New Britain herald., 1925-01-10
New Britain Leads Nation h
 Dripe 10 Keep Smallpox Down
SS Per Cent of Children in This City lnOculated as Against 73 Per Cent Average in Country.

New Britains leads the country in the per cent of school .nJrlIcn vac cinated against smallpox, t $ 'Js- closed by tho American Ihil.i II Ellth association in its report on an in>ts- tigation into the health habits nt children In the fifth grades through out the United states. This Citys record in this item IS almost perfect, sS per cent of the children having been tnoCuatcd against the disease, whereas the general average for the whole country Is only 73 per cent, This safe condition Is due tu the ac- tion of the city authorities during the smallpox epidemic last winter, when all school children were rcqur- cd to be yacClnated.
 These figures are the result of q nationwide survey of the St cities having a population betweou 4o,oo0 and 7g,Qdo during last year. ApproM- mately S5,000 individual records were taken and tabulatcd, giving sey- eral interesting results. Specialists in educational measurcm 'nis were consulted as to the accuracy to be expected from such q survey, and their opinion was that the replies would be accurate to at ,eaNt h5 per cent, which figures subsequent checks have Corroborated.
 The questions were read off rn each fifth grade room and tha pupils were asked to write down what they did at a specific time. such as that morning or the day before, greater accuracy being obtained in this way than by requiring the children to gen eralize. The answers were not sign ed, so that truthful answers are thought to have been made, accord ing to George T. Palmer, director of the research work,
 In other respects than vaccination. New Britain does not fare so well in the survey, but in most cases this city is either just below or just above the general average, being in no instance near the bottom of the list.
 Average Sleeping Period.
 The average New Britain child of fifth grade age goes to bed at 9:o1 D. m. and arises at 7:0S d. m, having had hours and 54 minutes of sleep. These figures show that local Childen go to bed six minutes later and get up three minutes later than the aver age child throughout the country and get two minutes less of sleep. The real "early-to- bed and early to- rise" youngsters live in Ncwton Mass. and Chattanooga, Tenn, where most of the children arc abed before S:1j o'clock. but the laziest seem to live in Berkeley. Cal, where the average sleeping period is 10 hours and 40 minutes. Most children here hit the sheets between S:45 and 9:14 o'clock and have from to 10 hours of bliss ful unconsCiousncss.
 IS Per Cent Drink Coffee
 Nearly half of the school children here, or 4S per cent. drink coffee, which is above the general average of 29 per cent and far above the ir- reproachable Newton, Mass, with only nine per cent. Only six per cent here have more than two cups, which is the national average. Milk Is popular here, 60 per cent drinking more than a pint a day and IS per cent more than a quart, while only IS per cent go without lacteal fluid; in this respect, New Britain is just above the nation as whole. The average youngster here drinks F glasses of milk day.
 Saturday Night Ordeal
 At the time the figures were talk en, 84 per cent of the children here had had bath during the previous week, which is considerably under the national figure of a2 per cent. More than half. or 6S per cent. had brushed their teeth the previous day, against 6S per cent for the whole country. Slightly under one half, 47 per cent, had visited the dentist during the year, while the national average was 5 per cent.
 One child out of every hundred in New Britain goes to school without any breakfast. but this IS bit bet ter than the condition through the whole nation. On the other hand, three out of 1nn attend classes after an unsubstantial matutinal meal consisting only of liquid or fruit, and this is somewhat worse than the na- tional situation.
 Other figures relating 10 dict and play are still being analysed by the bea1fb Q association