The Oregon daily journal., January 21, 1912, Page 58, Image 58

; THE OREGON SUNDAY JOURNAL, PORTLAND, SUNDAY
MORNING, JANUARY 21,
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en
Parents May Differ
as
to the Points That
Make tor Perfection,
! "-y,y.T., I ' ,'ii: ' . ., '.A
But Here's a Safe
by a Recognized
QUESTION: What is the Perfect Baby?
f J Into so many American house
)tZ holds there come, every year, so many
Vittle strangers that the mere counting of
them constitute one of the biggest tasks which
. engage . the nation's census bureau. And
so many of those households seem, -of late, to
'have become concerned vAth the quality
rather than the quantity of these little stran
gers that a dozen census bureaus, working
night and day, wouldn't be able to define
accurately the merits of the annual brood.
J But that question of quality, however dif
ficult the task of knowing may be, continues
to engage the whole soul of the mothers and
a steadih increcsinp share of the fathers'
. . ri .. . ;,T" ...... .i. ....
tnieresi. remap U IS oniy tne nnaic yuicnmt
...'... ."-C.a. tl.Mt '
wninn, ycjituy) w wc iuvn&
roes with race suicide.- Either wAv. there
isn't any doubt that the whole nation is aw'ak-
enittg to the importance of securing perfect
babies, as if , under all its apparent reluctance
o bear the burdens of large families, under
At$, insistence on having less- of the care and
more of the plecrure of life, under its intense
CQnck&iratian'lpn the acquisition of material
wealth; thtfe 'was a shrewd purpose to make
sure that the children who are born, while
fewer, shall have a better time in their turn
end be fit to enjoy it.
l , Twenty years ago Europe began to re
mark, critically, that the American child was
being given almost' royal honors and im
portance. A few years hence and Europe may
be finding' the' same fault with our treatment
' f'the babyA We have made the start al
ready by electing baby to be temporary king
cr queen at competitions all over the United
Slates;' . and there are , only some crabbed
bcchelori among us to make mock 'of the
monarch.
m
'HAT Is the perfect baby
They're trying to answer that question In
'Boston, where they Just naturally try to go
Inside baby's dome of thought and And out
Boston, you see. They r trying In hearty Iowa, where
i tftc?y have baby shows that rival the cattle shows, and
etir up far more entl usiasm. In Pennsylvania, at the
New Jersey shore rosortg, and wherever else - a bunMK
r of proud mothers can get together and start something,
they have baby beauty cotwits-the primitive standard
as applied to infancy.
That's where most of the trouble lies. So many
communities, so many different standards; and until
you have ,ihe scientifically true standard, you may
be , trying to raise babies along lines that are liable
' to prodifce Infant phenomena who are human freaks.
We've got to go mighty slow on this baby question,
for the. whole, great United States depends on it.
Thud's where Iowa is displaying the discretion that
Is the highest wisdom. In most baby shows, it's Ju.'t
u. taa..-of the committee agreeing on the baby that
i eomeat naret to looking like a brand-new angt;l
rtaxbing tor its first harp. But Iowa has already
i. systematized its judging and Its exhibits, so that thu
babies from all over the state meet in rivalry, and
, 1 ihe good points are gone over, one by one, of every
' eligible competitor. But Iowa recognizes even that
stage of progress as crude.
''. . .WANT MORE THAN PRETTINESS
' 'its Federation of Women's Clubs is planning te
f-ive scientific instruction in motherhood to mothers
lving in the country districts. Local prizes will be
awarded In every district, and the winners will meet
In grand state contests afterward. Dr. Margaret
'. Vaupel Clark, of Waterloo. la., is detailed on a year's
1 study tour in Europe to collect data at the Important
medical centers there; and the knowledge she gains is
to be put at the disposal of all the mothers in Iowa.
The primitive Idea of having the prettiest baby has
' disappeared under this ambition for the eugenics of
Infancy; and Iowa, with an abiding trust in the future,
awaits the perfection of Its standard for the perfect
baby ere it claims pre-eminence over nurseries from
the Oolden Gate to the Back Bay.
'Boston has read, with the dignified content it dls-
filays so well, a scale of points drawn up by one of
ts pastors, the Hev. Thomas Van Ness. He starts
right off with all five senses, and appraises them at
' half the 100 per cent. In five equal proportions. He
' counts physique, condition, health and appearance at
10 per cent each, and allots 6 per cent apiece to hair
and teeth. It looks rather skimpy for baby's arms
and legs and lungs and little tummy, and rather
' : metioulous -means nervously overanxious, as you'll
remember If yoU've ever been in Boston regarding
' baby's perceptible psychology. But then, you can't be
loo particular about finer points In Boston.
Vet there are authorities Who would make bold
to differ with Boston and take, a stand in advance of
Iowa. The famous specialists on children and chil
dren's diseases may not be agreed as to What pre
cisely constitutes the perfect baby; but they are In
clined to think that the profession has already com
treity near to an established standard.
On at the most practical as well as learned ot
those authorities Is Pr. J. P. Croser Griffith, clinical
rofesor of diseases of children In the hospital of
the University of Pennsylvania and author of the
well-known manual tor mothers and nurses. "The Care
i.f the Baby," , . ' .
According to Professor Griffith, the effort to estab
lish a standard for perfection In babies Is one sur
rounded with' numberless difficulties and infinite com
plications. At the very outset. w sre confronted with
the Important previous question Which baby T Shall
the standard be one for the Infant at birth: or at the
age of six months; or a year; or even older?
"We can, of course," Doctor Orlfflth admitted, "fix
arbitrarily soms age for a standard; some age at
v hich the bahy can be expected to conform to certain
K caeral requirements essential (or physical and mental
-
Guide
Expert
' The Babu Phenomen&I-Thte Husktr Infant
Weighed More TJisn 40 Pounds Mine'
, fanfa, y&ejtJ&rfhafigM
oundneea In the future, alwaye counting- on good
heredity and condition! favorable to complete develop
tnent. It will take at least a year to eliminate doubt
In all these essential factors; and perfectly oupd
babies often those destined to exceptional merits In
maturity do not, always exhibit all evidence of norma)
progress within the llrst year after birth. Aa for the
senses and such featurea aa teeta and hair, the ex
perienced physician will show Indulgence and patience
that would surprise many ajsorrted and oyereager
mother.
"On may say that the sense of touch la almost
born with the child. The lips manifest, with UttU or
no dlay, the tactile response which insure the tak
ing of the natural food. Consciousness of pain, of
heat, of cold, become immediately apparent. Smell
and hearing develop rapidly, The baby is ' usually
responsive to sound within a week; any loud noise
will startle It But the nature and the direction of
sound are not recognised for three months; and musi
cal notes are sometimes distinguished between 1 and i
years of age, although occasionally earlier than that."
' Then there is the slpht. Some weeks elapse before
the infant really sees, beyond the mere perception of
light It is usually a month and a half old before It
fixes Its gaze on any object and shuts its eyes if a
quick motion toward them be made. These evidences'
or alarm may be Riven earlier, and tne child be not ex
cCDtlonal: or a little later, and not be t all defective
Th aiffht Is, however, commonly activa at two .months.
althouich the babv' control of Ita eyea ta mo far from
p.rfecT that It Is Uabl to look croa-eyed without any
firo' cation at all.
. Walking Is n mother indeterminable phaae. Soma
batrlea may walk when they are a year old; others
when they are IS montha. If the child be I year of
X -
Hoffl77ie feto
Years'
tf'tbejorld's ttolsvteWylfurtiirecP
I AKE a little shaver and give him the
clothes he was bora In, and how much
will it cost to make a man of him?
The millions of families that hnv heart
struggling with the question in the United States
aren't ny nearer solving it on- a hard-and-fast
basis than they were when the -first of these
THE Sl-a-week class of children are so numerous,
and so much alike in their' needs enough to
f eat and warm clothes to wear that we know
, them by heart, so much by heart that half the .
tears that are shed fall because the fl a week they
need is so uncertain. . .
But the million-dollar brood present the puzzle as .
to what they could possibly do with It How In the
- world could dainty little Gwendoline Field and her
brothers, Marshall and Harry, ever succeed in spending
31.000,000 In a week, no matter how extravagantly
they tried to liver .
Their mother, the widow of the Chicasro merchant's
vu, i uii iikiiicu luuuwia urummmui joinea rorces
with ber sister, the wife ot Admiral David Seattle, tor ,
mi, luvuii nunioa jaumwin urummona mine
; la 17
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' r ,s ' ,vfi.;i f
pr. j x f
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VMMm,"''lr WMM,,,m,m,,,l.iTO,n,,Mn,.,.m i
H&mmersfa Who HaS
fiecn&lsed on pooo. I
ehavers was born. But they have been learning
whole encyclopedias -about the different answers
that tell how many ways it may be answered.
A dollar a week would be riches to many a .
mother with a brood that tise in regular steps
from infancy toward their teens; there have been
men who climbed to eminence on supplies' of food
a campaign of conquest in English society for tbe
f uture Interest and welfare of her beloved children, of
course. When the coronation ceremonies were being
planned lent year over there, Mrs. Drummond took ship
and hastened from London to Chicago to wrestle with
the trustees of the estate of Marshall Field, a hundred
or so of whose millions were willed to his namesake,
with the rest of his vast fortune apportioned to make
Gwendoline a desirable heiress and relieve Harry from
the necessity of asking his more fortunate brother for
a nickel or a million when they should grow up.
If all three of those children actually were to user
up 310.000 of that, million during the whole year for
their immediate personal needs, even with the finest '
jaces tor uwanauuna ana uie most expensive tutors tor
Marshall and Harry, tbe task of spending it sensibly
laces for Gwendoline and the most expensive tutors for
age before it walks, no mother need be anxious; her
baby may be In perfect health and condition
The hair and the teeth are very irregular In their
development. A child should begin to get its teeth.
at 7 months; yet some do not do so until they are a
year old. if no teeth appear then, there is suspicion,,
of rickets, which must . be promptly taken Into con
sideration. There ts a popular test in the age at which the
Child begins to talk. But there is nothing less definite.
A normal baby should begin to make sounds with some
definite intent when It leetween S and 12 months olds .
yet it Is not abnormal if it remain inarticulate until
16 months. Then, Indeed, if not earlier, it ought to be
able to say "papa" and "mamma" and one or two other
words and mean them. The average age at which chil
dren begin to talk la one year.
"So It Is a matter of very wide choice to determine
the correct age at which to Judge the baby,'' deduced
Professor Orlfflth. "The minimum should probably be
and clothing which cost in their childhood even
less than that. And a million dollars a week has
not seemed unreasonable to at least one mother
for the expenses of her three children and herself
on one special occasion when she. wanted to show'
off to best advantage. It all depends on how much .
cash is available. ;'
would not be an easy Job. But when costly house
rent retinue ot servants, investments in vehicles, were
borne as running charges, and when to them was
added the expense ot dinners, balls, house parties and
hunts on a scale designed to overwhelm the wealthiest
and most exclusive of British society, with coronation
week figuring as the one where the .campaign should
reach Its climax, why, a million dollars looked posi
tively modest almost stingy.
Incidentally, it may be remarked that the trustees
were so little enterprising that they are believed to
have pared down Mrs, Drummond's estimate cruelly.
But the fact remains that she thought the million :
wasn't too much for one special week, with the trim
' miners that should go around It
The ordinary, everyday living txpenses of children .
year; and even then the senses do sot merit any pre
ponderant weight in the appraisal. Ton see, the baby'
that Is slowest In the development ot Its senses often
matures Into the brightest man or woman."
6o long as the child gives no sign of Imbecility -or
feeble-mlndednesa and, has Us health and strength, any
Judicious physician will be content with Its progress.
: 1'he child that is ton tented, well nounsneo, gaining in ,
weight properly, sitting up when it Is S months or so
ot.. taking notice in tne ordinary Ways, should be
called a, perfect .baby.
"Such a baby," added Doctor 3rlfBth. "need not
smile to Impress us with Its excellent condition, its
life, is largely vegetative until it Is 1 months old: and
when, In the first month of life, or even for a term
after that baby smiles, it is no evidenoe of pleasure,
but merely a reflex action. It may smile In Its sleep
purelys because it has a pain in Its stomach, due to
some slight digestive disturbance. Later in Infancy, a
baby that smiles and .laughs too much is very likely to
be one whose nervous system is ; being- ruined . by
unwise attempts to divert it from the simple life, the
Just as likely to be the perfect baby as the smiling'
one. '
"Probably one of the best tests of any baby's gen
eral condition of health is that of its groWth in height
and weight That is the safeguard to which one
may turn, at any time during the child's life, to make
sure that It la meeting all the requirements of normal
nature. On the other band, the big, husky infant may
surpass the average all around; but if be does not
conform to the general requirements proportionately,
he cannot be called perfect. It la Important to re
member that bottle-fed babies do not usually reach
.the level of -those who are nourished as nature planned."
v Caking the average baby as weighing 7V5 pounds
at birth, we find that its height Is 1 inches. It loses
some little weight during- the first week; but at the
end ot the second weeh its weight exceeds the birth '
weight a trifle; and it gains an ounce a day until
It Is a couple of months old. Its height, meanwhile,
increases by two Inches. At the age of 6 months the
baby weighs twice as much as It did at birth and is
In weight and H Inch In height per month until ft Is a
year old, when Its original weight has been trebled and
. its height has . increased to 27 Inohes. For the next
tew years, one can note sn increase in height ot
some 4 inches. At S years ot age the child should
be IS inohes high and should weigh 82 pounds. At
t years, It is about double its original height and
weighs St pounds, At S years .tne number of pounds
. and inches Is the same 40. In the sixth and seventh
years it gains 2 inches and 4 pounds per year; in the
eighth and ninth years, a Inches and 6 pounds; in
the tenth and eleventh, 2 Inches and 0 pounds. From
the age of 12 to II the gain is t inches and about
pounds annually, and you then have a child who It
b feet I Inches In height and weighs 117 pounds.
" One Vcan Tflna,'Tia"Vthe ' proportions., of:" the' body,
changes that appear as the child progresses in years.
ic,-S'th''c!ts:'i..s!ad ky-Jr. WlaV Yale,.hewlAs hw-
the child grows in all its proportions, the half doaen
figures represent the ages of J year, 6, 9, 13, 17 and 21
years. The division is Into four-year periods. The
. proportions change steadily. ".-:,. I
Thus the bead of the child of 1 year measures
about of the height; the trunk is cot muoh more,
and the legs form of the height Doctor Yale's
comment Is that the 1-year-old baby is "four heads
high." But in the adult of 21 years the legs have
lengthened and amount to 14 of the height, while the
head is only 2-13 ot the height It is after the age
of 8 years that the legs make their rapid growth.
- An important phase ot the child's ' development
is the chest grqwth. At birth it may be only 13
Inches in circumference, -while the head measures 13
inches. At 1 year the head measures 17 inches
and still retains the advantage of the V inch. That
, advantage Is held at 9 years of age; , at 2 the
i chest girth passes the head measurement by tbe hi
Inch, 20 inches, as against JH. Thereafter1 the chest
gains steadily, being 23 inches at 6 years of age, with
' tbe head -measuring 21 inches; and more- than 30
inches at 21, while the bead h.as quit expanding at
21 H Inches.
"The task of determining the perfect baby, Pro
fessor Griffith said, "is one that has engaged the at
tention of physicians through all the ages; they have
even made algebraio formulae ot growth stages
which, by the way, are quite aa needless as they are
recondite. Tbe practical observer of babies, of hun
dreds of babies, will keet a watchful eye on the' child's "
progress in weight and height and will note any de
parture from normal sense responsiveness. He will
make large allowance for individual departures from
the common standards at the various ages, and will
then pronounce that baby perfect whose progress is
good in growth, whose nutrition appears sound, whose
proportions are not lacking in any main feature."
There are "a good many more babies born and
raised who are perfect than the hypercritical imagine.
But the movement to assure perfection to all babies,
while it may lead to some extravagance of opinion,
must in the main tend to improve the care on which
the growing child so vitally depends for present con,
ditlon and future development
of fortune, as frequently defined in the courts, are far
below that; but there are plenty of them who have
claimed, ana got, annual allowances big enough, if in
vested, to pay an Interest equal to tbe support of the
average American family. . ; .,......,., '
1 " the romance of Katherlne Hammersley and her
brother, Louis, was for years one of those which pro
vided New York society with a perennial toplo for
argument. Andrew Gordon Hammersley left a fortune
in New York real estate, variously estimated at from
310.00MWO to 320.000.0CO, to go to bis first male " heir,
who proved to "be XoaisTTiis grandhephew. But Louis
did not become the fortune's owner until his. cousin by
marriage, Lady Beresf ord, died. He and ..his sister
lived on the income of 3750,000 left by their father, In
absolute ignorance of the wealth that was coming to
the boy and of the smaller fortune inherited, by the
girl. It took 130,000 a year to maintain them,. with
their-aervants, In the great Hammersley residence on
Fifth avenue, at the corner of Eighty-fourth street
And at that their wants were only "suitably" supplied.
It was 120,000 that was needed for a 19-year-old
girl every year In the application ot Mrs. Emily Laden
burg to the county courts in Long Island tor ber
daughter, Eugenia, Mrs.. Ladenburg, prominent so
cially, explained sadly to Judge' Jackson that all she
had for her own, income was 38000 a year, barely
enough for life's necessaries. Eugenia, however, is
heiress toy 325,000 a year, and her mother told the Judge
that she certainly needed a maid at 320 a month; a
- governess at 360; clothing at 31800- year ; an auto at
32000 a year; a couple of orses at S3 monthly; a
groom at $50 a month; dancing lessons and other tui
tion at 31200 a year; dental treatment at 31000 a year;
theaters and other amusements, $250 a year; a Euro
pean trip at $6240; a country place, maintained at $5009
a year; an apartment for two month, after ten months
in Europe, $720, and extra horses, grooms, muslo and
incidentals, bringing her yearly1 living charges up to
20,000., -.r-.-.w..-:.-..'....-...-.... ,.r,-Jl--',,,.-4.,i .w.'...,
vMrs. Ladenburg Was moderate With her 16-year-old
heiress as compared with the widow of J. Arthur
Hinckley, of New York, whose boy, only 6 years olV
. was suffering on 33000 a year out of the interest on hsi
, 32,000,000 inheritance. She counted over the govern
ssses, tutors,-valets, grooms', chauffeurs, butler, maids,
and everybody else, until it was perfectly clear that the
' 8-year-old morsel of humanity would almost bunt
subject for the Gerry Society unless she had 316,000 to
spend oft him every year until he should be old enough,
to need- more,
- But 320,000 seems to be the fashionable estimate
for a girl old enough to enter society. Miss Marie
' Klklns, daughter of the late William U Elklns, 13
years ot age, proved that, out of her income of 380,000,
she certainly required $20,000 a year- for a maid,
.31200; music lessons, $400; apartments for one month
at a hotel, $640; horses, motor and chauffeur, $3000;
social functions, $3000 to $6000; clothing, $6000; and for
vacations from the awful strain of being alive. $10,000.
She got the $20,000 she asked for.
Little Miss Carolyn Dorset, Whose grandmother
. left her, $40,000 a year, was 14 years old ; when her
father went into the New York courts with affidavits
proving that it cost precisely $11,720 a year to keep
her; and the trustees agreed that Mr. Dorset-was very
economical Hunt Tllford Dickinson, grandnephew of ,
the Standard Oil's treasurer, Weslsy Hunt Dickinson,
has 34,000,000 coming to him, bringing in $90,000 an
nually. He is only 10 years old., but his father was,
lure he needed $26,000 a year to scratch along on.- The
surrogate must have been addicted to the simple life,
for he wouldn't let poor little Hunt Tllford have more '
1 than $8000 out of the $90,000.
Sometimes these pampered children' of fortune do
bring up against soma mean old Judge or other who
can't see why they need half as much as the president
of the United States to buy their bread and butter.
"V