Consumption is terribly prevalent among the very poor in Lower Austria, it must be remembered; and it was at that time very prevalent at Eggenburg. The doctors had long been insisting that the little inmates ought to live practically out of doors the whole year round, working on the land, tending cattle. Arrangements had already been made for them to do so, but a difficulty had arisen. Working on the land and tending cattle in deep snow meant wet feet, wet stockings as well as wet shoes; and that for many of them spelt disaster. Dr. Schöffel was convinced, however, that it was not the wet feet that did the harm, but the wet shoes and stockings; and many of the doctors whom he consulted agreed with him. It was with their warm approval that he had decided to banish stockings and shoes and leave feet to take care of themselves—to try the going-barefoot experiment, in fact.
The experiment had long passed the experimental stage when I paid my first visit to Eggenburg; for, by that time, the inmates had already been going barefoot for some ten years. From the first it had proved a marked success, the very officials who had done everything they could to prevent its being tried, frankly admitted; so marked a success, indeed, that they had all become hearty supporters of the new system. Even the Directress of the girls’ wing, who had almost broken her heart when the change was made, and would have resigned her post forthwith but for her devotion to her charges, spoke enthusiastically of the good it had wrought among them. Most of them were at a trying age, between twelve and sixteen; and most of them were delicate, never free from coughs and colds. She was as sure as of life itself, therefore, the first day they went barefoot, that they would all be ill in bed on the morrow. To her amazement, however, as she told me, when the morrow came, there was no sign of special illness among them. On the contrary, instead of coughing more than usual, they coughed less, and were in less urgent need of pocket-handkerchiefs. Before a week had passed the great majority of them had ceased coughing at all, and not one of them had a cold in her head.
The Director told me much the same tale; as it was with the girls so was it with the boys. By banishing shoes and stockings, he declared, Dr. Schöffel had practically banished colds with all their attendant evils. Under the new system, it was a rare thing for any boy to develop a cold after being at Eggenburg a week. The general health of all the children had improved quite wonderfully, both he and the Directress assured me, since going barefoot had become the order of the day. And what they said was confirmed by what I heard from every doctor I came across who knew Eggenburg; was confirmed, too, by what I saw there with my own eyes. For a finer set of youngsters than the boys and girls there I have never seen in any institution, and have not often seen anywhere else.
I had hardly crossed the threshold of Eggenburg before I heard, what I rarely hear in institutions, peal after peal of hearty laughter; and I saw little urchins flying as the wind in pursuit of something, I could not tell what. The very way they threw up their heels as they ran, the speed with which they went, showed the stuff of which they were made, the strength of their legs and backs; while the cries they raised left no doubt as to the strength of their lungs. There was not a laggard among them, not a weakling. Some of them, it is true, would have been all the better for more flesh on their bones, I found when I came to examine them; and some few were not quite so well grown as they ought to have been. Still they were a wonderfully vigorous set, considering the handicap with which they had started in life; and they were as alert as they were vigorous. They swarmed up poles and twirled themselves round bars, in quite professional style; and went through their drill with head erect and soldierly swing. Evidently they were not troubled with nerves at all, nor had they any fear at all of strangers. They met my advances in the most friendly fashion; and answered my questions intelligently without hesitation, looking at me straight the while. Their eyes, I noticed, were not only bright, but, oddly enough, full of fun, many of them. They were a light-hearted set, it was easy to see, bubbling over with delight at being alive; they were a kindly sociable set, too, on good terms with themselves, one another, and even the officials.
This Eggenburg experiment certainly proves that both boys and girls are the better, not the worse, for going barefoot. Why, then, should they wear shoes? The wearing of them is sheer waste, surely; and in war days waste of any sort is unpatriotic, especially waste in shoes. For leather is none too plentiful, and is becoming scarcer and scarcer from day to day; while it is only by straining every nerve that shoemakers can keep the men at the Front even decently well shod. Were all the children in England to go barefoot, even if only for the next three months, our soldiers would many of them have much better shoes than they have. And most children would be delighted to go barefoot; and very many mothers would be delighted to save the money they now spend on shoes, if only the School Authorities, by appealing to them to do so for their country’s sake, would give them the chance of doing so without offence to their fetish, respectability. Unfortunately, many of these Authorities seem to prefer the worst of leaking, toe-crippling shoes to bare feet.
I once asked a certain Head Master to let a little Gipsy, who was sojourning in his district, go to his school without shoes. She had never worn them and did not wish to wear them. He was quite shocked. Such a thing was impossible, he assured me. The tone of the whole school would be lowered were a barefoot child to cross its threshold!
Edith Sellers.
LONG ODDS.
BY BOYD CABLE.