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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
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