The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1913. HEALTH IN THE SCHOOLS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 30, 4 February 1913, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1913. HEALTH IN THE SCHOOLS.

That seventy-five per cent, of the twenty million school children in the United States of America are suffering from remediable defects in health which need medical attention is the remakably sweeping statement of Dr. T. D. Wood, Professor of Physical Education at Colombia University, in a report to the Board of Education in December last. This doctor, who urges the institution of a new and more adequate system of medical inspection in the schools, declares that between 50 and 98 per cent, of the children have defective teeth and 25 per cent, defective sight, while 30 per cent, suffer from adenoids or enlarged tonsils. Many million children have several ailments, and 25, per cent, suffer from malnutrition. Five per cent, of the country’s children have or have had tubercular disease of the lungs, and an equal number suffer from curvature of the spine or flat-footedness to a degree that is most detrimental to their general health. Organic heart disease claims nearly half a million children among its victims in American schools, Dr. Wood also asserts. “There can bo no doubt about it,” ho says, “that the majority, of American school children are not as healthy as they should be, and if it were possible to estimate accurately the gain to the race and to the nation in one generation by the practical cure of the child health, the country would be startled by one of the most stupendous facts in human history and energised into a telling educational campaign. One hundred cities have adopted medical inspection laws, but the trouble is that each one has a different type, and none seems satisfactory.” Dr. Wood advocates the adoption of the German school system of medical examination of children the moment their names are en-

tercel upon the school books, and highly recommends tho British system of providing free meals for necessitous children. Abnormal children should ho segregated, and the teachers should divide their classes, and as far as possible place congenial children close together. It"is evident that something requires to ho done to remedy this serious state of affairs in tho great country Dr. Wood deals with, but, if hardly so sweeping, observations taken in Britain and other, countries have proved that there is also necessity for action of tho kind referred to by Dr. Wood. r i hat New Zealand has partly undertaken tho work ol medically inspecting school children is also matter for congratulation in tho face of what is being found out in the older lands.