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THE LADIES' SANITARY ASSOCIATION. 383
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
. B* — ^ Made Satisfaction " The Stead C...
; what they are about to do in carrying * out their own plans ? Are they aware that if their Society really Succeeds they will produce a
very serious , some would think a very dangerous , change in the state of this nation ? Are they aware that they would probably
save the lives of some thirty or forty per cent , of the children who are born in England , and that therefore they would cause the
subjects of Queen Yictoria to increase at a very far more rapid rate than they do now ? And are they aware that some very wise men inform
us that England is already over-peopled , and that it is an exceedingly puzzling question where we should then be able to find work
or food for our masses , they increase so rapidly already , in spite of the thirty or forty per cent , kind Nature carries off yearly before they
are & ve years old ? Have they considered what they are to do with all those children whom they are going to save alive ? That has to
be thought of ; and if they really do : believe , with , political economists now , that over-population is a possibility to a country which has the
greatest colonial empire that the world has ever seen , then . I think they had better stop in . their course and let the children die , as they
have been in the habit of dying . But if , on the other hand , it seems to them , as I confess it does to me , that the most precious thing in
the world is a human being : that the lowest , and poorest , and most degraded of human beings is better than the world , better than all
the dumb animals in the world : that there is an infinite , priceless capability in that creature , degraded as it may be— -a capability of
virtue , and of social and industrial use , which , if it is taken in time , may be developed up to a pitch , of which at first sight the child gives
no hint whatsoever : if they believe again , that of all races upon earth now , probably the English race is the finest of them all , and that it
gives not the slightest sign whatever of exhaustion , that it seems to be on the whole a young race , and to have very great
capabilities in it which have not yet been developed , and above all , the most marvellous capability of adapting itself to every sort of'climate ,
and every form of life that any nation , except the old Roman , ever had in the world : if they consider with me that it is worth the
while of political economists and social philosophers to look at the map , and see that about four-fifths of the globe cannot be said
as yet to be in anywise inhabited or cultivated , or in the state in which men could make it by any common supply of population and
industry and human intellect : — -then , perhaps , they may think with me that it is a duty , one of the noblest of duties , to help the increase
of the English race as much as possible , and to see that every child that is born into this great nation of England be developed to the
highest pitch to which we can develop him in physical strength and in beauty , as well as in intellect and in virtue . And then , in
that light , it does seem to me , that this Institution—small now , but I do hope some day to become great , and to become the mother
institution of many and valuable children—is one of the noblest , most right-minded , straight-forward , and practical conceptions that
I have come across for some years .
The Ladies' Sanitary Association. 383
THE LADIES' SANITARY ASSOCIATION . 383
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Aug. 1, 1859, page 383, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01081859/page/23/
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