ALIMENTARY EDUCATION OF CHILDREN LABBE. 553 



or the health docket which should be made up for each child enter- 

 ing school shows her that bad dietary practices prevail in the family, 

 that the child is over or under nourished, that it eats irregularly, 

 that it takes too much meat or drinks too much wine, for example, 

 she should explain to the parents the dangers of these faulty prac- 

 tices, and if she finds them interested and without prejudice she 

 would give them valuable points on the subject of general hygiene, 

 the household tasks, and culinary preparation. 



The school, with its lunch room, is called upon to render great 

 service to the health of children. But it is not only intended for 

 healthy subjects, or, indeed, for those merely predisposed to sickness. 

 There are children who on account of debility or of illness are pre- 

 vented from going to school, and who, in order to recover from 

 enteritis, anemia, or scrofula, by which they have been attacked, re- 

 quire regenerative diet and hygienic instruction which their parents 

 do not know and can not give. 



To fill this need there is an excellent institution, the nutrition 

 clinic. The Americans have inaugurated it and put it into practice. 

 A woman of high intelligence and great force, Miss Frances Stern, 

 has organized in Paris, in the nineteenth ward, a clinic of this kind. 

 Children from 4 to 7 years old temporarily kept away from kinder- 

 garten or from the primary school come to spend the clay on the 

 premises of the clinic, the parents bringing them at 9 o'clock in the 

 morning on their way to work. They are kept clean, taken care of, 

 made to play and to rest, in the garden if the weather is good, inside 

 if it is bad, and they are given a luncheon and dinner which are 

 wholesome and strengthening. Under the influence of this good 

 care, the poor little ones gain in appearance and in weight; they 

 return to health. In bringing and calling for their children the 

 mothers learn through example and the advice given them by the 

 trained nurses how to care for them. Consultations on alimentary 

 hygiene held by physicians, assisted by the nurses, culinary demon- 

 strations, distribution of food and of medicine complete the work. 



The practical education given by the school lunch rooms and nutri- 

 tion clinics are worth more than all theoretical instruction. I do 

 not mean, however, that this is useless. There are many ways of 

 instilling ideas of alimentary hygiene into children's minds, and all 

 of them should be used. 



When we are dealing with the very young, with kindergarten chil- 

 dren, it can not be made a matter of lectures. It is by amusing 

 them that we must instruct them. We know the importance of 

 games in their education when they are properly directed. With 

 cardboard models representing the principal foods, like those used 

 on the stage, with a doll's kitchen like those given to little girls, 

 how many things they can be made to understand regarding the 



