The question of the medical inspection of schools and school children has been emphasized, but attention might be called to another phase of that work, namely: What this Inspection can do for the Teacher? What the teacher thinks about the medical inspection of schools makes a great difference to the success of any attempt to establish this state partnership between education and medicine. To be successful the work must stand the test of daily experience. The teacher is the judge whether the pupils have better health and make better progress. Walter Scott, in "Old Mortality", notes the contrast between the buoyancy of pupils upon the dismissal of the school and the depression of the teacher after the day's monotonous grind. To-day the teacher is still "stunned with the hum" of the school room and suffers its "closeness." Medical inspection must do something to improve school air. We must show teachers that inspection can do something for them by lessening strain, by providing outlook, and by giving them the sense that we are "all with them," that we are thinking of providing better conditions for them and their scholars, so that their heads may not ache so often nor their nerves be shattered so frequently. Besides every teacher meets, sooner or later, the stupid, the dull, the backward, the sick. They are our peculiar care. The stupid may have adenoids, the dull may be only dull of hearing, the backward may be really feeble-minded, and the sick may be sources of infection to the teachers as well as to the pupils. We doctors know what to do for these pupils. They are heavy burdens for the teacher. Send them to us, for we know what to do for them and how to do it, and that is the purpose of our appointment. Light in the schoolroom is almost as important as air. Look at the windows. Probably we all know of instances where the poor teacher suffered far more than the pupils (for pupils stay but one term in a room but the teacher for years) from insufficient and improper lighting. There is an isolation in the teaching profession, seeing pupils pass on and enter the activities of life, while the teacher goes back over the same routine of preparing pupils for this end. You need some sense of comradeship with your equals and some community of interests-some recognition of the higher references of life which children (except occasionally by direct in spiration of God) can not give you. We do not claim that the call to the Doctor to stand beside the teacher can accomplish all this. But it can help, for the Doctor grasps the hand of the teacher as an equal and says, "What can I do for you?" And so while being school doctors, we can certainly bring the teacher better health by giving protection from infection and impure air diseases, and from eye strain caused by bad lighting, while we can make the teacher's work easier by improving the child's sight and hearing and breathing, while we can find the mentally deficient child among a hundred or a thousand and relieve the class, the teacher, and the nation by pointing out the absolute necessity of the special class and the permanent care in after life for the mentally deficient-tho this one thing alone would justify medical inspection of schools-yet the greatest thing we can do, as school doctors, is to remind the teacher and the world that the schoolroom, next to the home, is the most important place in the world. Out of it issues that stream of life which determines national character and national destiny. Those who deal with the making of human beings are doing the greatest work in the world. The Greatest Thing we can do for the teaching profession is to help people to see its value and importance, so that better recruits shall enlist in that army, that we shall pay them in the coin of the realm, and by that coin of public respect, regard and influence, which is more precious than gold. We may so help teachers to do their best for their pupils in the most scientific way, that the tired heart takes courage because a new helper has come, that the weary hand grasps the task anew because greater accomplishment is possible with less effort than of old, and that the eyes, grown dim with too close scrutiny of small things, are lifted up to look at the distant horizon, where dawns a better day for the school and the world. References:-Canadian Public Health Journal; Hygiene for teachers; Dr. Macy, Dr. Wile and Dr. MacMurchy in the Proceedings of the 15th Congress of Hygiene. HEALTH IN INDIA. Under the title, "A Modern Miracle," The Pioneer Mail of September 12, gives some striking figures of the improvement of health among the European troops in India-these figures being taken from the Army Medical Report for last year. With a strength of more than 71,000 British troops in India, there were positively only 328 deaths during the year, equal to 4.62 per 1000. This is really a remarkable achievement; and the smallness of the death-rate is not due in any way to an increase in the invaliding to England-as shown by the fact that the invaliding also fell markedly during the year to 6.68 per 1000, compared with 23 per 1,000 in 1892. These are by far the lowest rates on record, and are comparable with the great decrease in the death-rate and the invaliding among non-native officials in West Africa, as disclosed by recent Colonial Office Reports. Enteric fever, which was once such a terrible pest in India, has now decreased so much that there were only 118 admissions to hospital for it among the whole British garrison. This is undoubtedly due partly to the very great care now exercised in dealing with potential carriers of the disease, both human carriers and flies, and also to anti-typhoid inoculation. Malaria also has shown a very marked decrease during the year, though, as The Pioneer Mail points out, this may possibly be partly due to the usual fluctuations in the prevalence of the disease caused by variations in climate. Cholera and plague have also diminished. Vaccination in India is also doing extremely well. Nearly two million vaccinations were performed in the Bengal Presidency alone during 1912-13, and the total number of deaths from smallpox in that Presidency during the year was only 0.21 per thousand of the population-a very good figure for a country where vaccination has been much opposed on account of "religious" scruples. The lanoline lymph, which I believe was originally invented by Colonel King, is principally responsible for this good state of affairs, and Colonel King is to be much congratulated upon it. Nature, London, December 18th, 1913. MEDICAL SUPERVISION OF SCHOOL CHILDREN. Another of the main results to be expected from any system of medical supervision is some kind of guarantee that in the future the school buildings will be kept in a more cleanly and hygienic state than has been the case in the past. Again, more constant supervision of the children at their work will for many years be necessary to avoid many of the physical defects and deformities which result from faulty school methods and applicances. Thus, in a variety of ways, the teachers' interest will be keenly stimulated and their co-operation will be much more readily obtained in all matters that appertain to the child's mental and physical welfare. The teacher, of course, is the chief instrument by which these objects are attained, and the best teachers are always the first to admit that in many such matters they are in need of medical guidance and help. In fact it is the physician's privilege to work with the teacher in fitting each individual child to play his part as a citizen of the state. All this work must be carried out with the help of tact and common sense on the part of the school doctor by establishing friendly relations between teacher, doctor and parents, and without interference with school routine. The Teacher's Encyclopaedia, Vol IV, (To be handed promptly on its receipt by the Secretary of every School Board to eack Teacher employed within the School Section). LOCAL "NATURE” OBSERVATIONS. (To be sent in to the Inspector with the Returns in February and July). This sheet is provided for the purpose of aiding teachers to interest their pupils in observing the times of the regular procession of natural phenomena each season. First, it may help the teacher in doing some of the "Nature" lesson work of the Course of Study; Secondly, it may aid in procuring valuable information for the locality and province. Two copies are provided for each teacher who wishes to conduct such observations, one to be preserved as the property of the section for reference from year to year; the other to be sent in with the Return to the Inspector, who will transmit it to the Superintendent for examination and compilation. What is desired is to have recorded in these forms, the dates of the first leafing, flowering and fruiting of plants and trees; the first appearance in the locality of birds migrating north in spring or south in autumn, etc. While the objects specified here are given so as to enable comparison to be made between the different sections of the Province, it is very desirable that other local phenomena of a similar kini be recorded. Every locality has a Aora, fauna, climate, etc., more or less distinctly its own; and the more common trees, shrubs, plants, crops, etc., are those which will be most valuable from a local point of view in comparing the characteristics of a series of seasons. Teachers will find it one of the most convenient means for the stimulation of pupils in observing all natural phenomena when going to and from the school, and some pupils radiate as far as two miles from the school room. The "nature study" under these conditions would thus be undertaken at the most convenient time, without encroaching on school hours; while on the other hand it will tend to break up the monotony of school travel, fill an idle or wearisome walk with interest, and be one of the most valuable forms of educational discipline. The eyes of a whole school daily passing over the school routes will let very little escape notice, especially if the first observer of each annually recurring phenomenon receives credit as the first observer of it for the year. The observations will be accurate, as the facts must be demonstrated by the most undoubted evidence, such as the bringing of the specimens to the school when possible or necessary. To all observers the following most important, most essential principle of recording is emphasized: Better no date, no record, than a wrong one or a doubtful one. Sports out of season due to very local conditions not common to at least a small field, should not be recorded except parenthetically. The date to be recorded for the purposes of compilation with those of other localities should be the first of the many ot its kind following immediately after it. For instance, a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis in a sheltered cranny by a southern window in January would not be an indication of the general climate, but of the peculiarly heated nook in which the chrysalis was sheltered; nor would a flower in a semi-artificial, warm shelter, give the date required. When these sports out of season occur, they might also be recorded, but within a parenthesis to indicate the peculiarity of some of the conditions affecting their early appearance. These schedules should be sent in to the Inspector with the school returns in July and February, containing the observations made during the Spring (January to June) and the Fall (June to December respectively). The new register has a page for a duplicate of such records. Remember to fill in carefully and distinctly the date, locality, and other blanks at the head of the schedule on the next page; for if either the date or the locality or the name of the responsible compiler should be omitted the whole paper is worthless and cannot be bound up for preservation in the volume of The Phenological Observations. By the aid of the table given at the top of pages 3 and 4, the date, such as the 24th of May for instance, can be readily and accurately converted into the annual date, “the 144th day of the year," by adding the day of the month given to the annual date of the last day of the preceding month (April in this case), thus 24+120 144. The annual date can be briefly recorded, and it is the only kind of dating which can be conveniently averaged in phenological studies. When the compiler is quite certain that he or she can make the conversion without error, the day of the year instead of the day of the month will be preferred in the record. PHENOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS, CANADA. (1914 Schedule). (For the months July to December, 19 ; or the months January to June 19 ) Province.... Locality or School Section.. from the sea coast... . County. X. . District No. [The estimated length and breadth of the locality within which the following observations were made.. ...miles. Estimated distance .miles. Estimated altitude above the sea level.... ...feet. Slope or general exposure of the region.. General character of the soil and surface.. Proportion of forest and its character.. Does the region include lowlands or intervales?. river or stream.. .and if so name the main ....Or is it all substantially highlands?.... Any other peculiarity tending to affect vegetation.. The most central Post Office of the locality or region. Name and Address of the Teacher or other Compiler] of the Observations responsible for their accuracy. Average date for the year (Wild Plants, etc.-Nomenclature as in "Spotton" or "Gray's Manual"). 3. Mayflower (Epigaea repens), flowering.... 4. Field Horsetail (Equisetum arvense), shedding spores.. 9. Red Maple (Acer rubrum), flower shedding pollen. 10. Strawberry (Fragaria Virginiana), flowering. 120 126 12. Dandelion (Taraxacum offinicale ), flowering. 18. 64 19. Wild Red Cherry (Prunus Pennsylvanica), flowering. 21. Blueberry (Vaccinium Can. and Penn.), flowering. 22. 23. Tall Buttercup (Ranunculus acris), flowering.. 123 130 137 143 126 133 126 132 133 141 131 138 fruit ripe. 159 168 |