French Broad hustler. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1916-1919, 1916-11-09
MAKING THE HUMAN
RACE STR0NG.


MAKING THE HUMAN
| RACE sTRONG.
BY DR.. T. NJ. Jordan, of the North Car
DINA Health Department.
Medical inspection of school chill
dren deals with the most vital phase
of the problem of rural health-the
health and welfare of children.
1t has ver been and will continue
to be no doubt, and it is a fact OF the
very greatest significance, that most
of our best human material for lead
lership both for cities and the country
must still come from the farms. hence
the urgent necessity for correcting
the defects and conserving the health
or our rural population.
For the most part the raw material
to supply the needs of civilization in
GLIDING the best human supply must
continue to come from the soil. This
is in accordance with the great uni
Versa1 law of life.
Medical Inspection has already in
certain cities and States demonstra-
ted the fact that it is worth while in
the affairs of government in preserv-
ing the lives of nations and mankind.
About four hundred cities and several
States have adopted Medical Inspec-
ton regularly in their public schools.
1t exists in Pennsylvania and at a
large but unbegrudging cost to the tax
payer, It lives in New York City to
demonstrate the fact that rural. New
J vn"t Ia not as healthy a place to grow
into womanhood and manhood as the
city, even including the slum districts;
the death rate of the city having since
the adoption of Medical Inspection
taken a lower number than the rural
death rate which was formally the
lower of the two. For these reasons
we believe that country children de-
serve as careful cultivation as crops
and live stock
1t is recognized more clearly every
day that the public school is the
strategic agency to provide for the
children of each community not only
the best possible methods of general
education, but also the best available
standards for the care of their per-
sonal health and the communal health
as we'll.
The reason that we have stumbled
along all these years in the work of
the preservation Of health and the
prevention of disease is due to the
! fact. that we have neglected during
child life to properly teach the i'm
portance of doing the things that will
prevent disease. They are so simple
that the practice of them fails to in
~terest grown-ups. Teaching hygiene
and sanitation to srownpeonle is Xix
I: putting babyys clothes on the parents.
fyou cannot make a fit. It is like
changing an old mans politics OF an
an old mans religion. you cannot make
the lesson stick to the point Of prac-
ficing. Grown woIks are willing to ad-
init the facts. but believing to the
point of practicing is altogether a diff
lferent proposition. When we believe
we act. We vote a certain ticket in
most instances because Our parents
were of that party and we grew to
manhood believing in that party. The
same is true of church afhliation; we
grow to mature age under certain
church influences and they become a
part of our belief and we attach our
selves to the churches of u parents
because we come to believe in them,
hence the time to educate to the point
of believing and doing is in childhood.
Medical Inspection is a lesson to thN
child that he will never forget and a
lesson that will impress him as long
as he may remember it, that his life IS
worth while and that it his job to take
care of it.
If rural America is to continue to
be a satisfactory nursery of human
life for the nation, it must. be made
healthful and attractive: 1t nus pro-
vide conditions favorable for the Gull
tivation of the best.
The Improvement of human health
and welfare in rural America IS a
problem of the very greatest sign1h-
canoe in relation to our national vel
fare: 1t is q problem affecting ma
|tional safety, national prosperity. ma
tional perpetuity. 1t is a problem
DEALING with the most essential and
the most endangered of all our ma
Ltional resources. Those who have
watched the reflections at the recruit
ing stations upon the calling out OF
our National Guard cannot but view
with alarm the great number OF re-
iections for service at the front~o our
YOUNG North Carolina manhood.
This brings US to another phase OF
this question. What is the duty of
our government in regard to this most
vital subject With the foregoing facts
before-us it is manifest that no longer
can a government delay the doing OF
the acts that would go farther toward
preventing so many reflections of APP
nlicants- for service than any other
means it could employ. No factor is
of greater fundamental Importance for
securing national preparedness either
for peace or possible war than h
rearing of a hardy, healthy manhood,
and the greatest factor in this work
is the Medical Inspection of children
entering public school and the correcs
ton of defects and errors at a time of
life when lasting mental and physical
impressions can be made. The child