press. The most potent helper that a public official can have is an editor, if he is the right kind. I can say exactly the other thing, that he can be the worst enemy of a public official, if it is necessary; but I do firmly believe that the majority of the editors exercise due discrimination on which side they cast their lot.

I am very glad, as I am sure you will be, that we have a good representative of this class here to-night, in Mr. Frank L. Greene, editor of the St. Albans Messenger, whom I wish to introduce to you.

THE NEWSPAPER IN ITS RELATION TO PUBLIC HEALTH.

BY FRANK L. GREENE.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:-I remember an old story that was told to me, and I will try and pass it on to you, it was told about a young man who was at a great political convention, and was unexpectedly called upon for a speech. He was in company with an elderly friend, and when he was called upon to speak, he leaned over and said excitedly: "Uncle, what shall I talk about?" His uncle looked wise, and said "Just talk about a minute."

I have been asked to say a few words to you to-night, and I feel that it is quite out of my line, for a layman to give anything like counsel to professional men. I will try to be serious for a time, and have written down my serious things so I would not forget them.

I desire briefly to lay before you for consideration the indispensability of the aid of newspaper publicity in your enforcement of sanitary laws, and I hope to do so as a private citizen interested as a man and householder in the health of the community and not as a mere news-vender. Indeed, it seems to me that the more the various officials in charge of the people's business realize that, while of course primarily instituted as a gainful enterprise, the properly conducted newspaper is nevertheless actuated by the same high ideals of being useful to the public service that actuate the most enlightened and public spirited private citizen, the closer the press and the government will work together and the greater the popular benefits that will ensue.

I shall ask you to forget some of the oldtime ideas of journalism, to forget the newspaper as a mere personal or factional organ, to be employed solely to accomplish its owner's private political ends or business purposes of one kind or another. I shall ask you to forget the once justifiable popular impression that apart from its meagre merits as a news-vender the newspaper was designed to serve merely the desires and objects of one man or set of men and could not conceal the narrow limits of its self interest even at that but often suppressed news that it deemed inimical to its own purpose to

publish. I shall ask you to forget this pioneer stage of journalism and to consider the press and its mission as it is revealed to-day in the modern conception and use of publicity.

It is too late to explain to a body of men like yourselves that one of the greatest factors in the ordering of the world's affairs to-day is publicity. I need not point out to you what the wonderful discoveries in improved methods of transmitting intelligence from one side of the globe to the other -the telegraph, the telephone and the printing press, bringing to the ears or laying bare before the eyes of all people everywhere the secrets of every art or craft or of every nation under every clime,—have done for the enlightenment and progress of mankind. I need not dwell upon the incalculable benefits to the race that have resulted and are daily resulting from the ceaseless activity of the newspapers and their remarkable power to keep any given number of people all thinking about the same thing at the same time. As sensible men you realize that the way to get improvements in the public service nowadays, the way to reform institutions of government, secure better laws, advance public utilities, and obtain the highest degree of performance of duty on the part of public servants of all classes everywhere, is to get the newspapers interested in the matter.

And so, I am here to-night at the request of your officers to remind you of the desire of all reputable, public spirited newspapers everywhere in Vermont to coöperate with you in the noble labor of safeguarding the public health. The newspapers of Vermont can be your best allies in the many and perplexing tasks that present themselves for you to perform throughout the year and they will be glad to lend you their aid, to work with you to the accomplishment of your great purpose, from wholly disinterested motives and because they realize that it is a part of their acknowledged mission to do so. Perhaps the most perplexing question that will present itself to you in connection with this matter of newspaper publicity is to determine where the right of the individual man or woman to privacy in his or her affairs and interests leave off and the right of the community to publicity about them begins. But this, it seems to me, upon analysis will resolve itself in each case more into a matter of sentiment than of fact. There is a natural aversion on the part of most men and women to having the details of their exact condition of health made a matter of public knowledge. The inherent instinct of privacy combats the modern idea that the community at large has a property in the health of all the people that compose it. And yet the very post you hold as health officer, the very law you are commissioned to execute, are themselves the creations of these very same people, and directly equivalent to their full, free, solemn avowal that every man, woman, or child among them has a distinct and inalienable right to know the condition of health of all the others; to this extent, that they shall at all times be put upon their guard against any contagious and infectious diseases from which their fellow citizens may be suffering. The modern sanitary laws, the modern statutes enforcing certain regulations in the interest of the public health, are simply man's attempt to enact into positive form one

of the rudiments of the great ancient natural law of self-preservation. He is rather late in setting about it, to be sure, but he has actually recorded his recognition of the fact that all his neighbors have a right to be put upon their guard against him if he is suffering from some communicable disease. And it is your duty and the duty of the newspapers to compel him to live up to his own law. And so right here I submit to your judgment that the right to quarantine a man's house is in itself an implication of the right to publish the fact of such quarantining. For that matter, the health officer does nail up in a conspicuous position on the house a placard bearing the name of the disease against which the public is to be warned. That is publication, surely, but in a limited sense. It is restricted to a warning of all such persons only when they get to the doorstep and then only such as are able to read.

What do you say to the proposition that the health officer should report all cases of quarantine to the newspapers for publication as well as placard the house? Why would not all the purposes of warning the public against a contagious or infectious disease be better served by the newspaper publication?

Again, when a community is threatened by an epidemic of some dangerous disease, why not take its newspapers into confidence from the beginning? Does not experience show over and over again that it is better for the public to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, than to be kept in ignorance? I realize full well that there is still an oldfashioned aversion to publicity to be overcome in such cases, that business men will bring all manner of pressure to bear upon both health officers and newspapers in an endeavor to prevent the publication of news of local epidemics so that people will not be scared away and trade will not be affected. But it seems to me the duty of both health officers and newspapers is plain under such circumstances. The only way to safeguard the public health is to warn the people that a contagious or infectious disease prevails in a certain locality and caution them to avoid it. It seems to me there is absolutely no escape from the logic of this, that is, if we agree beforehand that human lives are worth more than a few dollars and cents in trade.

Beside all that, it has been shown over and over again how this very same mistaken idea of conservatism and caution that invokes secrecy in such matters invariably results in one of two evils that work infinitely greater mischief to the community than the truth would have done in the first place. That is to say, either the news of the actual state of affairs is suppressed so long that when the public is put on its guard the epidemic is found to be far more serious than anybody had even dreamed of and lives have been or are lost through ignorance of actual conditions, or else, as is always the case when the facts are not promptly disclosed, rumor with its thousand tongues carries far and wide sensational and extravagant stories of the epidemic, that do more damage to the trade resources of the community than the simple truth would have done in the beginning.

And there is something at stake in this business beside the preservation of the public health from some specific instance of danger. There is something in it beside merely warning people that their neighbors are suffering from contagious or infectious diseases and to look out and avoid contact with them. There is the education of the public along advanced lines of hygiene and sanitation in it. There is the building up of a public sentiment that will help health officers to enforce sometimes drastic but necessary laws. The health officer may have volumes of law behind him, but he can do little toward effectively enforcing them unless he is backed by public sentiment. He may be aware of abuses and nuisances more or less prevalent in his community which may not be covered by any specific law, but which none the less should be remedied. But, with the best intentions in the world, he can do nothing in the way of reform without an enlightened public sentiment behind him. If he will take the newspapers into his confidence, if he will treat with them as responsible allies in his own mission, just as they are treated with as responsible allies by other public servants, the newspaper will in time create the public sentiment that will correct the abuses. The press, by daily calling attention to a fact or principle or by making timely and important application of it to fit immediate conditions, gradually forms the popular habits of thought along new lines and builds up a public sentiment that in time accepts an entirely new proposition as a matter of implicit faith, as a commonplace matter of fact. By virtue of persistent publicity, by keeping everlastingly at it, as the newspaper men themselves say, the press moulds public opinion and aids in the cause of good government.

SCHOOL SANITATION.

BY HON. WALTER R. RANGER.

Mr. President:—I have not had time to prepare a paper for this important session, but perhaps I can best deliver my simple message to you in a direct and intimate talk. Though this is a school for health officers and I am an old teacher, I am not going to play the schoolmaster with you, but will simply try to point out some existing conditions and some pressing needs in school sanitation. It is a good thing to see people of mature age going to school again, seeking ways and means for the betterment of our people. The work of the State Board of Health is a public interest of supreme importance and your summer session means a great deal for the common weal of Vermont. No one of us is too old to learn in life's unending school.

I would not lay all the responsibility of healthful schoolhouses on the physician, but more and more we laymen are confidently looking to your noble

profession as the chief agency in conserving and improving conditions of public health. Any community will, in time, heed the persistent demand of its health officer. Supported by the State Board of Health, the local health officer can do more than any one else to improve the hygienic conditions of schoolhouses in his community. Existing law and sympathetic public opinion give you opportunity and influence to perform a high service for our school children.

When we remember that one fifth-yes, nearly one fourth of our population is shut up in schoolhouses for several hours each day during the school year, we will realize that this subject of school hygiene is worthy of your most sincere consideration. Furthermore, I think you will realize, when you remember that our people become better by one generation being a little better than the former, that among the forces and agencies making for better public health this great agency of the school is really one of the most helpful means for promoting better health in the state of Vermont.

While "health is the first wealth," strangely enough, there is no subject in the school more distasteful to pupils and teachers than physiology and hygiene. No one thing seems more difficult to inspire within teachers' minds than a just appreciation of the proper care of the health of school children. For years, the state has attempted, through the educational department, to instruct its teachers that one of the first duties of a teacher is thoughtful care for the health of her pupils. Every true parent cares most for the health of his child at school. The parent-and many parents make the public-does not want health sacrificed for the benefits of school education; for good health is a prime aim in rational education. It is high time for the intelligent citizenship of Vermont to provide that no schoolhouse shall longer exist in the state with unhealthy conditions, unsightly surroundings and immoral influences.

With fine sanitary schoolhouses, with due regard to the laws of health, with proper provisions for lighting, heating and ventilation, and with the actual formation of habits of health, the school, by educating its children, becomes a real force in the development of a stronger, healthier and happier race. Without such conditions school becomes powerless to promote better health or even to care for the health of its pupils. The school may well exercise a larger function in this matter of health. I am inclined to think that the school has not been recognized as an agency for promoting better health so much as it should be. We will all agree that good health is a fundamental element in education; we will agree that not only will good, schoolhouses make for good health of children, but that health is one of the prime and fundamental means for which the school has been created. We understand to-day, as never before, what is meant by physical education. I remember hearing a college professor say, "You can get along very well without brains, but you must have a good stomach." He evidently meant that one needs first a well ordered stomach, and that the brain will perform its function if the stomach is kept in good order.