The Democratic banner. (Mt. Vernon, Ohio) 1898-192?, 1910-03-08
Disease Breeders Whose
Presence Can't Be Seen
And Which Are Menace To
Lives Of Children
Evil Can Be Corrected By
Drinking Arrangement
Communicated
Mt. Vernon. O.. March


At recent meeting of the Third
Ward Mothers club the members vot-
ed UNANIMOUSLY to have a committee
wait upon the board of education and
request that hygienic drinking foun-
tains be installed in all of the pub
lie schools of the city.
This matter has been under discus
sion for some time among the moth
ers of the schools, and they feel that
the board of education and the people
of this city In general must be brought
danger lurking in the germs on the
common drinking cup in the public
schools to the health and lives of the
children is greater by far than the
danger from fires, or from diseases,
such as scarlet fever, smallpox, etc.
Why greater? Because this danger
is always present, and because there
is no way to obtain an estimate of the
fatalities resulting from the promis-
cuous use of the drinking cup or the
number of children suffering from
diseases contracted thereby. A calam-
ity upon whose results an estimate
can be placed, is the one commonly
fought.
We waited for the Collinswood fire
to open our eyes to the necessity of
fire escapes and fire drills. A case of
scarlet fever will cause every school
building in town to be fumigated. But
because we cannot definitely point to
any particular case of sore throat or
tuberculosis resulting from the COM
mon use of the drinking cup, we shut
our eyes to the fact that such things
exist. Even If we wanted to, we could
not disinfect the school cups between
drinks, and neither could we have
row of 800 or 400 drinking cups, all
labeled, and hanging in the school
rooms like shaving cups in a barber
shop, for individual use.
What pity the little fellows, the
little germ fellows, on the drinking
cup cannot make known their pres
ence, spring up, dance around and
wave off their unsuspecting victims,
Fortunately for us, there is some
thing we can do. Scientific research
has found the germ and pointed out
the fact to us that it is there on the
cup, and a recent invention in drink
ing fountains enables us to drive it
out of our public schools. These
fountains have been on the market
comparatively a short time, but have
already been installed in the public
schools at Hamilton, Ravenna, Cleve-
land, Mansfield, Alliance, Shelby,
Fremont, and other Ohio cities, and
a little thought convinces us that they
are an absolute necessity in the pub
lie schools of Mt. Vernon, and that,
too, without delay.
A drinking fountain similar in con-
struction to the ones placed in the
schools of the cities mentioned above,
has been in use in the Y. M. G. A.
Dullulng IN MI vernon IOr SOne JlIne,
and many of our citizens have seen it
and are familiar with it's simple op-
Grafton, and can readily see that it is
absolutely sanitary and that its use
will prevent the spread of disease, so
far as drinking arrangement is con-
cerned. If 1T is good thing for the
Y. M. G. A. building, it is still better
thing for the public schools, because
of the larger number of small children
that assemble in the latter.
The board of education will be call
ed upon at an early day to place the
drinking fountains in all the schools
of the city.
-.SS.----