Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/63

 THE FIRST GERMAN MUNICIPAL EXPOSITION 5 1

sometimes in the school yard, as in Hannover, Miinchen, and Leipzig ; and sometimes in connection with parks or playgrounds, as in Freiburg and Breslau. In the latter city each boy has a patch which he plants with seeds furnished by the authorities; the necessary tools are also furnished when the pupil cannot afford to buy them. The flowers, vegetables, etc., belong to the pupils raising- them. In a larger field all work together. The work is done during free hours under the direction of a botany teacher, who instructs the pupils during their work. Erfurt gives the pupils potted plants in the spring which are to be cared for at home and brought back in the autumn, when prizes for the best ones are distributed.

School hygiene. Organized medical inspection is to be found in many schools. Children found to be ill, especially with infec- tious diseases, are sent home for treatment, and are readmitted only upon being pronounced well by the school physician. If the parents do not attend to the medical treatment, they become liable to the penalty prescribed by the truancy laws. Examina- tion of new pupils upon entering the schools shows that the following were of sound health : Dresden, 49.5 per cent. ; Leipzig, 58.5 per cent. ; Berlin, 44 per cent. ; Wiesbaden, 36 per cent. They had affections varying from lung trouble and anaemia to weak-mindedness and stuttering. Dresden exhibited a map of the city showing that in the center only 22 per cent, of the school children are bodily sound, as against 72 per cent, in outlying dis- tricts. The physical examinations and measurements of 57,000 Dresden school children show that the poorer children in the Bezirk schools are smaller than the more well-to-do Burger chil- dren; and also the more backward children, those who "fail to pass," are, on the whole, physically less well developed. The school physicians not only have oversight over the health and physical well-being of the pupils, but are also expected to give advice to the authorities upon such questions as heating, ventila- tion, cleaning, and lighting of the schoolrooms. Dresden had an interesting exhibit of apparatus for testing the amount of light in various parts of the room, the amount of moisture in the air, and the purity of the air after a class has been in the room for one