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(3) SCHOOL HYGIENE.
A high degree of sanitation has been achieved in your new schools.
I have previously called your attention to the need for baths in your schools
and look upon the promotion of healthy habits as one of the highest ideals of
education. Particularly where strenuous games are played, children should be
able to have at least a shower-bath. I do not recommend the extensive use of
soap—for the use of too much soap dissolves the natural fats which protect the
skin—but I do believe that a bath should be taken to remove perspiration from
the skin before it is covered with clothes again and that this should be inculcated
as a habit.
I find it still necessary to discuss the arrangements for drying wet clothes and
boots (details on page 107 of this report) for which adequate provision should be
made and I would like to see a rule enforced for the changing of wet foot-gear on
arrival at school.
So also I find myself called upon to discuss the provision of lavatories on each
floor where the schools are of two or more stories ; I cannot help feeling that the
long journeys these children have to make on occasions may be detrimental to their
best interests. The provisions you have made in your modern schools, built on the
pavilion principle, show the incongruity of the out-of-date factory type of premises
and everything should be done to bring these older schools as up-to-date as possible.
(4) MEDICAL INSPECTION.
The age groups inspected are those laid down by the Board of Education and
arrangements by which these inspections are carried out are as follows : a medical
officer and nurses attend at the school. In your new schools they are accommodated
in a medical inspection room and in your older schools accommodation is arranged
as best it may be in some classroom or other. I am wishful to pay a tribute in
regard to the pains which have been taken by the head-masters and head-mistresses,
who have given us the best accommodation they could, and I feel that if your older
schools are to be retained proper provision should be made for medical inspection
to be carried out in a proper medical inspection room.