then care
for it better than the cat cares for the kitten, and she can be taught
to bake, to sew, to read; to play on the piano, which a cat cannot be
taught. So while a baby may be the most helpless living thing at one
stage of its career it has in it--in the faculty of reasoning--the
ability to become the Lord of all the Earth and of all the animals
therein. To limit the environment of a child by imposing instincts upon
it, would be to limit its inherent freedom. To be obliged to obey a
prescribed instinctive law would rob mankind of his creative or
reasoning faculty, and that would be to lower him to the level of the
brute creation. Reason is of no use if our acts are already determined
for us. There are therefore good reasons why the human baby should be,
at the moment of its birth, the most helpless living thing; and as a
consequence it is imperative, if the eugenic ideal is worthy of
attainment, that every baby should have the benefit of trained and
efficient care and education.

THE DELICATE CHILD

There is a certain standard by which we measure the physical and mental
development of children. This standard we regard as the evidence of
normal development. Some children exceed these requirements; they are
bigger and stronger at a given age than the average child at the same
age. There are other children who cannot be called sick, but who are
physically and mentally inferior to the average standard, whom we
designate as "delicate." These children are not as big, or as strong, or
as heavy, as other children of the same age. They are born with a
reduced vitality, or through mismanagement in early infancy they have
acquired a subnormal standard of development. Children born of parents
who are not of standard vitality are predisposed to be delicate. If the
parents are of average development, and the delicacy of the child is
acquired by mismanagement, the proper dietetic and hygienic management
will, as a rule, promptly result in a satisfactory restoration to normal
health.

TREATMENT.--When a mother awakes to the knowledge that her child is
delicate; when she understands that her child's vitality is not what it
should be, and when she resolves to "do something" in the interest of
her child, she is on the right road, and we hope to encourage her in the
good intention. We would however tell her that her effort must be
thorough, and that she must be patient and persevering. If she does not
falter in well doing she