The Colville examiner. [volume] (Colville, Wash.) 1907-1948, 1919-12-27
THE RED CROSS
HEALTH CRUSADE
EVERY SCHOOL IN THE NATION
TO TEACH CHILDREN
HEALTH RULES
Child Gets Credit for Being Clean
and Keeping Clean, and For
Faithful Performance.

WHAT is tne modern nealtn crusade
Now that the Red Cross Christmas
Seal sale is over, and thousands of
people have been told that some of
the proceeds were for the purpose
of introducing the modern health
crusade into the schools, this question
is constantly being asked by people
of Stevens county who have children
in school, or whose children do not
attend school where the crusade
is the thing.
The question is not one of local
import. 1t is nation wide challenge.
Perhaps the query received its
strongest impetus when Ellis Par
ker Butler wrote recently for the
Saturday Evening Post, "A Knight
Without Reproach." But ask any
child who knows, and you will receive
at first nothing but pity for your
ignorance, pity soon replaced by
his desire to enlighten you.
The Modern Health Crusade is a
system of health education now being
introduced into thousands of elemen-
tary schools, movement in which
nearly three million American school
children, qualified as crusaders by
the daily practice of health chores and
habits of cleanliness, are participat-
ing.
Its purpose is the formation of
good health habits, the enlistment of
children in community service, and
the control of preventable disease.
It's unprecedented success is due to
the interest in health aroused in
children by the introduction of play
and romance into the simplest system
of hygiene.
The child who does seventy five
percent of the crusaders health
chores for two, five, ten and fifteen
weeks becomes successfully, a page
squire, knight, and knight banneret
in chivalry. Glasses and schools as
well as individual children may COM
pete in health tournaments. Every
elementary school teacher in the
country can adopt the crusade for
her pupils. 1t is largely home
work proposition, and the teacher
may use all or part Of the prescribed
program.
Superintendents of public instruc-
tion, school principals, teachers and
parents are loud in their praises Of
the effect upon the mind and habits
of the growing child. The child who
takes his chart home to be hung up
and scored every day, takes a part
| of the burden off his mother who
must be continually reminding him
to brush his teeth, wash his neck
and hands; in short, to keep clean.
Many instances have been found
where the entire family resolved to
live up to the health charts, not
only to encourage the children, but
because the rules were simple, reas-
enable and definite, and were the
first which had ever been brought to
their attention.
The ceremony for creating knights
and knights bannerets at the health
tournaments were arranged by DR..
B. J. Lloyd of the Y. S. Public
Health Service, for the crusader
knights of the state of Washington,
when he was stationed at Seattle.
The Modern Health Crusade will
be introduced into large number of
schools of the state this year. At
the close of the school year 1919
there were $4,000 children enrolled.
1t is the aim of the Washington
tuberculosis Association to see as
many more crusaders at the end
of the 1920 school term.
In many schools of the county this
crusade work has already been put
into practice Within the next year
it is believed that every room will
have its list of crusaders.