PREVENTIVE MEASURES 
22T 
It follows that in organizing community work, not 
only against mosquitoes but against flies as well, the 
school children must be counted upon as a most im¬ 
portant factor. Almost all children are born naturalists, 
and interest in such things comes to them more readily 
than anything else outside of the necessities of life. 
They are quick-witted, wonderfully quick-sighted, and 
as finders out of breeding places they cannot be ap¬ 
proached except by adults with the most especial train¬ 
ing. 
The specific question of interesting school children 
in the house-fly campaign was brought up at the De¬ 
cember meeting of the American Civic Association. 
It was introduced by the writer and had also been 
previously considered by the Fly Committee of the as¬ 
sociation, of which, as previously stated, Mr. Hatch 
is the chairman. The association plans to offer prizes 
for school children in certain selected cities, prizes ag¬ 
gregating for the ordinary town say from thirty to 
fifty dollars. These are to be competed for by chil¬ 
dren of the public schools, and in two classes: first, 
young children between the ages of nine and eleven; 
and, second, children from twelve to fifteen; so that 
the younger children will not come into competi¬ 
tion with the older and presumably better prepared 
ones. 
It will be necessary in order to do this, in some cases, 
to do a little work with school boards, so that they 
may be willing to admit into the schools the literature 
which will be the basis of the essays. Health boards 
