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"(2) This section shall come into operation on the 1st
"day of January, 1908."
The aims of the new Act and its scope have been most
ably and clearly set out in the Memorandum on medical
inspection of School Children in Public Elementary Schools
issued by the Board of Education in November, 1907, from
which I make the following extracts :—
" The Education (Administrative Provisions) Act, 1907,
" in so far as it concerns the medical inspection of school
" children, is the outcome of a steady movement of public
" opinion throughout the entire community. For some years
" past evidence has been accumulating that there exists in
" certain classes of the English people a somewhat high degree
" of physical unfitness which calls for amelioration, and, as far
" possible, for prevention. The Legislature resolved that to
" grapple effectively with this problem, or at least part of it,
" it was necessary first to improve the health conditions, both
" personal and in regard to environment, of the children of the
" nation. A consideration of the gravity of the need led to the
" conclusion that medical inspection of school children is not
" only reasonable but necessary as a first practical step towards
" remedy. Without such inspection we not only lack data, but
" we fail to begin at the beginning in any measure of reform.
" The reasonableness of such inspection, if it is conducted on
" sensible lines leading to an improvement of the surroundings
" and physical life of the children, must become evident both
" to their parents and to the nation as a whole.
" The Board desire therefore at the outset to emphasise
" that this new legislation aims not merely at a physical or
" anthropometric survey or at a. record of defects disclosed by
" medical inspection, but at the physical improvement, and, as
" a natural corollary, the mental and mural improvement, of
" coming generations. The broad requirements of a healthy
" life are comparatively few and elementary, but they are
" essential, and should not be regarded as applicable only to the
" case of the rich. In point of fact, if rightly administered, the
" new enactment is economical in the best sense of the word.
" Its justification is not to be measured in terms of money but in
" the decrease of sickness and incapacity among children and
" in the ultimate decrease of inefficiency and poverty in after
" life arising from physical disabilities."