III. BY THE STUDY OF BIOLOGIC SCIENCE 



The Chairman: As some one said yesterday, to have decent homes 

 we must eliminate poverty. All of the speakers this afternoon have 

 mentioned an understanding of biology as fundamental in problems 

 of sanitation and health. In one other essential for preventing infant 

 mortality, popular understanding of biologic laws of sex and parent- 

 hood, admirable pioneer work is being done in a western normal 

 college that should be developed in all normal institutions. We may 

 consider ourselves fortunate that Professor Phelps has come to give 

 us the details of her work. 



BIOLOGIC TEACHING OF SEX 



By Prof. JESSIE PHEL.PS, Michigan State Normal College 



In answer to the question, "How is the Michigan State Nor- 

 mal College fitting its students to establish through the public 

 schools better practices in hygiene and sanitation, and higher 

 ideals of parenthood?" I have to say: "It is doing almost noth- 

 ing." Our student body, like that of most colleges and normal 

 schools, is not even aware of the existence of the problems of 

 infant mortality and health conservation. 



Our institution gives, however, three regular courses that must 

 lead the students who enter them to a consideration of these 

 matters. One is a brief twelve-lesson course in the Domestic 

 Science and Art Department, called Infant Diet, based on Dr. 

 Holt's "Care and Feeding of Children." It gives, among other 

 things, directions for the care of the nursing mother, and actual 

 practice in the preparation of children's dishes and the various 

 modifications of milk. A movement is on foot to have a regu- 

 larly trained visiting nurse who would, in addition to the over- 

 sight of our sick students, give a course to the domestic science 

 women on the care of the pregnant mother and the newly born 

 infant. The course in General Hygiene given in the Physiology 

 Department deals with school and public hygiene, as well as 

 personal hygiene, and much stress is put upon school sanitation. 

 Hough and Sedgwick's "Hygiene of the Human Mechanism 

 and Sanitation of Its Surroundings," supplemented by United 



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