Report, Mrs. Orville T. Bright
Mrs. Bright—The one object for the conservation of all the material resources of a Nation is for the use, comfort and benefit of the homes of the people.
It would be of little importance what became of forests, lands, waters, minerals or food were there no men, women and children to use and enjoy them.
Therefore, at the very heart of this Conservation work should be the two departments covering homes and child life.
It has been a source of encouragement to see that men who are leaders in many great developments of our land, have given definite place to the study of the conservation of the home.
There is need for it if America is to be the greatest of all the nations, for with its wonderful natural resources it can only be as great as the quality and character of its people.
Great minds are needed to think and plan with wisdom and unselfishness for the America that is to be, for the protection of homes that are to shelter and nurture the men and women who a few years hence will take our places.
The United States has its Departments of State and War and Navy. It has not yet seen that the greatest questions it has to meet are the protection and care of the American people and American homes.
The U. S. Department of Agriculture is educating the farmer to make the most out of his land. It gives him information concerning the soils, the rotation of crops, the protection against the many enemies of plant life, the care and feeding of stock and poultry. It protects the forests and the fisheries. All these things for the service of man have received the guardianship of the Government.
Homes are just as important as farms, and there is just as great need of proper consideration for their elevation and protection as there is that of farms and stock and forests.
The protection of infant life is of more value, even in a pecuniary way, than the protection of the cotton crop, yet three hundred thousand babies die annually whose lives might be saved if the United States gave the same careful, intelligent information to the mothers as it does to the farmers.
The annual sacrifice of three hundred thousand American citizens from preventable causes is a waste far too great not to receive governmental consideration. Time need not be wasted on compiling statistics. There is need for prompt and decisive action to prevent this needless sacrifice; it means that each year the possibility for at least one hundred thousand homes of American citizens is cut off. That means a serious loss to this Nation and one for which immigration can not compensate.
The wonderful advance in agriculture can be paralleled in human culture if the same methods are used. The trains that go through the country for agricultural demonstrations should carry instruction to both men and women on home-making and child nurture. The list of valuable educational pamphlets published and sent free of postage should include instruction in child hygiene and sanitation.
There is today a need for a Home Department in the National and State Governments that is equipped to study the home problems of America and meet them as only can be done by thorough study and knowledge of conditions, their causes and remedies. The sacrifice of infant life is a small part of the waste that undermines the homes.
Juvenile crime, its causes and treatment are of more vital moment than the boll weevil or the chestnut blight, for the possible good citizen transformed into one who is a menace and expense to society is a great waste.
There are countless organizations which give material and charitable relief. There are few which give the help that will enable the average home properly to guide and train the boys and girls who are wayward, or will help parents to learn efficient methods of child nurture. The home has the greatest power over human life and human character. Too long has it been left to chance and ignorant experiment to make it efficient in its work, stable and permanent.
The home is founded by the marriage of a man and a woman. It is a matter of grave concern to the Nation when divorce breaks up one in every twelve homes, and leaves the children bereft, not only of a normal home but deprived of a true conception of what marriage and parenthood should be. The conservation of the home requires that serious study and work be done to change this condition in America. It can not be done by legislation alone, though one of the greatest needs today for the protection of the home is Federal law governing marriage, divorce and polygamy.
It is a serious menace to the home when forty-four States may make as many different laws as they choose on a subject which is the foundation of the Nation’s future.
That a man may be legally married in one State, and that such marriage is illegal in a State adjoining, that divorce is easy in some States and difficult in others, that polygamy is permitted to continue in some States, and that freedom to spread the cult is allowed, have all been undermining influences in the God-given standards of marriage, home and parenthood.
The Government has found it necessary to assume jurisdiction over interstate commerce, railroads and express companies. It is of even more vital importance that it should have jurisdiction over marriage, divorce and their violations. In addition to this, there is need for definite plain teaching of youth in regard to the true high ideal of marriage, of parenthood, and the making of a home. This would prevent a large proportion of the divorces. A standard should be set in regard to the home, and boys and girls should get that as part of their education.
Ignorance of hygiene is responsible for the drawbacks and failures of many homes. It is inexcusable that any boy or girl should be permitted to reach manhood and womanhood without a clear knowledge of personal hygiene, sanitation, and food values. This knowledge is essential to good home-making and good parenthood, and is equally necessary for men and women.
Congestion in cities should not be permitted. In the seaport cities many immigrants from other lands have not the means to go farther, and if they had the means, do not know enough about the country to place themselves where their qualifications would fit best. The cry against immigration is one with which I can not sympathize. The Americanizing of the immigrant should be placed in other hands than the politician’s, who uses him en masse for a manipulated vote.
The special education of immigrant men and women would be an important service to good home-making and the ability to train the children to be useful citizens.
The proper distribution of immigrants by careful information as to opportunities for work and the earning of a home is greatly needed. The proper assimilation of our immigrant population is still in its infancy, but is of vital moment, for they also are the future citizens of America.
The city home of the American citizen should not be left to the will of builders whose only thought is to build houses for sale. Many apartments are built today without the amount of light, sun or ventilation necessary to health. Some cities and towns are realizing the need for regulating this.
The Conservation of the home demands that every State should have requirements as to building homes. The problem of a comfortable home for the family with a moderate income is a serious one today. Few cities or towns are giving the thought necessary to make a city of good homes for the average family at prices possible for them to pay.
The country home is equally in need of study and help. The opportunities for social life and educational advantages equal to those given to the city home should be supplied. That means larger appropriations for schools, the employment of the best teachers, the consolidated school, the use of the schools and churches as centers of educational and social life, the making of good roads between home and school and church and market place.
The Government Department of the Home should take all these things into consideration. It should bring to the overworked farmer’s wife better household facilities and more help. The greatest drawback to country life today is the overworked wife, who can not get needed help and who goes beyond her strength in cooking and doing housework for farm help as well as her own family.
No one who knows of the terrible results of hook worm in the South resulting from the unsanitary, poverty-stricken hovels, where physical weakness had for years sapped the vitality and energy of men, women and children, can gainsay the fact that Government study of the causes and the remedy has done a service of inestimable value to thousands of homes. Seven years’ life among those people proved that many of them were in quality equal to the best American stock, but that disease had brought upon them the unjust stigma of laziness with resulting poverty.
The Government could study and publish the results of its investigation, but Dr. Stiles had to get contributions from individuals to do the educational and medical work necessary to uproot this disease. That is not as it should be. The power to help should go with the power to investigate, for the condition was of much wider interest than to the individuals directly affected.
The National Congress of Mothers and Parent-Teacher Associations have made the subject of the home, of parental education and of child welfare its special study and work for seventeen years. It has worked steadily to build up a united system of parent-teacher associations in connection with every school, to bring about the co-operation of home and school in child nurture.
It has required that these associations should be for child study so that parents might have guidance and help in their problems. It has instituted study courses and provided educational material for the parents. It has headquarters in Washington and has valuable co-operation from Government departments. It should be the Homes Department of the National Conservation Congress because its work is well established, covering every State and reaching to other Nations. It is the only national organization whose membership is composed of parents and teachers and whose educational leaders include the greatest specialists in child nurture and child welfare in home, school, church and state.
I would suggest to the National Conservation Congress that it make the National Congress of Mothers and Parent-Teacher Associations the Homes Department, because in that way it will have consecutive work of high standard, and will bring a strength which could be secured in no other way. Co-operation without duplication brings results.
The National Congress of Mothers offers its co-operation in every phase of conservation for which the Conservation Congress was organized. It also asks co-operation of the Conservation Congress in its international work for home, parenthood and child nurture.
It invites this Congress to be always represented at its annual conferences and at the Third International Congress on Child Welfare in Washington, D. C., in May, 1914.
Life, health, character, all depend on the home and its efficiency. To equip every home for efficiency in its special work is the greatest need in Conservation.
President White—That is surely a fine paper, in a holy cause.
The topic of the next section of the program is “Conservation of Human Life.” The subject, “Saving Miners’ Lives,” will be discussed by Dr. Joseph A. Holmes, of Washington, D. C., Director of the National Bureau of Mines. (Applause.)