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mine the physical health and development, and it is an additional
method of endeavouring to put the school child into the most suitable
state for his training. Moreover, it is but the logical consequence of
the State taking over the school education of the child from the civic
standpoint that the State requires efficient citizens, and the child is
not the property of the parent alone.
To whatever extent medical inspection may lead to the detection
and alleviation of physical defects in school children, to a corresponding
extent will children gain| in general health and development,
better results will be obtained from the teaching at school, the more
healthy and physically fit child will be less a drag upon the resources
of the family, and the State and posterity will benefit from a healthier
stock.
Cleanliness is the great summation of hygienic law. Cleanly
personal habits bring in their train cleanliness of surroundings. It is
now recognised that the habits of the people, irrespective of their
surroundings, markedly determine the rate of mortality, and that the
promotion of the personal hygiene of the masses is one of the greatest
objectives of preventive medicine.
How can we wonder at the poverty of educational result, and
the miserable physique which is so evident in our poorest schools of
today, when we know that children often come home from school to
start industrial home-work to help keep a squalid home together, or
to act as errand-boys, and return to school with bodies and brains
starved of nourishment and rest. More recently the State has done
much to protect its children from these ills, but I cannot believe
that we have yet reached the limit of efforts to remedy this state of
things.
PUBLIC HEALTH LEGISLATION IN 1908.
THE CHILDREN'S ACT, 1908.
Many of the provisions of this Act are designed either to
promote the moral and physical health of children or to reduce
infantile mortality. The Act comes into operation on April 1st,