News And Comment
Americans have been familiarized to the point of satiety with the dogma that more and more children should be brought into the world in order that the race may not languish and die out. The older nations, by safeguarding the lives of the children that they have, are adopting the wiser principle of economy. They act upon the belief that if the rate of infant mortality can be lowered, the birth rate may be allowed to take care of itself. Germany and France have in recent years organized societies to educate mothers in the care of young children and to provide for them medical attendance and, if necessary, proper food.
The movement in England is of more recent inception. In London it is now entering upon its second year, the results of the first year’s work having been decidedly encouraging. The Marylebone Health Society in co-operation with the Marylebone General Dispensary has been running for a year its scheme for training mothers and furnishing medical advice. Their first annual report shows that 98 babies were treated, 58 were brought regularly, and of these 4G made good progress. The report proves that while poverty is sometimes the cause of a high infant mortality, the chief cause is ignorance of what ought to bo done for the child, and in these cases ignorance is much moi*e easily remedied than poverty.
A conference was held on July first by the St. Pancras Mothers’ and Infants’ Society, at which a school for mothers was organized. Train-, ing is to be given to married women and to girls in the feeding, bathing and clothing of infants and the treatment of the minor ailments of childhood. With the aim of inducing mothers to nurse their own children, the society will provide nourishing dinners at nominal expense for the mothers, while those who have been advised not to nurse their children will be given instruction and help in the preparation of suitable artificial food. Benevolent people in London who are interesting themselves in the movement expect it to relieve the excessive infant mortality, the chief cause is ignorance of what ought to be done civilization of their country.
At the meeting of the National Education Association held at Los Angeles last summer, the board of directors authorized the appointment of a committee of investigation into the Provisions in Public Schools for Exceptional Children. Other committees authorized at the same time were: On the Culture Element in Education; on a System of Teaching Morals in Public Schools; on Industrial Education in Rural Schools; on Shortage of Teachers; on a National University; on Courses in Manual Training for Elementary Schools.
Miss Grace Helen Kent, formerly a student of psychology at tlie Iowa State University and later at Harvard, has returned to Philadelphia and will spend the winter in psychological work at the Philadelphia General Hospital.
Dr Karl Stumpf, professor of philosophy at the University of Berlin, and the author of several well-known works on psychological subjects, has been elected rector of the University of Berlin for 1907-08. The position is filled each year by a different member of the faculty, and is much coveted, not only for the sake of the honor and prestige it confers, but also because the rector’s fees accrue to the holder, and amount to about twenty thousand dollars for the year.
The Riverside School, of Pittsburgh, Pa., has just succeeded, after a campaign of ten years, in inducing the school board to equip the building with baths. The baths will be used by the pupils during the day, presumably under the supervision of a school nurse. After school hours mothers living in the neighborhood will be permitted to use the baths for themselves and their younger children.
Edwin Grant Dexter, Ph. D., professor of education in the University of Illinois, who has been appointed commissioner of education in Porto Rico, has gone to that island to enter upon the duties of his new position.
The work done in the public schools in the past four years by the Visiting iNurse Society of Philadelphia, through the activity of its school nurse, Miss Anna L. Stanley, has yielded results of such importance that the society has resolved to extend its influence to a larger field this winter. Four assistant nurses have been engaged for a term of three months. Under the direction of Miss Stanley each nurse will have charge of from three to five schools in the poorer sections of the city. The nurses will co-operate with the medical inspector at the schools, and will visit the homes of the children to see that his directions are carried out, and to assist the parents in improving sanitary conditions at home.
It is well known that the summer camps for boys and for girls have increased notably in numbers and efficiency during the past ten years, there being now some four hundred. Probably over twenty thousand children went into summer camps during the past season. Eight years ago Winthrop Tisdale Talbot, M.D., the director of the oldest camp for boys, established a winter camp school at Holderness, N. H., as a means of continuing the training which had proved valuable for many years during the summer. Permanence and solidity are now being given to this institution by its becoming incorporated under the laws of New Hampshire under the name of Camp Asquam, and by the co-operation of well-known young men, alumni of the camp, as members of the corporation, and by the enlistment of a number of leading educational authorities in America to act as an advisory council. The routine of the daily life at Camp Asquam is the result of years of experiment in making boys healthy, strong, and efficient. Experience has proved the value of long hours of early sleep in the fresh air, careful selection of food and its proper preparation, deep breathing exercises, which resulted last winter in an average increase of over thirty per cent in lung capacity, concentration upon a few subjects instead of many in school work, teaching at an early age the best methods of acquiring information quickly and thoroughly, and studying the physical causes imderlying application and concentration. All book study is done in four morning hours with as little formal recitation as possible and with intervals of intellectual relaxation and muscular exercise. After dinner there is a short period of rest, and the afternoon is spent out of doors, or in stormy weather in the shops. Supper is at dusk during the winter, and in the evening there is no book study, but the time before the early bed hour is taken up with interesting physical and chemical experiments, music, charades, and games. Horseback riding and the care of horses, wood chopping, work on the farm, and rifle practice as a means of improving nervous control, enter largely into the educational plan. The efficient results gained by this mode of living have thus far amply justified Dr Talbot’s departure from conventional methods.
The Triennial Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, which was opened in Richmond, Va., on October 2d, is still in session. On October 11th the House of Bishops adopted a resolution presented by Bishop David H. Greer, of New York, calling upon all churchmen to join in fighting child labor in the United States. It reads as follows: “Whereas, The evil of child labor is apparently on the increase in the United States, and it is known that the employment of children in factories, mines and shops reduces wages, disintegrates the family, deprives the child of natural rights to a period of training and depreciates the human stock, and “Whereas, We recognize the profound responsibility of the Church for our ethical as well as oir spiritual standards; “Therefore, We call upon employers and parents to use their influence to better legislation and better enforcement of the laws, to the end that the exploitation of the labor of children shall become impossible in this Christian country.” The resolution was presented to the House of Deputies and adopted by that body on October 12th.
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