The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1921-11-01
Frederick Haskln's Letter
tspecas ndeneeo OF me Arxnsl
Health Dope for Children.
tspecisl Correspondence

Washington. d. c., Oct. 31.-"A
good complexion powder is graham
| -four
When you're hungry between
meals eat a glass of water.
! Are you superstiious? 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
few of the daily health notes on
a new calendar published by the
j Child Health organization.
The bureau of education is try
ing to interest every school in the
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 become so
| much part of the life of the aver
age adult that he rarely has the
will power to break away from
them. So long as he can go" he
regards himself as reasonably
healthy.
So the educators, are turning to
the children, and new methods are
being adopted. At one 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
troop of children following her to
make the blood circulate.
The important fact that the bu-
reau Of education is striving to en-
phasize is that health habits are
not instructive No child instinct
lively goes to bed at o'clock in or
der to get 10 hours of sleep.
Nor is washing before meals in
stinctiVe. The health calendars
advice that the first course Of ev-
cry meal should be served in a
wash bowl would not have been
understood by medieval folk who
thought nothing of dirt and died
like rats when disease germs
spread. Instinct did not lead them
to keep themselves and their
houses, food and water clean
Today we know astounding facts
about the power of germs and how
to keep well. but there is nothing
to show that instinct has been urg-
ing everybody to eat plenty of vita
mines all along.
Keeping Well a Science.
Most of our health rules are
based on facts that scientists and
doctors have spent years in deter
mining. In order to make these
rules habits it is necessary to make
them popular.
In the schools the spirit of com
petition achieves what rules could
not. The bureau of education has
found that children become in
tenseiy interested in records for
neatness, keeping health rules. and
bringing themselves up to a high
standard of health. This is re-
garded as encouraging.
The difficulty is that not all the
children are being reached. Even
with interest in keener health 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
working TO raise the health stand
ards of individual pupils. There
is no one to tell children that they
are underweight from eating too
little fruit and milk, or that they
are slow in learning because they
do not get eDOuph SIapn
Commissioner of Education I'll
CERT believes that 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.
1T is admitted by every one that