Children and Health 



C. A. Stebbins. 



Man and his environment are comparable to the ear drum 

 and sound. Without the drum there is no sound. Without sound 

 "waves" there is no drum functioning as such. Man is such a 

 tense drum, ever reacting to the vibrations and sensations that 

 reach him. He is entirely dependent upon his environment, with 

 the brain as the refining influence. Without the stimuli from 

 without, man would not exist. From an environment normally 

 friendly to his needs, man at birth is thrown into another partly 

 friendly, partly hostile, and indifferent to his wants. He may 

 mark his environment as he in turn is marked by it. The nar- 

 rower the surroundings the more a man's habits take the impress 

 of them, hence the strong man will broaden and enrich his en- 

 vironment by learning. Education, after all, is a matter of broad- 

 ening one's environment. It consists of annexing contiguous ter- 

 ritory. The uneducated man is a prisoner in this little world. 



The normal tympanum, or ear drum, receives stimuli which 

 produce normal reactions and the individual necessarily reacts 

 normally. Given a defective drum due to adenoids, for example, 

 the stimuli are received abnormally, thus man to be a whole man 

 must be first a good animal from the physical point of view. He 

 must receive stimuli normally. His personality must be colored 

 with health. 



The world is out of joint somewhere when not one out of 100 

 people is living at his full efficiency because of minor ailments, 

 such as dyspepsia, nervousness, neuralgia, sick headache, tonsilitis, 

 etc. Minor ailments endanger one's morals and lower the thresh- 

 old for major ailments. The cold may lead to pneumonia. Usual- 

 ly the cynic and the unhappy are looking through some minor ail- 

 ment. "A man full of health is a mine jammed full of wealth" 

 with endless lodes leading to happiness and morality, for a happy 

 man is a moral man. 



Not only do minor ailments levy their tax of unhappiness 

 upon man but they cost him at the lowest one and one-half billions 

 of dollars a year. Nine-tenths of these minor ailments are pre- 

 ventable. Nine-tenths of the twists given to his character are 

 preventable. Essentially in developing a whole man, the matter 

 of health is paramount. 



These ailments may be prevented through heredity, public 

 hygiene, and personal hygiene. In all cases, however, the re- 

 sponsibility rests upon the individual. One has little patience 



272 



