PRACTICE AND TEACHING OF HYGIENE IN SCHOOLS. 185 



passes so many hours of its life in school that any improper treat- 

 ment therein will increase any deformity or latent predisposition 

 such child may possess towards disease ; in fact, its future pro- 

 s])erity or premature decay may be largely decided at this period 

 of its life. It becomes therefore of imperative importance that every 

 means should be adopted to teach and practice principles of whole- 

 some living both within and without the school. 



The fact should not be lost sight of that the school is largely the 

 }-)]ace wherein the health and future prosperity of generations is 

 to be built, and any hereditary tendency towards conditions of 

 bodily ill-health favoiuing the growth of disease germs (occasion- 

 ally already introduced) may become eradicated. Certainly it 

 Jiiust be the duty of all educational authorities at least to see to 

 it that no initial introduction of preventable diseases take place 

 within their schools, owing to lack of knowledge and neglect of 

 such ordinary precautionary preventive measures as can reasonably 

 be expected to have been employed by such authorities. 



There is some evidence to show that such bacterial diseases as, 

 tor instance, tuberculosis, are distinctly increasing in South Africa 

 (including the Orange River Colony), and this is but one of those 

 diseases, the receptive foundations of which are not infrequentl}- 

 laid during the school age period, to ultimately destroy its victim 

 during su1:iscquent adolescence or adult ages. 



Ill-ventilated, dusty, damp and badly-lighted school-rooms 

 certainly farv^our the dissemination and progress of that malady, 

 as well as most other infectious diseases into the bargain. With 

 equal, if not more force, do such unfavourable surroundings affect 

 the health of children at home. Yet the only rational way to 

 remedy this state of affairs is to teach the children at school the 

 importance of good ventilation, personal cleanliness, wholesome 

 food and exercise, together with the dangers which accrue from 

 bad habits such as intemperance and so forth. 



Such knowledge and good habits once formed improve the general 

 morale, discipline and comfort of the children at the school, and 

 become indeliblj- impressed upon them at a period of their lives 

 w^hen, owing to their plastic mental and bodily attitude, they may 

 be most readily and permanently moulded into the best men and 

 women. 



Improved cleanliness at home will largely and naturally follow 

 when personal tidiness and good habits are insisted upon in the 

 school, for it has been very truly stated that " slums " can only 

 be prevented by eliminating the " slum makers." Housing 

 problems are alwa5'S complicated by the fact that so long as the 

 poor are themselves slum-makers so long will any collection of 

 their houses be turned into slums. 



Why, therefore, should this country pass through the same 

 unfortunate experience, with all its attendant sufferings and mor- 

 tality, which has already been the lot of many European countries 

 owing largely to want of knowledge or lack of its sufficient applica- 

 tion ? Why are we not to profit by the sad experience of others 

 in that we may see to it that there is systematic teaching of the 

 elements of the laws of health in every school, public or private, 



