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Edgar F. Allen, known to the world as "Daddy," President of the International Society for Crippled Children, is a man who can testify to these facts from personal experience. He says,

"In our work for crippled children we seek the sympathetic friendship of all who agree that human sympathy for human suffering is the motive spirit of civilization. The accomplishment of this object, this hope, and this aim is our desire, and we trust that the future will make it a reality in thousands of lives and hearts."-2-

-2- From an address entitled Our Vision.

The humanitarian aspect of this movement, then, is as truly sociological as are the "scientific" facts which demonstrate conclusively the extent to which the number of social dependents is reduced. The vision of hundreds of thousands of men and women devoting their time and energy to the purpose of bringing happiness to the 350,000 or more crippled children of this continent, is indeed a hopeful sign for humanity and civilization. Progress may not be demonstrable in vital statistics, but the socializing of the most noble of human emotions, the parental instinct, and its extension to the care of infants and adolescents, utterly or partially helpless through no fault of their own, is an evidence of a forward trend of no small significance.

It cannot be denied that charities frequently fail to strike at the heart of a social evil. To a certain extent this is true of the work under discussion. If living conditions among the poor were improved, many children would have better resistance to diseases of any sort. Education might eliminate much of the carelessness that results in allowing an orthopedic disease to run too far for permanent cure. Much could be done to avoid traumatic (accidental) disabilities. A better quality of milk would reduce to a minimum the number of children afflicted with "surgical"tuberculosis. In recent years, much has been done and much has been planned to reduce these causative evils.

The fact remains, however, that we have with us, and will probably always have with us, a number of crippled children. In 1916, twenty-seven thousand persons were afflicted in an epidemic of infantile paralysis-1- (poliomyelitis). Eighty per cent of this number were under five years of age. Through the efforts of agencies to care for crippled children, a majority of these children have been saved from permanent disability. A century ago this same catastrophe would have added twenty thousand new names to the list of the nation's dependent cripples.

-1- Edna L. Foley, Home Nursing Care of Infantile Paralysis. The Nation's Health, Vol. V, No. 8, p. 503. August 15, 1923. A conservative estimate of 15,000 was suggested by Miss Helen Hare in A Study of Handicapped Children, June, 1919. Indiana University Studies, Vol. VI, No. 41.

Those who are turning their efforts toward aiding crippled children have not forgotten the wisdom of emphasizing prevention. The International Society for Crippled Children strongly advocates and subscribes to any program which will decrease the danger of bacterial infection from milk, or improve living conditions to avoid epidemics. Special orthopedic institutions and organizations are foremost in urging education to decrease those social relationships which may result in congenital deformities. All of these groups, however, recognize that for this problem, at least, the colloquialism "better late than never" is essentially true. Curative and educational measures justify themselves, if only to avoid unnecessary economic waste.

With the objections outlined above, are frequently correlated questions as to whether special care and special education for crippled children are not wrong in that they result in institutionalizing the patients. Frequently this objection is well founded. There are still homes and hospitals devoid of most of those kindly features with which modern institutions aim to cheer their patients. There are still superintendents who dress the little ones in uniform and inflict that disagreeable type of discipline which results in sullen obedience. The author has been informed that uniform dress is less expensive than variety. What false economy!

But it should be borne in mind at this point that the problem of the crippled is very different from that of the normal child. Unlike the latter, the crippled or deformed youngster is a lonely creature, unable to join in the sports of other children, and constantly reminded of his disability. This frequently develops an abnormal psychology, a moroseness, self-consciousness, so affecting his point of view as to add to an unfortunate physique a mental peculiarity. Most of us, reading Byron's poetry, will distinguish from page to page, the effects of his mother's insult, "You lame brat."-1-

-1- Byron is said to have replied: "I was born so, mother." See his drama The Deformed Transformed, Part 1, se. 1.

A modern, properly conducted orthopedic school, convalescent home, hospital, or sanatorium will never result in "institutionalizing" its patients. On the contrary, the child is furnished with companions of his own age, similarly handicapped, able to develop with him games and sports in which a crippled child can participate. Thus during those formative years of his life, rarely reminded of his disability, the child develops a healthy, normal psychology.