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86
Interruption of Education at Elementary Schools
resulting from the prevalence of infectious diseases..It
is customary at Board and other elementary schools, to refuse
admission to children from houses where infectious disease exists
even when the rejected children are not members of the family
affected. The propriety of this practice is beyond question, and
to its existence we may reasonably ascribe the fact that on no
occasion has it been found necessary, in this parish, to close a
school on account of the prevalence of infectious disease among
the pupils. The “notification of infectious disease," when
it shall have been secured by legislation, and the increased
powers of removal to hospitals of non.isolated cases of infectious
sickness, for which Sanitarians are asking as a correlative
measure, will probably have the desired effect of limiting the
occasions on which it will become necessary to close schools on
account of epidemics, e.g., of scarlet fever. Sanitary authorities
under the provisions of the new Education Code* have greater
powers than they formerly possessed of closing schools—powers
which it need hardly be said should be used with great care
and discretoin. It has been my constant endeavour to work
with, and obtain the assistance of, school teachers, and this plan
has often been attended with excellent results. The regrettable
fact connected with the existence of infectious diseases, in relation
to education, is the length of time during which children,
themselves in good health, but living in infected houses, are
often kept away from school, to the curtailment of the short
period devoted to education; and yet at the same time they may
be meeting their school fellows at play, thus to a certain extent
neutralizing the precautions taken at school. It is obvious that
fresh and even stringent legislation is needed to enable us to
cope with this difficulty, viz., for the compulsory removal of the
sick when necessary to secure isolation.
. “The Managers must comply with any notice of the Sanitary Authority of
the district in which the school is situated, requiring them for a specified time,
with a view to prevent the spread of disease, either to close the school, or to
exclude any scholars from attendance, subject to an appeal to the Department,
if the Managers consider the notice to be unreasonable."