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73
During the year four summonses were issued under the School
Attendance Bye laws for non-attendance owing to exclusion for
verminous condition. Three fines of 5s. and one of 10s. were
imposed by the Court.
It will be admitted that the state of the children in the Ealing
schools as regards cleanliness is very satisfactory indeed. This
satisfactory condition has been attained by persistent efforts along
certain lines. The attitude has been adopted that it is the duty
of the parents to keep the children in a cleanly condition and that
they must therefore be compelled to do so. No attempt has been
made to cleanse the children for the parents. They have simply
been given instructions how to clean the heads and how to keep
them clean and if after this advice has been given the children have
been allowed to get dirty the children have been excluded from
school and the parents have been prosecuted under the Attendance
Byelaws for failing to send the children to school.
It has now come to mean that a great slur is cast on the parents
when a child is excluded from school and so much are the feelings
of the parents usually hurt that the children are quickly cleansed
and only in a few families is it necessary to exclude a child on a
second occasion. In fact, there are occasions when we get very
resentful expostulations from parents when a notice is sent giving
directions to cleanse a child's head without even an exclusion
notice. This resentment which is the product of shame is what we
hope to excite, for it always means that the child will be no trouble
in the future. These ebullitions of resentment certainly avoid the
necessity for summonses.
In the following table are indicated the percentages of uncleanly
children found in successive years and it shows the great improvement
since 1923. One wonders if the percentage can be lowered
beyond 1.7 or 1.8. Perhaps that is too much to hope for. We
must always have some careless and slothful mothers and at the
same time we must always have some unfortunate cases of illness
in the mother resulting in the neglect of the children. In the
latter cases, although the usual policy is not to clean the children
for the parents, the School Nurses step in and give their help.