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The issue of this circular, in which was advocated the
common-sense practice among school children of keeping the hair
short, irrespective of sex, attracted a considerable amount of
public attention, and in consequence was instrumental less perhaps
in effecting a change in custom in respect of girls' hair than in
quickening the public conscience as to the disgraceful prevalence
of the evil and the need for remedy.
At all events, a marked improvement followed upon the
agitation which was aroused. I fear, however, that there is little
chance of securing anything like permanent freedom from vermin
a^iong school children until the prevailing fashion of children of
the female sex wearing long hair is recognised as ill-adapted to
the existing conditions of school life.
Were the custom of wearing short hair during school life
universally to prevail it would be possible in a very short time
absolutely to eradicate vermin from our schools.
THE HYGIENE OF THE SKIN.
SCHOOL SHOWER BATHS.
There is probably no better educational influence than the
systematic and routine cleansing of the body. Unfortunately for
large numbers of the children attending public elementary schools
in Willesden this is at present impracticable. In a special Report
made to the School Management Committee on this subject I
wrote as follows:—
"School shower baths are much less costly to provide than
public baths; they may, if desired, be made to subserve all the
purposes of public baths so far as public provision for cleansing is
concerned, and they supply not only a pressing need of the school
child but an instrument of education in one of the most important
although one of the most rudimentary conditions of civilised life,
namely in cleanliness. It is a deplorable fact that the great
majority of the houses of the working classes are unprovided with