PROFESSIONAL TRAINING FOR CHILD HYGIENE 291 



school diseases? What are the exact results following the introduction 

 of the vacuum cleaner in the school? What are the indirect effects of 

 pure air on the processes of nutrition and growth? Can school air be 

 made hygienic? What results from the combination of deep breathing 

 and dust in the average indoor gymnasium? Is exercise thus taken 

 better in the long run than none at all ? 



Is it true, as certain recent researches suggest, that forty or fifty 

 per cent, of all school children contract tuberculosis at least once before 

 the end of the school course? How does the incidence of tuberculosis 

 among school children vary with different climatic, social and industrial 

 conditions, and with different methods of school sanitation? Probably 

 two million children now in our public schools will die of this disease. 

 Would systematic researches make possible the earlier diagnosis of 

 active cases, or even the certain detection of constitutional predisposi- 

 tion to the disease ? Does any one know that we could not by segrega- 

 tion of such pupils in open air schools and by carefully regulating their 

 diet save the lives of half or three fourths of this two million ? 



What produces hypertrophied tonsils and adenoids? Are they con- 

 nected with the disturbances of lymphatic circulation and of nutrition 

 due to the sedentary school life ? By what mechanism do they produce 

 such deplorable stunting effects on body and mind? To what extent, 

 as statistically determined, do they predispose to tuberculosis and other 

 throat and lung diseases ? Are they a necessary incident in the growth 

 of 10 or 15 per cent, of our children? Is it sufficient merely to wait 

 for their appearance and then call in the school doctor to remove them ? 



What is the relation of the school to the neuroses? Is the school a 

 factor in the undoubted increase of insanity? Does school over- 

 pressure, as some psycho-pathologists believe, lay the last straw in the 

 case of those predisposed to neurasthenia, hysteria, or dementia praecox ? 

 Of the 18,000,000 children now in the public schools, the lives of 

 probably a half million will be rendered miserable failures because of 

 one or another of the neuroses. May we hope that scientific research 

 in the etiology of nervous diseases will make it possible to segregate 

 the " emotive " cases and apply a psycho-prophylaxis which shall lead 

 them to a normal mental life? 



Over half of the pupils fail to progress through the grades at the 

 expected speed. What are the causes of retardation? To what extent 

 is it an expression of congenital mental deficiency ? How many men- 

 tally deficient children are in our schools? What are the respective 

 values of .heredity and environment in the etiology of feeble-minded- 

 ness? How common is the moron, tliat is, the grade of intelligence 

 lying between the merely " dull " and the " feeble-minded " ? What 

 proportion of morons become criminals? What kind of education 

 must they receive to insure that they shall not become social burdens 

 or pests? By what means shall we classify them and on what bases? 



