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taken over as Home Office schools. Grays scattered homes (which formerly were
incorporated with Stifford) became a separate unit with a resident superintendent
and this has necessitated the provision of a small infirmary unit in Whitehall Lodge
and some alterations and additions to the existing bathing and sanitary accommodation
were recommended. During the late summer at the request of the education
officer, a visit was paid by two of the Council's medical officers to Walton camp,
while the children were in residence, and both medical officers were very favourably
impressed. Arrangements are in hand for the formation of a permanent camp on
the site.
Instruction
in
sex hygiene.
Attention was directed early in the year to the question of instruction in sex
hygiene.
Dr. Russell made an enquiry into what was being done to provide such instruction
in the residential schools and homes; she found that usually every child leaving
the school to take up work was given some instruction in sex hygiene, the boys by
the superintendent or sports master and the girls by the matron or responsible
woman officer. The instruction takes the form of an informal talk to the boy or
girl concerned.
There was one exception, and in that school no instruction is given to the boys.
The head master stated that, during the 12 years he had been at the school, he
has never heard of harm which had come to the boys through lack of such instruction.
It was also found that without exception, the superintendents were not in favour
of class teaching of sex hygiene, and no instruction was given in this subject in the
elementary schools attended by the children.
Dr. Russell's opinion was that the most important thing in this connection is
character training and, for this, careful selection of house mothers should be aimed at.
Later an inter-departmental committee examined the question " with a view
to co-ordinating the varied information on the subject."
The public health department was represented on this committee by the late
Dr. Shrubsall and Dr. Russell. Oral evidence was taken by this committee from
representatives of important societies and from prominent medical men and other
persons of experience in the problems of adolescence.
At the conclusion of a valuable report made by this committee the following
were the chief recommendations :—
(а) That there should be no class instruction in sex education in the
residential schools.
(b) That appropriate instruction of the type indicated in the report should
be given to girls and boys (i) at or immediately before puberty, (ii) during early
adolescence, and (iii) on leaving for employment. This instruction should be
given to individuals or to small groups.
(c) That school courses in elementary science should include some biological
teaching, and that this should form the basis upon which the sex instruction
should rest.
(d) That those in charge of physical education in the residential schools
should seize suitable opportunities for talks on personal hygiene and the care
of the body.
(e) That the training of girls for domestic service should include talks on
infant care and management, personal hygiene and physiology.
(f) That no girl or boy should leave school for employment without a talk,
either individually or in small groups, from a senior officer. The talk should
be designed to help the leaver to adjust herself (himself) to adult life. That
girls and boys should not be supplied with books or pamphlets on sex subjects,
and that films on sex instruction should not be shown.
(g) That adequate activities in the nature of games and recreations should
be organised for all girls and boys ; that greater freedom and increased opportunities
for meeting together should be given to the girls and boys and that
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