In her 1925 speech, The Children's Era, Margaret Sanger addressed the results of overpopulation and a lack of birth control options, emphasizing, “Children who were "unwelcome, unwanted, unprepared for, unknown," with poor health, hunger, abandonment and abysmal living conditions”. Within her spirited speech, Sanger declares for her audience to ask why so little progress had been made in helping children, despite good intentions and philanthropy. She then uses an analogy to answer the astray question, “Before you can cultivate a garden, you must know something about gardening. You have got to give your seeds a proper soil in which to grow. You have got to give them sunlight and fresh air. You have got to give them space and the opportunity
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She explains that “So far we have not been gardeners. We have only been a sort of silly reception committee, a reception committee at the Grand Central Station of life.” A train station thereby becomes the basis for examining the ways society had been dealing with unwanted or too many children, as “trainloads” of children come in and the so-called reception committee “establishes emergency measures: milk stations, maternity centers, settlement houses, playgrounds, orphanages, welfare leagues, and every conceivable kind of charitable effort.” Unfortunately, as Sanger goes on to explain, these effort are not enough and “the overworked committee becomes exhausted, inefficient, and can think of no way out.” The analogy of the reception committee at a train station is successful, much like the garden analogy, because of its apparent simplicity. In contrast to the warm atmosphere of a garden, Grand Central Station, the largest station in New York, is a cold, unfeeling, and mechanical environment. The notion of a committee in this harsh environment being responsible for dealing with the delicate task of caring for infants illustrates the painful realities of institutions and orphanages. The audience would undeniably be intrigued by such analogies, amazed at how things as complex as these social issues can be viewed in understandable terms
She explains that “So far we have not been gardeners. We have only been a sort of silly reception committee, a reception committee at the Grand Central Station of life.” A train station thereby becomes the basis for examining the ways society had been dealing with unwanted or too many children, as “trainloads” of children come in and the so-called reception committee “establishes emergency measures: milk stations, maternity centers, settlement houses, playgrounds, orphanages, welfare leagues, and every conceivable kind of charitable effort.” Unfortunately, as Sanger goes on to explain, these effort are not enough and “the overworked committee becomes exhausted, inefficient, and can think of no way out.” The analogy of the reception committee at a train station is successful, much like the garden analogy, because of its apparent simplicity. In contrast to the warm atmosphere of a garden, Grand Central Station, the largest station in New York, is a cold, unfeeling, and mechanical environment. The notion of a committee in this harsh environment being responsible for dealing with the delicate task of caring for infants illustrates the painful realities of institutions and orphanages. The audience would undeniably be intrigued by such analogies, amazed at how things as complex as these social issues can be viewed in understandable terms