SCHOOLS AS AN AGENCY FOR HEALTH CONSERVATION

Cities have used their school organization to combat physical defects and weaknesses of pupils, and that is why they make a better showing than rural communities in such matters as those shown in the table on page 312.  Removing such defects from young people means a stronger and more efficient adult population ten or twenty years from now; for these defects are often the causes of more serious illness in later years.  The table on page 299, Chapter xix, shows how much behind cities rural communities have been in the use of their school organization for this purpose.  The encouraging thing is, however, that rural communities are beginning to find the means to use their schools in this way.  The way has been opened by school consolidation (p. 295), by the grouping of all the small and isolated schools of a county under a central county administration (p. 294), by aid from the state, both in money and in supervision, and by cooperation from the national government.

HEALTH EDUCATION FOR ADULTS IN CITIES

Cities have extended their health-educational work to the adult population.  This takes place in part through the schools also.  Instruction given to children is of course taken home by them.  Visiting nurses employed by the schools visit the homes.  Classes for mothers are conducted at the school in the afternoon or evening.  But more than this, city boards of health, often in cooperation with the school authorities, conduct educational campaigns by means of literature distributed to the homes through school children, by means of evening lectures and moving pictures, and through the newspapers.

AGENCIES FOR HEALTH EDUCATION IN RURAL COMMUNITIES

Means are not wanting for similar work in rural communities.  The homes may be reached by the right kind of instruction in the schools.  The classes or clubs for women conducted by women county agents may be, and often are, used as means of health instruction.  Public meetings at the “community center” at the schoolhouse may be devoted at times to public health problems, with lectures, moving pictures, and discussions.  The local newspapers always afford a channel through which to get matters of this kind before the people.  Local and state boards of health, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the Public Health Service may and do use these and other agencies to reach the people.

RESPONSIBILITY OF THE HOME

No matter how much machinery for cooperation we may have in our community, like that described above, it cannot help much unless every family and every citizen cooperates intelligently.

In a large city, a small group of men, constituting the city council, may inaugurate measures which will accomplish sanitary improvements at thousands of homes; but for the accomplishment of sanitary improvements at 1000 farm homes at least 1000 persons ... must be convinced that the sanitary measures are needed, become informed how to apply them, and be willing to put them into operation.