Physical Training for Women by Japanese Methods

1904

Truby King Collection GV 439 H678

New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons

Truby King’s visit to Japan had a lasting influence on his work with early child-rearing in New Zealand. He was impressed by the fact that the average Japanese village mother breast-fed her baby for the first 10-12 months of its life, sometimes up to 18 months, with ordinary food slowly introduced. He advocated natural feeding, believing that breast-feeding produced babies significantly healthier than bottle-fed ones. Indeed, breast-feeding was to become one of the tenets of the Plunket movement. Routine also played its part (‘by the clock’) as did general fitness for boys and girls. One of his ‘Fundamental Reform’ clauses included ‘devotion of a reasonable time daily to open-air occupations and recreations…’