Evening star., 1934-08-12
BY COVE HAMBIDGE,
Author OF "'Time to Live"

TIME bones of children who get
too little sunlight or vitamin d
go through softening process.
a known as the ricketS, which
may leave the children perma-
nently and pitably crippled. OF late
years the backbone of America itself
has been getting soft; we have been
developing a sort of national rickets.
do not mean to say that the spines of
individual citizens are turning to jelly.
But 1t is scarcely arguahle that the
backbone of America is its educational
system, or, more specifically, its public
school system-and the signs of rick
cts in this central bony structure are
alarming.
Shall we allow the sinister disease
to go on, or shall we put an end to 1t
speedily?
This is the subject to be discussed
at a great convention which is to open
in New York Wednesday and continue
until August "a. Sponsored by the Ma
tional Association of Public School
Business Officials, by Columbia Uni
versity's Teachers College, by New
Oik OLilNCiSlbg 0AttOOl Va IfAoSobAOh
and by a large committee of distin-
guished citizens. this convention,
called the National Schoolview. will
turn an X-ray on Americas rachitic
educational spine, so the weakening Of
the bones may be plainly seen by all.
Along with the convention in the
Port Authority Commerce Building,
there will be great public exhibit,
called the National Schoolmart, Of the
thousands of separate material things
that. are used in the. schools today.
The exhibit should prove conclusively
that educational rickets is a matter OF
vital concern, not only to the common
everyday parent whose youngsters are
in school-or should be-but also TO
big business.
10000, 600 Cram Schools.
For as a certain famous pickle fac
tory began in small kitchen and,
nursed by modern economic condi-
tions, grew to be an industrial giant,
so the little red school house has grown
to be an industrial giant under mod
ern social conditions. Our schools and
COllCkcS bOQdy dlC VI WA0AA aROAS
80, 600, 900 people-pupils and teach
ers-which is to say, about fourth
of the total population. Segregate
them, put them all in one place, and
they would make city four times as
large as the largest city in the United
States. This, obviously, is a market
not to be sneezed at by business and
industry. 1t is the biggest single mar
ket in America for some things,
Time was when schools needed little
more than text books and states. To-
day, with more and more schools boast
ing laboratories, workshops, kitchens,
sewing rooms, gymnasiums. swimming
pools, music rooms, theatrical stages
with all the fittings and motion picture
auditoriums, there is a need for almost
everything one might name. To take
a single striking example, go, 600 buses
are now used to transport youngsters
TO and from school
When schools are hard hit and can
not buy what they need for their
80 600 900 inhabitants, it is evident
that business and industry are going
to feel the pinch.
buI Lie DdQ pd4b VI ~ 10 bAAoS WAA@~N
children are deprived of in the way
of education today cannot be made up
at some future time. Let me make
another nutritional comparison. Sup
pose that when am young I do not
have certain food elements vital to my
growth and development Even though
/ am able to attain a good diet later
in life. it is likely that I will suffer
all nv life from the bad teeth. or the
twisted spine, or the weakened mucous
membranes. or the susceptibility to
disease acquired during those years
when I should have been developing
a strong, well knit body to meet the
strains and stresses of life as an adult.
These are the growing years assigned
10 this work, and neglect at this time
can be only partially repaired later on.
3.00o,0O0 Young on Streets.
1t is scarcely to be doubted that
mental and moral malnutrition works
| in much the same way. At the pres
ent moment, it is said, there are B.
600 600 youngsters between the ages
Of S and II on the streets in the
United States simply because there
are no schools to take care of them.
A few who prove to be exceptionally
able and fortunate will doubtless es-
cape the worst effects of present neg
lect there are always outstanding in
dividuals who outwit the deviltries Of
circumstance (and they are usually
the ones who shout that what was
good enough for them should be good
enough for u.s..
But the vast majority will not be
| exceptionally able and fortunate. The
opportunities they miss now cannot
be made up when they grow older.
The twist given to their viewpoint now
will not be Strengthened out later.
They are young once, not ever again,
and the pattern of the adult is set
in youth. The incompetent, the fail
ure, the misfit and the criminal are
made in youth.
Physical malnutrition is apparent.
The twisted. dvarfed. gaunt bodies OF
starved children arouse intolerable
pity. and We say something must be
done about 1t: 1t cannot go on. Mental
and moral malnutrition does not show
on the surface; one does not see the
dwarfed. gaunt mind at glance. Sc
we are not moved to say with the
same determinatiOa that something