CHAPTER XIV

IS YOUR SCHOOL MANUFACTURING PHYSICAL

DEFECTS?

Last year a conference on the physical welfare of school children was told by a woman principal: "Of course we need physicians to examine our children and to teach the parents, but many of us principals believe that our school curriculum and our school environment manufacture more physical defects in a month than all your physicians and nurses will correct in a year." At the same meeting the physical director of schools of New York City appealed eloquently for "biological engineers" at school, who would test the child's strength as building engineers are employed to test the strength of beams and foundations. As explanation for the need of the then recently organized National School Hygiene Association, he elaborated the proposition that school requirements and school environment damage child health. "Ocular defects are in direct ratio to the length of time the pupil has attended school. . . . A desk that is too high may easily be the indirect agent for causing scoliosis, producing myopia or astigmatism. . . . Physically examine school children by all means, but do not fail to examine school desks."

Fifty schools in different parts of New York City were examined last year with especial reference to the factors likely to cause or to aggravate physical defects. The results,

1 The Sanitation of Public Buildings, by William Paul Gerhard, contains a valuable discussion of how the school may avoid manufacturing physical defects.

2 By Professor Lila V. North, Baltimore College for Women, for the New York Committee on the Physical Welfare of School Children, 105 East 22d Street, New York City.

tabulated and analyzed, prove that the woman principal was right; many schools are so built or so conducted, many school courses are so devised or so executed, that children are inevitably injured by the environment in which the compulsory education law forces them to spend their formative years.

Recently I noticed that our little office girl, so anæmic and nervous when she left school that we hesitated to employ her, was becoming rosy and spirited. The child herself explained the change: "I like it better. I have more money

to spend. I get more outdoor exercise, and then, oh, the room is so much sunnier and there is more air and the people are all so nice!" And these were just the necessities which were lacking in the school from which she came. Moreover, it is a fair commentary on the school work and the school hygiene in too many of our towns and cities to-day. "I like it better" means that school work is not adapted to the dominant interests of the child, that the curriculum includes subjects remote from the needs and ambitions of the modern school child, and fails to include certain other subjects which it recognizes as useful and necessary, and

therefore finds interesting. "I have more money to spend " means that this little girl was able to have certain things, like a warm, pretty dress, rubbers, or an occasional trolley ride, which she longed for and needed. "I get more outdoor exercise" means that there was no open-air playground for her school, that "setting up" exercises were forgotten, that recess was taken up in rushing home, eating lunch, and rushing back again, and that "after school" was filled up with "helping mother with the housework." "The office is so much sunnier and I get more air" accounts for the

increase in vitality; and "the people are all so nice," for the happy expression and initiative which the undiscriminating discipline at school had crushed out.

For such unsanitary conditions crowded sections of great cities have no apologies to make to rural districts. A wealthy suburb recently learned that there was overcrowding in every class room, and that one school building was so unsanitary as to be a menace to the community. Unadjustable desks, dry sweeping, feather dusters, shiny blackboards, harassing discipline that wrecks nerves, excessive home study and subjects that bore, are not peculiar to great

cities. In a little western town a competition between two self-governing brigades for merit points was determined by the amount of home study; looking back fifteen years, I can see that I was encouraging anæmic and overambitious children to rob themselves of play, sleep, and vitality. Many a rural school violates with impunity more laws of health than city factories are now permitted to transgress.

After child labor is stopped, national and state child labor committees will learn that their real interest all the time has been child welfare, not child age, and will be able to use much of the old literature, simply substituting for "factory" the word "school" when condemning "hazardous occupations likely to sap [children's] nervous energy, stunt their physical growth, blight their minds, destroy their moral fiber, and fit them for the moral scrap heap."

Many of the evils of school environment the teacher can avert, others the school trustee should be expected to correct. So far as unsanitary conditions are permitted, the school accentuates home evils, whereas it should counteract them by instilling proper health habits that will be taken home and practiced. Questions such as were asked in Miss North's study will prove serviceable to any one desiring to know the probable effect of a particular school environment. upon children subject to it. Especially should principals, superintendents, directors, and volunteer committeemen apply such tests to the public, parochial, or private school, orphanage or reformatory for which they may be responsible.

I. NEIGHBORHOOD HEALTH RESOURCES

1. Is the district congested?

2. Is congestion growing?

3. How far away is the nearest public park?

a. Is it large enough?

b. Has it a playground or beauty spot?
c. Has it swings and games?

d. Is play supervised?

e. Have children of different ages equal opportunities, or do the large children monopolize the ground?

f. Are children encouraged by teachers and parents to use this park?

4. Are the streets suitable for play?

a. Does the sun reach them?

b. Are they broad?

c. Are they crowded with traffic?

VACATION-SCHOOL PLAY CLINIC ON A "VACANT" CITY LOT
OWNED BY THE ROCKEFELLER INSTITUTE

FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH

5. How far away is the nearest public bath?

a. Has it a swimming pool?

b. Has it showers?

II. EFFECT OF SCHOOL EQUIPMENT UPON HEALTH

1. Is there an indoor yard?

a. Is the area adequate or inadequate?

b. Is the floor wood, cement, or dirt?