The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-13
PLAN CH|LDREN'S
 FREE HOSPITAL Campaign Started at Meet
 ing Last Night MISS BABBITT TALKS
Special Representative of the Childs' Helping Department of the Rus sell Sage Foundation Is
 Unexpectedly Present

A Children's Charity hospital for Bir-
 mingham is now assured. At an enthu-
 siastic meeting held at thf parish hall of the Church of the Advent last night, the project was formally launched and nomination committee will report on the officers chosen and other details of the organization at another meeting to be held next Thursday night, April 20.
 Probably the feature of last nights s meeting was an address by Miss Eleanor
 Babbltt, special representative of the chid's helping department of the Rus sell Sage foundation. Miss Babbitt hap pened to be in Birmingham this week
 and appeared at the meeting unexpect- edly. She paid some glowing compli-
 ments to Birmingham
 "The two things which have struck me
 most forciby in Birmingham said Miss
 Babbitt, "are the facts that you have no childrens hospital and that this meeting
 had been called for tonight to provide one. That. is the right spirit That is seeing your duty and doing it. That is the spirit that shows progress and en- lightenment.
 q am more than delighted to find that you have not in Birmingham one of those monstrosites known as an infant asylum They are curses to any com
 munity. They are where mothers can | take children and desert them and you will be surprised to know that the in- fant mortality in some of these institu-
 tions in our larger cities is as high as | 90 per cent. am glad to find that you
 have an infant mortality commission 1 here which is active and energetic. q have already visited the children $ | institutions of your city and 1t Is glor- | iously refreshing to find such a small number of infants without their mothers q went to your Salvation Army home | and when I asked the matron what was done with the babies while the mothers
 were away at work she indignantly re- piled that the mothers always took their | children with them. I was proud oi | those words and would be proud to | have that matron say them on any iec- | ture platform in America. It was so far ahead of the spirit exhibited in our east l ern cities that my heart warmed to Bir-
 mingham and the way 1t does things l Miss Babbtt while here will make an l inspection of all the dairies of the Bir- mingham district in order to make re- 1 port on the kind of milk that is supplied | for the children of Birmingham. She prepares from each large city a percent I age table showing the average quality oi
 milk. supplied to babies.
 l Other speakers were enthusiastic over | the project to establish children's hos
 pital in Birmingham. The plan is to l start in a modest way renting quarters for ten or a dozen beds and building u'
 as the need requires.
 | Miss Allen of the District Nurses as- | sociation spoke interestingly of the chi'' dren's hospital in Toronto, where she rs-
 ceved her first training. She said the 1 institution began with six beds and now | has an average of 200 children day and | is the largest institution of it's kind + l the world.
 Miss Jane Barry of the District Nurses
 association also spoke and said that the
 association had had a meeting durins
 the Afternoon and pledged its hearty CO
 operation to the project.
 Maurice Willows, superintendent or the
 Birmingham Boys club, was another
 speaker who commended the plan heartily | It was stated after the meeting tho'
 there is now no doubt of the hospitals
 success. Those behind 1t will go slowly
 and surely. They will start in a smal
 way, but expect soon to have the in.
 stitution in position to meet the deman7
 that is now constantly felt for hospita l solely for children