H5 



Further, it was decided that an attempt should be made to dent 

 the inertia of the communities concerned as to the need of mos- 

 quito elimination, and the plan as prepared by the Committee at 

 present, is to set aside a certain week in the first part of May 

 during which week every effort should be made to reach all of 

 the educable people in the community.- We feel the place to 

 attack this problem, as so many other health problems, is in 

 the grammar school. In other words, we think our largest audi- 

 ence that can be depended upon to listen and is in a position to be 

 taught and may be considered to be interested is in the grammar 

 school population of the city and vicinity, and Ave are planning 

 then to have in the hands or before each child in each class, 

 among the five hundred and fifty odd schools in the City of New 

 York, among the little less than a million school children in the 

 City of New York, in the public and parochial schools, a jar of 

 water with mosquitoes breeding therein, and developing therein, 

 and have that accompanied by a simple brief text similar to the 

 catechisms that have been prepared by Dr. Carter and others, and 

 followed right along by personal instruction by the teachers. 

 Through our School Health News, which is a monthly publica- 

 tion issued jointly by the Department of Health and Education, 

 we can reach all the school teachers very quickly, and we; shall put 

 this in their hands. The Department of Education has now given 

 its formal assent to this plan and we can count on its cooperation. 



Our application of education to the parents has got to be car- 

 ried on partly by newspaper publicity, and partly by inspection 

 and education. That is the function of the inspector who has 

 for a generation been considered a detective, prosecutor and 

 policeman, but not either an educator or a persuader. Now, we 

 are doing our best to develop our corps of sanitary inspectors 

 and food inspectors and others into a trained corps of teachers. 

 We consider that the man who can't prevail upon a citizen who 

 has mosquito-breeding ■ property on his premises, to abate that 

 nuisance by his personal effort, is a failure as a teacher. If he 

 has then to bring a case into court that, under ideal conditions 

 of administration, ought to be scored up against him as a failure. 



We think that the persuasive power of the inspectors ought to 



