“It is by no means improbable that more than half the whole number of Chinese children die before they are two years old.” (Arthur H. Smith.) In Syria the infant mortality is 75% of the births. In Persia the infant mortality is 85% of the births. At a meeting of the National Association for the Prevention of Infant Mortality in Great Britain, the Right Honorable John Burns, P. C., M. P., speaking on “Infant Life Protection” gave many interesting facts and figures to show how infant mortality is being decreased in Great Britain through scientific and systematic efforts along many lines. One sentence is significant: “Let me decide the food, the home, and the condition of life of every child from birth to seven years of age, and the rest of mankind can do with the children after seven years of age what they like.” [Sidenote: Feeding of children.] Constant and increasing attention is being paid in these days to the proper feeding of children, to the study of dietetics, to the preparation of suitable food for infants, and to the proper intervals for administering the food. Any mother of average intelligence in our land may secure one of the carefully prepared books such as Dr. Holt’s on “The Care and Feeding of Children,” or the smaller leaflets such as “What Children Should Eat,” and by making a study of them and of her child may hope to see that it is well and properly nourished. But what chance is there for the mother in Asia or Africa who, even if she cares to learn, has no means of knowing how to feed her child properly? [Sidenote: Ignorant mothers.] I was making a call of condolence on a neighbor in Persia who had just buried a dearly loved baby, the fourth or fifth she had lost. With such a pathetic look she said, “It seems as if we did not know how to care for our babies. You missionaries take such beautiful care of yours.” A wonderful opening, by the way, for starting a mothers’ meeting at which we used to discuss the care and training of our little ones. A mother arrived early one meeting day to tell me, “I tried on my children what you suggested last week, _and it worked_.” Quite different was this set of mothers who had long been in contact with the missionaries, from the mother in a Persian village who begged a missionary to put a cent on her baby’s head and write a prayer that it might not die as six others had done in that family. The missionary replied with some severity that it was much more to the purpose to have the mother learn to take proper care of it, for the baby was not yet a year old and she was feeding it with meat and fruit.