The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1921-04-27
Frederic Haslxin's Letter


ored and conspicuous position IN
the school office beneath row Of
dangling tooth brushes, each bear.
ing the printed name OF its owner
Marie" Pietro," JEAN" AN.
gelo." and 81 others. On the wall
near tho washstand, also, are the
rows OF charts with their sanguins
records.
In this same office. too. the moth.
ere Of the neishborhood are Ire
ouently assembled to listen to
words OF wisdom upon the proper
INFRINGING of the child. The val
ne of everything that is done for
the schools pupil is explained; the
importance OF clean bodies and
vell-cared for teeth rs emphasized,
and the visitors are shown how TO
extract the utmost nourishmens
from a soup bone or a piece Of
cheese. They themselves are urged
to bring their children to the
school for weighing and measuring,
and are directed to clinics II in
need of medical treatment.
In short, this Brooklyn school Of
eating does on a small scale what,
child welfare authorities declare,
thu public school of the future must
do for the community. For the ten
dercy of society to make the public
school responsible for the health Of
children as we'll as for their educa-
ton, is growing more and more
marked every year. Long ago, the
state, realizing the general incom-
potency of parents. claimed the
mental training of the child from
the ages of to IA years. Now it is
also beginning to claim the right
to supervise the child's health.
School Doctors.
Already medical inspection has
been introduced into a large num-
Der of schools, and has resulted in
a number of much-needed reforms.
Tubercular children have been seq
regated and placed in special fresh
air classes, while children discov-
cred to have weak hearts are also
receiving special treatment in many
cases. This same medical inspec-
ion. moreover, has revealed the ap-
Mailing amount of malnutrition
which exists among school children.
and the widespread establishment
of school lunches has been the re-
suit.
Europe was the first to realize
that the provision of hot, nutri-
tious lunch to school children was
as great a need as the provisions OF
textbooks, and school lunches were
started in this country, in Philadel-
phia, provoking widespread inter-
est and discussion. 1t was not IN
til 1908 that New York opened lunch
counters in two public schools. and
then not on it's own initiative, but
through the efforts Of private Or
panization. These Immediately
proved 60 successful that since
then a fund of $4,000 has been ap-
propriated to start a far-reaching
school lunch system by which good
food, we'll selected and scientific
cally prepared, will be served at
cost.
Other cities have been equally
progressive in the matter of school
lunches in their schools.
An idea of the importance of this
provision may be gathered from the
records of visiting nurses working
in the tenement neighborhoods Of
New York, who find that 60 per cent
, OF the children in these districts
drink tea and coffee in place OF
milk, and that a very large number,
in the absence of a wage earning
mother, prepare their own scanty
meals. These are the children
whose undernourished brains and
bodies provide the ever-increasing
materials for our prisons, hospitals,
and various asylums.
Good food would go far toward
reducing this e1pensively-maln-
tained scrap-heap. But the provis-
ions of bodybuilding food for chill
dren is not only beyond the in
come of the very poor; it Is task
requiring modern scientific knowl'
edge which even the conscientious
middle-class mother seldom pos
sesses. The school can furnish 1t
at very small cost Large sums are
already being spent on special
classes for dull and backward chill
dren. Would it not be better econ
omy to feed these children three
well-balanced meals a day, as does
the Brooklyn school, and see what
happens?