All investigations which have been made show that the need for health instruction in rural communities is greater than the need for such instruction in the cities. Dr. Thomas D. Wood, of Columbia University, a leading au thority in this country on the subject of health instruction, makes the following statement: "It is apparent that, within the last decade, the actual and vaunted physical superiority of country people and children over those living in cities has been reversed, and it is now confidently affirmed that, for the entire population. city dwellers are more healthy than those who dwell in rural districts; city life is more healthy than that of the country. It is just as true, however, and startlingly significant in view of weeMing statements, that most of our best human material for the cities and the nation as well must still come from the country. If rural America is still to be a satis factory nursery for human life, it must be made healthful and attractive. It must furnish a generous fraction of the best of the population and it must provide conditions favor able for the cultivation of the best.
Health instruction should be given in every schoolroom with the same regularity and defi niteness that instruction is given in English or any other subject. The courses of instruction now given in physiology and hygiene should be revised by a competent group of physicians, social hygienists and teachers, and included in the curriculum of every elementary and sec ondary school in the country under the name of health instruction. The examination now improperly called medical inspection or exam ination or physical examination should be called health examination. Every child should look upon a health examination as a matter of course and not something unusual in school affairs. The child should expect a health ex amination just as he would expect his history or English examination. The term health should be emphasized in every way.
The present system of medical inspection is generally faulty, inefficient and expensive. It will remain so as long as country physicians are employed on a per capita basis in rural schools and part-time physicians are employed in cities. The great bulk of this work should be done by the class-room teacher. No teacher should be graduated from a State normal school, city training school or a training class who has not been trained in her professional course to do the usual health examination work in our schools. No teacher should be licensed to teach who is not qualified to do that work. Special courses should be provided by each State in every city and in suitable centres in supervisory districts where all teachers in the service may be trained to do this work of health instruction. What has been said upon health instruction applies to physical training because physical training is a part of and should be included in health instruction. It is just as essential that a person who goes from an institution for the training of teachers, li censed to teach children, shall be educated and trained to give instruction in health matters as it is that such person shall be educated and trained to teach English, numbers, geography or any other subject in the curriculum. There
must, of course, be directors and supervisors of health instruction who shall bear the same relation to health instruction that a supervisor of English or drawing bears to the instruc tion given in such subjects. The directors and supervisors should be trained in our universi ties for this work. The leading universities of the country should organize courses for the training of men and women for these super visory positions. Many of these institutions are so located that they have the advantage of schools of education, medical colleges, courses for registered nurses,, health departments and local school systems in which health instruc tion is given. These various agencies should all be brought into harmonious co-operation so that the schools may have the benefit of their knowledge of and experience in these import ant health problems.
i There is no subject which affects more di rectly and more vitally the happiness, the social welfare, the industrial productivity and the moral fibre of the nation than the health of its people. While this problem is one which has its embarrassments, it is nevertheless one to be attacked by the schools. It is the duty and obligation of the leaders of public education in this country to predicate the health work of the schools upon standards which will develop men and women who are as fit physically for service in times of peace as the government demands its men shall be in times of war.
Health instruction must not only he given but when the physical examination of a child reveals a physical defect or disability which is an impediment to the normal physical or intel lectual development of such child, the teacher in charge of such child should immediately notify the parent of such defect or disability. It is then the legal or moral obligation of the parent to provide such remedial treatment as the child needs. The effectiveness of health instruction depends upon following up cases which need treatment. Unless such treatment is provided, the health instruction partially fails in accomplishing the great end which is intended. A parent should not be permitted to fail to discharge an obligation of this charac ter to his child. Remedial relief should not be provided by school authorities if a parent able to provide it. This.phase of public school work, like all other features of public educa tion, should be administered so as to develop self-respect, independence, and a keen sense of personal obligation. These are all elements of the best standard of good citizenship. When it is known to school authorities that a parent is unable financially to provide such treatment as a child requires, the necessary relief should be provided at public expense by the school authorities.