Toward a Better Society

What do the civilized peoples do for their children?

Sweden, like all the Western countries, suffers from a crisis of shrinking population. For years past this subject has moved the Swedish government to concern itself with raising the standard of the family and encouraging it to have more children, by lifting the greater part of direct expenses from the shoulders of parents, opening the way before them to raise a large family without a large responsibility.

To achieve this aim a plan has been drawn up, to be carried out over the next few years, whose purpose is to smooth away the difficulties facing the large family and to do everything that can make of the Swedish child a model child in health, mind, and well-being.

The first step the Swedish government took toward this end was to attend to expectant mothers: it secured for them, the length and breadth of Sweden, free clinics to examine them, to guide them, and to look after the child from the moment of its birth. It authorized every mother to draw a fixed grant, given under the heads of confinement expenses, the child's clothing, or the raising of the standard of nourishment. Sweden spends enormous sums in this cause, and spends them confident that it is right in what it does.

It is a recognized fact that the advancement of countries is measured by the smallness of the number of deaths. This rate in Sweden is very small when measured against other countries; yet the government is striving to guarantee the life of every child born in Sweden until it reaches the legal age for entering school, which is the seventh year. After that the children are examined regularly every year, and a special record of considerable exactness is kept for each child; and thus the children remain, God willing, until the age of fourteen, safe from danger to their dear lives.

The Swedish government felt the importance of caring for its children's teeth, and so in 1929 it created the beginnings of an institution that opens dental clinics in all the towns, to which children come to have their teeth treated and to be enlightened in the methods of caring for the mouth, all for a trifling fee. The government hopes that the organization of this institution will be complete within the next few years.

Nor has the Swedish government neglected the care of nervous ailments; rather, beside every hospital it has opened a clinic for nervous disorders, run by specialist doctors who examine the children and guide their parents to the newest methods of upbringing, and who take no fee whatever for these services.

Children's homes are spread over all parts of Sweden, and every child between one and seven years of age is welcomed there, finding a playground fitted out with the newest games that strengthen the body. The educators in these homes take care to nourish the social spirit and to encourage mixing and fellowship among the children. These homes number close to six hundred; most of them were founded by the efforts of individuals, but they are now under government supervision.

Throughout the last century the Swedish schools used to assist their poor and weak-bodied children by providing a full midday meal—a thing that helped to build up the children's health—but the government, because of the distance of the schools from most homes, the difficulty of carrying food, and to spare the children having to take it cold, decided to make the free lunch general for all children; and no one will deny the material and moral service this extension renders to all parents, of every class.

Sweden has been famous from of old for its love of the beauty of nature and of life in the open air; no wonder, then, that it has welcomed every scheme that would strengthen its children's bodies and give them a natural immunity. To this end summer excursions are organized between the towns and the far-off villages: the town children visit the villages and spend a period in the woods or on the seashores, sleeping in tents, living the healthy scouting life, and trying every side of village life. At the same time the village children visit the towns and become acquainted with all the aspects of city life. Their transport is provided, and athletic programs are drawn up for these excursions and carried out under the supervision of guides, whereby the children enjoy sun baths, sea bathing, and physical exercise of every kind, and enjoy, on top of all this, wholesome

food. The government has a special budget for these free summer excursions—not for all the children only, but also for the volunteers who look after them, who live at government expense; and so the large families of slender means await these summer excursions with the greatest impatience.

It has long been the custom in Sweden for poor children to be given a complete outfit of clothing. But the government is now working to supply 750,000 children, between the ages of 1 and 15, with clothing cards which, when presented, secure the deduction of a fixed percentage from the original price. It is likewise seeking to cut down the costs of the raw materials for making children's shoes, so that these become cheap and within the reach of every child.

In families on which fate has borne hard—through the death of the breadwinner, or his illness, or his being thrown out of work—the government sees to assigning a fixed allowance, sufficient for the support of the children in these families; and if the head of the family belongs to insurance societies against unemployment or against sickness, then in such cases the societies undertake to support the children and secure their maintenance.

Nor does aid to children stop at this limit; it extends to the administration of the municipalities, which for upwards of twenty years have set aside a portion of their budgets to be spent on sick children, especially those stricken with paralysis, sheltering them in homes prepared especially for them, giving them an ample share of schooling, and training them in trades they can practice without hardship.

The latest step the Swedish government has taken for the well-being of its children is to ask the Council of State to approve a law providing that every child between the ages of 1 and 16 be given a yearly grant sufficient to cover all its expenses. Thus responsibility is lifted from the parents' shoulders, and there is left to them only the task of caring for their children as a service, nothing more; so that they may turn—without fear—to multiplying the number of their children, and after half a century the population of Sweden will have doubled.

Such are Sweden's endeavors to improve and to increase its offspring; and I can only ask our esteemed government: what has it done, and what is it doing, for our children in this country, which is no less rich than Sweden?