The babies are helpless at first. This softens the hearts of the parents toward them until they become very indulgent. Indulging and pampering children are bad for them. Kindness consists in doing for them what is for their good, which is not always what they desire. If the children are properly trained at first, they need very little training later on. CHAPTER XXVII. CHILDREN. Statistics are generally very dry and uninteresting, but at times they take on a tragic interest, and the importance of the few submitted here is so great that they should command careful attention. The definite figures used are taken from the Mortality Statistics, United States Census, and they cover the year 1912, which is the last year for which we have definite information. Reliable mortality statistics are given only in a part of the country, which is not to our credit. The population is reported in the volume as 92,309,348. The registration area, which is the area giving mortality statistics, contains 53,843,896 people. In this area the total deaths are as follows: Under one year.............. 154,373 Under ten years............. 235,262 Taking it for granted that the infant and child mortality among the unregistered people is the same, we get the following number of deaths annually among children in the United States, in round numbers: Under one year.............. 280,000 Under ten years............. 425,000 This is a very conservative estimate and 300,000 is usually given as the number of deaths annually among babies under the age of one year. Even under ideal conditions a baby would occasionally die, but the deaths would be so rare that they would be the cause of surprised comment. Some become parents who have no right to be, and they bring children into the world who are not physically fit to survive, and these generally die within a few days or weeks of birth. However, these babies are but a small minority and at least ninety-nine out of a hundred should survive. Not one baby born physically fit would die if intelligently cared for, and the fact that each year we lose over one-fourth million infants under one year of age in the United States is an indictment of our lives and intelligence, and a challenge to better our ways. Every child that is brought into the world should be given an opportunity to live. This is far from the case today. Children are so handicapped that they are stunted in body and blunted in mind, if they survive. Suppose that every ten years an army of 4,250,000 men and women between the ages of twenty and thirty were destroyed at one time in this country! The indignation, sorrow and horror would be so great that a means would soon be found to end the periodic slaughter.