nurseries,
cradles, rooms for babies, suitable clothes for them, alimentary
substances specially prepared for them by great industries devoted to
the hygienic sustenance of infants after weaning, and medical
specialists for their ailments; in short, an entirely new world,
clean, intelligent, and full of amenity. The baby has become the new
man who has conquered his own right to live, and thus has caused a
sphere to be created for him. And in direct proportion to the
diffusion of the laws of infantile hygiene, infant mortality has
decreased.

So then, when we say that in like manner the baby should be left at
liberty spiritually, because creative Nature can also fashion its
spirit better than we can, we do not mean that it should be neglected
and abandoned.

Perhaps, looking around us, we shall perceive that though we cannot
directly mold its individual forms of character, intelligence, and
feeling, there is nevertheless a whole category of duties and
solicitudes which we have neglected: and that on these _the life or
death_ of the spirit depends.

The principle of _liberty_ is not therefore a principle of
_abandonment_, but rather one which, by leading us from illusions to
reality, will guide us to the most positive and efficacious "care of
the child."

* * * * *

=The liberty accorded to the child of to-day is purely physical. Civil
rights of the child in the twentieth century=.--Hygiene has brought
liberty into the physical life of the infant. Such material facts as
the abolition of swaddling bands, open-air life, the prolongation of
sleep till the infant wakes of its own accord, etc., are the most
evident and tangible proof of this. But these are merely means for the
attainment of liberty. A far more important measure of liberation has
been the removal of the perils of disease and death which beset the
child at the outset of life's journey. Not only did infants survive in
very much greater numbers as soon as the obstacles of certain
fundamental errors were swept away, but it was at once apparent that
there was an improvement in their development. Was it really hygiene
which helped them to increase in weight, stature, and beauty, and
improved their material development? Hygiene did not accomplish quite
all this. Who, as the Gospel says, can by taking thought add one cubit
to his stature? Hygiene merely delivered the child from the obstacles
that impeded its growth. External restraints checked m