MUSSOLINI SETS OUT TO RECTIFY HEALTH EDUCATION OF CHILDREN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18889, 12 October 1929, Page 28 (Supplement)

MUSSOLINI SETS OUT TO RECTIFY HEALTH EDUCATION OF CHILDREN.

Open-Air Schools In Europe Proving Most Successful And Practice Growing Apace. WAR BROUGHT TO NOTICE OF MUSSOLINI DEPLORABLE PHYSIQUE OF ITALIAN ARMY. (By CORA WILDING.) NO COUNTRY IN RECENT YEARS has advanced in educational matters so rapidly as Italy. She is beginning to build open-air schools. One at Milan proved so successful that other cities are following the example of Milan and Rome. Mussolini is greatly interested in these open-air schools, as he realises the great importance of unlimited open air in producing strong healthy children. The war had forcibly brought home to Mussolini the deplorable physique of the Italian army. Tuberculosis was rampant, the number of neglected cripples begging in the streets had long been a reproach, the most elementary sanitary laws were neglected, while malaria exacted a ierrible toll yearly.

Mussolini set out to rectify matters, he paid special attention to school child, and has already achieved, in this short time, remarkable results. The Italian child is now given education in health matters in school. For instance, in the malaria districts round Rome and stretching south to Naples, school children are given talks, illustrated with films, by health officers, which clearly bring home to the children the part that mosquitoes and stagnant water play in producing malaria. Little morality plays about the mosquito are got up, in which the children act. Prizes are given to the children most active in the campaign against the devastating Anopheles mosquito, and to those who collect the greatest number of its larvae. The children, in turn, influence their parents. A recent Government report paid a tribute to the assistance of school children in rendering certain districts healthy and free f rom malaria. Similar educative lectures are given on the prevention of tuberculosis, which are again assisted by the cinema. Prizes are offered for the best essays about the lecture, and also for the best drawings illustrating it. “ Holy Fear,of Alcohol.” Dr Roilier, the world’s greatest authority for the cure of tuberculosis by heliotherapy, and who has seen, more than most men, the terrible havoc worked by the tubercle germ, strongly advocated health teaching along these lines. He also thinks that children should be taught, in schools the danger of the abuse of stimulants such as strong coffee and strong tea, “ and the holy fear of alcohol should be inculcated.” Dr Landottzy's saying that “alcohol makes the bed of tuberculosis ” is a good illustration to explain to the growing child the evils that drink may bring. By thoroughly training children in principles of hygiene, they will retain them, and later teach them to their

own Dr Rollier concludes by stating that in this way “a stronger generation will arise, better armed against tuberculosis.” The school authorities of the commune of Milan, by listening to wise counsels such as these, by realising the value of open air and not dismissing recently acquired knowledge about diet, exercises and sun bathing as “ fads of the day,” are to-day utilising them instead, with splendid benefit to lllliillllUlllllllllllllimilllllllllllllllllllllilllllllllllllillllllllllllllillllilinilllllH

the growing up youngsters of Milan. The open-air school in Milan was opened on a very small scale in 1918. Originally it was intended only for the children of soldiers who had developed tuberculosis. So successsful were the results that the school kept on being enlarged. Last March, when I visited it, there were 1300 boys and girls up to the age of fourteen on its roll. The children are selected by the school doctors of primary schools on account of delicacy, under-weight or predisposition, though no active disease is admitted to the school.

In the summer, from July 15 to September 15, the school is transformed into a summer colony for 2500 delicate children, who again are specially chosen by school doctors. The children live out in the open all day, swimming, playing, gardening and sun-bathing, the latter being carefully supervised, and not overdone. Also those two most important though often neglected factors in child health, adequate rest and proper diet, are ensured. The condition of the children at the end of the two months, I was told, improved amazingly. This summer colony in Milan is run on somewhat similar lines to Dr Elizabeth Gunn’s annual health camp in the North Island. Attached to the open-air school at Milan is the Casa di Sole (house of the sun), where certain children with tubercular parents live all the year round, and only go home for Christmas Day and Easter. Tramways Collect Children. Milan is the most important city, commercially, in Italy. After Naples, it has the largest population, and spreads over a very wide area. To collect the children from the various quarters of the large city, and deposit them at the school, situated away on the extreme outskirts, a special tram service is organised. The trams drop the children at the school gates in good time for breakfast at 8.80, though the breakfast hour in winter is at nine o’clock. The children leave school in the afternoon at 5.30, in winter their departure is one hour earlier. The trams deposit the children at fixed places, where the younger ones are collected by parents. Surrounding the large, open, grassy central space are circles of trees among which cluster nine white school pavilions with cheerful red roofs. The pavilions are capable of being heated. Close by the large iron entrance gates waves a gigantic flag of red, white and green, which each child, both on arrival and departure, salutes every day. On the opposite side of the open space are the administration buildings and Casa di Sole, the chapel and the large refectory with a mast up-to-date and hygienic kitchen attached. In the centre of the open space is a large, beautifully tiled swimming bath. Discipline! Each pavilion consists of four wings, and bears the name of a soldier who had fallen and distinguished himself, during the war. I had just come from peace-promoting Geneva, so I asked if any pavilion had been named after a man of peace, some great scientist. The teacher gave an interesting and Mussoliniesque reply:—

“No, only soldiers, because what the child needs, like the Italian nation, is discipline. The children must have examples of courage, fortitude and discipline held up to them. By instilling them now, to live up to these principles, they will better meet life’s difficulties and hardships later on.”

Our conversation was carried on, rather under difficulties. Her English I found rather difficult to understand, while she, too, found my Italian rather puzzling, so we fell back to French. As we crossed over to one of the many clustered groups out in the open (for nearly all the classes that early spring day were being taught outside), another teacher passed. Up shot his arm in the Fascist salute, which my pretty little compan-

ion returned in similar fashion. Evidently thinking it rather incongruous to salute such a big man in this military fashion, she gave a little shrug murmuring: “We all have to salute each other like that —but we don’t like having to.” Courtesy to Foreigners. In Italy, as in Germany, Denmark and Sweden, English travellers meet with the greatest courtesy and kindness. All who visit England know what a great advantage it is to come from New Zealand. This is largely owing to the magnificent reputation the New Zealand soldiers earned for themselves and their country during the war. It does not apply to anything like the same extent to the other Dominions. Everyone knows, who travels about New Zealand, and in out of the way parts, how very and kind people are. Yet the kindness is sometimes not extended to visitors speaking with a foreign accent, which must be regretted by all who have received much courtesy and kindness, when visiting foreign countries. American tourists have sometimes felt hurt at the lack of politeness shown them. A Swedish woman I met in Stockholm, who had come to New Zealand to study certain social conditions, only received scant facilities for doing so, which is in regrettable contrast to how English women are welcomed and assisted when visiting Sweden. This Swedish woman’s visit took place soon after the war, and her reception was, perhaps, only the result of a passing phase, and foreigners are now, perhaps, treated with the politeness, consideration and kindliness usual amongst New Zealanders. Mussolini’s Photos. At the school, in every classroom, in the refectory, in the kitchen, in the passages, in fact, in every conceivable place, hangs the solemn, grim face of Mussolini. It came almost as a shock, when, hanging up in the director's office, I saw a photo., which proved II Duce capable of smiling. In this photo, in which he is surrounded by bambini (children), to whom he had autographed the photo, he looked not only carefree but positively genial.

The immense handicap to national efficiency and prosperity that disease and ill-health are to his nation is fully realised by the Fascisti leader. Also, he knows that the only ways to improve national physique are first, to ameliorate sanitary and hygienic conditions, and, secondly, to promote the health of the growing-up generation. Mussolini takes a special interest in the large open-air school at Milan, which utilises so successfully modern health discoveries, and visits it from time to time. Children’s Diet. The children.. attending this openair school often come from poverty stricken homes, where their diet is unavoidably deficient. Sometimes, from homes where, through ignorance, harmful diet is allowed when the child eats too many dolci (confectionery) and drinks strong coffee. By providing meals at school, proper nutrition is ensured. The diet is mainly lactovegetarian, and similar to that advocated by Dr Rollier. It consisted of much milk, butter, cheese and eggs, besides a large supply of fruit, verdurra and insalata (green things and salads), and vegetables. These articles are all rich in vitamins, which are essential for the proper growth and development of the body, and also raise the power of resistance to disease. The necessary supply of two-thirds carbo-hydrate (energy food) one-third protein (tissue building) and one-third fats is carefully worked out in right proportions. The large tiled kitchen, with its shining brass saucepans, looks the essence of modern efficiency and cleanliness. The golden piles of large, beautiful oranges in one of the storerooms would have aroused envy in a New Zealand mother. The daily rest of one and a half hours after the midday meal is a most important part of the school regime. This feature, again, is similar to Dr Rollier's sun school for delicate children near Leysin, where lying down for one and a half hours—le silence—is very strictly observed. More and more is the immense importance of adequate rest for the delicato and growingchild being realised.

Daily Exercises and Swimming. “A well developed thorax,” according to Dr Rollier, “ is the best preventive of pulmonary tuberculosis.” Also, regular breathing exercises keep away adenoids and promote the child’s health. So the children are given daily lung exercise to develop their chest walls and lungs. Other exercises are based mainly upon the natural free movements of the ancient Greeks, instead of the stiffer and more rigid Swedish system. In the northern countries, gymnastics have often to be taught in a closed, heated atmosphere, while at this openair school they are taught in the open. For wet weather, there are two huge gymnasiums, with one side completely open, which are built a little way from and on either side of the central openair swimming bath. Correct posture is taught, and hollow back (lordosis), which comes through the weakness and want of tone of the abdominal muscles, carefully corrected. The Greeks regarded these muscles as of great importance, and on their vases dancing girls are often depicted with left foot advanced and right arm forward, and vice versa, a position which brings into play the important oblique abdominal muscles.

Dr Goldth waite (whom Pershing created Medical-General ifi charge of the bonework section of the American Expeditionary Force in France), and also one of the most influential British doctors to-day, Sir Arbuthnot Lane, both regard these muscles as being of the utmost importance. Upon the healthy tone of the abdominal muscles, because of their great influence upon the digestive organs and tract, the health of the body largely depends. The Goldthwaite exercises are widely used in England, and are also taught by Miss Roberts, who is in charge of the New Zealand massage training school at Dunedin. In suitable weather, each child at this Scuola all Aperto goes into the shimming bath, which is capable of being heated. Swimming is a splendid way to promote the child’s development all round. It is evident that the children, with their swimming and physical instruction, besides their free play and gardening, certainly receive adequate exercise at school.

Sun-bathing. Both in Italy and Sweden, sun-bath* ing has been abused in the past—and by abuse is meant that too long exposures to the sun at a time have been given. This reproach cannot be levelled at Scuola all Aperto in Milan. There the child begins with two minutes in the actual sunshine, though his air bath in the shade may be much longer. The next day the two minutes are inci. ..sed to four in the actual sun, and so on progressively, while the airbath is correspondingly shortened. Eventually the child is worked up to half an hour in the sun. He may have another sun bath later on in the day, but he never has more than half an hour at a time when the skin of his whole body is exposed to the actual rays of the sun. Conditions vary greatly in different countries, but it is well to remember that very long exposures are harmful and over-stimulating. Each child has a book in which the teacher records his treatment. The teacher is told never to stop a child should he seek the shade during the sun bath*

Attached to the school is a miniature farmyard. There were two or three goats, a cow and her calf, a few pigs

and the dearest little grey donkey. As I rubbed his soft and evidently expectant grey nose, the teacher remarked: it is good for the children’s education to have these animals belonging to the school, as they are mostly city children." Report of Open-Air School. The official report states that the children attending this open-air school make a notable increase in weight and height, and compare more than favourably with the standard of those attending the ordinary primary schools. This in spite of the fact that the children were selected in the first place for their delicacy and lack of weight to go to this school. Italy is far from being the only European country which recognises the importance of open-air schools, though she is probably the best adapted because of her winter sunshine—an advantage New Zealand also shares—for open air schools in Europe. In Switzerland, open-air schools are spreading in the regions round Geneva and Lausanne. Dr Francken includes sun and air baths in the curriculum of all the elementary schools which come under his jurisdiction. It was in this country that Dr Rollier, whose influence on Italian school authorities has already been pointed out opened for delicate children a sun school in 1910. The forest schools of Germany are well known. In the Press recently appeared an interesting account of a most successful open-air school in Holland. More and more are children being taught out in the open in England while many sick children are nursed in spite of the rigor of the winter climate out in the open air, as at Oswestry and at the large Children’s Hospital at Bath. Lieutenant Muller, the well-known Danish physical culture expert and forcible advocate of fresh-air schools, wrote that all these excellent open air schools in England, America and Germany “ have one defect in common, that only the weakest and sickliest gain admission to these improved conditions. When will the public at large get rid of the preposterous idea that fresh air is a special kind of medicine, only suited to certain cases of illness, such as tuberculosis, but unnecessary to sound people." This was written a few years ago, though even to-day, people may be found who are not in favour of openair schools.

Interest in New Zealand open-air schools has been awakened. Christchurch is proud of being the birthplace of the open air school league, whose motto is “ every school an open-air school.’* The first meeting of the league was held on May 14, 1025, and its ideals and influence are slowly but surely spreading. A branch of the league has been formed in Auckland, and there are already twenty-six Fendalton open-air type classrooms in New Zealand. Mental Health. Not only is the physical health of the child promoted by being taught in the open air, but also his mental health and mental alertness are increased when he is no longer imprisoned between blank walls, during the best part of each day.

The training of the child’s mind and intellect is regarded as of the highest importance, but the immense power that the mind has over producing bodily health is often neglected and not realised. The child should have the will to be fit and well implanted in

him. Let him be proud of being strong and ashamed of ill health, like the in habitants of Samuel Butler's “ Erd whon.” He should be made to realise thal by observing certain laws about diel and exercise his health, present anc future, lies mainly in his own hands. If ever the pursuit of a health ideal succeeded in capturing the imaginatiot of the children, then the New Zealand people may achieve, with her grea natural advantages, the physical per fection of the ancient Greeks. This country has neither extrenu poverty nor over population as in Italy and certain European countries. Th« climate is good, the food abundant, an< there is also the precious heritage o sound British stock and British ideals The splendid bodily fitness of th< Greeks was accompanied by unsurpass ed intellectual powers. The ancien

Greeks left an undying heritage to the world in the realm of art, literature, philosophy, mathematics and science. As racial bodily fitness was linked to intellectual and spiritual attainment* by the Greeks in the past, so perhaps they may be united again by the New Zealanders in the future. If our young people ever succeed in attaining the ideal of physical fitness accompanied by increased mental power, and also strove after the ideal of service, what vast good would result, not only to their own country and people, but also to those of all nations.