840 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. ir. No. 51. 



from contributing to the spread of epidemic 

 diseases and thereby endangering the public 

 health. It is also the duty of the State, 

 particularly where attendance in school is 

 compelled by law, to provide schoolhouses 

 so placed, arranged and furnished that their 

 occupants, both pupils and teachers, shall 

 not be subjected to insanitary influences, or 

 allowed to engage in unhygienic procedures 

 in prosecuting their work. School boards 

 as at present constituted, and teachers as at 

 j)resent trained for their profession, are un- 

 equal to organizing or administering a 

 genuine and elfectual system of school 

 hygiene, such as the times demand in city 

 schools. Experts in medicine, sanitation 

 and hj'giene are necessary, nay, indispensa- 

 ble for such a purpose. 



If the public health is to be effectually 

 guarded, the schools and those that frequent 

 them should be subject to the inspection by 

 properly trained representatives of the 

 Board of Public Health, which board should 

 have a voice in the selection of school sites, 

 and in matters relating to the drainage, 

 plumbing, heating, lighting and ventila- 

 tion of schoolhouses. Ordinary physicians 

 and teachers are not competent, as a rule, 

 to pass intelligently upon questions of sani- 

 tary engineering which naturally arise in 

 connection with the planning, erecting and 

 furnishing of schoolhouses. Sanitarians, 

 architects and hygienists should settle these 

 and kindred questions. Even then there 

 is room left for a special inspector or direc- 

 tor of school hygiene, whose business it 

 should be to see that teachers and janitors 

 carry out such reasonable rules as may be 

 laid down (with regard to the hygiene of the 

 school, the class-room and the hygiene of 

 the school child) by public health of&cers, 

 sanitary experts and school ofl&cials acting 

 together. The teachers should be made 

 thoroughly conversant, during their profes- 

 sional training, with the hygiene of instruc- 

 tion and be required to conform to its prin- 



ciples in all practices and procedures which 

 affect the eyes, ears, brains, muscles or 

 bones of their pupils. These three classes 

 of experts acting together could regulate 

 the gymnastics and plaj'S, hours of study, 

 methods of instruction, in short, the school 

 life of the children, in the interest of pub- 

 lic health, personal hygiene and school 

 efficiency. 



The fact that no American university, 

 medical school, technical school or normal 

 school offers such theoretical and practical 

 courses as are requisite for training up ex- 

 perts in school hygiene may be granted. 

 But we submit that this state of things 

 simply serves to emphasize the need of a 

 campaign of education in the interests of 

 hygiene in general and of school hygiene in 

 particular. Let us strive to enlist the aid 

 of physicians, sanitarians, educational au- 

 thorities and philanthropists in planning 

 and waging such a campaign. The ultimate 

 aim of such a campaign would be the organi- 

 zation and maintenance of a comprehen- 

 sive and effectual system of medical inspec- 

 tion and hygienic supervision of city schools 

 and their pupils. To bring this about, the 

 electorate must first be enlightened and 

 aroused. 



What can we do as members of the N. E. 

 A. to further these ends ? 



1. We can utilize the literature of school 

 hj'giene in making known to the general 

 and educational public the nature and re- 

 sults of European study and experiment. 



2. We can urge the necessity of deter- 

 mining, by thoroughgoing investigation, the 

 actual condition of the school population 

 of our great cities, so that intelligent action 

 may be taken to amend the most obnoxious 

 and dangerous features of that condition. 



3. We can endeavor to induce some pro- 

 gressive and influential universitj' or tech- 

 nical school to grasp the idea that it would 

 be performing a public service, and possibly 

 enter upon a profitable speculation, if it 



