The Factor of Poverty in Sanitation
NEWS AND COMMENT.
The factor of poverty in sanitary problems was discussed in Washington, in November, 1915, by Surgeon General William C. Gorgas, whose success in cleaning up Havana and the Panama canal zone have brought him recognition as America’s leading sanitarian. His audience was the Clinical Society of Surgeons, assembled in their twenty-fourth annual meeting. Dr Gorgas said, in part:
“Such sanitary work as is necessary in the tropics is inexpensive, but measures directed against special disease are not the greatest good that can be accomplished by sanitation. Before these great results that we can all now see are possible for the sanitarian, we shall have to alleviate more or less the poverty at present existing in all civilized communities. Poverty is the greatest of all breeders of disease and the stone-wall against which every sanitarian must finally impinge.
“During the last ten years of my sanitary work I have thought much on this subject. Of what practical measure could the modern sanitarian avail himself to alleviate the poverty of that class of our population which most needs sanitation? It is evident that this poverty is principally due to low wages; that low wages in modern communities are principally due to the fact that there are many more men competing for work than there are jobs to divide among these men. To alleviate this poverty two methods are possible, either a measure directed toward decreasing the number of men competing for jobs, or, on the other hand measures directed toward increasing the number of jobs. “The modern sanitarian can very easily decrease the number of men competing for jobs; if by next summer he should introduce infected stegomyia mosquitos at a dozen different places in the southern United States he could practically guarantee that when winter came we would have several million less persons competing for jobs in the United States than we have at present. This has been the method that man has been subject to for the last six or seven thousand years, but it does not appeal to me, nor, I believe, to yourselves. This method is at present being tried on a huge scale by means of the great war in Europe. But I am sure that every sanitarian would much rather adopt measures looking toward the increase of jobs rather than, as we have done in the past, submit to measures that decrease the number of competitors for jobs. “I recently heard one of the members of the Cabinet state that in the United States 55 per cent of the arable land, for one reason or another, is being held out of use. Now suppose in the United States we could put into effect some measure that would force this 55 per cent of our arable land into use. The effect at once would be to double the number of jobs. If the jobs were doubled in number wages would be doubly increased. The only way I can think of forcing this unused land into use is a tax on land values. I therefore urge for your consideration, as the most important sanitary measure that can be at present devised, a tax on land values.”
The Relations of Instruction in Religion to Public Education. This will be the topic for the first three days of the meeting in thirteenth annual convention of the Religious Education Association in Chicago, February 28, 29, March 1 and 2, 191G. The last day will be devoted to departmental conferences on religious training in colleges, churches and other institutions. At this convention no time will be spent in popular mass meetings, but the whole period will be devoted to carefully planned conferences. The discussions will be based upon a series of investigations into the various experiments in correlated instruction, especially in the Gary plan, the Colorado and North Dakota plans and the different systems of parochial schools and of week-day religious instruction.
The association has no special plan to advocate; the conference will afford opportunity to study the present situation and the various solutions proposed. Some of the topics of discussion are:
The Attitude of the Religious Communions concerning the relations of Church and State in Education.
Upon what conditions can Churches of different denominations combine in giving Week-day Instruction?
What are the reasons for asking the State to give school credits for Religious Instruction?
To what extent are the Churches competent to undertake the Educational Task Involved? Why some Citizens believe that the plan endangers our Religious Liberties.
What influence will the Week-day Instruction plan have on parochial schools?
Two sessions will be devoted to a study of Moral Conditions in High Schools. All persons interested in week-day religious instruction are invited to the conference. The sessions will be held in the Congress Hotel. Programs may be obtained by writing to the Religious Education Association, 332 So. Michigan Ave., Chicago, 111.
Vocational Training for Indians.
The Committee on course of study for the United States Indian Schools recently convened by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Cato Sells, after several weeks’ work in conference at Washington lias completed a course of study which will give to the Indians the best vocational training offered by any school system in the United States.
As these schools must train Indian youth of both sexes to assume the duties and responsibilities of self-support and citizenship, this course strongly emphasizes vocational training. It is classified into three divisions. The first is the beginning stage, the second the finding stage, and the third the finishing stage. During the first and second periods the training in domestic and industrial activities centers around the conditions essential to the improvement and proper maintenance of the home and farm. The course outlined in the prevocational division is unique in the fact that in addition to the regular academic subjects boys are required to take practical courses in farming, gardening, dairying, farm carpentry, farm blacksmithing, farm engineering, farm masonry, farm painting and shoe and harness repairing, and all girls are required to take courses in home cooking, sewing, laundering, nursing, poultry raising and kitchen gardening. This course not only prepares Indian youth for industrial efficiency but at the same time helps them to find the activities for which they are best adapted and to which they should apply themselves definitely during the vocational period, the character and amount of academic work being determined by its relative value and importance as a means of solving the problems of the farmer, mechanic, and housewife.
Non-essentials are eliminated. One-half of each day is given to industrial training and the other half to academic studies. All effort is directed toward training Indian boys and girls for efficient and useful lives under the conditions which they must meet after leaving school. Other objects to which this course directs special attention are health, motherhood and child-welfare, civics, community meetings, and extension work. Making the Dictionary a Popular Boole.
To popularize the dictionary among boys is the task which the official magazine of the Scout Movement, Boys’ Life, has undertaken. That magazine has turned a study of the dictionary into a game, and called it “Scouting in the Dictionary.” Forty-four prizes, valued at $100, will be given to winners. Appropriately these prizes include six dictionaries (the first a $30 and the second a ?27 book) twenty story books from the library approved by the Library Commission of the movement, and eighteen subscriptions to the magazine. The contest that is proposed is simply the forming of words out of the letters contained in the phrase “Boy Scouts of America.” But with its stories about the dictionary Boys’ Life is impelling boys to search the dictionary in this “game” and to abide by its definitions, and in this way is opening to them a new world of words, which will make for the enrichment of their ideas. Teachers may be able to use this contest to quicken the interest of some of their classes. If so, the Boy Scouts’ magazine will be very glad to cooperate with them. The address is 200 Fifth Avenue, New York.
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