The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1908-03-19

come iTom ell classes OF Intelligence
/ and keep them and their grade work
even.
| could keep you here till nigh
time for your next meeting with ply
steal reasons Tor the backwardness OF
many OF the pupils in my own depart
ment. You'll find them in the way.
those children are nourished, before
and after they we're born, In the way
they are not kept clean and the man
ner In which they are clothed lt
won't be very safe for me to discuss
fully the chance they had for inherit
ing brain strength to begin with.
have delicate aenemic little six
year old, one of ten children, with
scarce fourteen months between them,
The father is day laborer and thu
mother wishes me to keep her child
up" with a strong, healthy eight year
old who is an only child. Another
child suffers from stomach ache,
whose breakfast was coffee and bread
Coffee has its place In the diet OF
dul's. but any physician can tell you
where 1t belongs in the diet OF grow
ing children. There are some who
must bring their lunches to school be-
cause they live too far away to go
home or their mothers don't want
them there. This lunch time is the
most degrading hour Of the whole
day. IL is here that all that is low
and vile In children comes to the
front and is divided among play fell
lows. The vulgar OF the low on the
minds of the innocent. School lunch
is necessity in many places for both
teachers and pupils. The pupils bring
1t In little tight lard pails-heavy
tried cakes, cookies, pie, not many
apples, or other fruit, In this apple
land and sit In congenial groups un-
der the trees or on the basement steps
to eat 1t. They never wash first, tow
els enough are not furnished, and an
other objection could be raised II
they we're. They eat and talk with
their mouths full to overflowing. A
little distance away 1t sounds like
pigs In Illinois corn. Their whole
thought is to finish and get out to
play. The food is boiled in Jumps
food that Is already harder to digest
from being cold. They "piece" from
the lunch pals at intermissions and
IL there is any left on the way home
Their stomachs never know when
meal time really is. One day last
week little girl came into our hall
about ten minutes after the children
had been dismissed for noon intermis-
sion. She had newspaper parcel
under her arm. The teacher on hall
duty said: "What have you under
your armY" The child laughed back,
"My lunch-I put it up myself this
morning and forgot to bring it. I've
just been home to get 1t. F." The moth
or of that child Is not ignorant. She
prides herself on birth and educa
tion that surpasses any teacher of her
children. She desires her children
to grow up In self respecting, well
bred msturity and sends them, un
necessarily, to lunch at school, or
rather let's then come where children
sit and "trade bills" of any special
dainties they may have-halt dozen
sometimes eating fIom one piece OF
cake or pie.
There are two little country child
rem whose mothers wisely send them
with milk and bread for their lunch,
So we'll has an upper grade teacher
taught the older ones what should
constitute a school lunch that there
is never teasing remark when these
children bring bottle of milk across
the play ground. Last fall had oc
casion to call on mother whose way
ward child was giving US both grave
concern. She spoke pitifully of the
trouble her neighbors' children gave
her in the discipline OF her own son.
Her boy would not be 40 bad 1t 1t
were not for the neighbor child. She
sends hei child to school with his
lunch and he plays for his two hour
noon almost exclusively with the OBJ
jectionable neightor child. 30, con-
sistenoy, thou art jewel"
Along with that problem OF nour-
ishing a child comes another of keep
ing him clean. When cleanliness Is
next to Goodness the soap dish is a
means of grace aud the bath tub
sanctuary. In some cases in our
schools cleanliness q, is so far re-
moved from Godlness as to be to the,
real thing what the automobile is to
It's gasoline smell, a suggestion of the
beyond Cleanliness, or uncleanli
ness, is habit and "hahit Is a
cable We weave thread of 1t every
day and at last we can not break it,"
Cleanliness in reference to the school
is as elsew here, both physical and
moral. In either case 1t belongs to
the department of home and only
through the neglect OF the home Is it
forced upon the teacher. Any child
=. that has an atom OF life and vitality
becomes dirty. Any Marble playing
urchin comes In with good mother
earth plastered all over him. 1t Is
just good, honest, healthy dirt and
good for what ails him-if 1t don't
stay plastered too long. But real
physical uncleanliness Ia OF their own
bodily waste, the kind you could
smell a yard away. Children from
civilized (Y) homes who smell as badly
as the Indian In the strawberry
patches. Their heads are unwashed,
their teeth never knew brush, their
finger nails have gone into mourning
for care they never had--poor children
who do not know the luxury of the
regular weekly bath to say nothing of
a daily one, OF fresh air, internally,
externally and eternally. Maybe you
think me fastidious over particulars,
but 1t is particulars that count and
IL is not too much to ask that child
ren's finger nails be reasonably cared
for, when the danger to infection Of
contagious disease from others Is con-
sidered. In personal medical dis
infection the nails get first care.
Who ever saw physician or surgi-
cal nurse with long, uncleaned nailss
lived once tor three years with the
mother Of four young school children.
She had. q holsehold OF ten and kept
| 1t in good systematic order, herself