the adaptation of foodstuffs to early life, just so long will the death rate of infancy remain alarmingly and unnecessarily high. So long as women and men, who are not fitted by long years of especial training, attempt to deal with questions relating to the mental and physical welfare of early life, just so long will the rules in the schools and laws for the restraint of child labor be inadequate, insufficient, unsatisfactory and plainly wrong. When each class of child guardians realizes that others should be consulted in their own lines or research, and that all must then combine in one common cause, the intelligent protection of early life, then

probably not be successful in accomplishing the desired end, namely, a proper protection and governing of early life as preparatory to later usefulness.

As physicians well know, from their especial research work in development, children in different parts of our country are subject to different conditions, and it is the wise adaptation of the conditions to the individual which will do the most good for the especial child. The whole curriculum for governing a human being in its progress from infancy to adult life, whether as to food, kindergarten, school, physical training, in and out door occupation, technical school, college or terminal vocation,

may we hope to control and finally eradicate the various systems of education and work which are now undermining the health of children.

If the people in general understood the situation of the child question in all of its details, as has been stated in this short exposition of a very large subject, there would probably not be much difficulty in doing away with existing wrongs.

General national laws emanating from those who are not trained scientifically to cope with humane questions which they have at heart will

should be adapted to the individual, and a universal curriculum for children in general should not be countenanced as it is to-day.

In this sense a state should wisely arrange its laws to suit the conditions which exist within its own borders. Otherwise much time will be wasted by the individual child, surrounded by certain conditions, and forced to subscribe to rules made wise by an entirely different environment.

To the end that great reforms should be made in the management of child life, capitalists should give the re

quired financial aid, philanthropists and humanitarians should give their time and influence to exposing the wrongs which are being done to childdren, and pediatricians should be asked to give their practical knowledge to the work of determining what food, studies and modes of living are best adapted to the individual child.

It is the especial development of the individual human being which demands rules of government and training adapted to individual mental and physical development. The educators can then apply their knowledge, from an educational point of view, to the developmental conditions pointed out by the pediatricians. The lawyers can frame laws which will enforce these conditions, and the legislators can then with reason be asked to make general national laws which will allow each state to be benefited according to the conditions which exist within its borders.

The Children's Federal Bureau, now under consideration as a part of one of the national departments, will be be needed to wisely apportion the laws according to the conditions extant in different parts of the country. The question, however, at once arises where shall this bureau obtain the most advanced knowledge of questions relating to children. It is manifest that philanthropists should expose crime and should show the need of reform. It is also manifest that the government should have pediatric research centres available for information, just as it has scientific research laboratories for other subjects which require legislation. At present there are such laboratories devoted to early life, though they exist in the hospitals maintained for investigations on adults.

To fulfil this need of obtaining rational advanced ideas and a practical knowledge of early life, it would seem that educational centres, devoted to the especial study and investigation of early life, should be endowed and established in different parts of the country. Thus the queries of a fed

eral bureau or the especial requests for advice from different states, as to their state laws for safeguarding children, could be answered intelligently, as questions on all other scientific problems, industrial or otherwise, are answered.

These educational centres should have no political affiliations, and should be under the control of no especial organizations or associations. They should be absolutely independent research laboratories for all questions connected with early life, and their mission should be simply to supply advanced knowledge on every subject connected with human beings, from birth to the completion of their physical and corresponding normal mental development. They should be. recognized centres, ready to give advice, but leaving to the philanthropists, capitalists, educators, lawyers and legislators to carry out reforms of training and of guarding early life. Most of all, however, these centres should place on a scientific basis the truths emanating from modern investigations connected with physical and mental development, and should teach how to render the young tissues less vulnerable to disease, and how to restore the tissues to a normal condition when infection has occurred.

The means for establishing and endowing such educational centres should probably most wisely come from private individuals, in order to avoid complications which might handicap unbiased work. The workers in these educational laboratories would thus be absolutely independent, and could carry on their investigations as is done, for instance, in a chemical laboratory, and their results would thus most likely be accepted as authoritative by the public, by the state and by the nation.

With such an educational centre in mind the writer has for the past eight years been studying in Europe, as well as in this country, the problem of how to construct a building which, while representing the most perfect model for the preservation of life and the

restoration to health of young human beings during the period of infancy, should also provide a means for research work in the whole field of development in early life. This problem has been solved and a building has been carefully planned to carry out these ideas. A board of trustees has already obtained an ideal site for such a building, and holds sufficient funds to erect and completely finish its exterior. The funds for this purpose were given by friends who wished to establish a memorial building for infants. The space for beds is sufficient to accommodate fifty infants. This number has been carefully calculated to supply sufficient material for advanced research work, and at the same time is a small enough number to insure the most perfect care of each baby as an individual.

The accompanying illustration represents the building as it will stand, on a high piece of land, apart from the city thoroughfares and adjacent to the beautiful marble laboratories of the Harvard Medical School.

When the trustees obtain sufficient funds, the entire interior of the building is to be equipped with the best and most modern apparatus known for the determination of normal development, and for the study of conditions relating to childhood and adolescence. After all this is accomplished there is no doubt but that the patients in this hospital will receive most excellent modern treatment.

This memorial building, with its simple marble exterior, will represent not only an ideal place of refuge for sick infants, but also a centre for the study of early life, which, so far as the writer knows, has never before existed.

A novel condition, therefore, is presented to the public who are interested in child life, and the trustees who hold the funds given for this building have concluded that it is their duty to appeal to the public for the remaining funds necessary for finishing the interior of the building. The completed building will mean, at least, a starting centre for the advanced educa

tional work in connection with early life, which has been described in this article as being necessary for the wise supervision of the child life of our country, and, in a broad sense, of the world.

The study of what eventually is to be represented in the interior of the building is an interesting one, and can be described in units arranged for different purposes, so that the donors can choose the especial unit to which they may wish their gift to be applied.

The library is to be free to all who wish to study anything in connection with early life, and in this sense will be the only one of its kind in the world. As a knowledge of the use of the various foodstuffs for infant feeding and the method of their administration is the keynote to the successful rearing of infants, there will be a fully equipped and modern milk laboratory. This laboratory will be used not only for treating the patients in the wards, but will also be a valuable means for instructing girls who, in their last year at the various schools, may choose to take such a course as an elective. In connection with this course the care of healthy infants in a model nursery, the technique of rational feeding, ventilation and general hygiene will be practically taught.

As the milk for the model milk laboratory will be supplied from a model. farm, and as the owner of this farm will always be in close touch with the laboratory in educational work, students may be taught any of the farm routine which is of importance to the infant's and the child's well-being.

One of the specialties of this educational plant will be to train nursery maids and to supply them to the public. A need has long been felt in many communities for a place where maids should be trained, not only for their nursery duties, but also to have an appreciation of their relations to the graduate nurse who is called into the family when the child is sick. This will be accomplished by having a course for both graduate nurses and nursery maids in the same building.

In the wards each infant will have supplied to it not only the food, but also the temperature of the surrounding air modified according to its own especial need, and especial studies of these conditions will form an important part of the research work.

A room especially designed for premature infants will aid in carrying out forms of treating this class of patients, which will probably save many lives and form an attractive part of the general work.

There will be in close proximity to the wards a model lecture room, equipped with all the most modern apparatus for teaching and investigation. Here any mother may receive instruc

tion, and here research work in the development of early life will be carried on by means of the Roentgen ray.

In this age of preventive medicine it is very evident that what is needed. for the protection of the children of the nation is a pediatric laboratory devoted to research work in all that pertains to early life. Such an opportunity for general and special study will be provided in the Memorial Hospital through its library, its various research laboratories and its wards; so that if the public is interested in promoting the safeguarding of early life, it would seem that it should be only too glad to contribute toward placing such an institution on a sound financial basis.