The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1921-03-24
SAFETY EDUCATION IN
THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
A Speech Before the National
Education Association, Mil
waukee, July 4th, 1919.

waukee, July 4th, 1919.
The National Safety Council has
the temerity to appear before you
with a request for the inclusion IN
the public school curriculum OF an
other interest. We are sufficiently
familiar with the perplexities OF
irving to compact into a child's one
small head all that he ought to know
to realize that we are treading on
dangerous and sacred ground. Ii
we are to be successful in present
ing our claims for the teaching OF
safety in the public schools it can
be done only by convincing you that
a real need exists, that it can be met
in a way that will at the same time
enrich the child's mental and spiritual
life and that. the accommodation IN
the curriculum can be made without
seriously affecting other important
interests.
Nav l further endeavor to make
our intrusion seem less unusual by
recognizing that this forcing In
upon you of the real needs of the
world as developed by experience is
inevitable. The curriculum is only
a miniature of the big world of real
itv and as new interests or old IN
terests in new colors come to the
front you will be engaged in per-
petual attempt to make the best pos
sible adjustment of the studies of
the curriculum to meet these condl-
tionS.
Having told you things that you
already know may / now tell you
what am sure you have not realized,
the toll that accidents are taking of
the life and strength of the country.
The number of deaths due to ac-
cidents in the United States is IN
neighborhool of 10000 year and the
number of serious accidents other
than death about two million. In
other words we have in our factories
and streets the equivalent in their
effect upon our own people of two
European wars going on all the
tine. More specifically, the casual
ties due to accidents in this country
during the period of our participa-
ton IN the war were twice as great
as the casualties to our soldiers In
battle. Year in and year out there
in this perpetual wastage of life and
limb, this agony of torn flesh and
split blood ,this tragedy of husbands
and fathers torn from their families,
of little children brought lifeless or
bleeding to their parents feet. This
is not sacrifice for principle, for
liberty, for democracy, for right and
truth, it is only passionless, sense
less tribute to carelessness and
ignorance. A wife or mother who
has given her husband or her son on
French battlefield has received
some return for his life in the high
emotion of the struggle for a better
world, but a wife who in place of
her husband receives flesh torn or a
pieces by the gears of lathe or a
father and mother to whom is
brought the form of their child
car have no such exchange; they
have only the agonized cry Of want
ing to know what the purport of a
world can be in which such meaning
less things can happen.
Much has already been done to
tighten this horror. Most of the
industrial plants of the country have
done something to redllce their ac-
cidents and in the case of many the
undertaking has been thorough and
effective. Many plants have been
successful I'm reducing their acct
dents TO a third of what they were
under old conditions. Workman's
Compensation laws which lay the re-
sponsibility for accidents directly
upon the employer himself had much
to do IN arousing an interest in this
work but to the credit of employers
be it said that this interest once
aroused has gone forward because OF
the driving force of the appeal OF
humanity. and efficiency. The
strength of the movement can be
measured by the growth of the Ma
t;onal Safety Council. Founded in
1912, it has now a membership re-
presenting over six million of the
industrial workers of the country
It's activities are having a profound
effect. Up to recently the work has
been largely industrial and has per-
force had to do with mort immediate
and obvious needs such as the me-
chanical guarding of machinery and
the organization of shop committees.
This work however is now, so well
under way that the Gouncilkcan direct
its effort toward the field OF public
safety and toward fundamentals and
of these there is none so important
as education.
The problem is at bottom a psyche
logical one, to get people to think in