WEAKLY CHILDREN

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 256, 26 July 1935, Page 4

WEAKLY CHILDREN

Investigation by Education

Board

.EFFECT OF CONDITIONS IN

THE HOMES

The Wellington Education Board has decided, on the motion of Sir. L. J. McDonald, to set up a committee to investigate the extent, if any, to which home conditions are adversely affecting the physical, mental and moral development of the children attending the schools. Mr. McDonald stated that a responsible social organisation had been making an investigation which was as yet not complete, and he quoted the following typical cases which had come under consideration: Case No. 1. Married relief worker, with young baby, three years on relief, in receipt of 28/- a week, plus goods received from the relief depot, half a pound of butter and half a pound of tea, to the value of about 2/ —total 30/- a week. Rent 14/- a week, leaving 14/- with which to pay for food, tiring, light, clothes and general household requirements. Expenditure per head. 4/8 weekly. Case No. 2. Married man, on relief for five years. Family of six children, varying in ages from 16 years to four months. The four months’ old baby is reported to appear listless and 111. The father now on sustenance in receipt of £2/2/- a week plus 17/4 family allowance a month, making the grand total of his weekly income £2/6/4. Rent £l, leaving £l/6/4 on which eight people are required to live, amounting to 3/3 a head weekly. “Stultified and Listless.” “It is impossible to conceive that children living under the conditions I have outlined could be other than Stultified and listless, their whole outlook, their interests, purpose and aspirations so atrophied as to render them completely incapable of normal concentration or assimilation,” Mr. McDonald said. “Consequently it is too much to expect a return of moral and mental development which would normally accrue from the educational effort devoted to them. This is quite apart from the physical condition, but is a no less important consideration to a society that attaches any importance to the quality of its future citizenship. “In 1033 an inquiry was made in Newcastle by Dr. Spence concerning children between one and live years old. One hundred and twenty-five children of the poorer classes (113 coming from families where the breadwinner was unemployed) and 124 children of the well-to-do professional and commercial class were examined. There was a very conspicuous difference of height and weight. Nearly one-half of the poorer children were anaemic, one-eighth of them seriously. Respiratory diseases and measles had been far less frequent among the children of the well-to-do.”

“Dr. Spence concluded: ‘(1) That at least 36 per cent, of the children In the poor districts of the city of Newcastle were unhealthy or physically unfit, and as a result of this they appeared malnourished. (2) That, since this high incidence of apparent malnutrition is not found in the children of well-to-do families, it is due to preventible causes. (3) In bis opinion the immediate cause of the apparent malnutrition is the physical damage done by infective diseases occurring at susceptible ages under conditions which prevent satisfactory recovery. Those conditions include: (a) housing conditions which permit mass infection; (b) improper and inadequate diet which prevents satisfactory recovery from these illnesses.’ ”