The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-01-06
COLLEGE BRED WOMEN.
DO THEY MAKE BETTER MOTHERS
THAN THE UNEDUCATED?

Mrs. Frances Fisher Wood Believes in
Higher Education-she Says the Edu-
Gated Mothers Babies Live When the
Ignorant Mothers Babies Die.
Mrs. Frances Fisher Wood a colleg
graduate well known in phllanthropic2
| and educational as well as social circles c
| New York has made an exhaustive stuG
of the subject and finds as the result OF he
Investigations that greater proportion Q
the children of college bred women sur
vive infancy than do those of the mother
lacking the scientific training of collegt
lie
Il know it is constantly argued" Mrs
| Wood asserts, that common sense and
not science is the most valuable capital for
a mother, and that experience and not
theory is the safe guide in matters ma
! ternal, but l venture to disagree with this
oft repeated dictum.
1.-The average woman has experience in
plenty and common sense without expert
ence, but she is not scientific-not suscepti-
| bic to new truths. Experience has no ac-
cepted standard by which TO judge of its
results 1t is merely what Mrs. Smith did
/ fifty years ago, or what Mrs. Brown said
yesterday More than likely neither said
what was true. Besides, deriving general
rules from individual cases is fallacy.
WHAT MRS. WOOD SAYS.
"Why should / wish to know how old
Mrs. Brown fed her babies years ago, or
how Grandmother Smith cared for hers,
when in the quiet of my own library can
ascertain from the greatest living author
ity in the care of children the whole science
OF infant dietary and CLEAN the best expe-
rience and conclusions of all the worlds
greatest intellects along the line of infant
theories?"
"And do you think all this scientific
knowledge would help mother to quiet
crying baby, fretting with collie, as well as
the soothing care of the old fashioned
grandmother"
sob, mol ] mean that scientific knowl-
edge teaches a mother that there is no
need of having crying babies or allowing
them to fret with collie Ny baby never
cries and doesn't know anything about the
colo, though tradition declares that cry
ing is beneficial and a sign of intelligence,
since the child who never cries is a FOOL
and that collie and pains are natural Incl
dents to babyhood. The mothers of exper-
mental knowledge go on dosing their ba-
bies as their mothers did before them, &C
cepting the collie more reSignedly than the
baby does as necessary evil.
Scientific mothers investigate and find
out that they are feeding the collie TO their
babies by introducing myriads of destruct-
i've microbes into the stomach in the milk
and water they give them, or are slowly
starving them upon the natural food they
supply, and which they are unable TO learn
by analytical examination lacks, as it fire.
quently does, the necessary elements of nu-
triton.
TWO METHODS COMPARED.
"There is another tradition that the
dreaded second summer of babyhood is a
more critical period than the first sum-
mer, and that the summer season is TO be
feared any way. | Travelled with my baby
all the first summer after he was born, fed
him the much derided artificial food, and
he was never sick a day or an hour Sci
ence taught me that the summer illness of
children was due to the presence of greater
numbers of microbes in the food, and to
be sure that such microbes were DESTROYED
before they fed upon the intestinal organs
of the child, and also before they had ex-
hausted the richness of the milk | gave
him.
Science teaches me, too, that the second
summer of a child properly nourished
should be and is less fraught with danger
than the first, because statistics show that
with every month of existence a child's
hold on life is strengthened. OF course l
meet with considerable opposition from
mothers whose faith in the old supersti-
tons is genuine and intense.
"a lady, after asking in detail about my
system with my baby, said severely, When
you lose your baby, as you undoubted
will before he is a year old. you will regret
having been 50 self wii,cd' And when
explained to her that did nothing except
with the counsel and consent of my hus-
band, who is a physician, she said scorn-
fully, What do men know about babies9
One old woman is better than five Doctors
Such being the case, ] suggested, it seemed
strange that no woman or mother had
made any valuable contribution to the
worlds knowledge on the care of infants.
THE standard authorities on infant ply
siology are men and physicians; the best
works on infant psychology are by men;
the most valuable book on children's edu-
cation is by man and a bachelor, Herbert
Spencer; the only rational dress for a baby
was designed by man, DR.. Grosvenor,
and the sterilizing of infants food was dis
covered and perfected by Scxlet, a man
and a scientist"
EDUCATE GIRLS DIFFERENTLY.
But it is impossible for all women to
acquire collegiate education"
Yes; and for that very reason we need a
in, of
We should cut down 70 the vanishing
point the time our girls spend on orna-
mental studies, rid ourselves of mechan-
ical, parrot like Rotations, rote learning,
all striving for marks and prizes, and train
the minds of girls who may eventually be-
come mothers in habits of careful observa-
ton and logical deduction that their
hands may answer promptly with wise
doing In emergency. There is to me no
crime of our present civilization which so
cries ont against the women who call
themselves educated as the death in the
United States Of more than an annual
100000 children at an age when they are
directly under the mothers care"
Finally, as closing and convincing ar
gument TO her theory, there came into
Mrs Woods parlor healthy. happy speci-
men of scientific bshyhood, who rapturous-
~ greeted this scientific woman as ma
ma Happy chih of happy mother.
In his twenty-five months of babyhood
he has never known the torture of collie,
goes TO sleep at night and never wakens
until morEing, cuts his teeth with as little
ceremony and suffering a. a small kitten,
contracts no infantile diseases. succumbs
TO no infantile disorders, and does not Pc
riodically upset the equilibrium of the en-
tire family at intervals Of two or three
days 10y being mysteriossly cross, after
the manner Of unscientIic baby tyrants.
The diet OF this enviable hairy consists now