View report page

66
These suggestions are neither systematically complete nor intended for scientific training, but they embody
the principles underlying school-work. Proportion is preserved, there is no unnecessary detail, nothing which cannot
easily be made plain, nothing which is not of great practical moment, as well as an essential part of the knowledge
of every successful teacher.
Summary.
Life, its characteristics and requirements.
Review of physiological systems of the body (with special reference to immaturity and instability of childhood).;
Micro-organisms in their relation to health:
Development of the nervous system and its education.
Study of fatigue.
Special senses.
Hygiene of the eye, ear, and throat.
The vocal organs.
Brain culture.
Nutrition.
Environment.
Personal hygiene.
Sanitation of school buildings.
School diseases.
A. A short description of a lowly unspecialized organism like the amceba, illustrating vital functions in their
simplest form. A similar description of a multicellular polyp, illustrating differentiation and specialization of function,
the beginnings of a nervous system, sensitive cell, and muscular process.
B. The essential elements of the highly differentiated nervous system of higher animals, reflex arc, sensitive termination,
nerve cell, motor ending. Plan of the nervous system-its bony protection—complexity of system, sensory side,
motor side, three levels: (1) Lower and most ancient reflexes; (2) Controlling brain cells and special sensory areas ;
(3) Highest levels, association centres, etc. Description of muscular system. Blood stream in relation to nervous
and muscular structures. Description of blood. Means of circulating it. Oxygen and aeration of blood. Animal
warmth. Respiration. Dangers of want of aeration. Means of ventilation. Anaemia, proclivity to infection, want
of reserve power. Exercise develops reserve. Removal of products of function. Fatigue a poisoning by toxin.
Lymphatic system in relation to absorption of food and reception of infection. Effects of exercise on lymph circulation.
Excretory organs, the skin. the bowels.
C. Need of full vitality in all cells of body in order to resist micro-organisms or germs of disease; Description
of typical germs. Germs both friends and foes. The role of leucocytes as defenders against micro-organisms and
their toxins. Other toxins. Food poisoning. The most dangerous germs in daily life. Skin cocci, blood poisoning,
tetanus. Drinking water and enteric fever. Infection by milk. Tubercle as a danger to teachers.
D. Signs of ill-health. Personal hygiene. Regular habits and their necessity. Care of scalp and hair. The
gross infections, lice and ringworm. Chilblains. Headaches and neuralgia. The prevention and preliminary treatment
of external eye diseases. Stimulants. Dangers of stimulants— alcohol, tea. Diet in young and after middle life.
Clothing, constituents, character, care, suitability Occupation, rest and recreation in their bearing upon health. The
duties, rights and responsibilities of the individual in relation to the health of the community. Means of aiding resistance
to germs—close rooms and open air, food in relation, importance of fats in infancy and youth.
E. The development of the nervous system in the race and individual as a clue to processes in education. Its
growth in the child. The appearance of function and its development by stimulus. The age of spontaneous performances
and of imitation. Child's sensory receptivity in plastic period. Everything moulds its character. Inheritance
and environment. Food and sleep. Play and work. Fatigue. Short lessons. Physical exercise and movement
for children, for town dwellers.
F. Recapitulation of means of nourishing nerve cells and of removing waste products. The growing cell, its nascent
period and liability to fatigue, its full growth and old age.
Causes of premature senility, hardening of arteries, etc.
Education implies fatigue. Repair after fatigue. Sleep. Changes after work and rest. Fully grown nerve
cell no longer educable.
The means by which nervous action is produced—sensory organs, intellectual organs, motor organs. Vision,
taste, smell, hearing. Common sensation (temperature, pressure, feeling, weight, muscular sense).
Vision. Structure of eye and relation to brain. Mechanism of accommodation. The infant's eye. Eye-strain.
Spectacles for children, young, adults and old age. Hygiene of the eye: large work for infants, distance for eye work,
sewing, headaches from eye-strain.
Smell and taste, hygiene of the ear and throat, eustachian tube. Significance of adenoids and of nasal breathing.
Spurious feeble-mindedness.
Night snoring. Night terrors.
G. Intellectual concepts and their content. Speech written and spoken. Picture language, signs, alphabet
(physiological alphabet).
Muscular mechanism of speech. Respiration and breathing exercises. Production of voice. Clergyman's and
teacher's sore throat. Cure of stuttering and stammering.
The teeth as part of oral mechanism. Care of teeth, effect on general health. The mouth, nose and throat as
area of invasion by germs. Protracted infection in scarlet fever and diphtheria.
H. The school and its influence. The home.: Regular habits. Child not to be coerced but led. Caref ully divided
work in the schoolroom and elsewhere an ideal. Schoolroom as an obiect lesson in health and cleanliness. The teacher as
an object lesson in self-restraint, kindness, neatness, and artistic expression. The development of self-respect and character
through cleanliness, and effective performance.
The more important infective diseases; Means for their detection. Causes and methods of spread. Vehicles
of infection. Infections through wounds of the skin. The prevention of consumption;
The need of hygienic knowledge among the teachers has been already alluded to. It should be one
of the chief subjects of instruction, to them it is much more important than a knowledge of say, music,
needlework, or a foreign language. The requirements of the Board of Education will always determine
the teachers actual knowledge, and in the above respects much alteration is needed.
James Kerr,
Medical Officer (Education).