In most if not all of the non-Christian lands whose child life we are studying there seems to be the tendency to two extremes. The children are often nursed by the mother for two, three, five, or even more years, and at the same time they are allowed to eat anything that their fancy dictates or that they can get hold of. Mrs. Noyes of China says that if the mother has no milk she cannot afford to buy canned milk, and of course fresh milk is entirely out of her reach. So she chews rice most carefully until it is soft and mushy, then takes it from her own mouth and puts it, germs and all, into the baby’s mouth. This diet is supplemented with rich cakes and the inevitable tea. Another missionary tells us that, if a child in China is ill, his appetite is tempted by rich, heavy food or fruit, and adds, “the mortality of children is frightful.” [Sidenote: An unwholesome diet.] Mrs. Underwood, an experienced mother and physician who has lived and worked many years in Korea, says: Every imaginable practice which comes under the definition of unhygienic or unsanitary is common. Even young children in arms eat raw and green cucumbers, unpeeled, acrid berries, and heavy, soggy bread. They bolt quantities of hot or cold rice, with a tough, indigestible cabbage, washed in ditch water, prepared with turnips, and flavored with salt and red pepper. Green fruit of every kind is eaten with perfect recklessness of all the laws of nature, and with impunity.... But even these, so to speak, galvanized-iron interiors are not always proof. It takes time, but every five or six years, by great care and industry, a bacillus develops itself ... and then there is an epidemic of cholera.[9] It is one of the most difficult lessons to impress on those who have become Christians that true Christianity, lived out to its logical conclusion, includes all that proper physical care of the child which, with the right mental and spiritual training, shall prepare it to take its place in the world. Dr. Exner, recently in physical educational work in the Y. M. C. A. at Shanghai, says:-- [Sidenote: Hygiene and the child problem.] “The need of the knowledge of hygiene has a very definite bearing on the child problem. Thousands upon thousands of children are killed simply for the lack of knowledge of the simplest elements of feeding and care. To illustrate: A well educated Chinese teacher, graduate of a mission school, fed his five months’ old daughter a piece of rich cake. It developed intestinal trouble from which it died in spite of expert medical care. When I expressed my sympathy, he said, ‘Well, it is the Lord’s will.’ I added to myself, ‘You should know better!’”