View report page

30
The story of the prevention of blindness belongs to my report on the health of
the people of Barking. I can, however, briefly say that the prevention of blindness
depends on meticulous attention to the eyes of the child at birth, and to very special
treatment whenever such special treatment is required.
I am happy to be able to say that after over a quarter-of-a-century in Public
Health I personally have never known one child whose acuity of vision was impaired
by reason of what was once a terrible disease—to wit—Ophthalmia Neonatorum—
that is, eye disease of the newly born.
Question:—What provision is made for deaf children among the
school children of Barking?
Answer:—I am happy to say that we have not a sufficient number of deaf
children to justify a special school or class
for them in Barking, and arrangements are
therefore made either for their admission to a
Boarding Special School, or to the Tunmarsh
Lane Deaf Centre (Day) at West Ham,
where with hearing aids and special tuition in
lip reading suitable education is given to our
deaf and partially deaf children.
DEAF CHILDREN
Attending Tunmarsh Lane
Deaf Centre 5
At Boarding Special Schools 1
DIFFICULT CHILDREN.
Question:—What should we do with difficult children?
Answer:—A great law-giver once said they should be put to death. The
procedure was for their fathers and mothers to indict them before a Court of
Summary Jurisdiction and the penalty (the charge being proved) was death. This
was all a very long time ago; the law-giver was a very wise man; there is no
recorded history of the penalty being enforced, because the wise man knew that
so-called difficult children are the product of difficult parents and that the last
thing the parents would ever do would be to join together and bring an indictment.
To talk of children of ten, eleven and twelve being out of hand is banally
stupid; it is the parents—very possibly because they have been squabbling between
themselves or for some other reason—who have never laid the foundations of
confidence, admiration and love which alone are the grounds which any child
can have for respecting its parents.
The time is coming when, if the janitor of the Town Hall runs off with the Mace,
it will be said to be due to the fact that when he was a lad he was not allowed to
have a spoon to stir the sugar in his tea, or if an important officer is known to get
frightfully annoyed when he loses his spectacles it will be ascribed to the fact that