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51
There has, up to the present, been an absence of the necessary
organisation whereby the effects of parental ignorance and neglect
might be mitigated. Before the sanitary authority has had knowledge
of the births of infants within its district, death has already gathered
at least) one-third of its tax upon the first year of existence.
Important, however, as this Act should prove in the immediate
future, it must rank second as a potential measure with the results
which should be achieved under the EDUCATION (ADMINISTRATIVE
PROVISIONS) ACT, 1907.
The national conscience is now awakened to the fact that all
is not well with the children—that there is abroad an appalling
amount of physical unfitness, which seriously interferes with the
educational needs of the scholar and the future usefulness of the
citizen. There is no doubt that much of this can be prevented if
the conditions of infant rearing can be improved; and at last an
Act dealing with the medical inspection of school children has
been placed upon the Statute Book. This country is greatly behind
most other civilised countries in providing this latter need, and it
cannot fail to be productive of the same good fruits which have
been reaped from it for many years in other parts of the world.
By means of this provision there will be forthwith
instituted in all our public elementary schools a
medical inspection of each scholar shortly after he or she
commences the period of school attendance. In this way the weak
spot in every child will be discovered, and, if practicable, remedied,
T'he parents are to be invited to be present at the first examination.
This should tend to promote the parents' interest in the welfare of
the child. Whatever difference of opinion may obtain as to the
precise means and method by which the actual inspection of school
children should) be carried out (and it was clear at the International
Congress on School Hygiene that marked differences did obtain), no
reasonable person can question the overwhelming importance of the
measure.
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