The Race Marches Forward on the Feet of Little Children Matilda Fraser

ARE YOU A PATRIOT?
 
DO YOU WANT YOUR NATION TO SURVIVE?
 
Are you determined that never again shall there be 50 percent of possible rejects in our Community?
 
IF SO, study and ponder the following facts:
 
ASSETS versus LIABILITIES
 
Every healthy young adult is worth over £300 to the country. Every unhealthy wastrel and dependant who has to be kept by the public is a grave liability instead of being an asset. There are, for instance, at the present moment many insane persons and other unfortunates who have cost the Dominion from £500 to £1,000 each in maintenance.
 
We want to prevent our normal assets from continuing to be converted through ignorance and neglect into grave liabilities. The sickness and debility of babies is due to mere ignorance and carelessness: rarely to intentional neglect or cruelty.[1]

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Sir Frederic Truby King (1858-1938) was a scientist, farmer, gardener, doctor, educator, and a key figure in New Zealand healthcare reform during the first half of the twentieth century. From 1889, he was the Medical Superintendent at Seacliff Lunatic Asylum, before establishing the Society for the Health of Women and Children at Karitane in 1907 – later named the Plunket Society.  Over the course of his life he worked tirelessly to promote mothercraft, breastfeeding, and the training of women asnurses, campaigned against the dangers of over-education in women, contributed to the literature of the eugenics movement, and developed a complete food for infants known as “humanized” milk.
 
Matilda Fraser (BFA Hons, 2012, Massey University; MFA 2016, Elam) is an artist and writer based in Wellington, New Zealand. Recent shows include I digress, Enjoy Public Art Gallery, 2017; The Eight Hours Plan, Mason’s Screen, 2017; New Perspectives, Artspace, 2016. She was the 2015 Writer-in-Residence at Blue Oyster Art Project Space, Dunedin, producing a series of nested texts entitled Against Efficiency about the nature of criticism.