Boyes’ Backs
- Author:
Charles Keen Taylor.
Philadelphia, Pa.
Until the child goes to school regularly, which he generally does when he is about seven years old, his spine is nearly always straight. For the first year or two, the pupil spends practically an unimportant amount of time bending over his desk, so that bad positions have not the opportunity of making more or less “staying” faults. But at this time a beginning may be made, either for good or bad. The boy may. be trained to sit correctly at his seat, especially when writing or drawing. lie may be trained to read with his book held before his eyes, not with the book flat upon the desk. And here it might appropriately be remarked that a simple, inexpensive contrivance could easily be furnished with each desk, which would hold books in a proper position while being studied. Then the boy may be trained to take a correct position when standing, with his weight balanced evenly upon both feet, and not upon one foot, with the other either crossed over, or moved to one side. A boy may be trained to do these things, but the fact is that he almost invariably is not so trained, and so comes the harvest of spinal curvatures, of all degrees and sizes, nearly, all eradicable, if taken in time, and a constant source of discomfort and even shame if allowed to develop to their full extent. The fault?and the vast number of such cases, reported when the pupils of a school are examined, shows plainly that there is a serious fault?the fault, I say, lies first with the schools, and secondly with the parents.
The majority of schools do not have seats and desks, which may be regulated according to the size of the occupant. Even where such furniture is possessed, it is not customary to have an experienced official go from desk to desk and see that each one is properly adjusted. This should be done twice a year, for children may grow as much as three or four inches in that time. I have seen, in more than one school, a large class of boys seated on seats and before desks which were exactly alike as to size, and how the boys in a class may vary as to size every, teacher knows only too well. In the same class one may have a little chap, whose feet dangle above the floor, and another long-limbed youngster, who must, perforce, have his legs sprawling out into the aisles, it being absurdly impossible for him to get liis knees under his desk. This is a common state of affairs. The results are plain to see. If these boys were stripped to the waist, one could see how their spines were almost continually bent from their normal curves, some on account of low seats and high desks, and some 011 account of tlie reverse conditions. Day after day you would see those spines bent into the same positions. As the boy is bent, so is the man inclined. These daily curves become permanent, and no one is the wiser, until it becomes only too clear that Tom, or James, or Bill has one shoulder visibly higher than the other, and that he does not stand erect.
At first may come tlie usual nagging, in the endeavor to make the boy “hold himself right,” and all to no effect, for he not only will not hold himself right, but he becomes worse rather than better. And finally comes the family physician, or physical culture expert, who reports “spinal curvature”. Then follows a long process of training that curvature out, when it should never have been allowed to come in, and would not have come in if the schools did their duty, in the first place, and the parents did their duty, in the second, for it is the business of the parents to have the growing bodies of their children under constant observation, and so detect any mal-adjustment. in the beginning, and prevent its development. Indeed, to be on the safe side, a child should be examined all over at least twice a year by a capable physician. If this were done, or, better still, if in the first place the beginners at school were trained to take naturally, the correct positions for rending, writing, drawing, standing, and the like, then the unsightly and often dangerous curvature would practically vanish from the schools, instead of seizing, as it does, upon a large percentage of the children of each class. And what is said here concerning boys, can be said with even greater emphasis concerning girls, for with the latter the percentage of curvatures is considerably higher.
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