=Every Child Should Have a Competent Mother.=--The second demand of child-life is for a competent mother--competent in health, that the baby may get really born alive, competent in nursing and household skill, or in power to secure that skill from others, in order that the baby may be sure of that first long start of two or three years toward physical, mental, and moral sanity and strength. It is in those first years that the child gains power to begin his own conquest of the world at an advantageous point. That many women are not competent physically for even the first test of childbirth we know from many sources of inquiry. The facts brought out in legislative hearings by those urging support for the so-called "Maternity Bill" amply prove this. Taking the figures for New York State alone, in the year 1920 we find a total of thirteen mothers out of every thousand dying in childbirth, with an estimate from physicians that with proper care two-thirds of these women could have been saved. A competent mother, then, physically speaking, means not only one measurably strong but one sufficiently cared for to prevent overstrain before the birth-hour. Again, in New York State alone, we find that eighty-six babies out of every thousand die before they reach the end of their first year. This may be from ignorance on the mother's part, or it may be from her physical weakness unequal to the care of the new baby. It may be there are already too many children near that baby's age who also make heavy demands upon time and energy. It may be that discouragements from unhappy family conditions or worry over economic disabilities sap the mother's vitality. It may be that taints of blood doom the child and the mother. Whatever the cause, it is reason for deep concern that a great state, like New York, for example, has a rate of infant mortality nearly twice as high as that of New Zealand and ranking eleventh in the twenty-three states of the registration area in which the death of babies is set down with care. When we add to this loss the death of at least 25,000 women each year in childbirth, most of whom could have been saved under right conditions, we are still more concerned. Of the 250,000 babies lost last year we are safe in estimating at least one-half whose lives could have been spared with even a minimum care. The effort now making all along the line of social advance to give every child a decent start in life is obviously necessary and wise.