As a contributory cause of excessive mortality and sickness among young children, the employment of mothers away from their homes is even more important. There is no longer any serious dispute upon that point, though twenty-five years ago it was the subject of a good deal of vigorous controversy on both sides of the Atlantic.[28] Professor Jevons thoroughly established his claim that the employment of mothers and the ensuing neglect of their infants is a serious cause of infantile mortality and disease. So important did he consider the question to be that he strenuously advocated the enactment of legislation forbidding the employment of mothers until their youngest children were at least three years old.[29] When one who is familiar with the facts considers all that the employment of mothers involves, it is difficult to imagine how its evil effects upon the children could ever have been questioned. In too many cases the toil continues through the most critical periods of pregnancy; the infants are weaned early in order that the mother may return to her employment, and placed in charge of some other person—often a mere child, inexperienced and ignorant. These “little mothers” have been much praised and idealized until we have become prone to forget that their very existence is a great social menace and crime. It is true that many of them show a wonderful amount of courage and precocity in dealing with the babies intrusted to their care. But in praising these qualities we must not forget that they are still children, necessarily unfitted for the responsibilities thus placed upon them. Moreover, they themselves are the victims of a great social crime when their childhood is taken away and the cares of life which belong to grown men and women are thrust upon them. [Illustration: BABIES OF A NEW YORK DAY NURSERY The mothers of all these babies work away from their homes. ] In a personal letter to the writer, Mr. Roscoe Doble, Clerk to the Health Board of Lawrence, Massachusetts, says: “Relative to the high infantile mortality, I can only say that ignorance in the preparation of food, illy ventilated tenements, and, in many cases, unavoidable neglect occasioned by the mothers being obliged to work away from the homes, often leaving their babies in the care of other children, seem to be the prime factors in the high mortality among children.” Similar testimony has been given by physicians and nurses wherever I have made inquiries, indicating a general consensus of opinion among experts upon the subject. A striking instance of the ignorance of these little girls to whom infants are intrusted was observed in Hamilton Fish Park when one of them gave a baby, apparently not more than four or five months old, soda water, banana, ice cream, and chewed cracker—all inside of twenty minutes.