are offered for the periodical visiting of the homes of the infants and
their inspection; mothers can be taught how to care for their little
ones; and, instead of leaving it to chance, or depending upon the word
of an ignorant mother, or a child, the attendants in charge are able to
regulate the supply so that at the proper time each child gets milk of
the proper strength and richness. How far the abuses I have named are
prevalent in philanthropic experiments of this kind, I do not know, but
I am convinced that there should be no room for such well-intentioned
but disastrous muddling. The whole milk supply of every city should be
the subject of municipal management and control, and special
arrangements should be made for dealing with the milk intended for
infant consumption. Personally, I should like to see the principles of
the Rochester system extended to cover the entire milk supply of the
city, and, in some one of our great cities, the further experiment of a
municipal farm dairy for the supply of all milk necessary for hospitals
and similar institutions upon the most hygienic principles possible.
This has been done to some extent in Europe with success.
VI
It is a delightful and scientifically correct principle which those
Utopia builders have embodied in their schemes of world-making who have
advocated the restriction of matrimony to those women who have undergone
a thorough course of education and training in eugenics and household
economy. Most persons will agree that such a system of education for
maternal and wifely duties would be a great boon, if practicable. But so
long as hearts are swayed by passion, and the subtle currents of human
love remain uncontrolled by law, such proposals must remain dreams. Even
the modest suggestion of Mrs. Parsons that a “matrimonial white list” be
created by establishing continuation schools for training young women in
the domestic arts and the principles of child-rearing and giving them
certificates or diplomas, as well as certificates of health,[165] is so
far in advance of anything yet attempted that it sounds almost Utopian.
Still, there is nothing fanciful or impossible in the proposal itself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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