thority on baby care."

Lest this case be considered too tragically ridiculous to be accepted
as typical, the reader may verify it with an almost interminable list of
similar cases.(1) Parental irresponsibility is significantly illustrated
in another case:

A mother who had four live births and two stillbirths in twelve years
lost all of her babies during their first year. She was so anxious that
at least one child should live that she consulted a physician concerning
the care of the last one. "Upon his advice," to quote the government
report, "she gave up her twenty boarders immediately after the child's
birth, and devoted all her time to it. Thinks she did not stop her hard
work soon enough; says she has always worked too hard, keeping boarders
in this country, and cutting wood and carrying it and water on her back
in the old country. Also says the carrying of water and cases of beer
in this country is a great strain on her." But the illuminating point in
this case is that the father was furious because all the babies died.
To show his disrespect for the wife who could only give birth to babies
that died, he wore a red necktie to the funeral of the last. Yet this
woman, the government agent reports, would follow and profit by any
instruction that might be given her.

It is true that the cases reported from Johnstown, Pennsylvania, do not
represent completely "Americanized" families. This lack does not prevent
them, however, by their unceasing fertility from producing the Americans
of to-morrow. Of the more immediate conditions surrounding child-birth,
we are presented with this evidence, given by one woman concerning the
birth of her last child:

On five o'clock on Wednesday evening she went to her sister's house to
return a washboard, after finishing a day's washing. The baby was born
while she was there. Her sister was too young to aid her in any way.
She was not accustomed to a midwife, she confessed. She cut the cord
herself, washed the new-born baby at her sister's house, walked home,
cooked supper for her boarders, and went to bed by eight o'clock. The
next day she got up and ironed. This tired her out, she said, so she
stayed in bed for two whole days. She milked cows the day after the
birth of the baby and sold the milk as well. Later in the week, when
she became tired, she hired someone to do that portion of her work. This
woman, we are further informed, kept cows, chickens, and lodgers, and
earned additi