THE MANUAL ARTS 603 



that special and unremitting attention is necessary to minimize the 

 dangers of such incorrect postures. Asymmetrical growth can not be 

 avoided except by a frequent change of muscular tension. Tools and 

 materials must not be pressed against the breast. Ventilation is more 

 important in the shop than in the class room. Sand-paper and in- 

 jurious colorings should be used as little as possible. 



Drawing teachers likewise are now fully cognizant that there are 

 hygienic aspects of their work which can not be safely neglected. For 

 example, the necessity of avoiding accuracy of detail as an aim in the 

 lower grades of instruction, the use of sharp-pointed pencils, intricate 

 models, trying color contrasts, poisonous coloring ingredients, cross- 

 lined paper, etc. 



Although all the above requirements and others relating to the in- 

 ternal hygiene of the domestic arts are of extremely great importance 

 and suffer frequent neglect, it is the purpose of this paper to point out 

 some of the larger and more positive relations of the manual arts to 

 national health. 



The problem of vitality underlies almost every social and political 

 situation confronting us. We are becoming acutely conscious of the 

 possibilities of conservation in the line of health and efficiency. Pro- 

 fessor Irving Fisher estimates that of the one and one half million 

 deaths occurring annually in the United States at least six hundred and 

 thirty thousand are due to preventable causes. He computes that the 

 economic, loss from these postponable deaths is more than one billion 

 dollars every year. Preventable illnesses are still more numerous and 

 are accountable for the waste of almost another billion per year. The 

 running expenses of tuberculosis alone are sufficient to support six 

 hundred Stanford universities, or three fourths of all the common schools 

 in the United States. Typhoid fever robs us of half as much as tuber- 

 culosis. Infant mortality, despite all the advances of preventive medi- 

 cine, has not appreciably decreased in thirty years. In the most civil- 

 ized countries from fifteen to twenty-five per cent, of the children do 

 not live to the age of one year, mostly because of parental ignorance 

 and the neglect of a few simple hygienic measures. If our present 

 stock of knowledge pertaining to health prophylaxis were made uni- 

 versally effective the average length of human life would be immedi- 

 ately increased by not less than sixteen years. Certain diseases we know 

 are even now on the wane and the spread of some others has been 

 checked, but the ravages of a few seem to derive impetus from the un- 

 natural strains and conditions of civilized life. Among the latter are, 

 first of all, the nervous disorders of insanity, hysteria and neurasthenia, 

 and, until a few decades ago, the two most wide-spread and terrible 

 plagues of recent centuries, tuberculosis and syphilis. 



It is not contended that the physical salvation of the nation is to be 



