The Health of School Children.

Otago Witness, 5 December 1900, Page 62

The Health of School Children.

The health of school 1 ;hildren is paramount to every other consideration. When children, particularly girls, between the ages of 10 and 17, exhibit evidences of nervous disordei, such as twitching of the face and hands or extreme irritability, it is a sure sign either that the school work is too severe or that they are not living under proper hygienic conditions, or both.

In the majority of cases, to conquer the difficulties of arithmetic or grammar or the intricacies of a new language is harder work for the child than are foz the business or professional man his every-day vocations. Hence children need constant care, sympathy, and encouragement.

Children should spend not less than two hours a day in the open air, and, if possible, should engage in games requiring both skill and activity. They should spend in sleep not less than nine, and, if possible, 10 hours out of every 24. The following practices should be prohibited, as injurious to health. Study before partaking of food in the morning ; study immediately after the close of school, before the mind and .body have been rested by play or other suitable change of occupation ; study immediately after eating a hearty meal. The children should have fixed hours for study. When parents find that their children, after conscientious effort, 3aiinot accomplish the work assigned by the teacher in the time specified ii? the rule, they should at once communicate the fact to the principal of the school and ask diminution of the tasks assigned. Parents should never urge children to make extra efforts to obtain promotion, nor show annoyance if they fail to obtain promotion. What . ihildren need for intellectual and moral progress is systematic work. If for any good reason the ihild is not promoted or graduated at the end of the term, he should not be reprimanded, but encouraged to try again. Nor should parents, by finding fault with the teacher, weaken her influence for good. Cigarette-smoking by growing boys is dangerous alike to the physical, the intellectual, and the moral weUibeing. Parents

cannot be too vigilant in preventing their sons from using tobacco in any form, and particularly in that of the cigarette.