Hull-House,
Chicago, Ill.
My dear Miss Addams:
The Children's Bureau contemplates an investigation which, although having the causes of infant mortality as its objective, will seek to secure identical information for all the children born in a given time and area, whether they live to be one year old or not. It has been suggested to the Bureau that investigations into infant mortality which cover only those who die, and which compare simply the dead from one cause with the dead from another cause, are inadequate to furnish any working hypothesis for the prevention of infant mortality. In this investigation, therefore, the Bureau will seek to follow a given number of babies through from birth to one year old, or until they die under one year old. It will seek to show why babies live as well as why babies die, and will endeavor to show the proportion of babies who live or who die under stated conditions.
Enclosed you will find the press proof of a provisional schedule which it is proposed to use in order to bring out the economic, industrial, and sanitary conditions into which each baby is born; the qusetion of feeding; care after birth, etc., up to one year of age. This schedule, or questionnaire, is sent you, knowing your deep personal interest in the general problem, in the hope that you will examine it with what care your time will permit, with a view to your suggesting to the Bureau such modifications as you would recommend either in scope, or in the scheme itself, or in the contraction or expansion of the enquiries; or in the form of sequence of the questions.
We shall be grateful for any comment you care to make, and for a reply at as early a date as suits your convenience. Please return the schedule in the enclosed franked envelope.
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