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certain special difficulties arose from the selection of older children
for inspection at the present juncture. When children are about to
leave school little opportunity is afforded for securing treatment and
in some instances the children have actually passed out of our
control before their special needs have had mature consideration.
Furthermore, the younger children are in many ways easier to
manage as it is only the prejudices of the parents which have to be
considered, whereas the boys and girls of thirteen and fourteen have
ideas of their own as to the need of attending to the suggestions of
the inspector or of allowing themselves to be weighed and measured.
In one school several of the older girls objected to be inspected
because they had good reason to know that their personal cleanliness
would be subjected to criticism. Such grounds for objection should
be impossible in a well-conducted school. In this particular instance,
though the objection to medical inspection was respected, the health
visitor for the district examined all the children's heads and gave
the necessary—though unpalatable—advice.
It may here be noted that the number of actual objections to
inspection were singularly few, thus in only one instance was
objection raised in respect to an infant though 2877 infants wife
examined. In the case of the older girls some twenty objections
were made. This is an insignificant proportion and not sufficient to
interfere with the work.