The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1913-09-17

women Interested IN Social QueSLOuS,
of fathers and mothers who place
their children before everything else,
gives the movement something the
quality of majesty. says the Woman
Home Companion.
1t is no new idea, this developing
Of children to their possibilities. The
difficulty was to stimulate interest
and concentrate this interest into
definite activity. The Better Babies
Contest does this.
The woman's Home Companion be-
Iieves that to nationalize the Better
Babies idea, to give 1t publicity, TO
crystalline the real interest into defin-
lite activity, to bring about clearly de-
fined results, Is the most impor tant
work and publication can do.
From the beginning it was evident
that the machinery for the Better
Babies Contests was inadequate. The
Companion was ready to give encour-
agement by valuable prizes, but the
awards could have significance only
through a proper system of scoring.
The first big problem was to work
out the thoroughly scientific yet sim
pie score card that would cover
everything and yet not be cumber-
some nor involved, the score card
recognized as the standard by which
TO judge the babies of the whole ma
ton, and which at the same time
would be a useful possession for
every mother whose baby was scored
1t took months to perfect this card,
months of hard work and the expen-
diture Of much money. The foremost
experts were consulted. Many of them
gave their services when it was ex-
plaineo that the score-card was not a
CONNER cial venture. The idea was
not to evolve a Woman's Home Com
panion score card but a Better Babies
score card, as nearly perfect as pos
sible, for which the maya zine could
stand sponsor. The cards first made
by the Better Babies Bureau were SO
radically different from any that had
been used, that a number were print
ed and tested at a contest in New
York city at which four hundred
babies were entered The necessity
for changes became apparent, and a
conference of physicians revised the
card. which was finally issued as the
Better Babies Standard Score Card.
The card finally adopted is worth
all it cost. The severe tests that have
been made, the approval of able, I'M
biased physicians, prove this.
1t is a fine thing to record that,
throughout the whole country, the
press and the earnest, thoughtful men
and women-leaders Of the people
who realize the significance of the
movement understand that the Com
paniou is merely the clearing house
for it. They know, as the Companion
appreciated from the beginning, that
the Better Babies idea is bigger than
any publication, but that some organi-
zation must take upon itself the bur-
den of systematizing and standardiz-
ing the movement, and of giving the
world the news of it.
The Better Babies Bureau of the
Wo1nan's Home Compan Mon is not
only prepared to give all the advice
resulting from experience, and m
how to, conduct a contest, |
but in order to make these contests
do the real work for which they ara
planned the bureau emphasizes the |
activities that shall follow them. For |
the objective is not merely to deter |
mine that certain babies are worthy |
Of prizes, but to show how all babies |
Fan be developed into Better Babies |
and thus, incidentally only possibly |
prize winners.