and unfortunately still is to a large extent, dependent upon the need of self-protection and defense against a possibility of armed invasion. War has been the greatest stimulus to organized efforts for child care. War and childhood should be the very antithesis of each other, but it is impossible to study the history of child welfare from its earliest conception without recognizing that war or the thought of war has stimulated the majority of countries to the needful protection of child life. Even during the last century this is strikingly evident. France has given the earliest instance of a modern child- hygiene program. Indeed, we have hardly a single type of child-hygiene work that did not originate in that country. France had the first organized foundling asylums; the creche, or day nursery, is a direct contribution from that country. France passed the first laws for the protection of illegitimate children and the provision for pensions for mothers. The first infants’ milk stations were organized in France, and school medical inspection had its beginning there about the middle of the last century. It would be difficult to ascribe an altruistic motive for that country’s extended program for child hygiene. For generations France has faced a declining birth rate and a fairly high infant mortality rate. She has also faced, and is facing to-day, what seems to her the menace of her frontier. Her whole history is bound up with the thought of protecting the nation against armed invasion and of maintaining a standing army large enough for that purpose, should the need arise. Her early interest in child welfare was a manifestation of this spirit. It is in no sense derogatory to France to mention this, because it is equally true of practically every other nation. Ger¬ many’s widespread child-welfare program and its legislation for the protection of child life have perhaps been more
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