Civics and HealthAllen, William H. (WIlliam Harvey)
Science
Civics and Health
Allen, William H. (WIlliam Harvey)
Hygiene; Public health
The souvenir value of European remedies is due to the assumption that
no better way was open to the European, and that the remedy actually
does what it is intended to do. Because free meals are given at school
to cure and prevent undernourishment, it is taken for granted that
undernourishment stops when free meals are introduced; therefore
America must have free meals. Because it is made compulsory in a
charming Italian village for every child to eat the free school meal,
it is taken for granted that the children of that village have no
physical defects; therefore let Kansas City, Seattle, and Boston
introduce compulsory free meals. But when one goes to Europe to see
exactly how those much-advertised, eulogized remedies operate from day
to day, it is often necessary to write, as did a great American
sanitarian recently, of health administration in foreign cities
continually held up as models to American cities: "In spite of the
rules and theories over here, the patient has better care in New York
City."
We have been asked of late to copy several very attractive European
remedies for the physiological ills of school children, and for the
physical deficiencies of the next generation of adults: breakfasts or
lunches, or both, at school for all children, rich as well as poor,
whether they want school nourishment or not; school meals for the poor
only; school meals to be given the poor, but to be bought by those who
can afford the small sum required; free eyeglasses for the poor, for
poor and well-to-do, for those who wish them, for those who need them
whether they want to wear eyeglasses or not; free dental care; free
surgical treatment; free rides and outings during summer and winter;
country children to visit the metropolis, city children to visit
country and village; free treatment in the country of all children
whose parents are consumptives; free rides on street cars to and from
school; city-owned street railways that will prevent congestion by
making the country accessible; city-built tenements to prevent
overcrowding, dark rooms, insufficient air and light; free coal, free
clothes, free rent for those whose parents are unable to protect them
properly against hunger and cold. Every one of these remedies is
attractive. Every one is being tried somewhere, and can be justified on
emotional, economic, and educational grounds, if we think only of its
purpose. Let us view them with the eyes of their advocates.
Would it not be nice for country children to know that toward the end
of the school year they would be given an excursion to the largest city
of their state, to its slums, its factories, parks, and art galleries?
They would grow up more intelligent about geography. They would read
history, politics, sociology, and civil government with greater
interest. They would have less contracted sympathies. They might even
decide that they would rather live their life in the spacious country
than in the crowded, rushing city.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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