PROMOTION OF HEALTH.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2512, 27 May 1909, Page 3

PROMOTION OF HEALTH.

THE FUNCTION OF WOMANHOOD

The annual meeting of the Society for' the •Promotion of the Health of Women and Children was held in Dunedin on Wednesday, May 19th, when Dr Batchelor, in an able and carefully thought-out address, asked, in referring to the important question of childbearing, were, the present conditions of life as lived by a large proportion of the young women of this Dominion favorable to what ho most emphatically asserted was the main function of womanhood—the raising of a healthy and vigorous race ? Were our young women brought up and trained on lines conducive. to this end—the main function of their being? “Is it not rather altogether pushed into the background and made .a totally secondary consideration,” he asked, “and is not lier success in the jirofessions or in securing some clerkship or similar position which ensures immediate emolument looked upon as the first and main object of life for the majority of our girls? If this is the ease, as to mo it seems to be, we are perpetrating a grave error, opposed to the most elementary principles of physiology and I cannot but think that our existing system for girls is primarily and principally at fault in the matter. My contention is that essential physiological principles are hewing totally ignored, and that our present educational system encourages and invites young women to enter on a course of study Naturo never intended them to do. As a medical inan practising for over twenty years specially.in diseases of women, evidence is almost daily brought before me of the- mischief wrought and the disasters that ensue. A lien we se« young women competing with men in the universities, when we see them entering professions, clerkships, offices and the like, and when the work in our factories is largely conducted by female labor, one cannot but realise that our social "evolution is progressing on incorrect lines, and diverging further and further from the home life which tends to the rearing of a healthy population.” As a result of his experience, the conclusion forced upon him in regard to women entering the medical profession was that only in a few very exceptional cases were women suited for a profession which made such incessant demands on the physical and nervous energies of those who pursued it. The fact that young women entered clerkships and the like, seemed largely attributab’e to our educational system. That did not aim at preparing* girls for a domestic life, hut attempted to train them to pass a useless matriculation examination, to gratify a mistaken parental pride, or to make a university degree the summit of a girl’s ambition. This tendency was already exercising a malign and farreaching influence on the social life of our community. Regarding the domestic servant affair, be said that the serious suggestion that a solution of the difficulty was to be met by the introduction of a number of aliens seemed to him but a forlorn hope. Two causes oi the condition suggested themselves to him —first, the tendency to educate our girls on wrong lines, and, secondly, the absurd and stupid stigma almost imaiiably attached to domestic service. After reaching the age of puberty the education of girls should be chiefly directed to domestic management, domestic economy, physiology and hygiene. "Would not instruction in the general principles of hygiene and a know .edge of flow to apply them be more useful than a smattering of mathematics, French, Algebra, or Euclid? Mas it not possible for State schools, technical schools and the universities to devise a scheme whereby domestic management might bo systematically taught and diplomas granted, guaranteeing n ceita n standard of efficiency, and so ensure the possessor an improved status: tlie women of the Dominion should insist on the introduction of drastic measures to counteract the canker of modern civi.iSa Dr* l Trilby King said lie fully endorsed all that Dr Batchelor had said, and quoted opinions from America showm that the trend of feeling there v as decidedly in favor of domestic subjects besaid that nothin" had so impressed him foi some time as Dr Batchelor’s address. Ho thought it was time that outspoken addresses like those were given,, and ho was of opinion that it was time ‘ the work of the Society shou.d be inflected in Parliament, _ ,- Mr G M. Thomson, M.P., spcaKnv-, as chairman of the Technical School, asked that a sub-committee be appointed to confer with the Board with ie-o-ard to having teaching of domestic economy put upon a sound footing n that institution They had xc , • );i t for some years to accomplish that, but the syllabus was so far unsatisfactory in that respect.