| Weeks Ending | Food and Cleaning Materials | Household Washing | Service | Coals | Gas | Electricity | Rent | Rates | Garden | Misc | Total | Guests [88] | Remarks |
| Jan. 9 | |||||||||||||
| " 16 | |||||||||||||
| " 23 | |||||||||||||
| " 30 | |||||||||||||
| Feb. 6 | |||||||||||||
| " 13 | |||||||||||||
| " 20 | |||||||||||||
| " 27 | |||||||||||||
| March 6 | |||||||||||||
| " 13 | |||||||||||||
| " 20 | |||||||||||||
| " 27 | |||||||||||||
| April 3 | |||||||||||||
| Total. | |||||||||||||
| Weekly Average |
The table appended has been in actual use for some time, and has served on more than one occasion to check expenditure which was unduly 201 increasing. It could easily be modified in various ways. Food could be further subdivided, and headings for dress and other personal expenses could be added. Probably, however, it will be found better to keep one card for the quarterly household expenditure, and others for the personal expenditure of the separate members of the household. The amount of trouble involved is comparatively small, provided that the different items are summed up and entered regularly each week when the household books are examined. If the quarterly cards are then filed in order, they afford a most valuable record of household management in a small and easily handled form.
When deciding on the amount of money to be allotted to the separate items, the first thing to be kept in mind is the necessity of preserving efficiency; and brain-workers ought to remember that thorough mental alertness and competency can only be secured by well-chosen, well-cooked, and daintily served food, by sufficiency of sleep, by frequent intervals of rest and recreation, and by thoroughly invigorating holidays. Extravagance should of course be avoided, but the journalist or scientist who is niggardly of expenditure on these items will probably later on be obliged to spend his savings on doctor’s bills or a rest cure. A high standard of comfort and efficient work is the cheapest way of living in the long run. Whether, however, all the conventional necessaries now included by custom in the upper middle-class expenditure are really essential to the brain-worker’s 202 standard of life is perhaps another question.
The “simple life” which consists in doing without all the conveniences of civilisation has been proved a failure by many experiments, but a “simple life” which accepted the comforts of electric light, gas stoves, and laid-on hot water, but abolished heavy curtains and carpets and that multiplicity of ornaments and of dishes, which increases the complexity of life without adding to its beauty, might turn out to be a success. In many cases, however, conventional expenditure is essential for professional advancement. The doctor, for instance, must live in a house of a certain size and importance; the high school teacher or woman journalist must be well dressed. Expenditure of this character is really of the nature of advertisement, and it is foolish to endeavour to curtail it.
After the claims of efficiency have been met, saving and insurance come next. Life insurance is of course almost universal among the salaried classes, and is a duty imperatively laid on every man whose death would leave his family without means. But it is curious that other forms of insurance are not more practised. A small yearly payment for each child, commencing at its birth, would provide a convenient sum for its education, its start in life, or, in the case of a girl, for her trousseau and dowry. Insurance against illness also is much rarer among the upper middle class than among the working-classes. Possibly this is 203 due to the fact that, save in the case of prolonged disease, salaries are paid during illness, while wages cease as soon as the worker is compelled to stay at home; also partly no doubt to the fact that provision for contingencies is made in other ways.
Saving and insurance will be less necessary in the case of those whose income is derived from land or from invested capital, but should be considered absolutely essential by all those in receipt of a salary. In addition a small sum saved and invested in some easily realisable security will be most valuable to meet special emergencies.
If after all these needs have been met, i.e. (1) full “efficiency” and “conventional” expenditure (including, of course, such an education for the children as will prepare them in their turn to earn an income in the same rank of life as their father), and (2) saving and insurance to provide against all contingencies that may reasonably be anticipated—if, then, a surplus still remains, its disposition must be a matter of individual choice, and it is impossible to lay down general rules.
In some cases it will be saved, in others it will be used to provide more material and conventional luxuries, in others it will supply the needs of what American writers rather unpleasingly call the “higher life.” Certainly the claims of generosity, charity, and culture should first be met, and it is the right and wise disposition of this surplus income which might well tax the highest powers of any human being. It is commonly 204 supposed to be a difficult thing to earn money, but a simple matter to spend it. On the contrary, to spend with wisdom and discretion is always hard, and is hardest when the income is so elastic that a slight deviation from the best method is not immediately visited on the head of the person who has offended.
The artisan’s wife has no easy task, it must be confessed, but the results of any mistakes she may make fall at once upon herself or her children. But if the mistress of a large household is careless or incompetent, then she may cause untold waste, inefficiency and degeneration among her servants and tradespeople, and may never even be aware of it.
A recent book by Mr. A. Ponsonby[89] gives some extraordinary instances of unnecessary expenditure on food. Mr. Ponsonby is not, of course, to be taken as an unprejudiced investigator; he is writing rather from the standpoint of the preacher than from that of the unbiassed sociologist. But his figures are not likely to be absolutely false, and it is safe to say that if in a household containing four in family and fourteen servants the food bills amounted in a week when there was little entertaining to £60, 12s. 7d. (£3, 7s. 4d. per head),[90] either the servants were being fed in a way that was quite absurdly lavish, or much of the food was absolutely wasted, or there was dishonest collusion between the housekeeper and chef and 205 the tradespeople. In any case, the ignorance and negligence of the mistress of the house were corrupting to her staff.
In short, in place of regarding the household as standing in no special relation to the rest of the community, it ought to be understood that the function of the housewife is of the utmost importance, not only to her own family, but to the whole nation. It is she who is finally responsible for the education of the children; it is she who, in the quiet and restful charm of the home, provides (or should provide) for her husband and grown-up children the recreation and refreshment which they need. If she employs many servants, then the example of her household will influence for good or for evil the homes of many working-class couples. It is the demand of the household that determines whether the labour of this country shall be employed on debased articles of sham luxury or on well made and artistic goods.
The conscientious housewife could also to some extent discourage sweating, if she refused to buy products which to her knowledge were made under bad conditions. The responsibilities of the housewife place her at every turn in economic relations to the rest of the community, and therefore it is only right that coming housewives should be trained not alone in the manual crafts of cooking and laundry-work, but also in 206 the general principles of economic science which underlie the development and present organisation of the household. We may perhaps hope too that the principles of household management may in turn react on economic science, and may show to its professors that value in use, though more difficult to detect and estimate than value in exchange, has been unduly neglected both in theory and practice.
If to the management of our towns—which are, after all, only our homes on a larger scale—were applied the principles used by a good housekeeper in ordering her home, then cleanliness, beauty, and convenience would increase around us. A science of economics so modified would recall to a scholar the original meaning of the word; for what, after all, did the craft of οικονομικη, as first developed by Xenophon and Aristotle, mean but just “the management of the home”?
Smith, “Wealth of Nations,” edited by J. S. Nicholson, pp. 135 and 280. It is of course true that Adam Smith meant by this merely what is in a way true, that domestic servants earn no profit for their employers. He does not deny (p. 136) that their labour “has a certain value.” But, like all the economists who followed him, he is content to dismiss domestic workers with this cursory treatment and to identify labourers with the workers hired for profit-making purposes.
Marshall, “Principles” (4th ed.), p. 764: “The working classes had then no other beds than loose straw, reeking with vermin and resting on damp floors.”
e.g. Rowntree, “Poverty: a Study of Town Life;” portions of Booth’s “Life and Labour of the People;” reports to the Board of Trade on the cost of living.
There is an assumption here which needs perhaps some discussion, i.e. that expenditure or consumption of goods can be most conveniently studied on the basis of family life. This is obviously the case with house-room, food, fuel, cleanliness, &c., less so with regard to clothes or recreation; it was truer of the past than of the present, and is truer of the poor than of the rich. In some classes, e.g. the professional class, where marriage is commonly delayed and a considerable period may intervene between the end of education and the establishment of a fresh household, it may be necessary to supplement the study of family expenditure by a consideration of the standard of living of unmarried men and women. Attempts, too, must be made to deal with the various forms of institutional life, varying from prisons and workhouses on the one hand to expensive boarding-schools and hotels on the other. But when all these necessary deductions have been made, it remains true that in order to study expenditure we must in the great majority of cases take the family as our basis of investigation. Consumption is organised on a family basis.
The economic historian must always be prepared to acquiesce in a certain vagueness in the matter of dates. He is not dealing with definite events, such as battles and the enactment of special laws, but rather with social tendencies, each constituted by a large number of small events; such as, for instance, the replacement of hand labour by machinery, the appearance of limited liability companies in the place of the single employer, or the determination of middle-class girls to earn their own living instead of remaining dependent on father or brothers. Tendencies such as these appear at different times in different industries and in different parts of the country, and only a misleading precision can be gained by any mention of definite dates.
The English were famed in the Middle Ages for their preference for good bread. They would eat no bread
Apparently, it is only within the last hundred years that the cow has ceased to be a normal possession of the agricultural labourer. See Slater, “English Peasantry and Common Fields,” pp. 122-128.
England at that time possessed her own vineyards, e.g. near Gloucester, and produced white wine.
Pork, eggs, cloves, currants, dates, sugar boiled in a bladder, cut into strips and served with hot rich sauce.
A soteltie was an elaborate confection of pastry painted or adorned with paper to represent a saint or a figure of spring, summer, &c.
The maintenance of a large retinue was one of the easiest ways available for indicating the possession of surplus wealth. This fact, coupled with the almost absurd over-elaboration of the details of serving, incline me to believe that in the mediæval castle servants were numerous and not overworked.
Riley, “Memorials of London,” p. 199. There is, unfortunately, no indication of the social standing of this felon, Hugh le Bevere by name. The list of clothes suggests that he was fairly well-to-do, in which case his equipment of cooking and table utensils is certainly meagre. It is curious that pottery is not mentioned; it can hardly be urged that although in use it was too unimportant for a place in the inventory, since room is found for one small canvas bag, value 1d.
This is, of course, a very summary statement of changes which it took centuries to bring about. On the one hand, money economy existed in the mediæval town; on the other, subsistence farming continued in England to some extent until within a hundred years ago. Yet it is roughly true that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries production for the market and not for use markedly and suddenly increased.
By an Act of 1589, it was ordained that four acres of land should be attached to every cottage. Cf. Hasbach. “English Agricultural Labourer,” p. 40.
e.g. Slater, “English Peasantry and the Enclosure of the Common Fields.” Hasbach, “History of the English Agricultural Labourer.” Toynbee, “The Industrial Revolution.” Hobson, “Evolution of Capitalism.”
[Near Halifax]. “After we had mounted the third hill, we found the country one continuous village ... hardly a House standing out of speaking distance from another, and as the day wore on we could see at every House a tenter, and on almost every tenter a Piece of Cloth, Kersey or Shalloon, which are the three articles of this country’s labour.... Then as every clothier must necessarily keep one horse at least to fetch home his wool and his provisions from the market, to carry his yarn to the spinners, his Manufacture to the fulling mill, and when finished to the market to be sold and the like; so every one generally keeps a cow or two for his Family.... Nor is the industry of the people wanting.... Though we met few People without Doors, yet within we saw the Houses full of lusty fellows, some at the dye-vat, some at the loom, others dressing the cloths, the women and children carding or spinning. All employed from the youngest to the oldest. Scarce a thing above four years old, but its hands were sufficient for its own support.” Defoe, “Tour through Great Britain” (1769), vol. iii. p. 146.
“The increase of urban areas can be gathered from the Census Reports. In 1851 ... the population of such areas amounted approximately to 9,000,000, or 50 per cent. of the total population of England and Wales; by 1881 the population of urban sanitary areas, as defined by the Public Health Acts, 1872 and 1875, was 17,600,000, or 68 per cent. of the aggregate population; by 1901 ... the population of boroughs and urban districts amounted to 25,000,000, or 77 per cent. of the aggregate population.”—Blue Book on Public Health and Social Conditions, p. 6 [Cd. 4671 of 1909].
It should be noted, too, that the advantages of the large-scale method of production are greatly diminished by the dangers of adulteration. Cf. p. 177.
In the absence of an efficient system of police, it probably was not safe for women to walk or travel alone. In the security provided for us by paved and lighted streets, guarded by trained constables, and in the complete safety of modern methods of travelling, some of us are apt now to forget these elementary considerations, once of supreme importance.
In “Educated Working Women,” by Clara E. Collet, 1902. Miss Collet says: “Were statistics available it might perhaps be shown that the unmarried women are to a large extent the daughters of clerks and professional men.... Emigration is probably more frequent in the salaried class; and where the sons are obliged to emigrate, it frequently happens that the daughters have to work for their living. In this class I believe the inequality of the sexes is greatest and the chances of marriage least” (pp. 37-38).
I cannot refrain at this point from inserting the following quotations from “Shirley” (chapter xxii.). Charlotte Brontë’s genius illumined the situation of many girls even in her time, and of a larger number since. Caroline is speaking. “Old maids, like the houseless and unemployed poor, should not ask for a place and an occupation in the world; the demand disturbs the happy and rich; it disturbs parents. Look at the numerous families of girls in this neighbourhood. The brothers of these girls are every one in business or in professions ... their sisters have no earthly employment but household work and sewing.... Men of England! look at your poor girls, many of them fading around you, dropping off in consumption or decline; or, what is worse, degenerating to sour old maids, envious, backbiting, wretched, because life is a desert to them; or, what is worst of all, reduced to strive, by scarce modest coquetry and debasing artifice, to gain that position and consideration by marriage which to celibacy is denied.”
I am not suggesting here that the pioneers of women’s higher education were wrong in the attitude they adopted. To win for women intellectual freedom was the most important duty for them, and that could only be achieved by women submitting to the same intellectual tests as men. But the problems which call for solution by their successors of a later generation have assumed a new form.
In June 1908, the value of the property of the various tenants’ companies was only a little short of a quarter of a million pounds, and their operations have since then been extended in various directions.
For comparison:—
| Occupation. | Number of Persons Employed. |
| Agriculture | 1,197,922 |
| Textile fabrics | 1,155,397 |
| Professional occupations | 606,260 |
Owing to a change in the system of enumeration which alters the basis of comparison, the year 1891 cannot be used in our calculations.
The competent single-handed maid is meant here, not the little “slavey” who assists her mistress in the rougher part only of the work.
A further inquiry is needed into this matter. I am not at all clear whether servants are derived from the class of the fairly prosperous artisan or from the unskilled labouring class.
“There are unfortunately no reliable statistics as to the average wages earned by women workers, but, speaking from a large experience, I estimate that the average wage of the manual woman worker, taking into account slackness, sickness, &c., is certainly not more than 7s. 6d. all the year round.”—“Trade Unions,” by Mary Macarthur, in “Women in Industry from Seven Points of View,” p. 66.
Stephen Reynolds in “A Poor Man’s House” paints this situation with great psychological insight.
e.g. Rowntree, “Poverty: a Study of Town Life”; Liverpool Economic and Statistical Society, “How the Casual Labourer Lives”; “Study of the Diet of the Labouring Classes in Edinburgh” (published by Otto Schulze & Co., now out of print); Recent Blue-books on the Cost of Living, &c.
Rowntree, “Poverty: a Study of Town Life,” pp. 117, 298 ff., as to inadequacy of diet of labourer, pp. 235 and 303. Mr. Rowntree’s conclusions have been impugned by several critics, and it may be that his dietary standard is too high. But even if it turns out that only a quarter and not a third of the population are in receipt of incomes insufficient for the expenditure necessary to secure bodily efficiency, the fact is serious enough.
Calculated by Messrs. Rowntree and Sherwell to amount to 6s. 10d. per family of the working-class population. “Temperance Problem and Social Reform” (7th ed.), p. 20.
A special charge was made for guests in this household, and the amount received was deducted from the weekly food bill.
Among the many notable characteristics by which the last half century has been distinguished, there are two which bid fair permanently to colour its records and materially to influence the future of our country. I refer in the first place to the scientific study of man, his nature, his needs, and his potentialities; and in the second to the growing appreciation of the fact that the centre of ethical gravity must be shifted from absorption in the sole concerns of self to an intelligent interest in the affairs of others—that is to say, that selfishness must yield to well organised and discriminating social service.
It is of course no new thing for questions upon the real nature of that complex creature, man, to force themselves upon the attention of the observant, and from time immemorial the philosophical have spent themselves in efforts to solve this problem by theories designed to detect, even if not to account for, the agencies 210 active in the formation of the human mind and body. The records of older civilisations bear testimony to their labours, and are familiar to most students of ancient literatures. But it was not till the resources of modern science forged new tools for the inquirer that it became possible to chisel out from the bedrock of fact the main features of man’s physical and social history.
With admirable patience and infinite skill, the scientific craftsmen of recent times have laboriously pieced together the scattered chips of biological research, of human tradition, of tribal customs and of world-wide folklore, until the dignity and power, the beauty and the possibilities of human nature have emerged from the dust of ignorance and the veil of superstition. The result is that it is no longer permissible to deplore in pessimistic tones the inevitable degradation of the race, nor to accept with supineness the threatened deterioration of a population. The forces by which humanity is moulded are no longer unknown; the principles which underlie social stability have been identified; the means by which the arts may be developed, which make life not only tolerable but healthful, are ready to our hands.
The far-reaching significance of these facts in connection with human health and progress become apparent when considered in more detail. Observers throughout the ages have gradually noted, and subsequently turned to practical account in garden, meadow, and farmyard, certain 211 characteristics common to all known forms of vegetable and animal life. By due consideration of these it was found possible to improve breeds, to strengthen and lengthen life, to avert disease, and generally to enhance economic value. It may now appear simple enough, to extend and apply these observations to the betterment of human life; but many generations of human beings slipped away before the facts, dimly discerned by Aristotle and Lucretius, by Buffon and Lamarck, were clearly focussed by Darwin,[91] Wallace, Spencer, and Huxley, through whose skill and labours the continuity of the web of life was first displayed to the world at large. The design may here be almost elementary in its delicate simplicity; there its subtle intricacies well-nigh baffle description. The variety of pattern is marvellous indeed, as Nature weaves with ceaseless industry the woof of progressive development. But the warp of this wondrous web is nevertheless continuous throughout its length, uniting the whole into one vast fabric.
This basic unity of all manifestations of life has been further substantiated by another group of scientists—Schleiden, Schwann, Kölliker, and Virchow, for instance—who gradually and conclusively proved the identity, in their simplest form, of those living bricks (i.e. microscopic particles of protoplasm) from which the whole vast edifice of life is constructed. The capacity they 212 possess for differentiation in their functions and in modes of combination long masked recognition of the fact that each commonwealth of cells, whether plant or animal, is developed in the first instance in orderly progression from a similar minute speck of protoplasm, acceptation of which has sufficed to bring about a complete revolution in the scientific world. To these discoveries were shortly added Pasteur’s conception of the nature and causation of infective diseases; a knowledge which brought with it a great accession of power over hitherto mysterious and uncontrollable conditions. And finally, man’s eyes have been opened to the comprehension of Nature’s means of self-defence against the micro-organisms of disease. Thus, while humanity is by these means armed with most potent weapons against the inroads of infection, decay, and death, the light thrown upon the mystery of the origin of each individual life has shown man his true place in the kingdom of nature. The application of these great discoveries, together with increased opportunity for and accuracy in their utilisation, constitute the basis of the modern methods of hygiene.
It must be borne in mind that until less than a century ago it was man’s custom to dissociate himself wholly from the less highly developed animals and plants which he employed so freely for his support and convenience. He set himself on the highest pinnacle, as it were, of the edifice of life, believing himself to be independent of 213 the influences by which the rest of the building was dominated. And thus through countless ages he suffered, languished, and died, unconscious that the forces he had learned more or less to control in husbandry and farmyard were in their turn controlling him in the conduct of his life. Ignorant alike of the influences of his own inherited nature or of those of his environment, he paid no heed to the responsibilities of transmitting the torch of life undimmed to succeeding generations, and gave no thought to utilising to his own personal perfecting the resources of Nature, which he habitually employed to increase his wealth or to improve his crops and stock.
It was indeed to the control of his surroundings that man first gave more or less careless heed. The fact that environment can either stimulate or stunt both physical and mental powers, thrust itself too persistently on his attention to be ignored; but the influence of a good parentage or of sound ancestry was less obvious, and for generations received little or no attention. Vague talk on “family temper,” “family habits,” “family voices” was common enough, but no more than a passing curiosity was aroused as to their hidden import, nor was their profound significance suspected.
Thus, though half a century has passed since Darwin placed man[92] “in his proper position in the sequence of biological forms,” during which interim enormous strides have been made in 214 applying to the betterment of human existence the principles found to hold good in the case of lowlier type of life, public sentiment has so far only supported sanitary reforms directed to the promotion of improved environment. And this in spite of Sir Francis Galton’s[93] first appeal in the cause of eugenics more than forty years ago. The distinguishing characteristics of progressive races and the right of every unborn child to be the offspring of healthy, self-respecting, virtuous parents have been repeatedly pointed out; while attention is drawn to the accumulating evidence in favour of the fact that of all influences upon the individual his inherited nature is the most powerful. Yet the public ear remains deaf to the cry that the present generation is largely responsible for the weal or woe of their children’s children.
This is not the place in which to discuss Darwin’s theory of heredity nor its subsequent elaboration and amplification by his contemporaries or successors.[94] But the time is come when emphasis must be laid upon the duty of gaining some general acquaintance with the subject and its applications in the case of an Imperial people.
It may be also well to point out that pessimism is not necessarily associated with the fruits of the studies carried on by our students of inherited qualities, such as Sir Francis Galton or Professors Thomson, Bateson, Karl Pearson, and others; 215 only their results give us reason to pause, for they cannot lightly be disregarded. They tell us that we hold in our hands to-day the mental vigour and bodily powers of an untold number of descendants, therefore it behoves us to consider our ways and be wise while there is yet time. For our encouragement also be it known, that while the lamp of modern hygiene illuminates the errors of the past, it sheds its bright rays over the paths of the present, and penetrates to some extent the dim twilight of the future.
It is a matter for regret that the sympathetic consideration for the sufferings of others, which found such grand exponents in John Howard, in Elizabeth Fry, and in thousands more since modern methods of philanthropy were initiated in the eighteenth century,[95] has tended latterly to lose its virility. It is giving place to a maudlin sentimentality, which seeks not only to preserve life at all costs, but to permit, nay to encourage, the production of a quality of human life, so defective, so devitalised, that it threatens to minimise the multiplication of the fit, by taxing them to their detriment with the care and support of the unfit. So to smooth the path of the weakly and unsound as to put a premium on their fertility is false philanthropy and faulty hygiene; for it is well to 216 remember that reasonable exertion is beneficial to health; that to overcome obstacles is stimulating to the energetic; that some struggle for the means of livelihood calls forth resourcefulness and adaptability in the intelligent. Success in the battle of life comes to those made of stuff equal to the wear and tear of daily existence, and possessed of the qualities which conduce to progress. These are they who are competent to perpetuate the best qualities of a good stock; these should be the chosen bulwarks of a nation’s progress; nor must their numbers be swamped by the ailing, the crippled, the defective, and the insane.
A proportion probably of some of the deeply seated, complicated, social problems which have presented themselves, unperceived and almost unconsciously, are the outcome of a one-sided study of hygiene: these, combined with the slow growth of social science, and a sickly, easy-going susceptibility, have been allowed to obscure the real issues of many well-intentioned but unwise and ill-considered philanthropic measures. The necessity, the urgent necessity, has now, however, arisen for the bold and scientific solution of these social problems. The work of biologists, sociologists, and students of history during the last ten years has illuminated the whole question of race progress and public health with a light so powerful and clear that even he who runs can read the signs of the times by its clear rays; while to the millions of parents and guardians whose lives are spent in the care of children and home, 217 its brilliance throws into high relief the dignified responsibility of their work, its far-reaching worth and enduring influence, as well as the fact that for its adequate performance something more is necessary than a bowing acquaintance with modern sanitary science.
For what is the message of scientific hygiene to the parent and householder of the twentieth century? Dr. W. H. Burnham, of Clarke University, U.S.A., a world-wide authority on the subject, has formulated this message for us into three terse, but telling and suggestive, commands.
The first gives solemn warning to beware of fads and of the many popular doctrines which are mediæval in their crudities and damaging by their unconsidered acceptance.
The second preaches the gospel of work and self-control, which must be practised in this as in every other connection where progress and good results are desired.
The third enforces the doctrine of cleanliness to a degree as comprehensive as it is unusual—cleanliness in person, dwelling, and food; in air, water, and decoration; in occupation, environment and morals; the work of home hygiene being to secure for each family conditions which will permit normal and unhampered functioning for all the organs of each one of its members; elasticity and pliancy in the functions being a primary characteristic of health.
If once it be accepted that health, capacity, endurance, and energy are more powerful weapons 218 for a progressive people than are sword or gun, obedience to these commands will be general and their results enduring. The pages of history teach us that each nation in turn has exhibited these qualities at its zenith of success, whether it were the relatively highly civilised inhabitants of Greece and Rome, or the barbarian hordes under Attila. They characterise equally each group of successful pioneers, whether they be the Pilgrim Fathers of the sixteenth, the Huguenots of the seventeenth, or the successful colonist of the nineteenth century. When however their cultivation is neglected the force of the life current of a people or community is lost; the mighty river of a nation’s prosperity dwindles to an insignificant streamlet of mere existence, soon to be lost to view in the morass of oblivion.
To what general causes may such deterioration be attributed? Among the more prominent must be mentioned ignorance of man’s physical nature and of the nurture essential to his welfare; subtle forms of self-indulgence; lowered standards of morality; enervating luxury, or, in some cases, so severe a struggle for existence among the salt of the population (the upper, middle, and professional classes, superior mechanics and artisans), that even patriotism does not justify a quiverful of children. But the persistence of these causes is a national calamity. It is the science and art of hygiene which is emphasising their disastrous consequences. No longer in its infancy, no longer a mere collection of fads, questionable statistics, and empirical doctrines, 219 hygiene is prepared to inform us how to promote human efficiency in every relation of life—domestic, occupational, social, and imperial. Its tenets are firmly based upon a goodly group of sciences, and their utilisation call into play a whole range of arts. Its theories find confirmation in the social problems of the day, and the experience gained from their tentative and partial application affords sound evidence of their worth to the world. The “expectation” of life, for instance, has been extended ten years in half a century; in twenty years the death-rate has decreased thirty per cent. Disease has been found in most instances to be controllable, and has been controlled; unhealthy occupations have had their dangers curbed if not entirely banished, and the lot of many has been immeasurably brightened. Yet the weak joints in the nation’s harness are gaping, and the vigour and virility of the masses appear to be diminishing. Again we ask, Why?
The answer may be found by reference to the late Professor de Chaumont’s now classical outline of the stages to be identified in the hygienic education of a race. He divided these into three periods, of which he described the first as merely “Instinctive,” for efforts after sanitary practice were dictated solely by the personal discomfort associated with their neglect. In those far-off 220 prehistoric days, Professor Boyd Dawkins tells us that primitive man, then in his nomadic stage, would dig runnels to carry off the rain water from the near neighbourhood of his shelters, or would move on to fresh pastures when his family and herds had fouled the nearest stream, or change his camping ground when the accumulated refuse of his food and his prowess as a hunter interfered with convenient access to his dwelling; but he took no precautions to prevent the recurrence of these discomforts, and his efforts to remove their consequences were purely temporary.
To this there succeeded what Professor de Chaumont designated the “Supernatural” period,[96] which extended over many thousands of years, during the dawn of which Eastern rulers often combined in their own person the triple callings of priest, prophet, and physician. Whether it be in China or in Persia, in Egypt or in India, among the Greeks, the Arabs, or the Hebrews, the practice of physical morality and of personal cleanliness, of restrictions of diet or protection from infection, were closely woven into the religion of the people. Reasons of health and sanitary advantages permeate the rules of more faiths than that of the Jews—whose Lawgiver embodied in the Pentateuch health maxims now known to have been derived from earlier civilisations.
But, remarkable and interesting as are the ancient sanitary codes to a generation which 221 professes to believe in the necessity for hygienic practice, their usage was tinctured from the first by a mass of superstition. Tradition and fatalism hampered true consistency between faith and works; the often sound regulations suffered from their empirical foundations. Constant warfare, varied by alternations of luxury with asceticism, combined to absorb men’s minds and to pervert their common sense, so that plague and famine, disease and penury, were superstitiously regarded as discipline from the Deity, not to be averted or avoided, but rather to be accepted as a chastisement prompted by love. The creed that to save suffering to the vile body might risk the salvation of the soul, cost Europe far dearer than is at all generally recognised; for the noble, the pure, the high-minded, the intellectual, segregated themselves for centuries in monastery and convent, in the firm faith that by denying to themselves the joy of parenthood they promoted the spiritual welfare of their country. Ignorant of their racial responsibilities, they left as progenitors of the next generation the less refined and ruder elements in the population. It is no cause for surprise, therefore, that progress in sanitation moved slowly. Domestic and urban conditions were permitted of a character well defined by the facts that, in mediæval times, a man of forty-five or fifty was considered long lived, and that first attempts to control disease were based upon commercial convenience rather than upon the saving of life.