The School Studied It

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 95, 18 April 1941, Page 5

The School Studied It

H:- C. D. SOMERSET is well known for his book "Littledene," in which he surveys the lite of a North Canterbury rural district. He has now written a pamphlet called ) "Child Nutrition in a Rural Community," which has been published by the Council for Educational Research. In it he describes how, during the depression years, his district high school tackled the problem of malnutrition among its children. The question of food is one that interests everybody, and Mr. Somerset has the happy facility of revealing to his readers the living human. significance of the subject under discussion. When his school undertook to study the problem of nutrition it embarked on what seems an exciting scientific adventure. Everything was related to the work of the school in a practical way. The testing of children each day for weight and height involved statistical calculation; free milk required pasteurisation, and this was done in the school by the home science students. The school garden was organised not for purposes of nature study -but to show the mineral and vitamin contents of different fruits and their nutrition values. Experiments were carried out with rats to show children the effects of white bread and wholemeal. The details and results of all this are described in a way which will interest not only teachers, but parents and others. It is furnished with a list of 41 books for wider reading with a note of the main public libraries in which they can be obtained. It is a matter of interest that the Dunedin Public Library is outstanding in its holdings. Of the 41 titles it has 30, while next in order are Wellington Public Library with 19, and Auckland Public Library with 14.-(Book Talk by John Harris, 4Y A, March 5).