View report page

55
200,000,000 of pounds. It is on this ground that
during the past year I urged on the Social Science
Congress at Bristol the necessity of introducing
into every school the teaching of the elements of
physiology in every school alike.* It is in vain that
the legislature enact sanitary laws; it is in vain that
local bodies are entrusted with power to carry into
effect sanitary legislation, unless their efforts are
met with something like intelligent appreciation by
the community. It is not wise to leave this important
subject to the taste and choice of people as
they grow up. Children of all classes are too busily
engaged directly they leave school ever to acquire
any systematic or real knowledge of the nature of
the structure of their body and its functions. It is
while they are at school that this knowledge should
be especially given to girls. It is the woman who
presides over the household. If she is ignorant of
the poisonous nature of dirt, of the unwholesome
influence of impure air, of the nature of wholesome
food, her family becomes the prey of infectious and
other fatal diseases; and if early death does not
carry them off, they lead lives of immorality and
licentiousness, and know nothing of the blessings
of a healthy physical or moral existence.
I must now, however leave this question of the
*"What shall we teach, or Physiology in Schools."
Groomhridge and Sons. Price 1s.