THE MANUAL ARTS 605 



in the home. Ninety to ninety-five per cent, of our school children have 

 one or more defective teeth. The sixth-year molars, as a rule, begin to 

 decay Trithin two years after their appearance. The teeth can only be 

 saved by intelligent attention in the home. An individual's ideals of 

 personal cleanliness are an off-shoot of the semi-instinctive sentiments 

 of disgust and are pretty well molded, once for all, in the years preced- 

 ing school age. 



Again over-stimulation in the early years of childhood will leave its 

 permanent influence upon health and character. A large proportion 

 of parents do not half appreciate the importance of sufficient sleep for 

 children. I have known a four-year-old child to be dragged out to a 

 whist party, there to be kept awake till midnight, and then allowed to 

 drink two cups of strong coffee. Investigations into the hours of sleep 

 of school children show that more than half our school children sleep 

 fewer hours per day than authorities have set as the safe minimum. 

 Innumerable children are kept in a state of semi-intoxication by tea 

 and coffee, drinks which are probably as injurious to the young as beer 

 to the adult. Is it not inevitable that as long as such conditions obtain 

 in the home the legal campaign for temperance will be empty of re- 

 sults, and even the artificial restrictions of vice sorely disappointing? 

 Is it not evident that the first condition of moral development is phys- 

 ical health and perfect emotional balance ? Neither the juvenile court, 

 nor the playground, nor ethical instruction in the schools can undo the 

 vicious work of the unfavorable home environment. 



All of the above and much besides must be conceived and taught as 

 part of domestic hygiene, which too often has concerned itself exclu- 

 sively with the externals, such as architecture, plumbing, heating, ven- 

 tilation, etc. The scope of the subject must be enlarged to include 

 everything having to do with the physical and mental health of the 

 family. In a thousand ways there are intimate and delicate relations 

 of personal hygiene which can be adequately dealt with by no other 

 agency than the home. As an example of this may be mentioned the 

 instruction of children in the functions and hygiene of sex. Society 

 faces few problems more important than this one and, considering the 

 prevailing parental ignorance and neglect, certainly few more difficult 

 ones. Havelock Ellis, after twenty years of scientific investigation of 

 the pathology of sex development, reaches the conclusion that only a 

 small minority of children reach maturity without suffering some of 

 the results of sexual ignorance. The problem is equally one of national 

 health and national morals, as is eloquently but awfully attested by the 

 existence of between one and two million syphilitics in the United 

 States. It is doubtful whether the question of sex hygiene can be satis- 

 factorily solved in this country by instruction on the subject in the 

 public schools, and much is to be said against this solution, but unless 



