The social conscience cannot be satisfied until every family has an income sufficing for all its essential needs; but there are possibilities of successful attack on infant mortality which can be pursued when economic change is not within reach, and when such economic change would not obviate the need for further measures. Among such measures may be mentioned the abolition of alcoholism, the provision of a pure and adequate milk-supply, increased attention to domestic and municipal sanitation, health teaching by public health nurses, and prompt and adequate medical and nursing assistance when required. _Ignorance_ It may have surprised you that I have not placed ignorance in the forefront, before industrialism, urbanization, and poverty, as the chief enemy of personal and public health. I have no hesitation in making the statement that although there is need for large additions to present educational work in hygiene, the utilisation of existing knowledge by those holding responsible positions is even more important. Is it not true that it is easier to promote educational “drives” for any single branch of health education, than to obtain money for the actual execution of health work? Let us look more critically at educational work in hygiene. Whose ignorance is it proposed to enlighten? Ignorance is common to all classes, and it is fundamentally important that systematic instruction in physiology and hygiene should be given in all our schools; and that especially every teacher should have adequate training in these subjects, and in the recognition of the common mental and physical defects of children. If a course of instruction were given for all, approaching that which is given for public health nurses at Yale University, how much more hopeful would be the prospect of public health progress, both in New and Old England. But this does not cover the entire needs of the case. Consider, for instance, the relation of maternal ignorance to excessive child mortality. Maternal ignorance is sometimes regarded as a chief factor in the causation of excessive child mortality. It is a comfortable doctrine for the well-to-do person to adopt; and it goes far to relieve his conscience in the contemplation of excessive suffering and mortality among the poor. This doctrine has found favour in occasional official reports and in miscellaneous addresses. It embodies an aspect of truth, but it is mischievous when it implies, as it sometimes does, that what is chiefly required is the distribution of leaflets of advice, or the giving of theoretical instruction as to matters of personal hygiene.