Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-08-27
H0W the Red Cross HELPS
the Children of France

ENRoM the very beginning of the European
4 war 1t has been the children of Belgium
and France who have made the most impera-
tive appeal to America: the Red Cross is
doing its utmost to express Americas answer
to that appeal.
ACROSS France, from Nesle in the Somme.
"A now again in the hands of the Germans
along the frontier of Meurthe and Moselle.
and to Marsees in the Mediterranean, cen.
ters have been established for the medical
care of children to assure for them the
chance of healthy and happy childhood,
menaced as they are by the drag of war upon
the whole civilian population and the over
intimate experience of the war which nun
dreds of thousands of children from the
frontier towns have suffered. Wherever a
demand has come for aid in meeting emer-
gencies. the Chdren's Bureau has answered
in so far as it's personnel and resources per-
mitted. Hand-in-hand with this immediate
work has gone far-reachng campaign OF
public health education which promises much
for French children of the future. The health
of the coming generation cannot sately Dc
neglected, even in wartime.
TlHE campaign began last January when
i an automobile canton loaded with PAM
phlets and postcards and lantern slides pre-
pared by the Rockefeller Commission for the
Prevention of tuberculosis In France and
the Children's Bureau of the Red Cross left
Paris and plowed through stormbound roads
to the towns and villages in the department
of the Eure and Loire. In the cities and
large towns mass-meetings were held In the
municipal theatres or town halls and smaller
meetings for special groups OF persons !;
moving pictures, instructive as wei as
amusing were shown, and an exhibit of
panels, posters and pamphlets was placed
In some central building. In the villages the
program was simpler most of the work there
was in the schools. During January, Febru-
ary March and April 900 persons visited
these exhibits the applicability to France Of
methods of public health propaganda which
had been successful in America was proved.
Two such travelling exhibits are now on
their wandering way-one in Brittany one In
Touraine-and a third is planned for the
Midi
Lyons, the second city of France. was
chosen for the first Of a series of large-scale
child welfare exhibitions: and when 1t opened
on April o representatives of the Ministry of
| the Interior. of the city of Lyons, of the
army the Church, the medical profession and
| the Allied Governments Joined in celebrating
the occasion.
TIME exhibition opened at a time when all
i France was breathless under the strain
of the German offensive; fears were ex-
pressed that It would be failure but
| during It's first week more than $4,000 per-
sons passed through the turnstile into the
| huge pavilion which had Deen erected Tor
the automobile exhibit at the Lyons Indus
| trial Fair and later lent to the Red Cross
| France was awake to the menace to her
| future.
| How to feed. clothe and bathe baby. how
| to care for children of two or three or four
| years what recreation a child should have
| how it's teeth should be brushed and allied
| subjects were demonstrated by American
| specialists in the various booths that lined
| the wall and in a glass house about which
| hundreds gathered thrice daily to watch the
| model toilette of a real live baby. loaned fol-
| the occasion. In three Fairgrounds outside
| the pavilion-one for boys, one for girls and
4 one with tempting sandboxes for children
| under eight-payground teachers played
| AMERICAN games with French children. whil'
| admiring rows of older spectators lined tn,
picket fence to watch. Moving pictures ant
| Punch and Judy shows graphically illus
| trated health maxims. Every morning
| school teachers brought their classes to SCI
the exhibit. and the afternoons were crowded
| In the three weeks of the exposition tn
turnstile registered $4,000 admissions.
nNE of the first appeals which the Re,
Il( Cross answered after its arrival q
France was that of Prefect Mirman, o
Nancy, TO whom the care of several hundre
young children from the gas-bombed village
behind the lines suddenly was intrusted
The Red Cross acted In cooperation witt
the prefect and the American Fund 70
4 French Wounded In establishing q rsfug
for these children in former barracks .
Toul. From that beginning In July q cente
4 for childfen's work has grown which mol