The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-02-22

has never been such a general ana con certed effort on tho part of intelligent humanity to protect children, to save their health and energy. and to lit them for good manhood and womanhood. as is now being put forward throughout the United States. The nation is tardf- ly awakening to the fact that its battle lines and fleets of Dreadnoughts. but in the men and women who con- stitute its citixenship. Progressive People are beginning to bend the lives of little children toward more per feet development. and out of this move ment will grow an invincible people.
 Baby life is being protected by laws regulating the milk suppliss of big cities. and controlling contagious dis eases. By educating ignorant moth. CTS and nurses. blindness may ulti- mstely bs prevented. ana the 2b.ooo who represent the number of needlessly blind in this country may he saved for normal living Regular courses of instruction, for the betterment of living conditions have been inaugurated for mothers in tennement quarters Led by New York the larger cities throughout the country are instituting inquiry into the causes of children's distress and are offering relief.
 Juvenile courts. separating children from adult criminals, have been estab. lished in twenty-one states. Reform schools are giving delinquents indus trial trainig. and junior republics offer them the advantages of self reliance and self government. Nearly 800 cities throughout the country have es- tablished public playgrounds ct great cost, and New York, in addition to these, keeps open seven percent of it's schools. summer and winter. as recre. ation centers. Theatre, church and II. brary and club for children have come in answer to the call of this new era. and are factors in the great child con- servation campaign.
 A bill has been introduced in Con- xress providing for . children's bureau under the Department of the Interior. This bureau would collect data relative to infant mortality, birth rate, physical degeneracy. delinquency. dangerous oc- equations, diseases. Legislation affect ing children. and other matters bearing directly on child life. Recently the President. for the first time in the his- tory of the nation, addressed a special message to Congress relative to the welfare and protection of children. with view to giving practical effect to the suggestions of the Conference on the Care of Dependent Children. which he had invited to meet in Wash ington.
 The conference which inspired the Presidents message, was one of the most important ever called in the tn- terest of American citizens. Its princi- pal object was to formulate plan toward which the whole country might work in giving the best possible care to dependent children. There are now rkt tsx fhA n style orphan assyluma and like institu- tions of the country. While 1t Is re- cognized that those who are in charge of these institutions aim to give the children the best they can in the way of material things. every child needs, for its normal development. such care as can be obtained in Q home. Under the modern ideal such home Is sought for every dependent child. whether It go there as an adopted member of the family or as boarder.
 Institutional life received no whole sale condemnation from this meeting Representatives of institutions were a. mong the most keenly interested people present, and accepted the con- clusions favoring the home-placinE idea and the cottage plan asylums. It is known that orphanages can never take the place of the real home. that the. life is necessarily a routine one, that individuality essentially becomes submerged in the general mass, and that the child who Is eventually. sent out from an institution Is not always equip ped to make its own way in the world. Usually children in such places are giv- en out at fourteen to go as farm hands or domestic servants. which Is not the kind of home placing advocated by the conference. A recent private research As to the career of former institution girls in one of the biggest cities in this country showed that a large per- centage of them had come to lead im- moral lives because they were untrain- ed. homeless. helpless in the big, busy world.
 A worker among the day nurseries of New York stated not long ago that she had known the babies in a found- ling home to pine away and die, one by one. though the best medical atten- ton had been given them. They needed moth ering. that was all." she declared. "rhey had on comfortable clothes. were lying on clean. white beds, and were drinking the best milk. They had the attention of experts, but they hadn't what they needed most of all-mothers' arms about them" Bs. bies who have survived this lack of love and this loneliness have joined the ranks of older orphans. They have found homes in crowded buildings where money is always scarce. and where kind faced matrons and gentle voiced Sisters try to give them proper attention-but this cannot take the place Of the home and of the mother