A Church, in the true sense of the word, is a society of men and women

who, accepting the Divine Mission of Christ, strive honestly to embody

His teaching in daily life. As each age grows out of the life of the

preceding age, so the practical incarnation of our Lord’s teaching

varies in form from age to age. In 1882 the form which Christian life

takes must necessarily vary from its form in 1800. Three generations

of men have gained immensely in intellectual, scientific, and moral

development. All the conditions under which human beings grow up

have changed. What we now especially and urgently need from the

‘Church’ is aid in adapting the never-changing principle of Christian

brotherhood to the ever-changing conditions of Nineteenth-Century

life. We need sermons and conferences and earnest life in the Church;

but the sermons must take up the Christian view of the relation of

capital to labour, the Christian view of the relation of the sexes,

the Christian protection and sound education of the young--in short,

the whole conduct of life, from the cradle to the grave, in private

and public. A certain inevitable hypocrisy is engendered by listening

week after week to lofty theories which are never put into practice,

or to impracticable suggestions. The soul grows callous when teaching

demands one course of action and daily life enforces a quite opposite

course. We need to learn in what way our actual life, public and

private, can be guided by our Lord’s injunction of brotherhood instead

of selfhood. Our Church Conferences should be the honest and eager

effort of every man and woman to consider together how these true

principles can be carried out by them. A Christian Church Conference

must ponder the life of that army of little drudges in our underground

kitchens, of the blasphemous boys and girls who gather at night in our

public places, of the vicious roués who crowd on us from London, of the

struggles of the poor householder who knows not how to pay the heavy

rent, of the tendencies of the trader oppressed by taxes, who sinks all

scruples in the desire to get money, and of the speculator whose one

desire is to make ‘wealth accumulate, though men decay.’ These are the

problems for Church Conferences which the practical Christianity of the

Nineteenth Century urgently requires should be solved.

It is only on these humble but indispensable foundations that a Church

which meets the needs of the age can be founded. It is only in a Church

so founded that prayer and praise and the worship of the Great Father

can become a glorious reality, and never sink into formalism.

A true Church, then, suited to the needs of this age, must be a

self-governing, industrial community, guided by Christian principle,

holding and managing its own lands, varied industries, and colleges.

It should send off out-shoots from time to time, new self-governing

colonies at home and abroad. These colonies necessarily possessing

varied individual colouring, according to occupation and composition,

should all agree in the one great uniting principle--organization on

the principles of Christian brotherhood. The Christian idea of united

interest, instead of the narrow antagonism of individual selfishness,

will be the distinguishing mark of true Church colonies--the practical

Christianity of the future.

There are large numbers of sincere followers of our Spiritual Guide

who clearly perceive the radical evils above referred to: persons who

long to devote thought, time, and means to the labour of forming a

Christian society; persons who would rejoice to leave their possessions

to the noblest Missionary work of the age. But these earnest seers are

scattered far and wide; they require the indispensable strength of

union. A grand work is before all the Churches to join their members

together under the noble banner of Christian Socialism. By careful

study of the various practical examples which now exist of successful

although imperfect organization, preparation can be made for union

together in the formation of a true Church Colony. A band of Christian

Socialists thus uniting in earnest preparation (whilst neglecting no

immediate duty) will be strengthened and guided in the course of a few

years to initiate the most important and urgent work that our age now

calls for.

The meaning of the Easter season is the arising of Christianity from

the grave--that grave where it lies bound in darkness, corrupting in

worldliness, dying through selfishness; but, thank God! not yet dead.

May our religious people awake from their fatal lethargy and roll away

the stone from the sepulchre, by the establishment of a true Christian

Society!

FOOTNOTES:

[21] The works referring to the economic principles laid down in this

paper, with the statistics and experiments which support and illustrate

them, are too numerous to mention here; but they are of the utmost

value to the Christian Socialist.

ON THE DECAY

OF

MUNICIPAL REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT

_A CHAPTER OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, 1885_

ON THE DECAY OF MUNICIPAL REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT

It is only in the belief that a simple narrative of facts, exactly as

they occurred, will show more vividly than an abstract statement can

do, the dangers which threaten our free institutions, that I venture to

offer this personal narrative to municipal voters, and particularly to

women householders.

When, in 1879, I became a householder in Hastings I did not at all

realize that I thereby acquired the right to vote in municipal

affairs, and that this right necessarily involved a corresponding

duty and responsibility--the duty, viz., of voting intelligently,

and necessarily a certain responsibility for the way in which the

government of the town was carried on.

I soon observed, however, that in the autumn, although I was neither

a Conservative nor a Liberal, I was called on by the Conservative and

the Liberal candidates for election to the Town Council to ask for my

vote, and although these visits often led to interesting conversation,

and my opinions were assented to with the most flattering courtesy

before the elections took place, I soon perceived that all influence

ceased with the election; the matters went on in the same way without

me as with me, and my supposed privilege of voting seemed really to

be very much of a mockery. Being, moreover, a peaceable person, and

much occupied with subjects of interest, it appeared to be rather a

waste of time to concern myself with an election which was managed by

cliques on strictly party issues, with no regard to questions of social

well-being, nor necessarily to the selection of the wisest and best

man, but only of the person who could in any way secure the largest

party vote.

Being compelled, also, as far as my limited powers of observation

admitted, to criticise the two great parties of the State, as both

committing much injustice, and as rather guided by class selfishness

than by high morality, I could not feel any enthusiasm for elections

carried on by party strife.

I thus began to fall into that easy state of indifference which

seems rapidly becoming the general condition of the mass of people

who are supposed by their votes to control municipal affairs; I

retained, however, an uneasy consciousness that in some way I was

failing to meet a duty that was laid upon me. I was roused from this

fatal moral lethargy by witnessing what seemed to me an act of gross

injustice--viz., a robbery of the poor of their inheritance. This

was the diversion of the funds of the Magdalen Charity (a bequest

from the piety and beneficence of past ages, now grown to an income

of some thousands annually) to the foundation of a middle-class

grammar school. The injustice was committed under the sanction of the

Charity Commissioners, notwithstanding a brave fight by some of our

conscientious inhabitants, carried on for more than two years. But

class interests and short-sighted officialism proved stronger than

justice in this case.

So painful an experience effectually opened my eyes to the irreligion

of not attending to the duties which lie nearest to us, and I saw that

the condition of the poor is very near to us. I fully realized, also,

for the first time, the constant duty which rests upon all those to

whom special municipal rights are given, to concern themselves with

the management of the town in which they live, this responsibility

especially resting upon every one on whom is laid the duty of voting.

Beginning, then, to attend my parish meetings, my sympathy was soon

aroused by seeing the bitter struggle of the industrious poor going

on all around me, to avoid sinking into pauperism. Cases of inability

to pay the rates were constantly coming before us[22] from weary

struggling men and women, who, if they sometimes ‘drink and forget

their poverty,’ demand pity more than blame.

Every year the pinch of poverty grew sharper. My own respectable young

servant could not marry her decent lover because rent was so dear. As

roomy lodging-houses and hotels spread along the sea-front, speculation

grew, and the mass of the people were huddled together in smoky cram

or squeezed out into dreary suburbs, far away from their work or from

opportunities for honest industry. I soon also learned the horror

with which the poor regard the workhouse; how they would willingly

die in peace in the forlornest home rather than be forced into what

they regard as a hopeless, cruel prison. My indignation deepened as I

thought of the deed still in our archives, in which, ‘I, Petronilla de

Cham, of Hastings, in the pure and lawful power of my widowhood,’ grant

a tract of land for maintaining the poor old men and women of Hastings

in decent maintenance and godly service; the brothers and sisters

of the Magdalen Hospital. ‘And I, Lady Petronilla and my heirs will

warrant and defend the aforesaid five acres of land with precincts,

to be held by the brothers and sisters freely, quietly, well, and

peacefully for ever,’ they praying for the souls of their benefactors.

As descendants of humane and pious ancestors, it seems to be as clearly

a religious duty to consider the condition of the poor in 1885 as it

was in 1292, when Lady Petronilla de Cham made her foundation gift to

the Magdalen Charity.

The more I considered this important problem of how to aid the

struggling poor in their heroic efforts to live decently, the more

important to my mind became the subject of taxation; how the rates

of a town are raised, and how they are expended. Unhappily, we see

all over the country that, in the same way, ancient endowments for

doles, retreats, pensions, and portions are swept away because the

workhouse system is said to provide for the poor; ancient endowments

for training, clothing, and apprenticing poor children are also swept

away, because the ‘Board of Education provides for the poor.’ Thus

the various necessities of social life, education, benevolence, etc.,

are being committed to the hands of officials--_i.e._, everything is

rapidly being thrown upon the rates, until the rates crush the poor

into pauperism.

Now, the question of rates is not at first sight an attractive

one, particularly to a person who has unusually little talent for

arithmetic. But in the present day they take the place of ancient

beneficence, and are administered by Town Councils instead of Church

organizations. I therefore determined to attend a meeting which was

being called to meet the Local Government official, in order to obtain

sanction for a new loan. This was my first appearance at a ‘Statutory’

meeting. To my surprise, when I took a seat at the Council Board, I

found that I was the only non-official ratepayer present, although

the sum to be borrowed was a large one. It was stated that this

proposal had received the unanimous assent of the ratepayers. To this

statement I was compelled to make a short protest, as I had learned

from inquiries that many ratepayers knew nothing about the proposed

loan. I was informed that the time for objections had not arrived; and

the London official proceeded to inquire into various details of the

way in which the loan of six thousand guineas was to be spent, extent

of grading, kind of concrete, etc. When all was completely settled I

was then requested to state any objection I had to make. I spoke of

the burdens of taxation on the poor, and I begged to know what was

the present debt of the town. I found that with this new loan our

municipal debt would be nearly a quarter of a million. This seemed a

very large debt for a small town, where the people found a difficulty

in paying their rates, and as a prudent housekeeper I objected to go

into debt for our municipal housekeeping. I was informed by the Local

Government Board Inspector that ‘that was a question to be settled at

the polls.’ So, of course, my single protest was of no practical use.

This occurred in August. I then thought that, as the November elections

were approaching, it might be useful to try and get municipal questions

discussed with the candidates who were to be elected for three years to

the Town Council.

The proposed councillor in my parish cordially assented to the proposal

I ventured to make to him--viz., that he should meet the ratepayers

before the time of the elections, and discuss with them various

important questions which would come before the decision of the Town

Council. This gentleman willingly promised to attend such a meeting if

it were called.

Unfortunately, I could not find any householder willing to aid in

such an effort. The following is a type of the responses received from

householders:

‘I do not think my presence at a conference would be of any service. I

have so little knowledge of municipal affairs, never having attended

a meeting since I resided in Hastings.’ The same sort of answer came

from busy tradesmen and leisured gentry. It therefore seemed that a

more decided educational effort was needed, an effort to show our

voters how a Town Council really represented in modern days much of the

practical action of the Church in past ages, and that it ought really

to present the Theocratic idea--_i.e._, government by the Highest Good.

But here, too, unhappily, I could find no one who did not seem to think

that the function of a Town Council was to save them all trouble and

responsibility, and that it must be elected on party grounds.

Thus, more and more I recognised the profound character of the disease

of indifference, which has become endemic in our municipalities,

and the urgent need of remedial measures. I therefore entered into

correspondence with the Social and Political Education League, which

has borne in succession the honoured names of Professor Seeley and

Mr. Froude as Presidents. I received a cordial letter from the

honorary secretary, who forwarded a list of 107 names of lecturers,

with numerous addresses that they would be willing to deliver.

Unfortunately, in this printed list of several hundred lectures I

could find nothing that met our special need--viz., short, simple,

progressive instruction, inviting questions, ‘on the use of a Town

Council and the meaning of a vote.’ I was meditating on what to do when

I became most unexpectedly involved in municipal work, where I was

compelled to take a prominent part, for which I was not fitted either

by knowledge or experience.

At the town meeting in August already referred to, when the addition

to the public debt was made, a Corporation Bill was spoken of, which

appeared to be of very great importance, and which was to come before

the town later. I therefore watched the notices by the church doors,

and marked down the date of the Statutory Meeting, which must be

called in order to sanction this Bill. I was much surprised not to

see attention strongly called to this important measure by the local

press and others; but the local politicians were all in such a state

of excitement because Hastings was to lose one of its Parliamentary

representatives that the way in which municipal affairs were carried

on seemed to excite no interest. I called at the Town Clerk’s Office a

few days before the meeting to sanction the Bill was to take place, and

asked for a copy of the Bill, but was told that there were ‘no copies’

for ratepayers; neither could the Bill be seen. I spoke to about ten

persons in the course of the day, but no one knew anything about the

Bill. I then wrote to several ratepayers to beg them to attend the

Statutory Meeting. One replied that there must be a mistake as to date,

naming a meeting three days later, which, being a ‘Party’ meeting on

Redistribution, entirely drew attention from the municipal meeting.

Another householder consulted a gentleman friend, who told her that

the proposed Bill was one to lessen taxation, so there was no need of

attending the meeting. I was unable to find a single ratepayer who knew

anything about the Bill, or had even heard of it. The time came, a

very stormy evening; about seventy persons attended out of over 8,000

ratepayers. No one had seen the Bill, which, from the short abstract

given by a Councillor, was evidently of the utmost importance to every

class of the inhabitants, and particularly to the industrious classes.

It was urged by the Town Council Committee in charge of the Bill that

no opposition to it should be made, for two reasons. In the first

place, the next day was the last chance of registering the Bill for the

present Session of Parliament, and a year would be lost if the Bill

were not accepted that night; in the next place, it was stated that

any opposition would be very expensive to the town, for, as they had

already paid £500 for the expenses of the Bill, and would pay about as

much more to complete it, if any opposition were raised it would cost

the town some thousands of pounds.

As no other ratepayer seemed to discover any flaw in these statements,

I ventured to suggest that, as no one amongst us had seen the Bill,

we ought not to sanction it without any opportunity of examination,

and that it would be better to lose a Session than do so. I therefore

begged to move an adjournment; this was seconded by a ratepayer, but

not put to the meeting. The Bill was accepted in the name of the

ratepayers by a vote of 47, the Parliamentary agent who directed the

proceedings most courteously assuring me that ‘there would be ample

time to object to the Bill in London.’ Of course, I knew, and many

of the poorer ratepayers present knew, that it would be too late to

consider the Bill after it was accepted in our names; but I was struck

with the inability of those present to formulate their objections,

although much dissatisfaction manifested itself in the meeting. Entire

ignorance (in which I fully shared) also existed as to what steps to

take in such a case. Had I insisted, as I ought to have done, upon the

motion for adjournment being put, it would probably have been rejected

by a small majority. But I was utterly ignorant of what was right to

do in such a strange position, and it seemed almost unladylike for me

alone to oppose the Mayor and Town Council, with their Parliamentary

Committee and legal advisers, particularly as it was insisted that

opposition meant distrust of the Council, whereas I thought simply

of my duty as a ratepayer. I did not know then, and no one present

seemed to know, that any ratepayer has a right to demand a poll;

and, if insisted on, it must have been allowed. In this case the few

pounds it would have cost the town would have been well expended, in

delaying what proved to be an exceedingly bad and retrograde Bill. But

nothing has struck me more in this singular experience than the utter

ignorance of all our otherwise intelligent burgesses as to the steps by

which their municipal rights may be guarded, either in the borough or

in London. This ignorance seems to arise from the inattention and habit

of indifference to municipal duties produced, not only by the pressure

of private affairs, but by exclusive absorption in party politics.

As soon as the Corporation Bill was thus nominally accepted by the

burgesses, copies of the Bill were allowed to circulate. I saw at once,

on scanning this enormous Bill of 243 folio pages, thus sprung upon the

town, that it was a very retrograde Bill, and would prove especially

tyrannical to the poor. Being fully convinced that a fundamental duty

of any community is to guard the industrious poor from being crushed

into paupers, I looked at the Bill from that point of view, and was

shocked by it. It was drawn up to favour the growth of that modern

mistake, a fashionable lodging-house town, by endeavouring to attract

rich temporary visitors, instead of promoting permanent productive

industry. By its provisions it largely increased the debt of the town;

it withdrew expenditure from control of the ratepayers; it provided for

a largely-increasing bureaucracy, by placing all the new institutions

under officials of the Town Council; it confirmed and established a

virtual octroi on coal and the necessaries of life; it introduced the

most minute and arbitrary regulations in relation to building, sanitary

inspection, police arrests; it re-enacted the obsolete regulation

which regards vice as female; and in many other ways it sought to

convert the Town Council into masters instead of servants of the people.

I immediately commenced asking individual ratepayers if they had seen

this Bill, which interfered with every class of inhabitant. No one had

seen it, and later inquiry seemed to prove that not one member even of

the Town Council itself had read the Bill carefully through, outside

the little Parliamentary Committee who followed the guidance of the

London official agent.

I am glad to say that the first note of serious public alarm was

sounded by the Medical Profession, who, finding they were to be

turned into family spies by this Bill, refused to submit, and, having

an organized medical society unanimous in opinion, they commenced

an opposition to those objectionable clauses which affected their

position. But weeks of precious time were lost before attention was

aroused to the generally tyrannical character of the Bill. At last the

growing discontent found a voice in an active, enlightened burgess.

A crowded public meeting was held, attended largely by the poorer

ratepayers, and a committee was formed to see what amendments could

be introduced. But there was then not time to examine thoroughly this

enormous Bill before it was read in Parliament. Here, again, two

circumstances were noteworthy. First of all, the complete indifference

of the richer inhabitants to the Bill and to all that involved

trouble on their part, with the dread of the poorer inhabitants of the

frightful law expenses which opposition would entail.

The second noteworthy point was the utter ignorance of all parties

as to the best and exact method of procedure in the various steps

necessary to be taken in seeking to amend or oppose the Bill--as, for

instance, the times allowed for the various stages, the parties to

address, the ways of addressing them, the rights of the burgesses to

appear, etc. No one, either layman or lawyer, possessed exact detailed

knowledge.

For my part, I sought information at headquarters in London. Here,

once for all, I beg to state that nothing can exceed the courtesy and

often kindness with which my crude inquiries have always been met by

those highest in authority. Indeed, all my life long, though painfully

compelled to work against rather than with social conditions, I have

always found men eager to help an honest, unselfish worker.

In London I learned some rather surprising facts. These facts may be

thus briefly summarized: First, that it is the effect of the action of

the Central Government to weaken the Municipalities by encouraging them

to run heavily into debt; secondly, that, taking advantage of their

weakness, they apparently intend to assume themselves the authority

that has hitherto resided in the Municipalities as self-governing

communities.

These are very serious facts, not at all due, I think, to any

influence exerted by the enlightened heads of Departments, who change

with every administration, but to the enormous growing system of

permanent officialism, which acts like a tremendous machine, crushing

individual freedom, because it naturally seeks to work without

friction. The term ‘vortex,’ familiarly applied to the system when

any individual interest is drawn into its current, well expresses the

terrible power of these official forces.

My first amazement was awakened by the reply to my objection concerning

the increased power of borrowing given by our Hastings Bill to a little

town of 40,000 inhabitants, that already had a debt of nearly a quarter

of a million. ‘What is the rateable value of your town?’ was asked.

‘£300,000.’ ‘And do you consider a quarter of a million a large debt?

Why, let me tell you, your town is most fortunate in having such a

small debt! Do you not know that Government allows you to borrow to the

extent of two years’ annual rating?’

Such was the astounding view taken by a political economist of the duty

of Government. I thought of our hundreds of poor ratepayers unable to

pay their taxes. I thought of the statistical report that ‘In Great

Britain the municipal and other local debts rose in the period of

ten years from 84 to 140 millions,’ and I was simply dumb with fear

for the future. For I have already seen that power to borrow means

encouragement to borrow, and that the municipal purse is not regarded

as a Trust, to be more scrupulously guarded than the private purse.

My next discovery related to sanitary and police clauses, and

particularly to those which pressed especially upon women. I maintained

that there were no such things as good brothels; that they were

illegal institutions, to be gradually and steadily suppressed by the

growing morality of the people, who should be encouraged by increased

facilities to set the law in motion; and that any legal distinction

as to bad houses that were ‘a nuisance to the neighbourhood’ was a

mischievous distinction. I also pointed out that the term ‘prostitute’

should be entirely struck out of all legislative enactments as an

obsolete injustice, and that any necessary checks to growing vice

should apply to ‘all persons habitually or persistently’ offending.

These honest suggestions were considered quite impracticable in

official circles; but I learned that the Central Government would be

quite ready to strike out any unusual local provision in order to take

all sanitary and police measures into its own hands.

This appeared to me a most alarming intention. Surely a deadly blow

would be struck at individual liberty if all sanitary and police

regulations were to be drawn into the ‘vortex.’ The mistakes of

municipalities rouse individual conscience, and may be turned to the

education of the community; but take away this natural power of growth,

and we become a feeble, self-seeking mass, swayed by demagogues, and

the slaves of official Bastilles.

I began to understand the wide bearing of a fact that had excited my

surprise a short time previously. Scandals occurring in one of our new

parks, permission had been obtained from the Local Government Board

to place an additional policeman there. Noticing this fact, I asked

our Councilman: ‘Why on earth did you consult the Local Government

Board about our own policemen? Does not our Watch Committee attend to

our police matters?’ He replied: ‘Oh, don’t you know that the Local

Government Board pay part of our police expenses?’ Looking over the

Borough Accounts for 1884, there, sure enough, I find this police item:

Treasury contribution, £1,881 16s. 1d.

Our poor tax-payers cannot pay their rent, so we rob Peter to pay Paul;

we get money from the General Government, which all have to contribute

to supply, with the idea of lessening local rates, and in return allow

the central authorities to interfere with our police. Surely this is

selling our birthright for a very deceptive mess of pottage!

As our Town Council became aware of the legitimate discontent which

existed respecting the Bill they had sent up to London, with really

imperfect knowledge of its contents, they endeavoured with willing

courtesy to meet the Ratepayers’ Committee, and at the last moment for

legal opposition, certain important amendments were accepted by the

Council, which removed the power of arbitrary arrest by the police, and

softened some of the other harsh interference with individual rights.

The People’s Committee were compelled to accept these imperfect

concessions. The limit of time for opposing the Bill had arrived.

No rich or leisured resident showed the slightest concern in this

measure. The remark had been made to me by a high London authority:

‘If your townspeople really consider this such a bad Bill, then

they have nothing to do but to put their hands in their pockets

and raise the money to oppose it.’ This remark shows how little

rich people, high in authority, know of the conditions of life in a

fashionable lodging-house town. The work of revising this Bill--work

necessarily incomplete--had been done by burgesses of moderate means

and overwhelmed by private cares, and the time needed for this public

work had been stolen from sleep. There was neither possibility of

withdrawing a Bill on which much public money had been already

expended, nor of raising the heavy sums of money necessary to carry on

legal opposition to it.

Thus, a new Corporation Bill of most retrograde character has been

forced upon the town--a Bill which greatly strengthens the official or

bureaucratic organization, removes much of the control of ratepayers

over expenditure, plays into the hands of a centralizing Government,

establishes protective duties on the necessaries of life, and

vexatiously interferes in various ways with the legitimate personal

liberty of the inhabitants.

The latest ‘Battle of Hastings,’ in 1885, has ended in defeat.

This familiar narrative of late experience in one of our little towns

is now given for a practical purpose.

A similar course of things appears to be taking place in all our towns,

large and small. Unchecked, this neglect of social duty and thoughtless

submission to official formalism must steadily deteriorate our national

character. It can only be checked by the voluntary organization of

individuals who will resolutely battle for the Theocratic principle

of human rights against the selfish demagogueism of party strife. The

plainest fact in history is the Divine Moral Government of the world.

A nation given up to selfishness and lust always degenerates and

perishes, and is replaced by new races. This is the great lesson of

the ages. We only fail to read it because the method of action of the

Creative Power is so much grander and surer than the methods of our

individual action. But all that is strongest and noblest in our human

nature can be but a faint reflection of what is immeasurably stronger

and nobler in the Almighty Creative force. The careful study of our

own human needs measured and limited by the needs of all other human

beings is the foundation of all growth. This mutual limitation and

government of human rights by human duties is Theocracy. It alone can

be a permanent form of Government, for a righteous democratic rule must

inevitably be Theocratic rule.

If the Churches cannot yet see that the education of the people in

their municipal life is the urgent need of the age, if political

parties are too corrupt or self-seeking to learn the same lesson, then

help must come from other sources. Perhaps women ratepayers not yet

entangled in party politics, and men who have risen above them may hear

the Divine voice which speaks to them, and may kindle a little sacred

fire which will grow into a beacon-light to the nation.

It is now urgently necessary to consider the way in which organizations

of householders may be gradually formed in all our municipalities, for

the purpose of mutual education and legitimate criticism.

An unofficial organization, sufficiently suited to respond promptly to

any sudden municipal call, has really become of vital importance. The

animating centre of such organizations must be three or four earnest,

unselfish persons (a true Theocratic brotherhood) who will carefully

study municipal or social questions, and plan and initiate a work of

gradual education, particularly addressed to women voters and our

poorer ratepayers. I especially mention women because nothing has been

done for their enlightenment as to the new duties laid upon them in

1867. It is a noteworthy fact that when 2,000,000 more men were lately

placed on the register, the most active efforts of the Cobden Club and

others were at once given to instruct these new voters after party

fashion, but no effort whatever has been made directly to instruct

the hundreds of thousands of women to whom the municipal vote, the

corner-stone of our political system, was given in 1867.

There are questions of policy having a large and important national

bearing which need to be studied by united householders. Few persons

know clearly what should be the direct action and indirect influence

of a Town Council--its duty to resist encroachment by the central

government; its duty to encourage the interest and action of burgesses

in their own institutions, and to diminish the number of irresponsible

officials; its duty to consider the public purse as a solemn trust, and

to invite careful study of municipal accounts.

The abolition of obsolete practices, the consideration of changes or

adaptation to modern needs of municipal regulations, need consideration

by householders.

Few burgesses seem to know that ten ratepayers in a parish possess the

right to nominate any one of their fellow ratepayers to represent them

for three years on the Town Council. The nominations are now made in

secret by party cliques, a practice never intended by our Constitution.

This mischievous practice can be directly checked by the liberty of

independent action thus provided for. I have already referred to

the right to demand a poll at any statutory meeting where serious

objection is taken to any proposed measure, a most important guarantee

of municipal liberty, quite unknown, apparently, to the majority of

ratepayers.

I need not enter upon the important questions of the selection of

Poor-law guardians, of members of School Boards, and other officers

supposed to be elected by ratepayers, because the same criticism

applies to all. At present, indifference to all these important

elections prevails unless a sharp contest springs up on party politics.

Yet questions really vital to our national welfare are involved in

these apparently minor points in our municipal housekeeping, and I

believe that the indifference now felt towards our borough elections,

when not stimulated by party strife, proceeds from ignorance of these

larger relations.

It is in the hope of seeing this great municipal education begun on a

large plan, quite above party strife, that I have ventured to refer to

this episode of personal experience.

Those who profoundly believe in the moral government of this world,

and who would help in establishing a true Theocracy, must seek truth

from all sources. Our modern prophets, Herbert Spencer, John Ruskin,

and many another seeker for truth, must be earnestly listened to; not

as gods, but as men who with human limitations, nevertheless through

evil and good report, never swerve from the steadfast unselfish

search for truth--men who are enabled to see clearly great aspects of

Divine truth, and who can refresh and guide us in our humbler, but

providential task. Such men are often the truest followers of our Lord

in this nineteenth century.

To all women voters, to all our poorer ratepayers, I earnestly

recommend the formation of a union for the study of municipal

rights and duties, and I hope that my humble but earnest effort in

this direction will enlist the sympathy and guidance of all those

truth-seers most able to help us.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] Between four and five hundred summonses for rates this quarter in

our little town.

ADDRESS

DELIVERED AT THE OPENING

OF THE

WOMEN’S MEDICAL COLLEGE

OF THE

NEW YORK INFIRMARY, 126, SECOND AVENUE

_November 2, 1868_

ADDRESS

Our Faculty has kindly insisted upon my saying the first words which

our new College addresses to its friends, and I am bound to comply

with their desire, although I could have wished that some abler person

might have shown the broad significance of those principles which are

involved in our work.

True growth is slow (as we measure time) and silent. The tiny sapling

shoots up with invisible and noiseless force; so have we worked

on--silently. Yet the truest growth has its striking phases of

development. We watch with glad anticipation the first tender green of

budding foliage; later still we luxuriate in the delicious flowering of

the apple-blossoms in May.

It was in 1853, in a parlour in University Place (as some two or three

of those now present will remember), that the little slip of a Medical

Institution for Women was planted, which slowly grew till it budded

into a small hospital in 1857. Many who are here to-night will recall

the opening of the hospital wards in Bleecker Street and the cordial

words of encouragement then given. They will remember that noble young

minister, cut down in his promising youth, who hurried in from his

pressing duties in a distant city, carpet-bag in hand, resolved to give

us a hearty God-speed, because the good cause was unpopular.

Now the tree has blossomed into a college, and once more the friends

gather round to rejoice in its promise of larger usefulness.

It has required fifteen years of patient work--work by faith, for the

way has been very dark--to lay the foundation of a college. This has

seemed strange to most persons, for many women’s colleges have sprung

up meanwhile; hundreds of women have received the physician’s diploma;

some have become highly-respected practitioners, and some have gained

large sums of money. Of the early friends of the Infirmary, many have

died, and some have been discouraged by its slow growth.

It is an easy thing to found a poor college. Our liberal Legislature

grants a charter to anyone who asks for it, and an audience can always

be gathered together by speeches and music to witness the presentation

of learned-looking parchment rolls to a class of well-dressed students;

but charter and diploma do not necessarily guarantee the fitting

education of a physician. To found a really good college is a work

of great difficulty, and up to the present time has been impossible

for want of professional assistance--of skilful teachers, and ample

clinical provision. To this difficulty has been added another--the want

of funds.

We have been facing these two perpendicular cliffs--money and

skill--for fifteen years, and striving in every possible way to climb

them. Everyone will sympathize with us in relation to the first

difficulty, but, at the same time, the promoters of ordinary benevolent

enterprises can hardly realize the added difficulty of begging for a

principle. People will give to a charity or popular enthusiasm, but

very seldom to a principle, more seldom still to such an unpopular idea

as the education of women in medicine.

Little by little, however, we have laid one stone upon another, until

we have gained a foundation sufficient to stand on. It is small,

certainly, but solid, and we all feel great hope of surmounting the

first grand difficulty.

In relation to the second obstacle--the want of professional support--I

need only refer to the prospectus of our College to show how happily

we have at last been able to surmount this second difficulty. How this

has been accomplished I really do not know. We are so accustomed to

be ‘despised and rejected’ that encouragement, welcome, success, seem

unaccountable. It is like breathing a new and delightful atmosphere,

which is, nevertheless, strange and dream-like; and one almost fears to

wake up with a shock and find again the cold, the gloom, and struggle

all around.

But, from whatever cause proceeding, the support now given to the

formation of the College is warm and cordial. Should we fulfil

the expectations of the wise and experienced physicians who have

sanctioned and counselled the formation of this school, professional

assistance will be increased to the utmost extent the student may

require.

We enter, then, upon this work under the most favourable auspices, and

we are encouraged to undertake it by the earnest request of medical

women from every part of the country. From the east and the west,

from California to Maine, have come the same heartfelt expressions

of interest in the establishment of a sound plan of education, the

same hope that other women may not enter upon their work under the

disadvantages of imperfect preparation that they have had to contend

with. The list of excellent women physicians who have enrolled

themselves as fellows of the College shows the trust which is felt in

this undertaking by our respected co-workers.

We have endeavoured to follow out the suggestions of our most

experienced medical teachers, and incorporate the following features

into our plan of instruction:

1. A three years’ college course.

2. A larger proportion of time devoted to teaching and practical

instruction than to lecturing.

3. A progressive succession of studies.

I shall only refer at this time to one of these--viz., the three years’

college course. I would remark, for the information of those who are

not familiar with medical tuition, that the Legislature, in granting

to a school the right to confer the degree of Doctor in Medicine,

requires that such degree shall only be given to those who have been

studying medicine for three years. Three years, then, is the obligatory

time of study, and no degree is legal which is granted on a less term

of study. But in the ordinary course of instruction the greater part

of that time is spent in private reading, the College being only

responsible for the instruction of two winter sessions of five months

each; in other words, for ten months out of the thirty-six required by

law. The remaining twenty-six months may or may not be well spent; it

depends upon the intelligence, resolution, and opportunities possessed

by each individual student. It is the great wish of the profession to

increase the collegiate part of instruction, and require attendance

at college during a portion of each of the three years of study. Many

colleges have added spring and autumn courses, but the attendance of

students is not obligatory, and it seems impossible to lengthen the

college course without united action.

For women there exist so very few opportunities for profitable study

that these precious twenty-six months are, to a great extent, wasted.

At the same time a weighty responsibility rests upon all those who

introduce women into medicine to see that they are fitted to fulfil

the trust worthily. Medicine is a learned and confidential profession,

and should draw into its ranks the most highly educated, the most

irreproachable in character. This most noble profession, like all high

things, is susceptible of the worst abuse. The good which women may

accomplish in medical practice is also the measure of the evil that

they may do. Education, long and careful, should be the safeguard

of society in this matter. From many causes women are peculiarly

exposed to a great temptation--that of practising ignorantly and

superficially. The College should foresee this danger, and provide

the long and careful training which can alone discriminate between

the worthy and unworthy candidate. This education, while it sifts out

the incompetent, will give to the earnest student those advantages of

drill, of substantial knowledge, of professional support, without which

women enter upon the practical work of medicine under the most cruel

disadvantages.

We propose, therefore, to adopt the most advanced plan of instruction,

and have arranged a progressive course of study which will require

for its completion attendance at college during three winter sessions

of five months each, which we hope eventually to be able to extend to

eight months. We shall thus be able not only to give to each student an

additional term of systematic instruction, with all those advantages

of hospital practice which belong only to a large city, but we shall

be able to keep her under college influence during the remainder

of each year, directing the intermediate studies, and forming much

more accurate acquaintance than were otherwise possible, with the

qualifications of each candidate for graduation.

We are compelled to face many difficulties by this plan. We must

anticipate a smaller class at first in consequence of the additional

expense laid upon the student, for however low the price of tuition

may be made, the added expense of boarding has to be met. The student

also, at the outset of her career, is unable to appreciate the great

advantages of this enlarged instruction, and is naturally tempted to go

where a diploma may most easily be gained. We are quite sure, however,

that in a few years the thorough education given by our College, and

the distinction conferred by its diploma, will draw to it the best

students from every part of our country.

There is one other feature of our College that I must allude to, as I

feel in it a profound and special interest: it is the introduction of

hygiene into our course as a prominent and obligatory study.

It seems strange that the prevention of disease should not always

have engaged the thought and instruction of the guardians of the

public health at least as fully as the cure of disease, and yet I

believe that this is the first college in America to found a chair of

hygiene. Consider the subjects involved in the development of a healthy

human organization--a healthy race. Physical and moral training;

the inheritance and transmission of qualities; the peculiarities

of individual constitution; the nature and influences of climate,

soil, food and customs; the prevention of epidemics; the municipal

regulations of our cities, etc.--all these subjects come directly and

unavoidably into the department of hygiene. Surely every student who

receives the degree of Doctor should be thoroughly acquainted with

all that Science at present knows on these subjects. How else can he

fulfil his noblest trust--the guardianship of individual and public

health? For a specialist with a narrowed range of duties such knowledge

may, perhaps, be of less importance; but for the family physician, the

trusted friend and counsellor year after year--for the public-spirited

physician who would give to his wisdom and experience the largest

usefulness, these studies are indispensable, and his initiation, his

first impulse and interest in this knowledge, should surely be given by

his college.

There is one branch of this subject which I think must weigh heavily

on the hearts of women physicians, and which will, I hope, through

them, engage the attention of every thoughtful woman in our land--I

refer to the frightful mortality of young children. Children are born

to live, not die. There is a wonderful force of tenacious vitality in

all growing organizations--far more proportionate vitality than in the

old or even the adult; yet, notwithstanding this beneficent provision

of nature, we destroy our young children nearly five times as fast as

the other members of our social body. If every woman in our city could

hear the daily moan of these dying infants, could feel that every day

multitudes of bereaved mothers were weeping over untimely graves,

and that her own skirts were not clear of this shedding of innocent

blood, we should see an army of earnest co-workers eager to save this

multitude of helpless children.

Infancy and early childhood are the especial charge of women, and

how do they fulfil this trust? It does not do to look around upon a

well-furnished home, bright with the smiling faces of happy children,

and say, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ Each one is his brother’s keeper

to the direct extent that knowing an evil can be cured, he refrains

from doing his part to cure it. Did the women of our city resolve to

save these children they might be saved. Year by year the mortality

might be lessened by the sanitary knowledge diffused by women, and

the sanitary regulations their influence might establish, until from

their own little circle they could look with joy to a bright cloud of

witnesses beyond--thousands of useful lives saved to their homes and

their country through their aid!

This suggestion of important practical usefulness will give force to

the great principle involved in our College--scientific training for

women.

Interest in natural objects, careful, comprehensive observation of

them, enthusiasm for unselfish and impersonal ends, are the main

principles of scientific study--principles that would enter with

invigorating force into the mental development of every girl, that

would regenerate the life of women.

Science is no hard dry thing as some imagine; it is the earnest study

of this wonderful world around us. It will take the form of each

individual mind. In a narrow unimaginative nature it will seem hard

and dry; in a warm and loving nature it will flow into every form of

benevolent action. It might work a most beneficent change in the

relation that we all consider most sacred--the relation of a mother to

her children.

The immense force of habit, second only to the original type of

constitution, and often overpowering even the original tendencies, is,

nevertheless, formed by the silent working of influences, hour by hour

and day by day, that are invisible and cannot be measured; that seem

absolutely valueless, taken item by item, in the long account, and yet

in the aggregate they will save or ruin the body and soul. A mother may

instil the love of reading or the love of dress; she may form the habit

of out-door exercise or the habit of gossip not by the set precept or

even formal regulations, but by her own tastes unavoidably moulding the

tastes of her children, and flowing out naturally into these external

arrangements that inevitably reflect the ruling spirit or affections of

the individual. Did the mother possess a hearty interest in the wonders

of field and forest, of sea and sky, what a treasury of delightful

intercourse might be found in the varied environs of our city! A

mother’s love joined to the broad tastes and knowledge would never

weary of the ceaseless questioning of childhood; the older the child,

the closer and more influential would be the companionship. The holiday

by the sea-side or amongst the mountains, so wasted now in idleness and

frivolity, might be a rich harvest-time of delightful knowledge drawn

from the treasures of land and water.

It is, then, because of the great value that enthusiasm for natural

science would be to woman, value to the individual life, to the home

life, and to society, that I think this College will owe its greatest

interest. From the fact that it is a Medical College it will derive its

practical efficiency in cultivating a taste for science.

A lady, now world-famous, once said to me before she began her noble

career: ‘We Englishwomen can study anything under the sun that we

desire to acquire. Not the slightest obstacle is placed in the way

of our becoming learned to any extent; but any attempt to turn the

knowledge to account, to work with it, is met with the bitterest

opposition, is ridiculed, sneered at, frowned down. Yet the greatest

impetus to study, the natural issues of study, lie in some noble

career.’

It is from this tendency of human mind to pour its knowledge into some

definite form that our Medical College, with its broad practical uses,

may prove so valuable as a centre for scientific study. As it becomes

older and stronger it will spread into those collateral branches as

botany, zoology, comparative anatomy, which will form so many points

of union for the professional and non-professional. Classes would

naturally form in connection with it for nursing, sanitary visiting,

for botanical and other excursions. There is no limit to its practical

usefulness if the spirit that animates it be earnest, truthful, and

intelligent.

We enter, then, upon our college work with a bright hope that stretches

beyond the college walls into the homes and cities around; into the

higher civilization of the future as well as the present.

Our excellent Faculty, in entire accordance with these views, commence

their patient and laborious work with a sustained enthusiasm which

recognises the difficulties in our way, but is resolved to conquer

them. They share the large and liberal views of modern medicine. They

belong to no ‘pathy,’ to no narrow and bigoted sect. They are members

of that great catholic community of science which, from the ‘Father of

Medicine’ onwards, in every age and country, under the most diverse

practical forms, has sought for truth through observation, experiment

and calm deduction; has proved all things, and held fast to that which

is good.

We invite the co-operation of all in this noble work. Especially do

we invite the co-operation of women. United action is of immense

importance in so arduous an undertaking as this. We will do everything

in our power to conciliate diverse interests. Principle only must

not be sacrificed. The College must be an honest and earnest attempt

to give to women the very highest education that modern science will

afford. It is on this ground that union must take place. This school

is the only one that the profession has confidence in, the only one

it has sanctioned. It has laid its broad foundation by fifteen years

of patient work, and it will quickly rise into an edifice of noble

proportions if all friendly helpers will unite in its construction.

THE RELIGION OF HEALTH

_A Lecture delivered in 1871_

THE RELIGION OF HEALTH

The words ‘the Religion of Health’ convey a profound meaning to the

physician who has spent a lifetime in relieving physical suffering. I

will try and state what those words seem to me to imply.

Obedience to Divine law is the highest wisdom of the human race.

Wherever God’s laws are clearly visible, stamped in immutable

characters so plain that every human being who is willing to read

them can do so, then the wisdom, the happiness--nay, the simple

common-sense of the race--lies in obeying them. The first lesson every

one of us has to learn profoundly is his subjection to law. There is

no escaping this inexorable destiny. Although each one is born with

free-will, his type--the plan and pattern of his being--is born with

him also. This type is a limitation to the nature, but it is also a

guide; it is the finger of Providence showing him the road to follow

in the great wilderness of creation; it is the Divine order, according

to which each one can freely grow and expand in body and soul to the

finest proportions. True freedom consists in the voluntary choice

of this type, in the full acceptance of all its conditions, and in

the endeavour to unfold its capacities. The will may refuse this

type, may deny the laws that govern it, may seek for license in a

lawless rejection of Divine order, but it is soon arrested by endless

obstacles, and persistence in the unequal struggle will only end in

degradation and self-destruction.

We recognise a Divine law when we see it existing age after age

unchangeably, carrying order and beauty in its fulfilment; penalties,

discord, desolation, with infringement. These laws are grand in design,

beneficient in their effects--equally so, whether we observe the

marvel of parental love, or explore the wonders of the skies; whether

we clothe them in warm, human garments, indispensable to the simple,

loving heart, or frame them in the clear precision of scientific

formulæ, indispensable to the truthful mind.

If there be one law that all can clearly recognise in the existence

of the material world around us, it is the unvarying method of human

development from infancy to old age. A certain plan exists, according

to which the infant expands through childhood and youth into manhood,

and thence changes through elderly life into old age.

This plan never varies in any epoch, or race, or country. It is the

same for the lowest savage tribe as for the most cultivated race. No

effort of ours can change this unvarying sequence in human life.

This is a wonderful fact. It is so common that we hardly notice it.

Yet it is wonderful, because it is so common--so common as to be

universal. It rises, as we regard it, into the dignity of Law.

Reverence for this unity of life increases the more carefully this

strange fact, called the human body, is studied, the more fully we

understand what it is that thus remains unchanged age after age. We

speak of the body as if it were a single, simple thing, to be used as

a tool and then laid aside; but its complicated structure is a little

world in itself. As a machine, it is such a model of compactness and

ingenuity that no human skill can approach its perfection. It possesses

a twofold life--a life for itself as well as a life for our use. In its

own proper life it carries on a thousand curious operations necessary

for its growth and maintenance, quite independent of our volition or

consciousness. It contains extensive manufactories full of complicated

and delicate machinery for the production of sugar, milk, acids,

alkalies, salts; it has storehouses of iron, lime, and other chemical

substances; there are magazines where it lays up supplies against

a time of scarcity; it has its refiners and scavengers; apparatus

for warming and ventilating; it has pumps and propellers constantly

at work, and a more perfect electrical apparatus than has ever been

invented. All these remarkable operations are directed by intelligence,

working according to a plan, and combining these manifold energies

for one purpose--viz., the maintenance, during a certain period, of a

healthy human body. Besides this independent existence of its own, the

body possesses a life of relation, by means of which it is fitted to

the uses of individual and social existence. Its powers of locomotion,

its active senses, its faculty of feeling, its wonderful human hand,

and its still more wonderful human brain, all belong to this other use

of the body as an instrument for the expression of intelligence and

emotion.

Equally remarkable is the system of general unvarying laws by which

this living structure is governed. The first law we notice in

human growth is the precedence of physical over mental growth. We

observe that physical development, though never separate from mental

development, is always in advance of it. This is shown by the wonder

and delight with which the parent receives the first sign of awakening

intelligence in the young infant, the first smile, the first indication

of observation. It is the awakening mind. But every physical function

essential to life has been perfectly performed from the first moment

of birth as perfectly, according to its wants, as it will ever be

performed throughout life. This precedence of physical life continues

throughout the whole period of growth, though it strikes us less as

the years roll on, and the mind gradually assumes that mastery over

the body which should be the condition of adult life. The brain is the

last part of the body to cease growth. Every other organ is perfectly

formed, every bone consolidated, the physical organization complete,

while the mind, with its necessary organ of expression, is still

growing. I place this important fact first amongst the rules which

govern the human economy because it strikes the key-note of education;

and it is only through a thorough appreciation of this principle that

we shall beneficially change our present systems of education.

Each age has its own special method of existence; thus there are

laws for growth, for maturity, for decay. There are the great facts

of growth by exercise or use; the necessity of maintaining a just

distribution of force amongst the various parts, lest one grow at

the expense of another; the alternations of action and rest required

in every part of the economy; the varied life of different functions

which give to each its individuality and special rule; the varieties of

race, of temperament, of individual peculiarities--these will slightly

indicate the extent and variety of these unchanging laws by which our

human nature is moulded. Their importance may be realized more fully by

dwelling for a moment on one or two of them.

What may be termed the balance of power or just distribution of force

in the various parts of our physical and mental nature--according

to each individual type--is essential to the perfection of the

organization--it is, indeed, the measure of health. It is attained and

preserved by the due exercise of all the functions of our nature. In

ascertaining what is this due exercise, we observe that the different

functions of the human being are subject to varying laws of constant

or occasional action. The higher the object of a function, the wider

is its scope, the longer are the intervals of rest required, and

the more direct is its subjection to reason; it is taken from under

the control of the automatic vegetative life of the body and placed

under the direction of the central authority--Reason--Conscience.

Thus, we see the lungs, whose sole object is the physical life of the

individual, breathing day and night unceasingly, with alternate rest

and action every moment. The digestive apparatus, with longer intervals

of rest and a wider range of objects, connected with the preparation

and enjoyment of food. The senses, with their great use both to the

individual and to society, locked in slumber every night. Thus, step by

step, the plan rises to the highest functions of human nature--those

which concern the race--which, above all others, are under the dominion

of reason, and not subject to that law of constant action which

controls the lower functions.

Equally interesting is that law of our nature which determines growth

by exercise. It is a fact clearly demonstrated by modern science that

the governing organ of the human body, the brain, has distinct portions

of its structure devoted to the service of distinct faculties of the

mind. Thus the intellectual, the emotional, and the locomotive powers

work through corresponding portions of the highly organized brain.

Each faculty grows by exercise. Not only does the mental faculty

become stronger by use, but its physical organ of expression in the

brain, with its dependencies in the rest of the body, become larger

and stronger with a richer supply of blood and greater aptitude for

instantaneous action. This condition of the physical organ reacts upon

the mind, which takes greater pleasure in acting in a certain direction

when it finds the brain so keenly responsive to its impulses. If the

proper distribution of force is disturbed in any individual by the

neglect to exercise important portions of our nature, an antagonism of

faculties springs up, one part growing at the expense of another part.

Thus the emotional may destroy the intellectual life in an individual

who is subjected to undue excitement of the passions, particularly if

the type of the nature is not largely emotional. The other faculties

will rapidly lose their power. The intellect suffers, judgment is

lost, and mental confusion produced, which is really a species of

insanity. Those organs of the body, also, which are most intimately

connected with the excited portion of the brain become involved, and

their functions may be entirely deranged. The automatic power of the

human body may also assume undue control in those who yield to fancies

and caprice, and lead an unnatural and sedentary life. There is an

antagonism between this automatic force and the life of relation or

brain-life of the individual. The more the balance of powers is lost

in the human brain--reason being no longer the controlling force--the

greater becomes the power of this instinctive life of the body, the

greater its capability of answering every fanciful suggestion, and

even of exciting those suggestions. The individual may thus become the

sport of his own unbalanced faculties, and a prey to every species of

morbid hallucination.

An organization so complicated (as this human body), designed for

such manifold uses, and at the same time drawing the elements of its

existence from the external world, must be powerfully influenced

by all the circumstances which surround it. Certain physical and

mental conditions are essential to human growth, to health. Hence the

question of food and clothing, of drainage and ventilation, of human

habitations, of exercise and occupations, attain equal importance and

dignity, as essential to the fulfilment of the great changeless plan of

life.

Thus we are brought face to face with a great fixed fact, a fact which

concerns every human being during every moment of life--viz., God’s

unchanging law of human growth. This law we are called on to study, to

obey, and obedience to it is placed first in the order of human duties.

Obedience can only be rendered by study of the objects of physical

life, of its structure, its conditions, its rules. Its learning, thus

regarded, becomes sacred learning, and ignorance is criminal.

The folly and wickedness of our practical contempt for the great

laws of human growth may be measured by the penalties of suffering,

illness, and premature death attached to this neglect. This is

rendered more striking by observing, first of all, the great force of

the principle of vitality, the strong tendency to live and resist

injurious influences, which we all possess. Nothing is more remarkable

in the history of the human race than its great power of adaptability.

Scattered all over the surface of the globe, under the most varying

conditions, men still live and thrive. The cities of Cuença and Quito,

at a height of 9,600 feet above the level of the sea, possess large

and flourishing populations; so also do the cities of Holland and New

Orleans, which lie below its level. Multitudes of workmen live in the

galleries of the deepest mines, many hundred feet below the surface

of the earth, deprived of light, breathing air much more condensed,

living under a much stronger pressure than that of the ordinary

atmosphere. And, on the other hand, scientific observers have taken

up their residence for a long period on the crest of Pichincha, at an

elevation of 14,826 feet. Agassiz spent some weeks in investigations on

the Jung-Frau. Gay Lussac attained the highest elevation ever reached

by man in his balloon, 28,000 feet. All can recall the thrilling

narratives of Arctic voyagers, where the thermometer has been known to

measure 91° below zero. Contrast this with the burning sun of India,

where 120° Fahrenheit is observed; where glass is cracked by the heat.

A wide range of more than 200° of temperature, and yet the heat of the

human body maintains its steady and necessary amount, never materially

varying under the two extremes. Similiar illustrations of the power of

human nature to adapt itself to unnatural conditions might be drawn

from all the other elements necessary to life.

Notwithstanding this remarkable power of vitality, which can brave

such extreme variations in physical conditions and endure enormous

privations, careful observation all over our country presents a fearful

record of death, sickness, and physical degeneration produced by our

own social arrangements--arrangements and habits so destructive to the

human organization that they overpower even this great capability of

adaptation.

This is seen in the statistics of our towns, in the condition of our

peasant population, in our social and domestic experience.

The statistics of all our large towns demonstrate the great and

unnatural destruction of life that takes place in these centres of

civilization, where the highest medical skill is found, and placed

freely at the call of poor as well as rich. The natural death-rate at

present is 17 per thousand--_i.e._, that under the most favourable

conditions as amongst the upper classes in our healthiest cities, in

the healthiest country districts, 17 out of every thousand persons die

each year all the world over, a lower mortality being exceptional; but

the following was the death-rate of our chief cities (1868) instead

of the natural rate of 17 per thousand: Bristol, 23; London and

Birmingham, 24; Dublin, 25; Edinburgh, 27; Liverpool, 29; Glasgow,

30; Manchester, 32. That means that in London alone, in a year of no

special sickness, more than 21,000 were killed who ought to have

lived. In the British Islands an army of over 176,516 lives were

swept off unnecessarily. This is not all: a much larger proportion of

the population is always ill at one time; about 78,000 in London is

reckoned, of whom one-third are suffering from preventable diseases.

This calculation does not take into account those feeble, ailing

persons who are never more than half well, who lack strength and energy

for the daily fulfilment of duty. It is shown that in the whole of

England the people have only a mean life-time of forty-one years--not

half the term of life that seems to belong naturally to our race. Of

those who died within the year, over 134,000 were in ripe manhood; but

yet more noteworthy are the deaths under the age of twenty-five: over

242,000 perished in childhood and youth. The wholesale slaughter of

children in our civilized country is truly appalling. Out of 233,515

deaths at all ages, 94,804, or 40·60 per cent., were those of children

under five years of age.

To understand fully the grave import of these records three facts

must be noted: first, that the death-rate of a country is always

under-stated; second, that town populations increase at a much more

rapid ratio than country populations; third, that the death-rate

increases in direct proportion to the density of the population.

In proof of these three propositions let me quote from recent testimony

of our most eminent statisticians:

‘Wherever the population is increasing the amount of mortality is

under-rated in consequence of there being an excess of young people in

those numbers, which make the mortality appear lower than it really

is. The mortality of London appears much less by statistics than

it actually is; it is reduced in two ways by having a large influx

of persons at the period of age when mortality is low, and by the

departure and return of patients to the country to die, as consumptives

for instance. The causes of disease in London are excessively active,

as is seen, for instance, in the mortality of male children under

five years of age, which is about 8 per cent. (_i.e._, 80 per 1,000),

while in some of the more healthy districts it is not more than 4 per

cent.’ Again: ‘Of the 20,066,224 persons enumerated in England in

1861, nearly 11,000,000 were in the towns and 9,000,000 in villages

and country around the towns. The total population in London and 71 of

the largest towns in England was over 7,667,622, and the population in

the country and in smaller towns was over 12,398,602, so that there

are nearly eight-twentieths of the population in those 72 towns. The

total increase from 1801 to 1861 in the population of England was over

11,173,688, and one-half of that increase was in those 72 towns. It

will thus be apparent that the town population is increasing at a much

more rapid rate than the country population.’ ‘The country population

now is very nearly the same as it was in 1801. By a law, which at

present is quite constant, the mortality increases rapidly with the

density of the population. In our thinnest districts the mortality

is about 15 per 1,000; in our densest districts it ranges from 28 to

33. This relation is a constant law: where there are 179 persons to a

square mile, there the mortality is from 17 to 19; where the density

of population varies from 3,000 upwards, the mortality ranges from

26 to 33; so that under our present arrangements there is a constant

connection between the density of population and its mortality. That

connection is not necessary; our towns might be made nearly as healthy

as these country districts, having a mortality of 17 to 20.’ Of the

circumstances under which large masses of our population grow up,

another distinguished physician writes: ‘They create special diseases,

demoralize the population, and in course of generations completely

overthrow the physique of the people. It is impossible to walk through

the central streets (of this large town) without observing that you are

in contact with a population awfully degraded, both in its physical

and moral attributes; a population whose mere external characteristics

impress you at once with the idea of a depth of degradation of bad

habits growing for generations, in consequence of these arrangements.’

‘Thousands and hundreds of thousands are thus brought up.’

Turning from the towns to the agricultural population, where we have

the right to expect the fullest measure of health, we find a condition

of things which strikes an observer with dismay. The cultivators

of the soil constitute the backbone of a nation. I have carefully

observed them in America, and have learned to consider them the ruling

force of the nation; independent, thoughtful, exercising judgment and

common-sense. Again and again I have seen the corrupt or mischievous

vote of the large towns reversed or overwhelmed by the country

majorities. The condition of the peasants who cultivate the soil all

over our country presents a terrible contrast to this picture. Fever,

produced by extreme misery, seems to be endemic amongst them, sapping

their strength and stupefying their minds, when it does not kill; they

are crippled by rheumatism and destroyed by scrofula; their miserable

cottages are damp, dark, close, and overcrowded; their pitiful wages

will not supply them with decent dwelling, sustaining food, and other

necessaries of life.

Let me quote testimony from high authority given within the year: ‘As

many as ten persons are often crowded into a sleeping-room not 12 feet

square;’ ‘the external walls are too thin, the rooms too small, no

ventilation, brick or tile floors;’ ‘cottages are frequently built in

marshy situations, and by stagnant water, or at the foot of hills where

there is no free circulation of air; the spot is chosen on account

of the small value of the land and its uselessness for agricultural

purposes;’ ‘they are not able to pay what would be a fair interest on a

decent cottage.’ ‘If a new colliery is opened in an upland valley, 200,

300, or 400 cottages are built very rapidly, and they are inhabited

long before they are dry. The foundations as a rule are simply upon

the sod, which is merely turned over, and a flag is put on that sod.

There is no drainage of any kind; 40,000 to 50,000 persons will live

in houses of this kind, in one valley.’ ‘There are numbers of villages

throughout England where the people are drinking polluted water.’ ‘I

have seen no place in England in a worse condition than this village.

I have seen many native villages in South Africa, but none so bad

as this!’ Volumes might be filled with similar testimony as to the

physical state of our country population--a population whose condition

is the truest measure of a nation’s substantial strength.

There is no error so dangerous in national life as the discouragement

of honest labour. If the conditions of labour are injurious and

repulsive, whether from exhausting hours of toil, unhealthy workplaces,

squalid homes, or dreary monotony of toil, the workers of either sex

will inevitably seek relief from hopeless drudgery in the excitement of

vicious indulgences.

Our social experience joins its testimony with these statistics of

town and country, to show how widespread is this destruction of

health. Every housekeeper knows the extreme difficulty of obtaining a

healthy servant; nine-tenths of those who apply for a situation are

suffering from some chronic form of disease, which, if they belonged

to a different class of society, would place them in the list of

permanent invalids. There is no more frequent cause of the ill-health

of domestic servants than the damp and sunless rooms in which they pass

so much of their time, owing to the injurious practice of building

dwelling-houses, both in town and country, without a cellar under the

whole house, drained, and ventilated from side to side. No room is fit

for human habitation which has not a six-foot cellar, dry, with ample

through ventilation underneath it. It seems surprising that, in a damp

climate like ours, with rheumatism and scrofula prevailing everywhere,

this necessity has not been perceived.

It is often thought that sanitary knowledge means chiefly ventilation,

food, and drainage; that it applies only to the lower classes, and

that we must await the action of Government to build better houses

and otherwise deal with the gigantic question of pauperism. This is a

profound mistake. Health depends upon the observance of all the laws

of our complex nature; it applies to the mind as well as the body.

A deteriorating influence which proceeds from within is more to be

dreaded than one that comes from without. The nervous system (from

mental or physical causes) may be completely shattered, leaving the

individual a wreck. The senses (from mental or physical causes) may

be rendered so craving and irritable that the noble proportion of the

nature is lost. An hysterical, feeble person is an unhealthy one;

equally unhealthy is a coarse, brutal one. In either case, health, in

the true meaning of the word, is thoroughly impaired. Those classes of

society who are able to command every physical appliance that wealth

will purchase are often, from their kind of suffering, more dangerously

diseased than the labouring classes. I need only mention the spread of

luxury, the delay of marriage, the frail progeny of unsuitable unions,

to show how inextricably the mind and body are blended in all that

concerns health.

The highest authority on this subject thus condenses the lessons of his

great work on health: ‘Hygiene is based upon the physical and moral

perfectibility of man, of which it furnishes the proof.’ ‘Health may be

described in two words--morality, competence.’

The general deterioration of health prevailing in all classes and

both sexes is most strikingly seen amongst women. It is proved by the

increase of nervous and special diseases, the prevalence of scrofula

by general fragility of constitution, and inability to bear the

unavoidable burdens of life.

The health of the mass of educated women is a matter of serious

national concern. These women form the heart of the nation, they mould

its family life, they create society, they exercise an unbounded

influence on the lower classes. If the health of the mother breaks down

family happiness is destroyed; so if the health of this class of a

people is deteriorated the welfare of the nation is imperilled both in

the present and the future.

Young parents enter upon the heavy responsibilities of family life

in deplorable ignorance of their duties to one another and to their

children. As parents, it is their first duty to secure right conditions

of health for the infant, for the child, and for youth, until they

leave the parental roof. Each age demands a varying set of conditions,

which become continually more complicated as the necessities of the

mind increase in proportion to the physical wants. The conditions that

will keep an infant in perfect health will not suffice to secure the

health of the boy or girl of fifteen. As a weak stomach will impair the

temper, so a vacant or corrupt mind will injure the body. Comprehensive

knowledge is needed to embrace the wants of every age, and such

knowledge all parents should possess.

In seeking the cause of this destruction and deterioration of

life, thus briefly stated, we find it in the universal ignorance

or neglect of the Divine laws of human growth. We find this

neglect and disobedience equally among rich and poor, learned and

unlearned, religious and worldly, in individual life, in business

enterprise. The fevers of the poor, the hysteria of the luxurious, the

indigestion of the learned, the devastation of our mining districts,

equally show contempt for the wonderful organization which God has

made--indifference to the conditions which He has clearly laid down as

essential to its welfare.

One of the most important problems of the present time is how to embody

the sanitary knowledge which we possess in the life of the nation so

that a higher standard of health may be gained by the present and

succeeding generations.

The solution of this great problem must be attempted in many

directions. It must be sought in the power of legislative action, in

the wide-spreading influence of education, and in the strength of

social combination.

The part which legislation should take in promoting national health

demands serious consideration. Legislation is the human imitation, or

visible representation, of the greatest facts in the universe--law,

and it derives from this representative character its immense power in

moulding the mind and habits of a people; for, as the Divine laws of

the human organization limit its powers and direct its modes of action,

so the human laws which rule a people determine their modes of thought

and their relations to one another. Legislation, therefore, not only

represents the life of the present generation, but is the most powerful

educator of the rising generation. Every law contains this latent

power hidden within it, and so often overlooked. In every subject

of legislation, whether it be the most trifling village regulation

or the gravest international question, there are principles hidden

behind the facts which induced legislation, and it is the attitude

that legislation assumes towards those hidden principles, which stamps

its character as good or evil, which makes the human law obedient or

disobedient to Divine law.

The health of a nation is a most important concern of a wise

government. No other agency can act with such extensive and combined

power. But much wise caution is needed in dealing with such a subject

as national health. Human agencies are very imperfect, and much has

to be learned as to the right way of dealing with most important

subjects of health legislation. If the authorities introduce a supply

of pure water into a village suffering from typhoid fever they do a

righteous thing. They deal with causes. By careful investigation they

have collected a body of facts which prove that impure water will

produce typhoid fever. In this act of introducing a supply of good

water there are many principles enfolded. Thus they destroy the cause

of a great evil; they express approbation of that good thing--pure

water; they educate the people into liking it; they show them, through

experience, the blessings that flow from it. They thus render obedience

to Divine law by their legislation. But it is very different if they

attempt to regulate a village gin-shop. Gin, as a drink, is always bad,

whether adulterated or not, and, in dealing with the greatest evil

that afflicts our country--the curse of drink--legislation must adopt

the same course that it did for typhoid fever: it must patiently and

persistently accumulate the facts which will show what produces this

dangerous disease of drinking.

Divine law rewards the good (_i.e._, the obedient), punishes the bad

(_i.e._, the disobedient), swiftly, surely, inexorably, no matter at

what cost or pain; and human law must never temporize with evil,

neither directly nor indirectly sanction it, or it loses its character

of law and becomes simply blind or blundering expediency. In dealing

with evils legislation is bound to investigate the causes of evil and

attack them. Herein lies the superiority of legislative over individual

effort--that it is able to accumulate that body of varied facts

through which causes can be clearly ascertained and the attention of

the community directed to them. It is only on this sound basis that

wise legislative measures can be framed; only in this way that great

questions of national health can be judiciously dealt with.

Our English Government--in advance of every other nation--is learning

to recognise this great function of legislation, and is gradually

accumulating such a storehouse of facts as will render comprehensible

measures of wise statesmanship possible. The mass of the people,

however, must become sufficiently intelligent to support such measures.

The difficulties which now stand in the way of health improvements

from want of this intelligence, are inconceivable to those who have

not considered the subject. No matter whether the health improvement

suggested be great or small--whether it be the redemption of a lovely

mountain river, whose sparkling waters have been turned into a black

source of pollution, or a swamp that ought to be drained, or a poor

cottage that needs the introduction of fresh air--there is always

the same opposition and misconception. Thus a short-sighted view

of expense will excite furious opposition from small ratepayers and

ignorant farmers, even to the most necessary measures--measures which

would rapidly diminish the poor-rates and increase the prosperity of

a place. Incompetent men or poorly paid men are appointed to carry

out Health Acts, or timid men, afraid to excite ill-will in the

neighbourhood. The Acts thus become a dead-letter, or lawsuits are

instituted against improvements, harassing and even destroying local

health boards. Large proprietors enclose the commons, farm out their

estates to agents, and thus neglect the duties which are inseparable

from rights. The same ignorance which opposes such endless obstacles to

the establishment of sanitary improvements often defeats the best laid

plans when they are carried out, and proves, if proof were necessary,

that a people must be educated to appreciate laws before the objects

which those laws were intended to effect can be accomplished.

Much confusion also at present arises from patch-work legislation that

has not been based on sound principles. This is shown by the present

Acts regulating towns: ‘A recent edition of the laws affecting health

and sanitary affairs gives the text of fifteen Acts relating to health,

diseases prevention, nuisances, local government, sewage, and kindred

subjects; twelve Acts consolidating provisions as to towns, lands,

markets, police, loans, bakehouses, etc. The public health and local

government supplemental Acts are twenty-nine in number, while the laws

treated by the work are affected by not less than 296 public general

statutes, which the author tabulates in the index as being referred

to in the text. No lawyer can grasp these enactments save by great

research, much less can a man who has his own business affairs to look

after.’

The sanitary investigations carried on by the Privy Council and other

government bodies, the labours of the Royal Commission appointed to

inquire into the condition of the poor, etc., cannot be overestimated;

but none feel more strongly than the very men who are carrying on

these measures the necessity of effort in other directions--directions

where the co-operation of every member of society is needed--viz., in

education and in domestic and social life.

We now possess enough sanitary knowledge to reform the physical and

moral condition of the human race if it were generally diffused and

its rules systematically applied. Scientific investigations and the

knowledge of hygienic laws are far in advance of the practices of

daily life. The knowledge is within our reach, which, if employed,

would save the lives of tens of thousands of human beings around us,

keep this army of sick in vigorous health, and make our homes the

precious centres of ennobling influence that they are intended to be.

We fail, however, in the means of diffusing and putting into practice

the substantial knowledge which scientific observation has laid before

us. The first duty, therefore, which rests upon us all is an endeavour

to secure the universal diffusion of sanitary knowledge. As every

human being in the British Isles should know how to read and write, so

every human being should be taught that health is a duty, and shown

how to secure it. Sanitary teaching (varying, of course, in its style)

should be introduced into every school and college in the kingdom--in

the common school, in Oxford and Cambridge equally, into every series

of lectures, whether at the Royal Institution or the South Kensington

Museum, into every Working Man’s Institute, and into every medical and

every theological seminary.

Above all other classes of men, it is certainly important that

physicians and medical men generally should be thoroughly educated

in sanitary knowledge. The authority which they possess, and their

opportunities for instilling this knowledge when families are keenly

alive to the dangers of illness, would give them greater success as

health missionaries than any other class of society. But medical men

are not taught that it is equally their duty to prevent disease as to

cure it; and their attention is not, therefore, sharpened to observe

and to deprecate the numerous habits in family life which tend to

produce disease. There are but two chairs of hygiene established in

connection with our medical schools, and attendance upon those lectures

is not obligatory--_i.e._, is not essential to the attainment of a

degree. Every practical instructor knows that the press of studies is

so great that the student always neglects whatever is not absolutely

necessary to his success. One of the most beneficial changes that

could be introduced into medical education would be the establishment

of hygiene as a first-class chair, of equal importance with anatomy,

a searching examination in its teachings being indispensable to the

attainment of any degree which gives authority to attend the sick.

Almost equally important is the introduction of sanitary instruction

into theological seminaries. The clergy generally seem to be sadly

ignorant of the laws of health. The powerful and legitimate influence

which they exercise would be more valuable if it were not so one-sided.

If the clergy all over the land, who command a mighty army of parish

visitors, could show those visitors the direct and positive connection

between pure blood (made out of food, light, and air) and pure thought,

what a revolution would be wrought in every country village! But the

clergy themselves must be educated in such knowledge, for it is not

simply intellectual assent, but a thorough realization of it that is

necessary. The same knowledge is as necessary to our schoolmasters. No

one is fit to direct the education of youth who does not perceive the

difference between the young and the old, and suit education to the

child’s nature and not to his own. The kind of studies, their variety,

frequent movement, and change, the arrangement of schoolrooms, the

unlimited supply of fresh air, the playground, etc., must all be based

upon an acquaintance with sanitary knowledge, which would be a proper

subject for examinations and certificates.

The education of children and youth in Health is a subject in which

women are especially concerned. It is a large subject; it demands

not only the introduction of sound sanitary instruction suitable for

different ages into all our schoolrooms and colleges, but the creation

of a love of such knowledge and the habit of its practical application.

But this is not all: our great need--education in Health--implies the

confirming and improving the health by means of education. It is not

sufficient that the course of studies laid down for children and youth

should not injure them--it is also necessary that it should do them

positive physical good; they should be stronger, better, and brighter

for the hours spent in technical education, or there is something wrong

in the plan of education. If lessons produce headache, lassitude,

inactivity of functions, if they make children pale, quiet, spiritless,

then the lessons are bad; they have done the children an injury, no

matter how slight the evil effect appears to be each day; and the

injury cannot be remedied by sending them out to play and repeating the

same process day after day. A wrong cannot be made right by constantly

committing it and then endeavouring to repair it. It cannot be too

strongly urged that, unless the plan of education adopted with children

does them a positive physical good in all its details, it does them a

positive physical harm; it cannot be neutral. This is also true of the

youth in college or boarding-school. The same principle is applicable:

if the course of study is not positively beneficial to the bodily

organization, it is positively injurious. The over-taxed brain cannot

be righted by boating and cricketing. The rules which apply to the

fully-formed adult organization do not apply to the growing youth, and

it could be clearly shown how much moral, as well as physical, harm

arises from our failure to recognise the radical difference between the

youthful and adult natures.

Education in Health, therefore--not simply theoretic instruction--is

what we need to make our children stronger; and it requires such a

reverence for health on the part of educators that there shall be a

constant endeavour to make every part of instruction strengthen the

physical as well as mental nature.

In seeking the best means of imparting sanitary instruction to youth

we find that a certain preparation is necessary before anything like

a full and direct hygienic education can be given. This preparation

must be laid in childhood. A knowledge of the structure and functions

of the human body is indispensable; yet young women generally shrink

with repugnance from physiological instruction for which they have not

been prepared. All reference to bodily functions is unpleasant to them.

They have never learned to respect the laws of their organization, and

they turn from the subject of physical structure as very repugnant, or

a great bore. The tastes of children, however, are of a very different

character; the intellect, as shown in untiring curiosity and incessant

questioning, is predominant in childhood, and taste for any study

may then be formed. Children will receive the elements of comparative

and human anatomy and physiology, learn to handle bones and examine

structure, not only without disgust, but with extreme interest; and

they may thus be prepared for the fuller instruction which they should

receive as youths. Everything should be done to cultivate the taste

for natural history and science that is latent in almost every child.

Their fondness for animals indicates this taste, and the care of

animals should be encouraged and directed. The manual of physiology in

every schoolroom should be pleasantly written, well printed, and with

abundant illustrations. Bright, well-drawn pictures, clean and fresh

specimens, shelves and little boxes for collections, should be provided.

To the intellectual training which results in the formation of tastes

the formation of healthy habits of life must be added. These habits

should be formed without, in general, giving any reason for them.

Children should not be taught to reason on matters of Health. They

utterly lack the power of proportion which is essential to reason, and

they run the risk of becoming morbidly conscientious or hypochondriacal

if compelled to reason on these practical matters. It is very important

that they should go to sleep early, eat simple food, live in fresh air,

and take a great deal of out-door exercise, but it is not desirable

that they should know too early why they do these things. The proper

time for reasoning on these habits has not arrived, but the healthy

habits early formed will gradually become a part of their nature.

Habits of self-control and obedience to rules are also an essential

part of the moral hygiene of childhood; they prepare the nature for the

intelligent obedience to law which should come in later years. Children

should not be worried with unimportant observances. The precepts which

it is necessary to give them will make more impressions if they are

not too numerous; the rules laid down must be wise rules; children

are trustful, and their trust must never be abused. If, as they grow

older, they learn to recognise the wisdom of the obedience that has

been exacted, they will escape that dangerous scepticism which so often

comes to youth, who find that their intellectual and moral guides have

cheated their youthful trust. Intellectual tastes, healthy habits, and

obedience to law being thus formed in childhood, the youth is prepared

for that full instruction in health which is adapted to the period

where reason is developed.

For the education of youth in health--_i.e._, in physical strength--and

in sanitary knowledge and habits a training college seems to be

urgently needed. The acquisition of knowledge, enthusiasm for the

study, and a practical realization of it must go hand in hand.

Modifications may doubtless be gradually introduced into the ordinary

plan of family and school instruction. But if, under the present system

of schoolroom discipline, we attempt to instruct young ladies in

the laws of health, we are called on to contend with insurmountable

obstacles, not only with an utter indifference to all subjects of

health and repugnance to many topics connected with it, but with

enfeebled powers from a neglected or misdirected childhood, and with

vitiated tastes from the substitution of artificial excitements for

natural healthy enjoyments; it is also impossible to find the necessary

number of teachers inspired with that respect for Divine laws which

would give them insight into matters of health and the true order of

education. This combination of difficulties makes the task of education

in health almost a hopeless one, unless the individual be placed in a

fresh educational atmosphere where the objects and methods of education

are entirely changed. Health education should train the body--of which

the brain forms part--into well-balanced strength, giving full command

of the various faculties and power to meet the demands of future life.

To accomplish this work the hearty co-operation of the individual

is essential; such education cannot be forced from without: it must

be accepted by the will. All the mixed motives which act upon human

nature are needed to vanquish indifference and excite enthusiasm: large

and beautiful arrangements in building and grounds; the sympathy of

numbers; the stimulus of honours and rewards; the increased prospect

of establishment in life. All the motives which act upon young men,

stimulating their zeal in college life, are also needed by young women.

The natures, if not identical, are strictly parallel. The broad rules

applicable in one case are applicable in the other, and success in

education can only be attained when it is adapted to the one common

human nature.

Education in health would be best attained by giving prominence to the

following subjects: First, the practical study of natural science,

including sketching from nature. Second, the practical study of

hygiene, which would include the structure and management of houses

and households. Third, the direct training of the bodily powers in

precision, agility, and strength.

1. The importance of the practical study of natural science in the

education of youth can hardly be too strongly urged. The love of

nature when strengthened by a knowledge of nature gives occupation,

amusement, mental and physical development of the best kind; it is

an antidote to the morbid influences of fashion and dissipation; it

hinders the premature development of function; it furnishes a basis

of intellectual companionship between the sexes, and would prove

invaluable to a mother in the education of her children. The power

of habits formed in children by their parents are second only to the

original type of constitution, and often overpower even the original

tendencies; these habits are nevertheless formed by the silent working

of influences, hour by hour and day by day, that are invisible and

cannot be measured, that seem valueless, taking item by item in the

long account, and yet in the aggregate they mould body and soul. A

mother may instil the love of reading or the love of dress, she may

form the habit of outdoor exercise or the habit of gossip, not by set

precept or even formal regulations, but by her own tastes unavoidably

moulding the tastes of her children, and flowing out naturally

into those external arrangements that reflect the ruling spirit or

affections of the individual. Did the mother possess a hearty interest

in the wonders of field and forest, of sea and sky, what a treasury

of delightful intercourse might be found in every country ramble! A

mother’s love, joined to broad tastes and knowledge, would never weary

of the ceaseless questioning of childhood; the older the child, the

closer and more influential would be the companionship. The holiday by

the sea-side or amongst the mountains, so often wasted in idleness or

frivolity, might be a rich harvest-time of delightful knowledge drawn

from the treasures of land and water.

It is the outdoor study of science and art that must be insisted on

with the young--the cultivation of the powers of observation rather

than memory--which powers compel the exercise of the muscles and

senses. The guiding principle of health education is to follow the

order of nature, and place the strengthening of the physical powers

not independently of, but in advance of, the mental powers. If the

order is reversed, and the immature mind be allowed to tyrannize over

the immature body, and disturb the proportion of Nature’s work by

withdrawing too much creative force to the exclusive stimulus of the

mind, the true relations of mind and body can never be restored, the

adult will never receive that ready and capable service that the body

should render to the mind. In thus urging the paramount importance

of some branches of study, particularly in a girl’s education, it

is not intended to exclude all others. Many accomplishments, as

well as various branches of knowledge, may be taught in such a way

as to conduce to physical and mental health, and all studies may

be so arranged and subordinated as to be innocuous. The principle

here insisted on is that those studies must predominate and lead in

the education of youth which most fully require the exercise of the

physical as well as mental nature in their pursuit.

2. The direct study of hygiene involves so large a range of

profoundly interesting subjects that it is difficult to display its

full importance in a condensed sketch. The creation of a healthy

happy home (which all will allow is the legitimate work of a woman)

requires comprehensive knowledge. The structure and arrangements of a

house adapted to the climate, soil, and wants of a family, including

drainage, ventilation, warming, economy of labour; the management

of a household in relation to individual wants and to society,

including the subjects of food and waste, domestic service, petty

trading, the care of the sick and prevention of disease, occupations

and amusements--these and many other topics belong directly to the

formation of a noble Christian home. These are subjects that men

and women have a direct personal interest in. They may be taught in

graduation with abundant illustration. The examination of economic

museums, exercise in the inspection of houses and neighbourhoods, etc.,

should be added for advanced students. Every method should be used to

impress facts on the memory and excite personal interest. To this end

a system of rewards would be useful, whether of prizes or honours.

There seems to be no reason why honorary degrees, scholarships, and

fellowships should not be bestowed for proficiency in knowledge that

relates to the health of mankind, as well as for distinction in

classical and mathematical study.

3. The third subject of education in Health is the direct cultivation

of the various bodily powers in strength, agility, and grace. This

culture presupposes close attention to the weak points in the health

of each individual student--those tendencies to disease which exist

at present in every person. All will have remarked that the same

morbid cause, applied to half a dozen people, will produce varying

effects, according to individual peculiarities; thus, a current of cold

air applied when the body is over-heated may cause either catarrh,

bronchitis, neuralgia, rheumatism, intestinal derangement, according

to the individual susceptibility. Youthful vitality masks, but does

not cure, weak tendencies, unless those tendencies are known, and the

exuberant vitality be especially directed to their cure. This season

of life is, however, particularly favourable to such cure. Nature will

never again present so valuable an opportunity of remodelling the

constitution. A doctor of health or preventive medicine, who shall

become acquainted with the constitution of each student and determine

how far exercise must be modified to meet individual peculiarities, is

an indispensable member of the faculty of any college that undertakes

to educate in Health. With this observation and caution modern

gymnastics and exercise in various forms will become an invaluable part

of education. The muscles of the body are capable of the same careful

training as the senses. As the eye and hand in painting, or the ear

and hand in music, require long and careful practice to acquire skill,

so the great variety of delicate or powerful muscles in the human body

require careful exercise to draw forth the varied powers that belong

to them. The ordinary movements of life do not call forth half these

powers. As the large majority of people go through life with only an

imperfect use of their lungs, from the constraint of clothing and

sedentary habits, which weaken the thoracic muscles, so it is with

other organs, and imperfect muscular action and weakened health is the

result.

The principles of education which are thus laid down are the following,

viz.: a constant observance of the order of human growth, the selection

of studies that will carry out this order, habits and arrangements of

college life that will enforce it, direct instruction in the necessary

conditions of health, and careful training of the body. It is giving

to education the grandest of all objects--use, which, if properly

understood, includes the highest and most permanent culture of which

the individual is capable. Were our beautiful sea-coasts studded with

such colleges, with their wonderful playgrounds washed twice a day

by the Atlantic waves, furnishing endless treasures for the eager

gatherers, enthusiasm for health-giving studies would grow up in the

youthful mind, and a stronger generation mould a nobler society.

The establishment of sanitary improvements by Government, and the

remodelling of education, are not the only means by which we must

seek to obey those Divine laws which are implanted in our nature.

Every class of society, every institution--in short, our whole social

life--needs to be re-born into the idea of health. The customs to which

we all conform, whether rich or poor, the standards by which we measure

success in life, and the means by which we seek to reach it, are all

opposed to the idea of health. The hours we keep, our dress, our food,

the excitements and strain of life, are injurious alike to mind and

body. The deeper we look into the structure and state of society, the

more serious are the effects of the general neglect of the laws of

human growth. Practical life now is a cruel foe to pure enthusiastic

youth; purity and enthusiasm are alike destroyed by the corrupt and

faithless society into which they enter. We preach one standard of

right; we practise another. We exact a superhuman effort from our

children when, surrounded by temptations, we tell them not to fall

into evil habits; we require an impossible thing when we expect them,

as social beings, to do what is right when society does what is wrong.

The diffusion, therefore, of sanitary knowledge through all classes of

adult society is as necessary as the remodelling of education. It is

through the gradual diffusion of this knowledge that combinations of

individuals may be formed who will be strong enough to put down some of

the senseless and injurious customs that now pervade society.

This principle of combination may wield a great and increasing power

for good. Departure from any established custom by a single individual

is an eccentricity, but the union of fifty for the same purpose will

exercise a decided influence, and a hundred resolute men and women form

a social power in the State. It is encouraging to recognise the power

that might be exerted by such a band resolved to carry out the ‘Laws of

Health’ in their daily lives!

There is only one form of combination, however, that I shall venture to

suggest, and whose utility I think will be at once apparent.

I refer to the formation of a National Health Society.[23] Such

a society seems to be much needed--needed to give combination,

direction, and impulse to the efforts of individuals; to form a

storehouse of information to which all could apply; to assist health

legislation by looking at this great subject from a family point of

view, and educating the community into an intelligent appreciation of

wise legislative measures; to attack such a great and growing evil as

that of unconsumed smoke; to suggest improvements in education, and

draw every charitable institution into health missionary work. Every

other subject of human interest is represented by some society, more or

less active, which takes up the social side of each particular work and

urges its claims. It seems characteristic of the general neglect with

which Health is treated that no national society of men and women has

yet been formed to promote this vital subject--Health.

Such a society should extend its branches into every town and village

of the land, and form a body of corresponding members, not only

throughout the kingdom, but abroad. It might, with great advantage,

promote the wide application of that excellent system of instruction

initiated by Mr. Twining, of Twickenham. This gentleman has devoted

his life to the diffusion of sanitary knowledge. Having established

a museum of domestic arts in his grounds, open to the public, he has

written a series of lectures, which are read by the curator of his

museum and illustrated by his librarian, the illustrations for each

lecture being ingeniously packed in a small box; he generously sends

this little establishment to any place which will make arrangements

for the delivery of the lectures. Such a system, varying the lectures

and illustrations, might be applied to every little village in England,

for two young ladies or gentlemen might certainly be found in every

place to read discourses so prepared. If a Health Society did no other

work than keep in constant activity such a simple plan of instruction

as this, it would do a work of immense utility. There is, however, no

limit to the practical suggestions that might thus be brought before

the public to the influence that might be exercised upon family life,

or to the sanitary institutions that might be formed by an energetic

Health Society.

I have thus endeavoured to show:

1. That there are laws governing human growth according to an

unvarying plan.

2. That neglect to study and obey these laws produces individual

suffering in all classes of society and national degeneration.

3. That obedience must be rendered through legislation, education, and

social life.

It is only when we have learned to recognise that God’s law for the

human body is as sacred as--nay, is one with--God’s law for the human

soul, that we shall begin to understand the Religion of Health.

FOOTNOTES:

[23] The same year (1871) at a drawing-room meeting held in Dr.

Blackwell’s house the National Health Society was formed, which has its

offices at 53, Berners Street, London, W.--EDITOR.

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.

Transcriber’s Notes

Page 57: “theories of bateriology” changed to “theories of bacteriology”

Page 127: “an acknowleged authority” changed to “an acknowledged

authority”

Page 178: “herioc efforts” changed to “heroic efforts”

Page 208: “thay will save” changed to “they will save”