Payette enterprise. (Payette, Canyon Co., Idaho) 1909-1935, 1917-05-17
THE cHiLDRENs BUREAU
AND BABY WEEK
Julia {. Lathrop, Chief, chiIdren's
Bureau.

HfD 0EO'
Julia {. Lathrop, Chief, chiIdren's
Bureau.
4 rs Baby Week the business Of q
Government Bureau?" The observing
Taxpayer is perhaps asking this
question.
n Ev-r since last October when the
General Federation Of Women's Club
announced it's plan, an increasing pro
portion Of the Bureaus office force
has been detailed to the correspond.
eBce required by the growing in
teIest in the nationwide observance
Of Baby Week
The sociologist and the statistician
will remind US that the Bureau was
created to make Investigations per-
.aining to the welfare Of children
and that Baby Week is not an in
vestigation and is not statistics.
To all these groups we are account
able. What is our reply?
For the three years the Bureau
has been in existence it has put a
considerable share Of its energy in
to a statistical study Of the social
and economic causes of infant NOR
tally, planned with the greatest
care and conducted by trained field
agents with all possible precision.
The results of this inquiry are be-
ing published, as the law requires,
in a series Of reports which con-
sist of statistical tabulations ac-
companied by descriptive tsxt.
There are many million fathers
and mothers in the United States,
including many Of the best educated
fathers and mothers, who have never
read statistical table and never
will. Yet hidden within the figures
Of the Bureaus reports on in'ant
mortality, the reading of which they
will successfully evade, lie stern
facts about the dangers which be-
set American babies.
These figures give a clue to the
reasons why, on the great average,
one baby in eight dies before the
end of the first year Of life. They /
show that this average obscures a !
wide gamut with comparative i'm
munity from infant loss at one end
and with fearful infant waste at the
other
If the Bureau is to investigate |
and to report as the law directs, then
it must try to find ways of report
ing which will be heard by the
whole public which it was created /
tt serve.
The popular methods of the Baby
Week, which are those OF all astute l
from an invaluable meth
cd of reporting TO the parents Of
this nation those standards of in
fant welfare which experts are en-
deavoring to make clear.
The Baby Week emphasizes the
side of infant care. 1t
addresses not only individual par
ants but communities.
The best test of its value will
be the work that follows it:
Undoubtedly every State Board o.
Health should secure what only six
States have at present-a special
division of child hygiene No city or
own should fail to provide instruc-
i've nursing service and to pay con-
stant heed to the problems of hy-
yiene and sanitation, Of proper hous-
ng and of recreation spaces, since
LII these Immediately af ect the
welfare of infants.
There are 5000 counties in the
United States. In every county
'eat there should be a center for
he health work of that county-a
station for examining babies, and
,lder children, and for furnishing ex-
vert advice for keeping them well
in short, health teaching center
We must have complete birth reg
stration.
All these will be Institutions for
he common use-no more revolution
Try, no more eleemosynary, than pub
ic schools and weather bureaus and
.gricultural experiment s'a ions.
The New Zealand infant mortali-
Y rate is less than one-half of ours
md is being further reduced.
Why take less pains for Ameri-
an babies than New Zealand takes? {
The U. s. Civil Service Com !