“And I asked Mary and Jim Bliss to come around to-morrow to see Dr. Strong and have him look at their throats.” “You ought to be drawing a salary from the city, young lady,” said the Health Master warmly. “You may have stopped a milk-route infection; one of the hardest kind to trace down.” “They’re talking of closing school after to-morrow,” concluded the girl. “The very worst thing they could do,” declared Dr. Strong. “The very best, I should think,” controverted Grandma Sharpless, who never hesitated to take issue with any authority, pending elucidation of the question under discussion. “If you group a lot of children close together it stands to reason they’ll catch the disease from each other.” “Not unless you group them too close. Arm’s length is the striking distance of a contagious disease. _There’s_ a truth for all of us to remember all the time.” “If it _is_ a truth,” challenged Mrs. Sharpless. “One of the surest and one of the most important,” averred the Health Master. “The only substance that carries the contagion of diphtheria or measles is the mucus from the nose or throat of an infected person. As far as that can be coughed or sneezed is the danger area. Of course, any article contaminated with it is dangerous also. But a hygienically conducted schoolroom is as safe a place as could be found. I’d like to run a school in time of epidemic. I’d make it a distributing agency for health instead of disease.” “How would you manage that?” “By controlling and training the pupils hygienically. Don’t you see that school attendance offers the one best chance of keeping track of such an epidemic, among the very ones who are most liable to it, the children? Diphtheria is contagious in the early stages, as soon as the throat begins to get sore, and before the patient is really ill. Just now there is an indeterminate number of children in every one of our schools who have incipient diphtheria. What is the one important thing to do about them?” “Find out who they are,” said Julia quickly. “Exactly. If you close school to-morrow and scatter the scholars far and wide in their homes, how are we going to find out this essential fact? In their own homes, with no one to watch their physical condition, they will go on developing the illness unsuspected for days, maybe, and spread it about them in the process of development. Whereas, if we keep them in school under a system of constant inspection, we shall discover these cases and surround them with safeguards. Why, if a fireman should throw dynamite into a burning house and scatter the flaming material over several blocks, he’d be locked up as insane. Yet here we propose to scatter the fire of contagion throughout the city. It’s criminal idiocy!” “If we could only be sure of controlling it in the schools,” said Grandma Sharpless, still doubtful.