The first steps in “civilizing” (?) a nation or tribe are to suggest _wants_--things to strive for. Struggle, with all its attendant evils, seems the lever that moves the world. It is therefore in line that health, and whatever favors it, is to be gained at the expense of struggle. The one necessary element is that men should value it enough to struggle for it. Sanitary science above all others, when applied, benefits the whole people, raises the level of productive life. In the rapid development of our civilization, the laboratory, the shop, the school can be the quickest mediums of suggesting wants. In an earlier chapter, the indifference to clean conditions, the ignorance of the means of obtaining pure food and clean air, were dwelt upon, and still later the need of _will_ to choose the right thing. Now we should consider the means of stimulating that choice. So far it has been chiefly exploitation for the personal gain of the manufacturer, who has persuaded the people to buy his product regardless of its economic or hygienic effect. Thrift has been undermined most subtly. “That’s the secret of the whole situation we’re talking about; it’s easier to buy a new shirt than to take care of the one you’ve got.”[15] [15] Meredith Nicholson, Lords of High Decision, p. 133. All sense of values has been lost, so that with no sound basis choice is apt to be unwise, unsatisfactory, and is gradually dropped, while the individual drifts. No more effective agent for the dissemination of knowledge was ever devised than the American Public School. If only it would live up to its opportunities, its teachers could bring to its millions of receptive minds the best practice in daily living (never mind the theory for the children), and through the children reach the home, where the infants may be saved from the risks that the elders have run. To be effective, however, school conditions should be satisfactory, and teachers should be familiar with the best ways of living, or at least in active sympathy with the medical inspector and the school nurse. No more revolting revelations have ever been made than those usually locked in the hearts of these faithful servants of the people. How they can have courage to go on in face of parental and community indifference is a marvel. We shall consider in the next chapter how the average parent is to be aroused. But the leaders in educational and scientific thought--what of them? The school is the pride of the community and measures the progress of the community toward ideals. Alas, how is pride laid low in most public school buildings in the inability of most of the teachers to see the relations between mental stupidity and bad air.