less hard to bear, but was also doing his best for the future happiness of New Zealand.
He noticed that amongst the poorly-housed working classes, when sickness overtakes young children, difficulty is experienced in getting them to the ordinary hospitals, and it often happens that medical aid is called in too late. To meet cases of this kind, he included in his preservation scheme foundling hospitals, the State providing the money for the erection of the buildings and the maintenance of the institutions, the management to be handed over to committees, trustees, or ladies, “who, I am sure, will take a delight in performing this humane and philanthropic work.”
He faced the risk of criticism when he affirmed that the State should provide nurses for the poor. He saw nothing revolutionary in this proposal. Indeed, it seemed to him to be quite natural. He said that the only direct return the masses received from the colony’s general fund was in regard to free education. They supplied the lion’s share of the nation’s fund, and if the State gave nurses to the poor it would not do more than they might fairly claim.
To meet the demand for trained nurses in the colony, he urged that the Government should arrange with the trustees of the public hospitals to allow girls to be trained as nurses in the institutions, the State paying for the girls’ board and lodging.
He was surprised when a clergyman told him that New Zealand was far behind other countries in regard to prevention of cruelty to children and in dealing with the neglect of parents in cases of sickness. Infant-nursing hospitals, on the lines of those established in the United Kingdom, were therefore included in his scheme.
It is only one step from infants’ hospitals to day homes for infants, and he proposed that these also should be established, because they would be used largely by mothers who have to leave their homes to win their bread at charing, washing, and scrubbing. When they were away for a day or half a day, they could leave infants in the homes, where they would be attended to by the nurses and properly looked after until the mothers’ return. To prevent the sacrifice of infant life on account of
