WOMAN'S WORLD

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 43, 15 November 1918, Page 3

WOMAN'S WORLD

, A (Continued from page 2.) THE SCHOOL CLINIC OF TOMORROW The following delightful picture of what may buppan, it only the right people gm busy, bow tiiat tiiu van is over, and do iiiu ligiit ilnr.gs, is wriileii/by Margaiiei JTiUjllan, in. the London "Daily News'':Upstaha theru are light, fair rooms too, tout they, seem at lirst very empty. Where is the drug chest and the long array of. bottles? And why isn't nurse putting ointment on oyes iuid syringing oars ail tho time?. Instead of doing these things s'uo is moving quietly about a vast circle of children who are, it c-oems, resting ;n efoy chairs. In front ot tiie chairs there is a great forest of irires, ana nov and again the Healer becomes visible m a violent Hash of light, or auiiiuio in a dull but sharp whizzing sound ih&i alarms nobody.

The children o: }SBB are a now race. To begin with, llisy aa-e all nurtured— that is, they are taken earo of intensively'and iWiiyidttaiiy by skilled people. AVe do _n« pjwijnise in tliem the poor child of y:'i'.*:\iay. But, though one can get rid 0/ maoy causes of disease in ten years, tne does not necessarily get rid of all ;b* diseasee. So here is a crowd of litvis p.'ijionts—the straggliii}; remnant of neiiius born near the Close of a dark day.

it is IMOi sad a fair June morning. The golden suash'jic rails on thousands of cay and rural homes, thousands of city gArdt'iis. Jyvisrywliore there i.3 tho niii.le of .young leave's., the joy of colour flaming near and about homes, schools, and nurseries; and all this colour and glow of lifo is not confined to plots and prartcrres and 'balconies. It is fnirest and brightest in tho faces and clothing of happy children and fair women and girls who tend them. But down our street there is' a clinic still, and there are children in it Let us look at it and at them.

It is a beautiful lai'ge building. We tiro no longer tempted, as free lances, to spend money on preventive work. The Ministry of Health lias shouldered that work. 'So hero is a large, light waiting room, with clean, fair children in it— but very few. Nearly all the 'patients are upstairs. There are strange cases among them, too. Here, for example, is ouo upon whom Seguin would Lave spent ten years of life and th» finest powers of his mind to effect some real but small progress! How he would have toiled to win for Charles the power to lace his own boots and to draw a triangle. Well! Look at Charles a little closer. The dim blue eyes that never lightened, never emiled .before, now gaze at you as through a veil of darkness, and with a wondering look that somehow suggests a.face seen, in dreams or glancing from below • clear waters.

He has arrived at last, after ten years of living death, a person who can learn to draw triangles in a week, whereas once lie would have leaa-ned, by the best methods, in a year. Lips and eyes are tremulous. He lives! He lives! The child lying next him sighs. Now he waits only for nurso to Telease .him, in order to-use new powers. She takes away the handle 'bearing the live current, and he slips gaily behind her back and runs atilt at the. man who enters. "Steady!" cries the Doctor of the new Day. "Those children are so boisterous when (hey get the use of I heir limbs/' There arc'no baths in this clinic, but there are a great many in homes and also in schools. And hero there'is an X-ray room and a sun bath room and a roof garden and dormitory.- In short, it is-a neiv order of clinic. Electricity, X-rays, the magnetic earth and all its healing powers, sunlight, and science have made an end of the drug chest. "It is all a dream," cries tie sceptic. "A T o such thing "can happen." Well, it has happened already, 'but not for the children]of mean streets. They crowd our reception rooms to-day, end relief irork goes on apace; but the children who were paralysed and who walk, who were dull aud are now normal or almost normal,' are here already—only not in our street. The patients who have been cinrcd aro mostly rich women, or friends of the new order of •medicine, or soldiers -but not very many soldiers. The healing work is not yet carried en wholesale, ae it will be.

It has not yet occurred to our Ministers' that what is now being done for soldiers, maimed through the war. could be" done for children, maimed through poverty. Our legislation is piecemeal, and carried out with nn amazing fidelity to law, rule, and order, and under n great many authorities, who jostle one another even at the top. It is not so much a party we want—but eyes, eyes to see. What if to-morrow, drugs should be given up, and even educational methods .he allowed to take a not altogether tod expansive place? . .

"Government" will not help. It is concerned with'tilings that' are proved alrendy. so that the man in "the. street knows what is essential about them. Buf. there would be no light on the upward path if we cou.ld not act without Government. If any well-off person or gironp of persons can spare even a little money we will bejjin—not to make experiments—but to two a few incurables in Deptford. In this way, and in no other, the existing school clinics began, and in this way only will they win forward into bolder and brighter reaches of service.