East St. Louis Daily Journal

FOR THE WORLD'S CHILDREN.

Child welfare is a comparatively new subject for international discussion and co-operation. The first International Child Welfare Congress convened in Geneva on August 24, attended by 700 delegates from 58 countries, including the United States and several of the South American republics.

If such a congress were nothing more than a clearing house of facts about the conditions of childhood in many different countries, it ought to accomplish a world of good, inspiring backward countries to follow the example of more progressive lands. Also the congress may serve as a sort of glorious training class for advanced welfare workers, and as a round table for useful and constructive discussion. In the end, too, certain high standards of child welfare may be worked out and set up, if not officially, at least as an unofficial but useful guide to all lands.

The United States needs to look to its own children, to rescue those who are still caught in the toils of unwholesome child labor, to save others from preventable diseases and accidents and to provide better educational opportunity for all its children. Whatever conditions of childhood may be in other countries, they are still far from ideal in many parts of the United States. Americans undoubtedly can learn as well as instruct at the Geneva conference.