HEALTH IN SCHOOLS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 266, 22 August 1936, Page 6

HEALTH IN SCHOOLS.

THE GOVERNMENT’S POLICY. AI ORE DOCTORS AND NURSES. (Per Press Association.) DANNEVIRKE, August 21.' “Health is the first concern. The most important question for our children and their children, for they are the adults of the future, is health,” said the Minister for Education (the Hon. P. Fraser), when opening the new Dannevirke North Primary School this afternoon. Te said it was most important that children should be born healthy and that the parents should have an adequate income to provide a good home, with plenty of sunshine and fresh air and adequate good food. One of the' most important parts of education was psysical education. He regretted that during the years of the depression the question of physical training had fallen into the background. The money and effort spe'nt on it had been greatly reduced with the result that children going from the primary to post-primary schools were physically defective. A few weeks ago he had a very serious report laid before' him about the Wellington Boys’ College, showing the unfortunate state of affairs that the hoys entering it were physically defective, mainly in posture. “It will he one of our most important worries during the coming years to see that there are sufficient physical instructors appointed to go round the schools instructing the children and directing teachers in physcial education, because the more we spend in health services for the children, the less will b spent in endeavouring, sometimes hopelessly, to cure ill-health in grown-up people,” he said. The whole object of health science at present was to endeavour to keep people well. To do that they must begin with the children. They had a good medical service that they were improving. They were strengthening it by getting more doctors and more nurses because they found that with the present service, good as it was, they were not able to have doctors visiting some schools nearly as often as they should, and sometimes, indeed, very rarely. Medical and Dental Attention. He hoped that within a period of five or six years the average child in the primary schools of the Dominion would receive dental treatment and medical attention. There was developing in the Dominion, a new type of open-air school, which was a vast improvement on anything the country had hitherto had. There was no reason why New Zealand should not lead the world in education. Its system had some excellent features and some very bad ones which the Government wanted to improve. During the last few months it had been surprised, and gratified at finding some exceptionally work in schools. He mentioned a Dunedin school, where he found the teacher instructing Standards V. and VI. in singing negro spirituals during the music lesson and then giving some of John Drinkwater’s poems in the choral session. He did not think music had attained such heights in primary schools. When that was reported in a number of schools one could not help feeling proud, of the work being carried on in tho schools and realising the devotion and selfsacrifice of so many of the teachers. On a recent visit to the School for the Deaf at Sumner he had seen work that could not he excelled anywhere. When one saw work of that description one felt that only a beginning had been made in understanding the power of human beings to help one another.