Newspaper Page Text
4
Copyright. 1913. by the Star Company. Great Britain Rights Reserved
WHY THE PRETTIEST BABY IS NOT THE BEST
A Pretty Contestant Who Failed to
Score High Because of Poor Develop*
This B*hy Scored Higher Than Any
of Those Shown in This Row Although
She Is by No Means the Prettiest
Child. She Scored a Full 100 Points
«n the Mentality and Development
Tests and the Only Large Penalty
Imposed Was for Poor Lungs and Mai*
nutrition
A Bright Looking Child Who
Scored Only Seventy Per Cent in a
Recent Contest and Failed to Get a
Prise. The Low Score Was Due Large
ly to Poor Proportions, Slow Develop
ment, Decayed'Teeth, Waddling Gait,
Underweight and Enlarged Spleen.
men! and Low Mentality. Poorly De
veloped Lungs Brought a Penalty of
35 Points While Abdominal Defects
Cost Another 60 Points.
This Child Scored Only Sixty-five
Per Cent, Losing Many Points in the
Mental Tests and Because of Poor
Heart Action, Adenoids, and a Slight
Curvature of the Spine. Her Arms,
too, Were Below Standard, Being too
Short.
BABY
In a Beauty-Show This Little Girl
Would No Doubt Have Won a Prize,
hut She Got Only a Special Prize for
Her Hair in a “Better Babies Con
test” in Which Her Features Counted
Only 5 Points Out of the Possible
1,000 and She Lost Several Hundred
Points for Bodily Defects.
This Fine-Looking Fellow Failed to
Draw a Prize Principally Because His
Chest Was Below Standard. In Ad
dition He Lost 40 Points for Malnutri
tion, 15 for Adenoids and 205 for
other Bodily Defects. His Total Score
Was Only 640 Out of a Possible 1,000.
A SCIENTIFIC effort to aland
ardt2e the baby la now bOing
made. It will be poaalble In
a years time, It Is hoped, to put
any baby through a series of simple
tests and measurements and ascer
tain within five minutes just how
near it comes up to standard and in
just what respects It falls short.
Almost everything else has been
etandarized. The Government sees
to it that certain foods and staples,
drugs and textiles, tools and metals,
cattle and hogs, come up to ii set
standard or they are not. allowed
to he sold, hut nothing of the kind
was ever done before for the most
Important national asset of all—the
baby.
But now the New York Milk Com
mil tee, an organization for the con
serration of child life in congested
cities, has taken up the matter and
is going to see if the same sort of
thing cannot bo done for the baby
as has been done for years for cattle,
and bogs and Inanimate objects.
The plan laid out involves the ex
amining of 100,000 babies within the
next twelve months. Those exam
lnattons will be conducted through
the medium of "bettor baby con
tests” throughout the country.
Money prizes will stir parents up to
the neeeBsary pitch of enthusiasm
and the data obtained in this way,
as recorded on uniform offleiul score
cards, will be used to establish a
scientific standard of efficiency.
In the search for the standard
baby good looks wttl count for very
little. It is now universally agreed
among those who know anything
at all about the matter that the
pretty baby Is by no means always
the best, baby. Indeed, In many of
the recent scientifically conducted
haliy contests it hak not been the
pretty bablefe that have captured
the prizes, hut the soundest, physi
cally and mentally. To Impress this
fact upon parents the slogan of
these contests has been, “looks don’t
count,” and an examination of the
official score card will reveal that
out of a possible perfect score of
1,000 points only five points are de
ducted by way of penalty for irregu
lar features. In other words, the
pretty baby 1h just half of one per
cent better off in mat respect than
(tie baby whoso features are irregu
lar
The benefits of the project are in
estimable.
It is Intended to bring home to
parents that they can improve their
tables. The sub standard baby can
he Improved. Parents will he shown
not only wherein their youngsters
fall short of the most desirable
standard, hut how the deficiencies
can be corrected.
Suppose, for instance, Mrs. Jones
is prevailed upon to enter her little
Mary In a Better BaDles Contest,
l.lttle Mary is two years and very
pretty. Although Mrs. Jones is told
that “looks don’t count,” she feels
that looks won’t hurt, and she rather
confidently expects her two-year-old
to bring home the prize money.
When the judges get round to
Mary they take her score card and
commence to penalize her for the
various defects the examination re
veals
The very first Item on the score
card Is “Features.’’ If the features
are irregular a five point penalty is
imposed. One look at Mary is suf
ficient to save her from that. She
gets the maximum score for her
good looks—five points.
What a small drop In the bucket
those five points constitute will he
apparent, however, when they are
Compared with the amounts Mary
may be penalized for defects in other
particulars
The maximum score obtainable
lor various items is given in the fol
lowing list, and penalties of from
five to thirty-five points may be im
posed for any one of half a dozen
specified defects in the different
divisions:
Head
Fontanelle
35
10
Hair and scalp
20
Eyes
45
Ears
30
Nose
25
hips
15
Mouth ...
45
Teeth
40
Neck
20
Arms and hands
. . 60
Chest
100
Abdomen
100
Organs
20
Spine
40
Legs and feet
50
General nutrition of the body 60
Proportions 100
Mentality and development. 100
Total 1,000
Give Mary her five points for her
regular features, but deduct five
points because her hair is brittle,
ten because she has quivering eye
balls, five because her ears are too
small, ten for poor nasal breathing,
ten for swollen gums, ten for ab
normal hard palate, ten for decayed
teeth, ten for enlarged neck glands,
ten for short arms, thirty-five for
weak heart, thirty-five for poor
lungs, twenty for enlarged liver, fivo
for flat feet, ten for waddling gait,
fifteen for pallor, ten for under
weight and five for shape of head
above the ears, and give her only
fifty out of a possible one hundred
points in the mental and develop
ment tests, and she will have just
735 out of a possible l,()0o points, or
a score of 73% per cent, which, no
matter how beautiful she was,
wouldn't have been big enough to
have secured any kind of a prize for
her in any of the baby* contests re
cently held
In judging the babies at these con
tests the judges have been largely
guided by the following considera
tions: •
The average weight, height and
circumference of.head and chest of
a hoy should be:
At birth—Weight, 7% pounds;
height, 20% inches; chest, 1^,%
inches; head, 14 inches.
One year Weight, 21 pounds;
height, 29 inches; chest, 18 inches;
head, 18 inches.
Two years -Weight, 26% pounds,
height, 32% Inches; chest, 19
inches; head, 19 inches.
Three years Weight, 31 pounds;
height, 35 Inches; chest, 20 inches;
head, 19% inches.
Teeth—Central incisors appear
about the seventh iqpnth; lateral
Incisors, from .eighth lo tenth, an
terior molars, twelfth lo eighteenth;
eye and stomach, fourteenth to
twentieth; posterior molars, eigh
teenth lo thirty-sixth.
The anterior fontanelle should not
be bulging, rather slightly depressed
It should he completely closed be
tween the fifteenth and twentieth
month.
The honv skeleton should be es
i pecially examined for rickets.
The child 'should first attempt to
sit at about the sixteenth week, be
fairly successful about the fortieth
week, and firmly seated al the tenth
or eleventh month.
The child should attempt to stand
about the thirty-eighth week, and be
successful at eleventh or twelfth
month. He should walk unsup
ported at the fourteenth or fifteenth
month, certainly not later than the
eighteenth month. Precocity in
walking it not desirable.
The skin should be pink, flesh
firm and lips red, breath sweet,
tongue clean. He should breathe
through the nose only and should
iL,
Dr. A. W.
Baird,
One of
the Judges
at a Recent
Contest,
Measuring
a Contestant
to Ascertain
Her
Proportions
How Babies Are to Be Standardized,
Just Like Pigs and Cattle, so That Parents
May Know Their
71 Physical and Mental
Shortcomings and
Overcome Them
Ethel Magdalen
Chamberlan.
Who Won $185
in First Prizes
at the Better
Babies’ Contest
at Denver, Col.
Fine Mentality
and Physical
Development
Scored for
Ethel Against
the Beauty of
Other Contestants
A Group of Contestants Weighing in at a “Better Babies Contest” Where
Good Looks Will Avail Little Against Poor Lungs or Decayed Teeth.
Measuring the Cephalic Index of a Contestant
in a “Better Babies Contest.” In These Con
tests, in Which the Slogan Is “Looks Don’t
Count,” the Ratio Between the Circumfer
ence of the Head and That of the Chest Is
Considered More Important Than Long eye-
Lashes and Pretty Curls.
Courtesy of Woman's Home Companion.
not be fretful. He should not be
restlessly active nor disinclined tp
play.
The normal girl baby is a pound
lighter than the boy.
The first of these Better Babies
Contests, under the auspices of the
New York Milk Committee, was
started at Lenox Hill House, No.
446 East Seventy-second street, on
Saturday, April 26. Lenox Hill
House is situated in the heart of a
most prosperous foreign quarter,
commonly known as Little Bohemia.
One fine morning these Bohemian
mothers and fathers found shop
windows filled with an announce
ment of a “Better Babies Contest,
with prizes amounting to $100, all
to be awarded for health and intel
ligence.
When mothers of babies dropped
into the milk station for their daily
supply of good, fresh milk they were
handed circulars and heard all about
this wonderful chance for a healthy
baby to win a prize.
And finally when they went to
their favorite moving picture show,
between reels the interesting an
nouncement of the contest was
flashed on the screen by the gen
erous managers of the theatres.
By the time the doctors had gath
ered at Lenox Hill House, on Satur
day morning, ready to examine the
babies, East Seventy-second street
was alive with proud parents and
fine looking babies. Some babies
were carried in fond arms, others
were trundled along in go-carts, and
the older ones toddled. There were
bambinos swaddled in true Neapol
itan style, there were sturdy little
fellows in rompers, and tiny Bus
sian, doll-like creatures bedecked
with ribbons, it was a brave array,
and convinced the physicians that
New York was simply overflowing
with better babies.
Now 1 , of course, beauty in the baby
was not a bar, provided it came up
to the physical and mental scratch,
but beauty would not save it nor
soften the verdict if its body was not
properly proportioned. Dimples are
all very well in photographs and
beauty shows,’ but up there at Lenox
Hill House youngsters with nary a
dimple walked right away from
dimpled beauties. Curly hair may
be most enticing and long lashes al
luring, but a w ell balanced body and
mind won a prize despite straight
hair and abbreviated lashes.
If the beautiful baby over whom
artists might rave knew it was being
outclassed in this show by some
sturdy son of a Marathon prize win
ner. whose nose was downright
snubby and whose chin was not
what you might call “classy," It di>_
not complain. It underwent the ex
amination with superb disdain, and
it will utter no complaint when at
the end of the Better Babies’ Health
Show its parents receive a score card
telling that dimples, curly locks and
bewitching eyes did not count
against a narrow chest, irregultr
teeth and flat feet. But the parents
will have a great deal to think about
But perhaps even more surprised
will be the parents of winning
babies, who have grieved over the
snubby nose, the straight hair, the
firm but undimpled knees, when they
suddenly learn that their baby is a
prize winner for pure fineness of
physical development and intel
ligence.
Mothers who pointed with pride
to the fatness of
their babies at the
Lenox Hill House
contest were
amazed to learn
that there can be
too much fat for
baby’s health and
development. More-
ever, a baby can
lose points by be
ing too short or too
tall.
Twelve States
have already un
dertaken this work
of standardizing ba
bies and others are
expected to fall in
line before long.
The more records
of babies obtained
the more accurate
will be the stand
ards they will be
relied upon to es
tablish. It is ex
pected that 100,000
babies will be ex
amined within the
next year, but if the
movement spreads,
as it promises to
do, twice that num
ber of score cards,
with their invalu
able data, may be
turned in.
It is only by the
establishment of
these standards that parents will be
able to know definitely wherein
their offspring is deficient, and such
knowledge is necessary if inefficient
babies are to be made efficient.
Making Sleeping Cars Out of Camels
C AMEL cradles were never de
signed for rocking young
camels to sleep, but they are a
contrivance by which travellers in
the desert may journey by night and
yet lose no sleep. Mr. James Land-
sell. Hip noted English traveler, in
his recent book of travels, describes
this novel way of transportation in
an entertaining way, in telling how
he journeyed by camel train from
Khiva to the Caspian.
“It was just at dusk that all was
in readiness, and we were to get
into our queer sleeping cages. Let
vourself imagine two narrow wooden
crates, such as earthenware is
packed in, each sufficiently large for
a man to lie in when twisted to the
shape of the letter S. and let your
self feel you are suspended on
either side of the huge hump of a
kneeling camel. Those are the
sleepers of the desert.
“This I was given to understand
was to be my sleeping place for the
night, and I accordingly chose my
berth on the port side of the ‘ship of
the desert,’ first putting into the
cradle for a lining a piece of felt and
then two pillows—and covered my
self well over with a duster and
headgear as a means of protection
from the desert sands.
“Then came the tug of war. Nazar,
our driver, asked if we were ready,
and on our assent, hid us to hold on
and said to the camel, ‘Chu,’ where
upon the animal got up leisurely,
first by his hind legs, and in doing
so raised our feet to an angle of
more than sixty degrees, thereby
threatening to pitch us out bodily.
When the creature was urged to
go quickly, the nearest simile for the
cradle I can think of is that of a
bottle of medicine in the process of
being “well shaken before taken,”
but when the camel took his leisure
walk, which Nazar assured us his
beast could keep up for an indefinite
time, we soon became accustomed
to the rhythmic swing of the ani;'
mal’s body, and soon floated away
into the land of desert dreams.