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In a Strange Garden: The Life and Times of Truby King

Appendix Three: Hygeia columns

Appendix Three: Hygeia columns

Marriage should not be a woman's only profession, but it should be her highest hope. Every girl should try and make herself worthy of it, both in body and mind, and this attitude will not make a girl grow into a less sensible old maid if she has to be one.

On the contrary it is of course quite obvious to anyone who will look beyond schooldays that the healthy normal all-round development that will make the best of a girl for marriage will also make her in the long run most fit to earn her own living, and most inclined to earn it in ways that will satisfy her higher nature as a woman which should crave all things for life in a home, whether her own or mother's or failing this in some calling such as nursing, which will satisfy the natural tendency of all good women to offer some sacrifices of herself for others.

page 222

Occasionally Truby would make use of Hygeia to communicate 'messages from headquarters'. This Hygeia column, from 22 June 1926 is an interesting restatement of the Plunket Society's aims and objectives, in King's best prose:

OUR BABIES

-

BY HYGEIA

Published under the auspices of the Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children (Plunket Society)

"It is wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom"

THE AIMS AND OBJECTS
OF
THE ROYAL NEW ZEALAND
SOCIETY
FOR THE HEALTH OF WOMEN
AND CHILDREN

(As set forth in the Annual Report of the Wellington Branch for the year Ending 31st March 1926)

1.TO UPHOLD THE SACREDNESS OF THE BODY AND THE DUTY OF HEALTH: to inculcate a lofty view of the responsibilities of maternity and the duty of every mother to fit herself for the perfect fulfilment of the natural calls of motherhood, both before and after childbirth, and especially to advocate and promote the breast-feeding of infants.
2.TO ACQUIRE INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE ON MATTERS AFFECTING THE HEALTH OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN, AND TO DISSEMINATE SUCH KNOWLEDGE: through the agency of its members, nurses, and others, by means of the natural handing on from one recipient or beneficiary to another, page 223 and the use of such agencies as periodical meetings at members' houses or elsewhere, demonstrations, lectures, correspondence, newspaper articles, pamphlets, books, etc.
3.TO TRAIN SPECIALLY AND TO EMPLOY QUALIFIED NURSES, TO BE CALLED PLUNKET NURSES, WHOSE DUTY IT WILL BE TO GIVE SOUND, RELIABLE INSTRUCTION, ADVICE AND ASSISTANCE GRATIS TO ANY MEMBER OF THE COMMUNITY REQUIRING SUCH SERVICES, on matters affecting the health and well-being of women, especially during pregnancy and while nursing infants, and on matters affecting the health and well-being of their children: and also to endeavour to educate and help parents and others in a practical way in domestic hygiene in general — all these things being done with a view to conserving the health and strength of the rising generation, and rendering both mother and offspring hardy, healthy and resistive to disease.
4.To co-operate with any present or future organisation which are working for any of the foregoing or cognate objects.
N. B. THE SOCIETY WAS STARTED AS A LEAGUE FOR MUTUAL HELPFULNESS AND MUTUAL EDUCATION, WITH A FULL RECOGNITION OF THE FACT THAT, SO FAR AS MOTHERHOOD AND BABYHOOD WERE CONCERNED, THERE WAS AS MUCH NEED FOR PRACTICAL REFORM AND 'GOING TO SCHOOL ON THE PART OF THE CULTURED AND WELL-TO-DO AS THERE WAS ON THE PART OF THE SO-CALLED 'POOR AND IGNORANT'.

Our society was founded 19 years ago, and a new generation has arisen in the meanwhile. Children who were not in their teens at the start are now heads of families, and many of them play an important part in directing or influencing the course of the Society's work in various ways. We, therefore, think it desirable to reaffirm our 'AIMS AND OBJECTS', as printed at the beginning of every Annual Report, and which have never varied since first drafted in 1907.

page 224

There is one 'AIM' to which our attention is called from time to time by adverse criticism on the part of some of the new generation of our supporters. They recognise the amazing success of the Society and its great and growing value in the life and health of the community: but they think it unreasonable to ask anyone who does not profit immediately, directly, and personally by its teaching, training, and help to subscribe to its upkeep. They say, 'Let those pay who make use of the Society.'

The spread, success, and ever-widening influence of our work have been admittedly phenomenal, and we ought all of us to try and realise and understand the reason for this, and not regard it as due to mere chance or accident. We know, on the contrary, that the success of our Health Mission to parents has been due to the intrinsic value of the sound, well-thought-out instruction and practical training given by our nurses and conveyed in our books, etc.; and also to the ease with which this instruction can be had 'just for the asking'. The argument that people do not value what costs them nothing is entirely refuted in this case by the very large number of subscribers to the Society among our ranks of those it has helped, and by the wonderful response from 'Plunket Parents' whenever we ask them to help us in any special effort. That is the experience of every branch of the Plunket Society.

Our work is primarily educational and humanitarian — our aim being to teach the mothers the rules of hygiene applying to their own health and that of their children. This object can only be attained by the cooperation of the mothers themselves, and as many of them have to be educated into understanding that they need the knowledge we can supply, we on our part have to maintain an organisation to give this instruction — and to give it freely and gladly to whoever comes seeking the necessary information or help.

The essential work of the Plunket Society is on the same footing as the educational system of the Dominion. The Government does not wait for children to ask it to educate them: it provides and organises schools for their instruction-indeed, it goes one step further and OBLIGES the page 225 children to attend its schools whether the parents are convinced of the benefit or necessity of their doing so or not. In other words, the Government compels the children to be educated for the good of the whole community. We say the mothers must also be educated for the same reason: otherwise, we shall all suffer by the increase in the number of costly institutions needed to provide for the unfit members of the population.

In support of our scheme for the education, care, and safeguarding of mother and child we appeal to the community to take the place of the Government by enabling us to continue to provide a better and more acceptable means of voluntary (but State-subsidised) education than any Government Department in the world can supply.

The object of the Plunket Society's scheme of education is to raise the standard of health in the home and in the nursery, and thus assure a race of capable, efficient children — strong, healthy and RESISTIVE to disease. We feel that this is the only way to prevent the increase and accumulation of the unfit and the submerged and diseased who have become a drag and handicap in the Old World. In order to attain our object we must look to the willing and hearty co-operation of the self-reliant adults of New Zealand. Selfish individuality and a narrow outlook would prevent anything really effective being done in a matter of this kind. We need the broad-minded enlightened and generous support of the whole community. Our nurses ought to be looked upon in their true light as friends and advisers, not as collectors of fees. The Education Department does not ask its teachers to collect fees from the children of their parents. However, we are fully alive to the fact that all those who avail themselves of the services of the Plunket Nurses or the Karitane Hospitals should feel doubly bound to support the Society by becoming members, and by making such other contributions to the building and working funds as they can afford.

Everyone is now waking up to the fact that untrained ignorant parents are a source of great danger and distress, and that they impose a very serious expense on all taxpayers — direct and indirect — in the building page 226 and the upkeep of hospitals, asylums, gaols and various charitable institutions. We are satisfied that in New Zealand, at least, the best way to overcome this cruel and expensive form of ignorance — parental ignorance — is to support the organisation which has been working steadily and consistently towards that end for nearly 20 years along lines that are becoming more and more widely recognised and appreciated throughout the whole world. But we must bear in mind that good education is always expensive in the first instance, though the yield of its harvest is a thousandfold.