San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-12-02
DAY NURSERIES.
Started in France as a Charity, They
Have Extended to Every Country.

! Started in France as a Charity, They
Have Extended to Every Country.
Although asylums for the care of chill.
dren are not rs old as the human race, yet
| as long ago as in the Eighth century a
] priest established such an asylum for the
| children of those poor people who were
obliged to leave their homes for their daily
| work, and ever since there have been insti.
buttons of the same nature of more or less
| worth In France these institutions have
been especially frequent. While it was
long the custom for the wealthy to put
their children out at nurse, it was no less
the custom of the poor.
The poor, however, had but little choice,
and the care that they could obtain for
their children was of such description
that finally benevolent people took the
matter in hand, and established societies
to attend to it, to provide sound cows, and
general system of wholesomeness for the
forlorn little creatures bereft of mother
during twelve hours of every day. The So
cieties legally organized were so successful
in their work that people were found pres
emily taking up the business without legal
rights, and with them human selishness
soon attended to the profits of the under
taking rather than to the comfort of the
children.
\ benevolent gentleman visiting one of
these unlegalized places, finding babies
huddled together, unattended, in bad air.
with little care or none, the mothers only
returning to nurse them at their own meal
times. saw the need of a change of all such
possibilities so much that he Immediately
set on foot plan for an asylum of n to-
tally different description, to be called a
creche, in remembrance of the holy manager.
Under the system thus inaugurated child
was kept for twenty centimes day in
comfortable, well ventilated apartment, in
the care of conscientious, patient and suf-
ficiently paid women, the mothers coming
to nurse them at convenient intervals, TAX
ing them home at night and taking them
entirely away on Sundays and other feast
days, that they might not lose their family
membership, as it were.
Ladies who were members of the asso-.
citation interested in the experiment had
alternative visiting hours, and there was a
physician for daily attendance. From this
beginning the idea spread, and the creche
became feature of all the large cities of
France and eventually of many places in
other lands. Wherever the day nursery
has been opened it has been seen to be an
immense help to the working woman, a
great preventer of wasting disease, and a
great saver of health and life to babies,
and so an advantage to the state.
Beginning as a work of charity that ap-
pealed to all tender hearts, it has become
one of civilization, and even of political
value; for it has dealt directly with the
preservation of the health and number of
the population, and it has also contributed
largely to its moral health; for the first in
struction and enlightenment of the baby
reared in the day nursery till its third or
fourth year has been on the side of order,
cleanliness, kindness and all the simple
virtues.-lIarper's Bazaar.