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The standard to which children become accustomed at school, is the standard
by which they will judge their homes, their workplaces, and their transport, in
their later life—schools therefore should be of a high order of sanitary attainment.
The simple lesson of ordinary life in the school of some sanitation is a continuous
influence, transcending even the wonderful lessons on hygiene which form part of
the curricula of your schools. In this connection I would wish to call your
particular attention to the conditions under which so many medical inspections are
carried out. In your older schools we have nothing but admiration for the efforts
which are made for medical inspection to be carried out under the best possible
conditions, but the circumstances are such that what should be a lesson in hygiene
and instruction in the art of sanitation is oftentimes only a tribute to those who
are doing their best under most discouraging circumstances. The visiting doctor
should be looked upon as a disciple of Hygeia, as an apostle of fresh air, sunlight
and sanitation, instead of which some children are examined without proper
accommodation and those parents who wish to be present in consultation with the
doctor have no proper place to wait. Referring in particular to proper accommodation
for the parents who are waiting, I would call your attention to the fact
that in many of your modern schools it would be an advantage to entertain
providing better accommodation than obtains at the present time.
The time has come when, together with your Architects, your Medical Officers
should be permitted to draw up a design which may be considered an essential
minimum and that all schools should be designed or re-designed to meet this
obligatory minimum.
(4) MEDICAL INSPECTION.
The age groups inspected are those laid down by the Board of Education.
The arrangements by which these inspections are carried out are the same as in
previous years.
The time has come when medical inspection plays a far more important part
that it has done heretofore. In the beginning, routine medical inspection had
for its primary object the census of the health of children of school-age, to enable
local authorities to form some conception of the tasks which lay before them, and their
magnitude. Generally speaking, routine medical inspection has now completed its
first great work of showing the various tasks which must be approached if the health
of the school-child is to be safeguarded and maintained. Ancillary services to this
end have already been set up so that the routine inspection of school-children, whilst
still maintaining its essential principles of investigation, has today the added
necessity of watching the operation of the ancillary services—referring children to
special departments, and then, after treatment has been completed, closing if
possible, the note on the defect, with the happy statement that all is now satisfactory.