The federal Children's Bureau is more than justifying itself. At the recent Conservation Exposition in Knoxville, Tenn., the bureau installed as a part of the child-welfare exhibit, a children's health conference to try out a plan of raising the standard of children without resorting to commercial or spectacular methods. The government wanted to know if its future citizens were being given a fair chance, for no phase of conservation can be of more vital or far-reaching importance than that of securing the health and efficiency of the coming generation.
There was also a deep-rooted feeling that all mothers want fine babies, and that their failures are due more to ignorance than to indifference; that they need help rather than prodding, encouragement rather than criticism. So the conference invited all parents to bring their children—not prize babies or sick babies, for neither prizes nor prescriptions were given, but average children—and the