When I decided to accept this opportunity to address you on Dental Care of Mothers and Children, I had in mind mothers and pre-school children, but I think for the purposes of this paper, it might be useful if I take full advantage of the title and include school children also, since they are all part and parcel of the cause we preach. From the outset, I wish you to realise that it is not my intention to put these ideas before you as the child of my own meditations, but rather as a reiteration of what has been said many times before, and I hope will be said many more times, until such time as we have dental care a routine duty to that section of the population. Whenever I think of the subject I always ask myself at what end we should start, or rather, at what part of the circle we should break into, for it is a circle and by repeated addition we change this circle only in name to Dental Health of the Nation. The Board of Education has set the ball rolling by the institution of school dentistry, and this has great merit although school age may not be the best time to start, but when you consider the fact that a child attends school to be educated, is it not reasonable that the young mind, thirsting for knowledge (or for excuses to stay away) will readily adopt the visit of the Dental Officer for inspection and subsequent treatment, as part and parcel of his school routine ? Again, it must be a godsend to parents rearing a family to have this opportunity of help when the family is at its most expensive stage. I do not think I exaggerate when I suggest that many potential scholarships have been ruined through the child being physically unfit to derive full benefit from the education offered, and this may be traceable in many instances to dental disease.