Perth Amboy evening news., 1921-10-29

WASHINGTON, Oct. 26.-"A
good complexion powder is graham
flour.
when you're hungry between
meals eat a glass of water.
Are you superstitious A light
thrown over the left shoulder while
writing brings good luck
These humorous remarks were
written for children, but there is
something in them for any one who
will read them carefully. They r
a few of the daily health notes on
a new calendar published by the
Child Health Organization.
The Bureau of Education is try
ing to interest every school in h
country in health. Attempts to
teach health rules to adults. and TO
make them health enthusiasts. have
been practically admitted failures.
Grown persons are set in their
ways. They will take some kind of
exercise if it happens to appeal to
them, and does not interfere with
their accustomed routine. But tea,
coffee, and late hours becom so
much a part of the life of the aver
age adult that he rarely a h
will power to break away from
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regards himself as reasonably
healthy.
So the educators are turning to
| the children, and new methods are
being adopted. At n time a
school that taught the number of
bones in the body and how the
blood circulates thought it was
teaching the principles of health.
Now, the teacher is more apt to run
around the school yard with a troop
OF children following her to make
the blood circulate.
The important fact hat the Blu
reau of Education is striving to en-
phasize is that health habits are not
instructive. No child instinctively
goes to bed at nine o'clock in order
to get ten hours of sleep.
Nor is washing before meals in
stinctive. The health calendars adj
vice that the first course of every
meal should be served in a wash
bowl would not have been UNDER
stood by medieval folk who thought
nothing of dirt and died like rats
when disease germs spread. Instinct
did not lead them to keep them
selves and their houses. food and
water clean.
Today we know astounding facts
about the power of germs and how
to keep we'll, but there is nothing to
show tina instinct has been urging
everybody to eat plenty of vitamines
all along.
Keeping Well a Science
Most of our health rules are
based on facts that scientists and
doctors have spent years in determ-
lining. In order to make these rules
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popular.
In the schools, the spirit of COM
/ petition achieves what rules could
not. The Bureau of Education has
found hat children become inten-
sely interested in records for neat
ness, keeping health rules, and
bringing themselves up to a high
standard of health. This is regard
ed as encouraging.
The difficulty 4 that not all the
children are being reached. Even
with interest in health keener than
it has ever been. there are several
rural districts where the children do
not have any physical training at all
And not all city schools are work.
ing to raise the health standards of
individual pupils. There is no one
to tell children that they r under
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and milk, and that they are slow in
learning because they do not get
enough sleep.
Commissioner of Education Tigert
believes hat all of these schools
should be giving time to health
teaching. Something is wrong with
a school system that turns out stoop-
shouldered and underfed graduates.
ut is admitted by every one that
nothing in life is worth while with
out health" says Mr.. Tigert.
1--WE have long taught the theory
of health in the schools through
courses in physiology. We are COM
batting disease and defects through
school doctors and school nurses.
But we have only lately come to see
that it is the daily practice of health
habits which is important, and that
it is the duty of the public schools
to give to every child this founda-
ton for personal success and value
as a citizen.
Our Low Standard of Health
That the health standard of the
nation does need raising. and must
be raised in some way was shown
by the often quoted draft figures:
one out of -four men unfit for SER
vice.
IN the schools four out of five
children need dental treatment
And according to DIR. L. Emmett
Holt surveys made among school