Health Tkaching in Schools 311 



portant matters that cliildreir can be taught, and elementary physio- 

 logy and hygiene are taught in — as far as 1 can learn — every State 

 in the Union. In most of the States the subject is taught to every 

 class, from the beginning to the end of the school course. In the 

 lower classes it is taught orally and combined with object-lessons ; in 

 the higher classes, by the aid of graded text-books and simple experi- 

 ments. It is obvious that this must involve a pi-etty thorough know- 

 ledge on the part of the teachers, and it is here that the system excels. 

 In many of the American Normal colleges, elementary anatomy, 

 physiology and hygiene are taught in a most thorough manner. 

 These colleges possess museums with osteological and other specimens, 

 laboratories and reference libraries for this purpose, and long courses 

 of lectures and demonstrations are given. A feature of the American 

 system is the emphasis that is laid upon temperance in connection with 

 the school lessons on personal hygiene. In more than a third of the 

 States the injurious eflfects of alcohol upon the human body are ex- 

 plained to the children in e\'ery public school. In several of these 

 States there is a rigorous law compelling teachers and school com- 

 mittees to teach this subject under penalty of fine or dismissal for 

 non-com})liance. The action of these American legislatures has given 

 a weight and dignity to the teaching of temperance which it could 

 hardly otherwise have attained. The Amei'ican school-boy is made to 

 realise that it is not a teacher with a fad that is exhorting him to 

 temperance ; it is the State, his country, that is solemnly adjuring 

 him to grow up a temperate and self-respecting citizen. It is too soon 

 yet to judge •finallj' of the results of this teaching, but so careful an 

 observer as Mr. Mosely has expressed the opinion that the greater 

 sobriety of home-born Americans as compared with immigrants from 

 Europe and with English people is to be attributed in part to the 

 influence of the schools. The medical inspection of school-children is 

 now also being introduced into America. 



Canada. 



The Canadian system in the main resembles the American. Physio- 

 logy and hygiene are universally taught in the elementary schools. In 

 New Brunswick, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Manitoba and Nova 

 Scotia, temperance is emphasised as a special branch of the subject, 

 Nova Scotia possessing a law which compels teachers and school trus- 

 tees to comply under penalty. As in America, great attention is paid 

 in the Normal colleges to physiology and hygiene. In Nova Scotia 

 there is a special school for domestic science attiliated to the Normal 

 College, where women teachers take a one year's course in cookery, 

 household chemistry and bacteriology, physiology, first aid and home 

 nursing, hygiene and home sanitation, laundry and other practical 

 subjects. In the Normal colleges of the province of Ontario there is 

 a similar course, and in addition sanitary legislation is studied. In 

 the Saskatchewan proposed new code, hygiene under the divisions 

 personal, household, municipal and national is to be taught in all 



