THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RACE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3278, 10 January 1917, Page 7

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RACE.

MEDICAL INSPECTION, MENTALITY TESTS AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION. Miss Phoebe Myers, the convenor of the Committee' of the Council of Education set lip to deal with the mutter of medical inspection, supplied members of the council with an outline of the proposals which she has in view. Briefly summarised, the chief aim of the convener, who first introduced this matter to the council, is 10 provide for a systematic building up of the physique of the nation, together with a provision for dealing with the different, types of mentality at a much earlier stage than at present. This would involve the co-ordination under one organising centre of the work of the Plunket nurse system, the type of work instituted by Dr Truby King, the infant life protection agencies, and the various institutions for the care of orphan or neglected children, including the feebleminded. This would cover the infant stage of life, but the system should be continued and related to the earliest forms of education, .such as kindergarten education, whereby both physical and mental development of the children would be followed up. This first step would be extended and related 10 the physical and medical inspection of children from the earliest stage of primary school work onwards. The guiding purpose of the whole scheme is to enlist all available agencies for tho development of a healthy, intelligent race, and to educate parents, teachers, social and benevolent workers, and all who have to do with children in the best means of preventing much of the mental and physical waste which obtains at present The mentality tests would bear the same relation to the intellectual condition of tho children as iiie present medical inspection bears to their physical wollbeing. but each would supplement the other, 'the object would lie to find. and. if possible, to remove at the earliest stage, the causes of physical and intellectual retardation and to provide for better adaptation of educational agencies to the individual capabilities of the children.