View report page

27
This I have already dealt with in reporting on the case of
children the subject of surgical tuberculosis.
My submission is that the time is overdue for a conference
between all the hospitals engaged in orthopaedic work and the
local authorities who are financially or otherwise interested in that
work.
(9) OPEN-AIR EDUCATION.
Playground Classes.—Barking is fortunate in having some
schools built in a modern style of architecture on sound, practical,
sanitary lines ; but, on the other hand, some of the schools were
built, not wisely, but too well. They are gaunt premises, built
rather as places of monastic seclusion for the forcing of intellect
than places of health-producing educational activity.
In these factories of education it is desirable that every
opportunity should be taken of conducting studies in the open air,
and the desirable point of view is that all classes should take
place in the open air unless the climatic conditions prohibit it, or
the special nature of the work demands that it should be done
indoors.
School Journeys.—School journeys, as such, are not a feature
of school life in Barking, but their place is more than satisfactorily
taken by the numerous school camps which are held, and the
holiday camps which are run during the summer vacation.
These school camps are admirable features of your educational
activities. Children go out on Friday evening and come back on
Monday evening. At Hainault t hey live an open-air life, and many
of the children, by means of these camps, spend a day or two in
the country for the first time in their lives.
All the girls and boys are medically examined before they go,
and only in one instance has it been necessary for me to send a
child home from Hainault.
The summer camps during the holidays are of a fortnight's
duration each, and here again every child is fully examined before
he or she leaves Barking. Particular stress is laid on the condition