congeners seemed utterly unknown or completely neglected. In July 1911 it was officially stated in Parliament that the "vast majority" of parents are utterly "surprised" when the actual illness of their children is brought home to them. Or again, an official inquiry recently conducted into the persons blind from childhood has established that from 50 to 60 per cent of this evil is solely due to the utter ignorance and incapacity displayed in the home. Such statements might be multiplied without end. Taken together they confirm the view almost universally expressed by those best qualified to express an opinion, that the incompetence displayed in the nurseries and homes of this country is profound. This, then, is one of the reasons why, in the words of Mr. John Burns, "we are beginning to concentrate on the child."
These views can be verified if we consider the recent history of infantile mortality in this country, which is, perhaps, one of the most compendious tests of health. The law here has been that, while for the half century from 1860 up to 1908 the annual death-rate of all persons in England and Wales fell rapidly, that of infants under one year of age fell much more slowly. In fact, the latter rate in 1895 and 1899 stood actually at its highest level. The reason for this divergence between the two rates appears to have been that, while public energy in sanitation, and so forth, favourably affected the seniors, it was not able to exercise a correspondingly beneficial effect on the nursery,
