View report page

119
organisation. Arrangements were made for health lessons to be given, and for the
children to write essays on the subject during Health Week. The best three essays
in each school department were selected by the Head Teacher for examination in
the Public Health Office and two prizes, one for girls and one for boys, were
awarded to each school. The Mayor and Mayoress (Alderman Albert J. Clark and
Miss Gladys Clark) kindly entertained to tea the prize winners and the children
whose essays were selected from the various schools. It is satisfactory to record
that with only one exception, all the elementary schools in the Borough took part
in this movement, which has become a useful and well-established custom in
Holborn.
It is difficult for a worker in Public Health to avoid taking an interest in the
teaching of health whether it be to babies, young children, boys and girls,
adolescents, or older people.
In Holborn, the Mayors especially, but also the whole of the Council, have
always taken a great interest in the school children and have done all they could
for the coming generation of Holborn residents. Not the least valuable of their
efforts have been towards promoting the teaching of hygiene. For some years the
school children have been encouraged to take part in Health Week activities. Even
when the need for economy has been paramount we have maintained the practice
of rewarding the school children who have proved their interest in hygiene by
writing answers to examination papers and essays on hygiene. But everyone
appreciates that in the first line come the teachers.
It is largely by their efforts to inculcate the practising of good habits and to
secure the higher aim that the older children should know why good habits
promote health, and bad habits are detrimental to health, that success will come.
The! school teachers above all are instrumental in establishing in the minds of
the children a "health conscience."
In our schools advantage is taken of the teaching and spirit of the Boy
Scout and Girl Guide Movements. It is never too young to learn health; the
younger children are brought in as Wolf Cubs and Brownies and are given the
advantage of play in the open air. When the child's natural instincts are not
enough, he or she is being taught to play; play at all ages is one of the pillars of
good health. We are grateful to all those workers whose efforts have succeeded in
maintaining so far a portion of the site of the Foundling Hospital as a place for
play and not least to the benefactor whose generosity has made this possible.
That success is meeting the efforts of all concerned is apparent. When the
Council see the children massed together on such occasions as Empire Day they
can observe, not only the physique of the children, but all those features which
make for hygiene—cleanliness, tidiness, smart carriage and evident self-respect
In order not to disturb a series of cookery demonstrations at the Maternity
Centre in the early part of October, the special gathering for mothers in
connection with Baby Week was postponed to the 9th January, 1930. At this
gathering an address was given by Dr. Letitia Fairfield, O.B.E., on
"Rheumatism in Children"; the mothers and all the workers at the Centre were
greatly encouraged by the presence of the Mayor and Mayoress (Councillor
Percy Hill, J.P., and Mrs. Hill).
I 2