That may not be the ideal.

We may believe that to thus reduce the father's responsibility would mean a dangerous lessening of his energy and devotion to the family well-being.

It is true, however, that while there are so many in every community without essentials for care in childbirth or for the early nurture of infants, we must find some way of providing these essentials, or the state is endangered at its vital centre.
=Every Child Should Have a Competent Father.=--The third demand of childhood is for a competent father.

That takes us at once into the area of wages and economic conditions.

When the Children's Bureau, itself a testimony to the awakened social conscience in respect to childhood, shows from careful investigation that in families where the father earns only ten dollars or less a week more than twice as many babies die before the age of two years than in families where the fathers earn twenty-five dollars a week or more, we can see with clearer vision than ever before that to give babies a fair chance in life the father must be fairly paid for his work.
The following table shows this fact in graphic form: [Illustration: INFANT MORTALITY RATES.