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65
it was evident that the instruction given would be valuable to
every gril in schools, and that an extension of the classes was
urgently to be recommended. In October, in accordance with the
resolution of the Committee, the number of classes was raised to
four a week. As a result, it has been possible to arrange for every
department containing senior girls to send down parties of girls
for a course of lessons at the creche, and we may fairly claim
to have developed a permanent scheme, which is of the greatest
practical value. In the smaller schools all the senior girls are
able to attend the creche, but in the larger ones only some of
the girls can do so at present, though all receive the preliminary
teaching in the class-room.
The girls themselves are exceedingly anxious to attend these
classes, and before all the schools shared the opportunity for special
instruction, we received a pathetic message from one senior
department, asking if arrangements could not be made for them
"to learn to wash real babies" !
This department is in charge of a Headmistress, who gives
an excellent course of lessons on infant care and management;
the girls most of them had young babies at home whom they
helped to mind, and they were very anxious to have a chance of
carrying out on real babies and then reproducing at home the
hygienic methods they had been taught on dolls.
The scheme has aroused much interest, and has brought to
the creche many people interested in educational and public health
problems, so that it may be well briefly to recapitulate the
arrangements as they are at present carried out.
The instruction begins in the school, where the senior girls
are given a course of simple, practical lessons on hygiene,
including such subjects as the clothes suitable for babies and small
children, the simple laws of health, food, fresh air, cleanliness,
etc. There is no hard-and-fast syllabus for these classes, and
their value depends on the Teacher's power to make them apply
to the conditions of the children's lives. The Teachers who give