Next to the feeding of school children in importance is the need of a much more efficient and thorough system of medical inspections in all our schools. In most of our cities something is already done in this direction, but it is very little. As a rule, the medical inspections now made are most perfunctory and superficial. With a few honorable exceptions, the practice is to look only for cases of contagious and infectious disease or verminous heads. The excessive prevalence of “granular lids,” or trachoma, which is an acquired disease,[174] has led to a good deal of attention being given of late to the whole subject of defective vision. But practically no effort at all has been made to combine remedial treatment with inspection. Children suffering from infectious diseases are simply excluded from the schools, and those found to be suffering from defective vision are given notes asking their parents to provide them with suitable glasses. In a very large proportion of cases, probably a majority, the requests are ignored. I have had children pointed out to me who were suffering from such serious defects of vision as materially to handicap them in their school work, whose parents had taken no notice whatever of repeated notices and warnings from the school doctors. Many parents are too poor to buy glasses, many more are too ignorant to understand the importance of complying with the request. I know many parents of this type. On the other hand, I know many cases in which it would be just as reasonable to ask the parents to make glasses for their children as to buy them. For instance, I know of one public school in which the teachers have repeatedly reported upon the number of children with defective vision, but without appreciable effect. I spoke to the priest to whose church a majority of the children’s parents belong about it, and he replied: “What can they do? They cannot afford to buy glasses. Of the 300 families belonging to my church, I am in a position to say that there are not more than 10 in which the father earns more than $9 a week. Many of them earn only six or seven. They have all they can do to get food; glasses are impossible.” Now, while it is true that in many of these families there will be supplementary wages from the children or the mothers, it is perfectly obvious that there must be many unable to procure glasses for their children. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE COMMUNAL SCHOOL KITCHEN, CHRISTIANIA, NORWAY ]