CONDITIONS OF HEALTH ESSENTIAL FOR CARRYING ON INSTRUCTION. 435 



Children whose hearing is incurably impaired, and who are unable to 

 take part (as suggested) in the same lessons as children whose hearing is 

 sound, should be taught separately in a class set aside for children with 

 defective hearing, or must be taught singly. 



Teachers should always bear in mind that children whose hearing is 

 defective invariably understand best of all the middle sounds, and clear, 

 slow, sharply accentuated speech. 



Children who are really deaf should be sent to special schools, which 

 local educational committees are empowered to establish, or to institu- 

 tions for the deaf and dumb. 



The cost entailed by any scheme which would make the provisions 

 above indicated would, in our opinion, be more than repaid by the resulting 

 benefits accruing to the scholar and the citizen. 



'o 



Children's Teeth. 



The importance of sound teeth has reference, not only to efficient 

 mastication and preparation of food for the alimentary canal, but recent 

 observations go to show that some grave constitutional conditions have 

 also their origin in a dirty, foul mouth with broken-down teeth. Care- 

 fully collected statistics show that a large proportion of schoolchildren 

 in elementary schools have a condition of teeth which will not effectively 

 deal with food with which they are supplied. 



In regard to the prevalence of dental disease, it must be admitted 

 that the most common departure from a normal healthy condition of the 

 human body is found in the decay of teeth. Although it was generally 

 known that children's mouths afforded evidence of much decay, it is only 

 within the last few years that the actual extent has been demonstrated. 

 The British Dental Association made a collective investigation as to the 

 condition of the teeth of children in poor-law schools, workhouses, and 

 reformatories. 10,500 English and Scotch boys and girls of an average 

 age of twelve years were examined. These children had 37,000 unsound 

 teeth. There were 18,000 decayed temporary teeth, more than half of 

 which should have been 'stopped.' There were 19,000 decayed per- 

 manent teeth, 13,000 of which should have been saved, and 6,000 re- 

 quired extraction. Fourteen per cent, only of these children had teeth 

 free from decay. With respect to the cause of such prevalence, neglect 

 must stand first. Deterioration of teeth is intimately connected with a 

 variety of intricate causes affecting the general health of the nation, but 

 there seems to be some divergence of opinion as to what the chief factors 

 are which lead to early decay of teeth. All are agreed that the great 

 cause of decay of teeth is improper or insufficient nutrition during 

 infancy and childhood, and that the development and growth of the teeth 

 suffer in proportion to the general malnutrition of the body resulting 

 from defective feeding, which may be on account of ignorance on the 

 part of the mothers, food adulteration, or actual inability of the parents 

 to provide proper food. There can be little doubt that dietetic errors, 

 poverty with insufficient food, inherited disease, and the unhealthy 

 environment which poverty usually entails — e.g., defective housing, 

 overcrowding, and insanitary surroundings— must all be factors power- 

 fully influencing the growth of the body, and actively antagonistic to 

 healthy physical development of all its tissues and organs. But mal- 

 nutrition plays but a very small part in the production of dental caries, 



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