Hygiene in Elementary Schools.

HYGIENE

244

IN

SCHOOLS.

ELEMENTARY

teachers will

ultimately

the instruction in

impart receive ;

and it is manifest that information

on this head sufficient staff has been provided to give effect to any future decisions upon the question. But the regulations contain a model syllabus, to which the authorities of training schools will be expected in all essentials to conform, although they are permitted to offer, for the consideration of the Board, any modifications of this syllabus which they may deem expedient, or which their special circumstances may appear to them to justify or to require. Such modifications are not likely to be important or far-reaching; and, apart from them, we think the syllabus as it stands will receive the cordial approval of the medical profession. It provides for a course of 12 lectures, intended to familiarise the student with the general principles of hygiene, with a view to their practical application when he becomes a teacher in the educational and personal interests of the children under his care. It is not meant as. a guide to the instruction to be given to the children themselves, but to afford to the student teacher a good general view of the subject as a whole ; and it is to be aided by

cannot be

THE LONDON:

LANCET.

SATURDAY, JULY 25,

1908.

Hygiene in Elementary Schools. THE attention which has been directed

during the last few years to questions bearing upon the physical health of the rising generation has at last borne what promises to be good fruit in a systematic endeavour to promote the teaching of the principles of hygiene in elementary schools. An essential preliminary to such an endeavour is, of course, the provision of competent teachers, and to this end the Board of Education has issued a set of revised regulations for the training of teachers for elementary schools which will come into operation on August 1st and which appear well calculated to lay the foundations of a result of national importance. In a memorandum prefatory to the regulations themselves the Board explains the difficulty of harmonising the conflicting claims upon student teachers of general and of special knowledge ; that is to say, of the good general education which will help them to preserve intellectual freshness and moral vigour through the arduous labours of their lives and of the special professional training which is considered by common consent important for all teachers and for all but the most gifted absolutely requisite. Under the latter head must be included not only instruction in the art of teaching but also ar adequate knowledge of certain special subjects which are now essential to the calling, "though not needed in other professions and therefore not necessarily finding a place in the usual courses of a good general education." In this category the Board placesinstruction in hygiene" as one of two "special subjects " which at the present moment are becoming recognised on all hands as of vital importance in connexion with the work of elementary schools, while the second place is given to physical exercises. We should at first

somewhat inclined to

a

of

sight be knowledge

inasmuch the

as

dispute

permitted or encouraged to hygiene which they will themselves be

the assertion that

hygiene is "not needed in other professions," we conceive it to be of essential importance to

expected

until

a

practical demonstrations, and by opportunities for the students to question the lecturer. Among the subjects dwelt upon are the disabilities arising from defects of sense-organs and the importance of cleanliness, both personal and domestic, as a condition of the healthiclass-work with

of schools ; and the course, as a whole, seems well calculated to diffuse, among a large and influential section of the community, a kind and an amount of knowledge in which not only the elementary school children and their parents, but even the classes from which the teachers themselves are mainly recruited, have hitherto been deplorably deficient. The extent of the effect likely to be pro-

ness

duced may be

roughly estimated from the fact that the recognised training colleges mentioned in an appendix to the regulations are licensed to receive 5499 resident and 5644 day students, and that in connexion with the "day" colleges licensed hostels"" afford living accommodation "

for 937

women

and

extent the

of such the

87

men.

We cannot say to what but the very fact sufficient to prove

existing places are occupied; abundant provision is at least

largeness

of the

demand and to show that the

new

teaching can hardly fail to become widely diffused among. a very intelligent section of the adolescent members of the community. Almost the first inquiry which will suggest itself to the managers of training colleges, to whom the new regulations will come as instructions for their guidance, will unquestionably be, " Who shall teach the teachers ?" and public opinion will demand that a clear answer to this inquiry shall proceed from the medical profession, to whose members the new circumstances offer opportunities of the highest possible value. Nothing is born full grown and nothing but disappointment could ensue from great expectations of immediate results. But the lectures required by the Board of Education can only be intelligently given by medical men

right conduct of that profession (if so it may be called) living which practically embraces and conditions all others ; but we must regretfully admit that it is seldom included in any school or university curriculum and that the classes amongst us who are commonly described as educated " are often those who display the most profound ignorance alike of its importance and of its requirements. The notions of hygiene entertained by the squire, and the parson, and the lawyer, and the Member of Parliament are generally, in the language of a recent medical writer, such as they have received in infancy from a nursery-maid who, in her turn, had received them from her grandmother. and we entertain no doubt that the immediate environment The new regulations, being concerned with the training of of every training college will furnish a medical lecturer fully teachers only, afford no clue to the extent to which these equal to the demands upon him and fully cognisant of the

of

I

245

responsibilities which they involve. The effect of his moderate estimate, will be 24,000 and may not impossibly teaching should be, gradually but surely, to impress upon amount to £70,000. It must also be remembered in con. the working classes of this country the extent to which they nexion with the financial position of the Board that the Board’s debt, which results from the enormous sum of purnow suffer in health and life from preventable evils ; from public insanitary conditions due to the ignorance or chase money paid to the old companies, now stands at the neglect of the municipal authorities for whom they vote ; £48,309,000, and that the sinking fund to be set aside to and from private conditions, such as personal and domestic extinguish the debt does not begin for another 15 years. uncleanliness, waste of money upon innutritious foods and The most surprising feature of the report is the statement inordinate beer swilling, to which it would be in their that the working expenses of the Board during the last power to apply remedies themselves, if only their con- year were £115,000, or over 16 per cent., more than sciousness of effects were once guided to a perception of the those of the companies during the last year of their existnature of causes. The Times, in a recent leading article ence. It is true that some of this money will produce upon the subject, referred to PALEY’s definition of education revenue, as it has been employed in"accommodation as including every preparation that is made in our youth works " and new supplies, but Lord SELBY confessed that for the sequel of our lives," and rightly suggested that no such a consequence always attended the transfer of underpreparation could be more important to the industrial takings from private enterprise to the control of public classes than one which would assist them to preserve the bodies, a contingency that was pointed out in our All this seems health which is their sole possession and the indispensable columns upon the creation of the Board. condition of their comfort. If the teaching of hygiene to point to a day not far distant when consumers, other than to send their children to school with clean those in occupation of highly assessed premises, may find a compels parents faces it will take the first step towards inducing these substantial addition to their water bills. But there is a brighter side to the question, and if children, when they become adults, to wash themselves when they return from work, and to insist, as Americans the expenditure upon the water-supply of the metropolis insist at present, upon opportunities for cleanliness in has increased enormously there is no doubt that London factories. Our system of elementary education has from can depend to-day upon a better and purer water-supply the beginning been hopelessly wrong in one respect, that than it has ever known since PETER MoRRYS set his it has been more guided by the possible achievements of wooden wheels to throw Thames water over St. Magnus’ a few than by the obvious necessities of the many. Politicians steeple. Although we have often, and indeed recently, it our duty to call attention to the serious felt have sought popularity by proclaiming their desire that the school should afford to all children opportunities which imperfections which still remain, chief amongst which might enable them to rise in life, or, in other words, to is the almost continual presence of bacillus coli in escape from what the homely language of the Church appreciable amount in filtered water, we do not forget that describes as " the state unto which it has pleased GOD to there is a force working constantly, though quietly, for call them" ; and they have consequently wasted "school- better things, ever gaining experience, and seeking to meet ing " upon thousands who have had no possible use for it with increasing success the dangers inseparable from a and to whom at the same time they have neglected to water-supply derived almost entirely from sewage-polluted impart the only lore which they were capable of turning to rivers. This force is at work in the laboratories of Dr. good account. If the elementary school children of the next A. C. HOUSTON, the director of water examinations few generations can be taught to take proper care of their to the Board, and the fruits of the diligent labours bodies they will in all probability be the parents of others of the staff under his able control are well shown who will derive benefit from a degree or kind of scholastic in such reports as that which we summarise on page training which at present is almost entirely wasted and 255 of our present issue. This presents the result of Dr. HOUSTON’S recent research work dealing with the vitality thrown away. of the typhoid bacillus in artificially infected samples of raw

The

Metropolitan Water-supply.

reference to the

THE

Metropolitan Water Board considered at its last meeting the reports of its various committees for the year 1907-08. From the point of view of the ratepayer it is possible that the report presented by Lord SELBY, chairman of the Finance Committee, will prove of the greatest and

interest, may allude briefly to the somewhat serious financial outlook to which he directed the Board’s attention. we

The balance-sheet

for the last financial year shows a practical equilibrium between debit and credit, although during the four years of the Board’s existence the total surplus has been Z30,000. No accurate estimate can be made for the current year until the revenues which the new rating Act will produce have been reckoned up, but there is every

prospect of

a

deficiency

upon the

year’s working which,

at

Thames, Lea, and New River water, with special

a

fair to establish foreshadowed

question of storage. This research bids very important principle which has been

a

earlier workers, such as FRANKLAND in JORDAN, RUSSELL, and ZEIT in America, country for in 18 experiments with unfiltered water infected with this

by

and

numbers of

bacilli it

found that over the result of simple ; and although the few that survived for even two months might obviously remain a source of danger if the experiment were applied to infected enormous

typhoid

99 per cent. of these organisms died storage of the water for four weeks

was

as

sewage in the actual water-supply, yet a great protection would be afforded by the destruction of the vast majority of typhoid bacilli which would result if the principle of a

’’ safety period"

of

storage

could be

Dr. HOUSTON considers that the

"

uniformly adopted. safety"" of an adequately