Cleanliness is one of the foundation-stones on which is reared the beautiful structure of baby’s good health and good temper. When it is neglected, all sorts of weaknesses, discomforts and irritations creep in. Uncleanliness invites disease and furnishes a lodging-place for germs. Moreover, the baby that starts off life by being comfortable through cleanliness forms habits of neatness, which it never loses. Whenever a mother tells me that she cannot keep her three- or four-year-old baby clean, that it simply “attracts” dirt wherever it goes, whatever it does, I wonder how she started it off at birth. Moreover, I have noticed at Better Babies Contests that many minor defects and small ailments can be traced by the examining physicians directly to untidiness on the part of the mother. Looking back on the babyhood of my own children I can recall no happier hours than those spent before the open fireplace in the adobe cabin of a Western ranch, where the babies were sponged and patted dry and cuddled off to sleep by the light of the dancing flames. The mother who allows plenty of time for the morning bath is sowing seeds which are bound to blossom in habits of cleanliness in the child. So, in planning for the coming of a new baby, she should spend more on the equipment for the bath than on embroidery for the layette. The little baby should not be bathed in the family tub. It should have a small metal or enameled tub of its own. This tub should be used for no other purpose. The skin of the new-born baby is very tender, and infection is always at hand. At the Better Babies Contests I have heard more than one physician trace an eruption on the baby’s skin to careless bathing or care of the tub. Doctors say that bad cases of boils can be traced to an infected tub. In fact, there are women who love their babies, yet who are so thoughtless as to leave diapers soaking in the bathtub, where, after a superficial rinsing off with warm water, baby is bathed. Diapers, all of baby’s clothing, in fact, should be soaked and washed in separate utensils, never in the bathtub. The task of bathing the baby will be lightened if the tub is placed on a low table and the mother stands before it. When the tub is on the floor and the mother has to kneel or bend, it is not so easy to handle the baby. The top of the table may be protected with a pad, which can be dried after the bath, or with a piece of oilcloth and a square of muslin.