EDUCATION AND HEALTH.

Auckland Star, Volume XLV, Issue 125, 27 May 1914, Page 4

EDUCATION AND HEALTH.

It was a saying o( that .shrewd American JiumorUt known as Josh Hillings, "If you oa.ii'l -ret 'both good elothce and education, take the clothe*." In New Zealand it would seem that parents mijrlit he serioiwly ach ised that if they cannot obtain botb pood heaJtb aud education for their children, they should ehonse health. The report of l>r. Eliza-

■hetli llunn on the liealth of children in schools in the Wellington educational district has drawn pointed attention Ui the subject there, and has dis-i-liiMul defwts that do not seem to he remediable by the system of me.dieal inspection adopted during recent years. Of ITS children .subjected to examination. 300 !ia;i d-efeeU of some kind. The lar-

git-t proportion of these defects were dental, the number \ic\rp 232: but 137 children .-honed evidence of mal-

nutrition, 131 Pilfered from obstructed breathing, and 11(1 from enlarged glands.

The malnutrition warf. '« many case.-, cauwd or aggravated by the and other oUotrurtiom to breathing; but Dr. Cunn'fl report appears to thou-, that the starved and unhealthy rain- | dition of the children resulted largely I from insanitary and badly-ventilated j schoolrooms, more, especially in the j suburban districts. Thus she reported of Kaiwarra: "A dirty, badlyventilated, badlv-l.phlod. okl school. , and of 1 pper llutt: '•There is a lack of sufficient ventilation in the new c!a«i-room." I" all the schools she (hide the ami fault with the -new" swteme of ventilation. At (ireytovm, in a "lovely larg... room, with all the venti iator-' ojjen, unl never more tlian ten : children in the room," she found a lady ( teacher complain. ::;T "f bring headachy, sick, and faint, and unable to po on with her'work. At -Ma.- t-.-rton, she ra,\-s, Liie rooms are much overcrowded, and in the old part of l> building, are very ; dark. Under such condition*, what ci.n ! lie expected save "an alarming number , of case* of mal-nuir'.tiou," as well k> , of obstructed brpaii.insr. not to apeak j of 54 cases of dof-ctAe vision , . . Out

of 42 children at Taita, an outer .-r.b'.i.':i of Wellin.ston, 10 were found i,:i.T.'r:n ; ■from malnutrition, "all of thim c-hikircn born in New Zealand, and not from poor home*.' . At I'ppcr llutt the pro portion was almost as great—seventeen out of forty-three..

The Board of Education was inclined to place all the blame on tie improper food supplied ,by parents to tho-ir children, and on the practice, of many of the latter of eatincr their lunch too hastily. A resolution was passed calling upon "the Health Department to supply information as to the kind of food that children required; l>ut it is palpable from Dr. (iunn's report that in hci opinion a vast improvement would result from improving the sanitary ( '" n " dition oJ , the schools, and seeing to their proper ventilation. Tn several ca.se* she reeommemled open-air classed. an-d that such would .be "a treinomlous advantage." <»ne hardly requires to be told to-day of the potent virtues of euiiahine and frei>h air: anil it is almost criminal to ahiit up tender children for the better part of everyday in the utterly unsuitable buDdinge that in inanv parts of this country do duty as schools.

The remarks of Dr. Oawkwcll. which we published yirsterday. in some respects, modify the report of Dr. Gunn. and suggest that the oaevs of nial-nutri-tion in Wellington are not as serious lie might be supposed. o<\ving to lack of HaE.-dfi.cation. Dr. Cawkwell ha* had large experience in examining school children in the Auckland educational district, and the results he {rave of the medual inspection of 1730 children show that, conditions are not nearly so bad in lb» district as they are in Wellington. Tlit percentage of mal-mitrition wsi* only about 20 per cent., and ot there cases only /i.T per cent, could be clawed as -bad." There was nothing approaching 50 per cent, in any single school, and not more than one per epnt of the ca«e3 were due to lack of food. Defective teeth, however, appear to he much more prevalent in this district than in Wellington, o."> per cent, of thw

children inspected by l>r. Cawkwell showing dental decay. There wae an almost equally larpe percentage of enlarfred jrlands of the neck. Th-e fact that, with so larjre a prevalence of the?c defects the Auckland percentage of malnutrition la much smaller, supports the view that dark, dirty and badly-vpn-tilated sr-hools, like those in the" Wellington district described hy Dr. Ouni ; . are more responsible fur producing illnourished children than are the physical dejecta referred to. althoiifrli. of roursi.-. these defects arp rontributinj; causes, alonjr -K-ith unsuitable food and hurried eatinjr. It is for par™ts to ccc that their children obtain propej and wholesome food, and are instmctpd to take time for the martication of it; but those Education Boards cannot be. held free from blame that fail to provide plenty of sunlight and fresh air in the ■school buildings. Education becomes a doubtful blessing if it i<s only obtainable at the cost of ill-health' and im-properly-developed, phymcal powers. The prominence piren lo the prevalence of mai nutrition amon; the children of the Dominion ought to res-alt in effecive remedial measures bedag adanted.