Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1898-02-11
HYGIENE OF SCHOOLS
HEALTHY eOrlEs T-E FIRST REoul-
STE or SCHOLARS.


Needed.
Rousseau says if you wish to develop
the mind develop the power which the
mind has to govern. Make him strong
and healthy, that you may make him
prudent and reasonable.
Milton declares that 10 be weak is 10
be miserable.
WATSON SAYS that intellect in a weak
body is like gold in spent swimmers
pocket. The richer he would be under
other circumstances the greater his dan
ger now. of all teachers nature Is the
most severe, since she never fOrgets an
infraction of her laws and visits her
penalties alike upon the ignorant and
guilty.
Most of the school buildings Of the
country have been effectively construct
ed and are a fruitful source for the
propagation of contagious and prevent
able diseases 1t is stated, on what
seems competent authority, that 200, 900
persons are annually slaughtered in the
United States by preventable diseases.
]
| children cannot be stated with any de-
gree of accuracy, but it must be large.
We embellish and decorate the exte-
rior of our educational buildings, but
apply no scientific principles in the ad-
! iustment of light, heat and ventilation,
and as result have legion suffering
with optical and other diseases due TO
/ : t1ssft ION
Three and four story buildings are erect
ed for school purposes, and our girls go
up and down long stairways, engender-
ing physical ailments which incapaci-
tate them for life and render the sue
ceeding generation at least weaker If
wiser.
The spinal and other diseases caused
by this excessive climbing to thousands
of girls cling to them through life, pro-
ducing an untold amount of suffering,
supplanting youthful beauty with wrin-
killed. and pale features and premature
ly bringing on decay and old age Shall
we allow this to continue year after
year and be silent?
Physicians occasionally, through the
: medium of some medical journal, her
aid blast against these radical evils,
yet because of the means employed
: their influence fails to reach and arouse
the people. The bad effects arising from
bad light, heat and ventilation are SC
many, so varied and so farreaching that
| conceive it to be the duty of parents
to so speak and act that legislative re-
, lief may lie had so that our school:
may be relieved Of the danger which
threatens, with other causes, to deterio
rate the race We should know that Oul
children take their bodies to school
lungs, intestines, blood, backbone, nerv
2 GUS system; that the schools as they
exist proceed for the most part on will
full ignorance of the conditions which
: these and other organs demand TO
e health and that as matter of demon
:. strated fact the school is seriously at
lacking the physical vitality of tn
+ race.
y Visit primary school crowded will
pupils on a cold winter day, Of al
places needing ventilation none seem
S to demand more. Crowded with chill
l. dren Of an age at which they pay bu
little if any attention to personal clean
I illness, tho material is of the best t
e render the air impure and unfit t.
j. breathe. The young and growing bod.
is profoundly influenced for good o
II evil by hygienio surroundings. Bat
| sanitary conditions may SO impress tn
>, delicate organization of natural,
weak child as to make life q burden t.
l. him or may SO influence q vigorous con
n stitution as to materially lessen hi
p power.
. The foolish method of training tn
II mind at the expense of the body cal
O only be denounced as criminal, and
/ behooves us to take hand in the mat
ter and force sanitary legislation 70
!, the welfare of the children Of the ma
+ ton.
:, Some enc has said, "Schools are alb
solute manufactures Of the shortsight
ed-a variety of the human race whicl
e has been created within historic tim
and which, if the result of the investi
- cations is to be believed, is enormously
:. increasing in number this last half O
n the nineteenth century. AS generation
% follows generation visible defects mul
tiply. Excessive eye strain in extrem
d cases of myopia causes blindness.
6 1t is true that shortsightednes is OF
ten hereditary. But this does not mea
i that the children of shortsighted par
S ents are born shortsighted. They hav
# only the predisposition to become SC
and this predisposition is develope
. through school life. Yet the condition
lie surrounding the children in most of GU
"a schools tend to produce shortsightednes
r in children who have no hereditary pre-
u disposition, and the statistics show tha
It the percentage of school children atfiict
,f ed Herewith increases from year to veal
The effects of school life in producin
l. nearsightedness in the pupils was frs
4 brought to public attention some year
- ago by the result Of the systemati
study Of the subject by DR., G. r. Al
It new of New York. In an address befor
h the Medico-Legal society of that city b
=, stated the results of an investigate
:. made in various schools of Cincinnati
New York and Brooklyn. The numbe
ID of pupils examined was !, 479, of whoi
&c $50 were in Cincinnati, $40 in Me-
- York and 800 in Brooklyn. Of the SO
c. pupils in the Cincinnati schools, &c
n were from the primary grades, and {
of these 83R per cent were nearsightet
"a In the intermediate schools 2l0 pupi
is were examined, and of these so pt
n cent were natural and ID per cent nea