TEACHING PHYSIOLOGY IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 515 



by listening to a teacher read from a book. The children fail 

 to catch the words, or they attach no meaning to them. Here, for 

 example, are verbatim copies of the exercises in one of the Green- 

 wich schools : 



" ' Infections are brought on by bad smells, such as small-pox, 

 measles, scarlet-fever, glass-pox, s. c, they are brought on by bad 

 drainerges suers ; they must be well ventalated. Infection disease 

 are caught by touching such as charcoal, chloride of lime, etc. 

 Measles, feaver are called disinfectionous because they are catch- 

 ing. — Fainted. If a person as fainted, take her out in the open 

 air lay her down with her head. And do the clothing round the 

 neck and dashed cold water the face and hand and put smelling 

 salts to her nose. Degestion is paines in the head, paines in the 

 stom-ach, bad tempers. From degestion comes consumption, in- 

 formation, head-ache, neuralgia.' 



" These exercises may be thought amusing, but it should be 

 borne in mind that every word represents more or less pain to 

 some unhappy child, in endeavoring to recall ponderous words 

 which were without meaning. Education in sanitary matters is 

 desirable, but, as it is conducted at present in public schools, it 

 must injure children's minds by habituating them to the use of 

 words which they can not understand." 



In the English official reports we read that " an examination 

 of girls in board schools for prizes offered by the National Health 

 Society, revealed some curious items of information. One rej)ly 

 to Mention any occupation considered injurious to health ' was, 

 ' Occupations which are injurious are carbolic acid gas, which is 

 impure blood.' Another pupil said, ' A stone mason's work is in- 

 jurious, because when he is chipping he breathes in all the chips, 

 and then they are taken into the lungs.' A third says, ' A boot- 

 maker's trade is very injurious, because the boot-makers press the 

 boots against the thorax ; and therefore it presses the thorax in, 

 and it touches the heart ; and if they do not die they are cripples 

 for life.' With a beautiful decisiveness, one girl declares that ' all 

 mechanical work is injurious to health.' A reply to a question 

 about digestion runs, ' We should never eat fat because the food 

 does not digest.' Another states that ' when food is swallowed it 

 passes through the windpipe ' ; and that ' the chyle flows up the 

 middle of the backbone and reaches the heart, where it meets the 

 oxygen and is purified.' Another says, ' The work of the heart is 

 to repair the different organs in about half a minute.' One little 

 physiologist replies : ' We have an upper and a lower skin ; the 

 lower skin moves at its will, and the upper skin moves when we 

 do.' One child ennumerates the organs of digestion as ' stomach 

 utensils, liver, and spleen/ " 



In the clever little book compiled by Miss Le Row^ entitled 



