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The School Hygiene Department of Boston, Mass. The city of Boston, which has led the way into so many fields of civic and educational reform, has had since early in 1907 an efficient Department of School Hygiene. The Director, Dr Thomas F. Harrington, has made a report to Mr. Stratton D. Brooks, Superintendent of Public Schools, upon the work of the year ending September 1, 1908. In this report the duties of the director are defined as follows: “That the Director shall have general supervision and control of all matters affecting the physical welfare of pupils and teachers; of medical inspection, except that under control of the Board of Health; of school nursing; of physical training, military drill, athletics, sports, games, and play engaged in by the pupils or conducted in buildings, yards, and grounds under the control of the Board, or in other buildings, yards, and grounds that it may have the right to use for such purpose.”
At first, the department encountered some opposition from teachei-s who feared that pedagogy was to be medicalized, from parents who resented any usurpation of home authority, from physicians who feared their private practice might be invaded, and from certain members of the public at large who saw dangers of paternalism in the movement. But Dr Harrington says: “To state that all these fears have given way to active elements of strength and hearty co-operation would be no exaggeration.” His department has taken up “the question of the influence on growing children of insufficient sleep; the relationship of extra school work, play and recreation on the quality and the quantity of school work performed; the evidence of fatigue, nervous strain, over-pressure; the value of proper food, clothing, cleanliness; the evil consequences of bad posture, improper seating, impaired or imperfect growth and mental development; and finally the entire absence of any direct connecting link between the home and the school, the parent and the teacher, which could be of advantage to either in the bettering of the condition of the child. Then the question of relationship between the medical inspectors of the Board of Health and the school life of the child, the striving of the school authorities to reduce to a minimum the absenteeism necessitated by the compulsory exclusion of infected pupils. Finally the great question of reaching back to the cause of many defects and the institution of measures of relief which should be effective, yet conservative.”
The report contains most clear and excellent directions to teachers for testing hearing and vision, and gives tables showing the results of such tests in Boston for the year 1907-8. A detailed report of the work of the corps of school nurses is given. Twenty nurses were appointed in September, 1907, and the number was increased to thirty in February, 1908. There is also a special report on school yard playgrounds, and an “Outline Course of Play,” with suggestions to teachers, including physical exercises, games, and fancy step dancing. Last year a nurse from the regular school corps was assigned to each playground. Besides looking after the health of the children, she gave addresses and suggestions to parents on personal hygiene, the care of babies, home nursing, and what to do in emergencies. This part of the report is followed by a bibliography on playgrounds and games prepared by the Boston Public Library. Finally, the pamphlet contains a special report on the Board of Health Medical Inspection of Schools. This section includes blanks used by medical inspectors, rules governing the relation of school nurses to the medical inspection of schools, and a complete syllabus of the setting-up drill as used in the high schools.
Superintendents of schools who desire to do the utmost possible for the welfare of children under their charge, will find in the eighty-one pages of this report enough practical suggestions, clearly expressed, to set them going in the right direction and keep them busy for several years. A Reduction in the Number of Retarded Children in the Philadelphia Schools.
District Superintendent Cornman’s admirable work in collating statistics of retardation in Philadelphia, has already had a marked effect in reducing the number of children retarded. In June, 1907, Dr Cornman reported 12.7 per cent as being twenty or more months in grade. In June, 1908, he found but 6.6 per cent twenty or more months in grade. This very considerable reduction was effected in large part by merely calling attention to the conditions. Hany children are retarded in school progress for no other reason than that teachers and principals are reluctant to advance pupils from grade to grade unless they have rigidly fulfilled all requirements. In June, 1907, 56.4 per cent were exempt, while in June, 1908, this percentage had risen to 71.9 per cent, a difference of 15.5 per cent. The total percentage promoted in June, 1907, was 69.3, and in June, 1908, it was 81.1, a difference of 11.8 per cent. It would appear from these statistics as though the increased promotions were effected largely in the exempt class.
In June, 1908, 0.3 per cent (600 children) had been three years or more in the same grade. It may be justly claimed that at least the third repetition of the work of a grade practically wastes a whole year of the child’s school life.
It is also interesting to observe from Dr Cornman’s statistics that although there has been a considerable increase in the number promoted, and a decrease in the number repeating the work of a grade for the second time or more, the percentage above normal age for grade shows very slight reduction. In June, 1907, 37.1 per cent were above normal age, and in June, 1908, 36.8 per cent.
Some Causes of Retardation.
The following letter disclosing the unnecessary difficulties which the grade teacher is often compelled to face owing to improper classification of children, goes a long way towards explaining the causes which bring about the large amount of backwardness which has been discovered in Philadelphia school children.
“I shall tell you the conditions that prevail in my class-room for five hours per day and five days per week. I have a Sixth Year Grammar Grade, my room seats 42 boys, ranging in age from ten to sixteen. I have 54 boys attending every session, 12 of whom have no desks at which to work. I have three windowsills which we occasionally utilize, but small boys cannot reach a high windowsill comfortably, neither can large boys get very gracefully on their knees on the floor to work at the front benches, nor have boys much ‘lap’ in which to work. “Seventeen of these boys are colored, and they are always older than the white pupils, also they need more individual help. There are descendants of Russians, Italians and one Greek or Armenian, I am not quite sure which.
“So much for conditions. It takes almost an hour to hear these 54 recite a history, geography or physiology lesson, and mark them conscientiously for it. When I have an arithmetic lesson, how can I successfully give some private individual teaching to so many? And there are always children who scarcely learn anything through class instruction. These boys, with very few exceptions, talk incessantly. They think nothing of copying from each other arithmetic, language, spelling and think it very strange that I should object to their doing so. At the end of the month when I give tests, I find that they have learned comparatively little. With this class all my preconceived ideas of psychology and methods have proved utterly futile, all methods have failed. Theory is very beautiful, but to carry it into practice under such conditions is an utter and entire impossibility. It is like teaching in a hurly-burly. And it is not considered by any means a crowded school in which I am, in fact, we are in danger occasionally of losing divisions, due to lack of numbers. The upper grades are small, hence the crowding of the Fifth and Sixth. Now my reasons for the failure of our children to get an education: overcrowded classes, no opportunity for individual instruction (we must not detain), lack of preparation of work at home, indifference of parents. I send home reports month after month with 40 and 50 and sometimes 30 for an average and I never hear a single protest from a parent.”
Socialism and the Church.
Four lectures on “Socialism and the Church” were delivered during October, 1908, before the Kensington Ministers’ Study at the Kensington Branch Y. M. C. A. building, Philadelphia, by Professor Henry R. Mussey of the University of Pennsylvania. The Kensington Ministers’ Study is an association of the ministers of all denominations in the northeast section of Philadelphia, organized to investigate and study local social and industrial conditions for the purpose of gaining a more intelligent idea of the mission of the church to a community of working people. Last year twenty-three weekly and bi-weekly meetings were held, at which members of the Study presented written reports of work done, and listened to lectures by specialists in various fields of social betterment. The invitation to deliver the lectures on “Socialism and the Church” thus came from a distinctly religious organization. The plan was conceived and carried out by the Rev. M. L. Robinson, Religious Work Director; the audience was made up of clergymen; the lectures themselves were just what their title indicates, a broad, intelligent consideration of relationships between these two great social forces. A good bibliography, outlining a course of reading, accompanied the announcement of the course. That this departure is important is indicated by the amount of criticism, both adverse and favorable, which has emanated from various sources.
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