GUY .MONTROSE WHIPPLE, PH. D. 275 



and their significance. Above all he should be able to make 

 practical application of this knowledge to the different problems 

 presented by the home and parents of the individual child. 



Perhaps the normal school fulfills its highest function when 

 it gives some instruction to those who in the majority of cases 

 are to be the home makers for the next generation, and proper 

 information well assimilated makes for a better parenthood 

 and a stronger childhood. 



The Chairman (introducing Dr. Whipple): You will appreciate the 

 following paper better if you bear in mind some of the conditions 

 found in public schools. In 600 rooms where I noted this detail, there 

 were only 210 thermometers, 72 of which were out of order. The 

 remaining two-thirds registered in winter months with almost no 

 exception, from 71 to 72 degrees to 80 degrees, in a few instances 

 above 80 degrees. In one large normal school 70 to 72 degrees was 

 the "official temperature;" in many public schools, 70 degrees or 

 above, in others, "about 70 degrees." In a very few schools indi- 

 vidual teachers had secured permission to regulate their rooms, and 

 with the co-operation of their children kept registers closed practically 

 all the time, some windows open, and were rosy cheeked, vigorous 

 groups. These were beginnings of the open air school idea. 



Also bear in mind the conditions of floors and the dustiness of rooms 

 with resulting atmosphere. I visited one famous normal school gradu- 

 ating many thousands of teachers where the floor of its practice 

 school was oiled to retain the dust as we oil roads. It gave the sensa- 

 tion of walking on paste: children were not required to wipe their 

 feet on entering (the floor held the dust), a habit in which mothers 

 were trying to train them; the air was odorous, skirts were soiled, 

 and certainly it was education in slovenliness, not in cleanliness. In 

 certain schools I found janitors permitted to sweep corridors while 

 school was in session; in one normal school, even the schoolroom 

 with twenty-one children and the teacher present. "This wet saw- 

 dust keeps down the dust" was the excuse, but the dust was visible 

 in the air, and could be felt parching nose and throat. 



It is therefore with the greatest satisfaction that we welcome an 

 effort at Cornell University to standardize details of sanitation. 



INSTRUMENTS OF PRECISION AS ADJUNCTS IN THE 

 TEACHING OF SCHOOL HYGIENE 



By GUY MONTROSE WHIPPLE, Ph. D., School of Education, Cornell 



University 



Madame Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : My purpose today 

 is to explain certain phases of the work given in school hygiene 

 in the School of Education at Cornell University. 



The modern development of education has for one of its most 

 characteristic features the adoption of the spirit of scientific 

 research. In place of opinion and speculation, we search for 

 facts and principles. The modern science of school hygiene is 

 one result of this zeal for careful study of the conditions attend- 

 ing the education of children ; and, in my opinion, this science is 



