The Dominion. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1907. HEALTH IN THE SCHOOL.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 56, 29 November 1907, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1907. HEALTH IN THE SCHOOL.

In a lengthy despatch, appearing in another column, our Auckland correspondent supplies abundant evidence, that Dr. Mason is meeting with warm encouragement 'of' 1 his proposals for the medical inspection of school children. Upon some points Dr. Mason's scheme is a little vague. . It is,not clear, for instance, in what light he wishes the public to attach importance to his scheme—whether it is as a campaign, of healing or merely as an anthropometrical survey. A clear distinction is necessary upon this point, for an anthropometrical survey would, not necessarily involve the State in the very greatly increased responsibilities which reside in a wholesale assumption of an important parental function. Since the State has made education compulsory, and a charge upon the taxpayer, there is a precedent for State care of the physical, as well as of the mental, health of the child. We do not understand that Dr. Mason has actually suggested that the State, either through the Education Boards or through the Health Department, should supply free medical treatment to the children whom the schoolteachers may " mark down" as defective, but that is assuredly what any system of State inspection must develop into eventually. In Great Britain the Education (Administrative Provisions) Act, under which children are medically examined on entering schools, has been followed by a measure under which meals may be furnished to children. It might have been predicted from the beginning that, by the time State education had £ome to fee regarded almost as part pf

the natural order of things, such proposals as those of Dr. Mason would be put forward. It will l)c but a step from State medical attendance' to Slnlo-fcedingJ it is, indeed, certain that if there were more poverty in the country the " State-feeders" would be getting what they wanted from the Government. State-feeding cannot but be evil in the end, for it is merely a premium upon parental neglect of the duty that is the very framework of human society. It is, indeed, difficult to help the child without injuring the parent. As a writer in the London " Times" pointed out on October 12 •last, in an article upon the charitable care of children, the parent is " a force to be reckoned with," and the teacher's tendency to forget the effect of State-coddling upon the parent ''has crept into the minds of those philanthropists and statesmen who have such touching faith in 'dinners.'" The most ordinary caution, therefore, directs that the doctors and the teachers should go slow when it is a question of taking even a short step beyond the'safe enough boundaries of a general medical survey. Difficulties arise at the beginning: willing as they all appear to be to do something, the teachers cannot fairly be asked to undertake any heavy medical detective work in addition to their ordinary duties. Nor is it quite credible that parents who are really concerned about their children's health need a teacher or a doctor to warn them of the physical weaknesses of their little ones. No doubt there are individual cases of carelessness or ignorance, but the parent, who does nothing for his deaf, or short-sighted, or rickety child, is not likely to do much when a card conies pointing out the child's defect. Here is discernible the path to compulsion, and here, again, therefore, is the call for caution. Under a (purely voluntary system, permitted but not financially encouraged by the State, the men-i ace to parental responsibility will, _ of course, be small, but State intervention will require to be hedged about with so many safeguards as hardly to permit anything more than a registration, for the statistician of health, of the physical conditions of the children. These statistics may eventually show a need for the step further being taken, but until that time arrives it would be unwise to involve the State in any general scheme.