The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-07-27
TAKE CARE OF THE PUPILS.
1t Is Better to See Them With Rosy
Cheeks Than With Neat Examination
Papers.

It Is Better to See Them With Rosy
Cheeks Than With Neat Examination
Papers.
DR.. Burnham spoke on General sur
vey of school hygiene and said in
part:
After seats of desks. the system of
lights should be looked to. When lights
are needed. electric light should be
used and enough lights placed to allow
the refectors to be placed below.
Blackboards should be of the best
! kind. AS regards chalk, word of
caution is necessary. Arsenic is some
times found in violet and brown chalks
Care should be taken to have chalk
with as little dust as possible.
Every room should have a thermom-
eter and it should be moved several
times during the day There should be
some method of testing the amount of
humidity in the air. The relative hui
nudity of the air has much to do with
the heat and cold of the pupils. There
should be some method of testing the
carbon dioxide in the air Every school
should be provided with means for
testing the eyes of the children, if there
is no medical supervision.
There should be some simple means
for anthropometrical measurements, if
nothing more than scales and a meas
uring rod.
Where free books are used, some
method for disinfecting should be pro-
vided.
II must be remembered that an aver
age does not tell US about an individ-
ual. One may be misled by averages
and we should be careful about being
misled by curves. There should not be
too much faith in curves unless there
is very large number taken to make
the average.
There is likely to be a number of
pupils with whom the hours are too
long and too hard The school is not
entirely responsible for the overpres-
sure, but is largely to blame for much
Of 1t. The school hours may be too
long, the work too hard and not suffi-
GENTLY broken by out of door recess,
etc
Precocious youths and prodigies,
which excite wonder as children, often
turn out to be worthless in after life.
The school house should be clean,
healthful and beautiful. The school
should not shut out the outdoors.
School houses are necessary on ac-
count Of Indictment weather and exigen-
cies of urban life, but they are detri-
mental to the best work. AS we must
have school houses, let us have them
clean and sanitary. If we should put
all the good features of all the schools
into one we should have very
sanitary school, and if we should put
all the bad features into one school, 1t
would be a pretty bad school.
Heating, lighting and sunshine
should be the best possible. The pupils,
should sit correctly, the desks and
seats should be regulated to the
height of the children.
Air, furniture, good heating and
lighting are not ALL There must be
sufficient physical exercise.
The principle of coordination is as
important in school hygiene, as it is in
instruction. The two important fac
tors are greater regard for cleanliness
and the reduction of number of pupils
in each room to 80 to 49, the proper in
struction of teachers in school hygiene,
the introduction of proper medical SUI
pervision.
Seven years ago adapted desks, YER
teal writing, school baths were looked
upon as vagaries of the universities.
1t will be said that our parents at
tended school where none of these laws
were kept, and in spite of this they
were stronger and harder than the
present generation.
We advocate school hygiene not for
our ancestors, but for our children. Our
children are born into an entirely diff
ferent condition than our parents were,
and need different laws in the concen-
trated life they are born into.
A highly important factor in school
hygiene is the health of the teacher
but 1 can speak of only one very gen
eral point. The chief cause of our
worry is the great gap between our
ideals and own performance and our
conditions. Except in a small part we
cannot change our conditions, we hope
not to lose our ideals
The work of any Individual is part
Of process, every teacher should see
his work as part of the process which
gives happy optimism.
Hygiene always insists on the health
Of the individual child. Scholasticism
sometimes creeps into even the kinder
garten, into the primary school and
secondary schools. Hygiene does not
object that the children make beautiful
things, but would rather see them with
rosy cheeks and strong frames than to
see them cut colored papers or have
neat examination papers.