unhygienic. One child coming down with scarlet
fever, measles, or whooping cough can infect twenty others at an
afternoon party. The eating of so much ice cream, candy, and cake is
deplorable in that it upsets the digestion, and all this is irritating
to the developing nervous system of the child; and not infrequently
brings on a lot of other symptoms, resulting in discomfort and
disease. We believe in outdoor picnics but not in too frequent indoor
parties.

PICNICS

Groups of children gathering in the park, on the beach, in the woods,
when well chaperoned, are among the pleasant and profitable pleasures
of childhood. It is just such gatherings that mothers and children
should indulge in--and once a week is not too often during the long
vacation. The mothers, too, should enter enthusiastically into the
joys of a day's outing, where the enormous intake of oxygen, the
hearty laughter, the races, the games, etc., all create a wonderful
appetite, which can be so delightfully satiated from the well-filled
lunch baskets; and while the children are thus playing together what a
wonderful opportunity for the mothers to engage in an exchange of
helpful ideas. Each mother has her own way, which is "the best way" to
make this cake or that salad; or has met this particular difficulty in
child training in a carefully thought out way; a neighborhood women's
club can thus be held out in the open, while the children are having
the time of their lives in the frolic of the picnic.

"MOVIES"

The movie is an institution that has come to stay, and today mothers
everywhere are perhaps discussing this particular institution more
than any other. The movie affords a wonderful opportunity to see the
sights and scenes of other lands, of feeding the imagination of the
child on travel pictures and nature pictures. It is a most deplorable
fact, however, that this wonderful institution which is fraught with
so many opportunities to educate and enlighten the mind of the growing
child has carefully to be censored. Women's clubs have done much to
purify the movies for the school-age child; many theaters are now
showing on certain days a special afternoon movie for the children;
and while many of these movies have great possibilities for good, we
most earnestly urge that the school child see the movie that he is to
see before dinner, and not have his mind excited and his nervous
system "thrilled" just before going to bed. Someone asked me severa