The Clarksburg telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1874-1926, 1912-04-11
IS
BIG FACTOR
IN SCHOOLS
Normal Training of Teachers
is Almost An Absolute
Necessity.
AT CERTAIN s STAGE
In the School Life of Chill.
dren Declares Profess
,sor Hughes.
SOUTH BETHLEHEM, Pa, April

SOUTH BETHLEHEM, Pa, April 4
Percy Hughes, professor of philoso,
ply and education at Lehigh Univef-
sity, delivered an address here last
night before the Conference on Con-
servation of School Children, held
under the auspices of the American
Academy OF Medicine. Professor
Hughes's subject was the instructors
point of view in the teaching Of by,
giene, and he spoke in part as fol-
lows:
What should be taught in the field
of hygiene, is an ideal OF complete
living, realized as far as may be under
the conditions OF the school room.
During the first six years Of the
school life, hygiene should be taught
as incidental to the art of doing and
living efficiently, OF attaining those
scholastic and social aims which a
true school life makes prominent.
Most treatises on hygiene for elemen-
tary grades still sAeak OF health as
though 1t were dominant motive in
the child life; whereas boys and girls
Of that age seek the joys OF achieve.
ment rather than the mere comfort
Of being well. They do not miss health,
and therefore do not seek IT, They
think effectively. and should do so.
II the school building, the school
equipment, the school program, the
personality and life of the teacher
are eloquent of health. and if the
teacher is informed and alert to make
use OF the games OF the child, and
every part of instruction as means
Of forming habits OF health, II it is
recognized that education is at every
state a preparation for life, only in
SO far as it is itself complete llv-
ing. according to the stage of develop
ment of the child, then the child will
learn in such school an ideal Of
efficient and Joyous living which will
remain with him. Without such an
ideal and such memory, hygienlc
habits are unlearned under the oc-
casional stresses of life and are not
renewed.
But in the seventh or eighth grade,
at the dawn of adolescence, the rules
Of health, and some of the most evil
dent data OF physiology may be sum
married., with special reference not SO
much to the child himself, as to the
social and civic life Of the commun-
ity, into which he must now feel he
Is entering.
OF four difficult subjects in hygiene,
civic hygiene, sex hygiene, the abuse
OF alcohol and the abuse of narcotics,
the most difficult to treat in this way
is that OF sex hygiene, which has re.
ceived special attention in this con-
ference. But even here the teacher
Will urge, think, the same position.
In like manner alcohol, tobacco, etc..
may be discussed in relation to those
civic and social problems which arise
as the school leads the child to feel
the responsibility which already be-
gins to rest upon him. Whether in
the high school or in the grades, the
obstacle that stands in the way of in.
structing the child to live according
to a hygienic ideal is the poor pre-
paratton Of the teacher Any one can
teach the average book in physiology
and hygiene. To bring the whole
school life to bear in the formation
of hygienic habits and ideals of Nv
ing requires a teacher of at least a
good high school training supple
mented by normal school course in
which much of the work has been
brought directly to bear upon just
this purpose.