Perhaps one of the greatest inconsistencies of an inconsistent nation
lies in the fact that the extraordinary ignorance of the elementary
needs of a tender infant is not confined to one section of society; it
is found in Belgravia as well as in Bermondsey. Thus, though the chief
sources of the tuberculosis which is responsible for the presence of 45
per cent. of the children in the London Invalid Schools are confined to
the homes of the poorer classes,[109] inquiries into the incidence of
rickets among children in Glasgow show a higher percentage of cases in
the families of mechanics than of labourers[110]--a clear illustration
that ignorance and not poverty is here the predisposing cause. Impure
air and stuffy, ill-ventilated rooms are concerned in the susceptibility
to both diseases, as is also malnutrition with its associated diminution
of the innate powers of self-protection. But, in the one case, inability
to provide suitable food is the general cause; while in the other,
inexcusable ignorance of the right forms in which food should be
supplied to young children is a certain source of the evil.
The thought is pathetic, for the causes are wholly preventable. Pitiful
also, because less excusable, is the grievous injury to health
associated with a mouth full of rotten teeth, permitted as it is among
families possessed of sufficient means to meet the cost of cure, who
prefer to spend their money upon dress and amusement, or among the
members of which necessary endurance of a trifling shock has not been
cultivated. Were the foulness of the discharge from a carious tooth to
be externally visible, the aesthetic instinct among the refined would
clamour for prompt treatment; but, unfortunately for health, the results
of the disease are concealed, and consequently condoned.
Again: light, sunshine and quiet are now known to be essential to
physical development and to the possession of a sound nervous system;
the statement amounts to a platitude, for is not every wealthy invalid
despatched to complete convalescence by the sea or in the country, and
is not the custom of a general annual holiday due largely to the
conscious benefits derived from an open-air life far from the bustle of
towns? Yet physical morality is so poorly developed that the atmosphere
of suburban as well as urban districts is permanently obscured by the
preventable and wasteful results of imperfect combustion, though the
detriment is incalculable to those whose lives see no change of air.
The ceaseless rumble of noisy traffic, allowed to disturb the rest of
thousands, or more probably of millions, of our population, is another
factor responsible for the prevalence of unstable nerves and of
ill-balanced brains. It assumes great gravity when it is realised that
among these sleepers are numbered the children whose hours of rest are
already most seriously curtailed.
Another sin against childhood bears long enduring fruits. I refer to the
terrible results upon the lives of those infants who survive efforts to
prevent their birth. The fact ought to be, if it is not, common
knowledge; yet the sale of the infamous drugs, necessary to the crime,
by pennyworths, in every drug-store, is tacitly sanctioned by the
community.
Professor Sadler's[111] determination to direct attention to the
requirements of our adolescents has aroused such response, that excuse
is now impossible for ignoring the detrimental effects upon young people
of unskilled, exhausting "blind alley" work, or of removing prematurely
the restraint of moral discipline and systematised training.[112]
Statistics show not only the economic disasters which result from the
unsatisfactory methods of past years; they bring home also the steady
increase in the percentage of the proportion of nervous instability as
well as of anaemia, which interfere with the form of brain growth so
rapid in adolescence (namely, increase in complexity of association, and
in power to inhibit, to reason, and to concentrate). Another result of
these investigations is to draw attention to the increase in organic
heart disease, which has been shown to occur in more than thirty per
cent. of the London errand boys who are engaged in prolonged work on
Saturdays, as well as in out-of-school hours during the week.[113]
Should not parents inform themselves diligently on these matters? for
there are warnings and to spare from physician and educationalist upon
this reckless wreckage of the nation's most valuable asset. It was
pointed out ten years ago that the imposition of adult duties upon the
child, or even upon the young adolescent, is the most effective
machinery for the manufacture of the unemployed and the unemployable.
Only now, however, are bye-laws being sanctioned which impose at all
adequate restrictions upon child labour. For a longer period the steady
migration of the rural population from country to towns has been
bemoaned, as coupled with the risk lest the deterioration of the
individual decline into the degeneration of the race. Nevertheless, in
spite of the sustained efforts of the Rural Housing Association and of
private individuals, the housing problem still lies at the root of some
at least of this exodus. Miserable and inconvenient as are hundreds of
our cottages, their number is still insufficient in many places to meet
the demand; so perforce the young people of marriageable age must go, or
the elementary code of decency must be violated.
The curse of alcohol,[114] too, lies heavy on our land; it shortens
life, incapacitates for work, impoverishes and degrades; visits in
innumerable forms the sins of the parents upon their innocent yet
grievously afflicted children; promotes crime and perverts judgment.
Each year brings more statistical and biological evidence of its
enduring and deteriorating effects upon humanity. It seems strange,
therefore, that the law to insist upon the provision of an adequate
water supply for every dwelling remains entirely insufficient to meet
the most urgent needs of many town streets as well as country villages.
Cleanliness is consequently impossible, and the public-house must be
perforce frequented, for it provides a beverage more palatable and
perhaps as wholesome as the cottager's nearest supply.
XI. THE SOURCE OF THESE CAUSES TO BE FOUND IN FAULTY ADMINISTRATION OF
THE HOME
May not the causes of some considerable proportion of this apathy be
traced to a want of popular faith in the teachings of hygiene? Is not
one source of the prevalent unbelief in its tenets to be found in the
widespread ignorance of the right administration of human life in the
home, which turns out therefore a product of unhealthy, inharmonious
citizens, who are a source of weakness to their country and a menace to
civilisation? How could it be otherwise? If the cradle of life be
defective, and its occupants be debilitated, it is not the nurslings
alone upon whom the penalties will fall; whereas if home administration
be guided by intelligence, and the quality of the inmates be high,
individual and national prosperity are assured. The burden of
responsibility or the privilege of promoting progress (according to the
spirit in which obligations are assumed) rests with those who propose to
be or already are parents; they being influenced in their turn by the
educational and social conditions of their surroundings. Parental care
and intelligent home management are thus intimately concerned with the
physical evolution of the race, as well as with its moral development.
They must, therefore, assume an increasing rather than a diminishing
importance, if the full development of potentialities is to be insured
in the rising generation, and racial progress promoted. Any proclivity
to depreciate the dignity or to undermine the influence of these
institutions must be carefully examined and, if necessary, sternly
repressed.
The fact that such tendencies show signs of sprouting is, it seems to
me, a serious reflection upon the parental and domestic methods of the
day. There is no smoke without fuel; faults are rarely all on one side;
the young are not necessarily always in the wrong; therefore, a course
of self-examination into their methods and motives may be a wholesome
and fruitful discipline for those who are responsible for the nature and
nurture of our children, and for the stability and efficiency of
adolescent and adult. The absence of elasticity and adaptation to modern
requirements among the elders of a family is often responsible for
miserable homes, and for much arrested development in their inmates.