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83
ATTENDANCE AT SCHOOL OF CHILDREN
UNDER FIVE YEARS OF AGE.
(Special Report presented to the Council on November 10th, 1905.)
Measles, Whooping Cough, and Diphtheria are specially
prevalent amongst children under 5 years of age, and, in the
course of investigations, I have again and again drawn attention
to the danger that, consequently, exists in collecting
together in the Infants' Departments of Schools, and under
the special conditions that therein exist, children under 5
years of age. I have always held that, having regard to
all the facts of the case, and bearing in mind this great
danger to health, there was no apparent commensurate good
derived from the attendance of children under 5 years of
age at school, from a point of view of health, nor even, in
the opinion of those best able to judge, of education, or
finance. The Compulsory Education Acts have reference
only to children of the age of five years and upwards, but
the method of giving grants also to children between 3 and
5 years of age—a method adopted by the Education Department—has
encouraged the attendance at schools of children
of that age-period, with the result that, during the past
20 years, a very large number of children between 3 and 5
years of age have passed through the Infants' Departments
of the Public Elementary Schools, and many outbreaks of
disease, more especially Measles and Whooping Cough, have
resulted therefrom.
The Education Department has recently held a Special
Enquiry (extending about a year) into the attendance of
children under 5 years of age at public Elementary Schools,
and a Blue-book has been published dealing with the whole
subject, and arriving at the same opinion as has been, from
time to time, expressed in my Reports. It is probable, therefore,
that, in the immediate future, some action will be
taken to prevent the wholesale attendance of children under
5 years of age at Public Elementary Schools—a condition of
things that is most desirable from a public health point of
view, having regard to the amount of infectious disease that
occurs amongst children of that age-period. Even recently
the Infants' Departments of two schools in the Borough have