Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 19.djvu/125

Rh teaching in the girls' schools of the English metropolis. It seems that the National Health Society, laudably desirous of promoting the increase of practical physiological intelligence, offered prizes to be competed for by the pupils of the girls' schools under the control of the London School Board. The response, however, was not very lively. Out of two hundred and thirty-four schools only eleven sent competitors, it being presumed that in the other schools physiology is either not taught at all or so poorly taught that there was no emulation. The eleven schools which were represented in the examination, we are to suppose, were the best girls' schools under the jurisdiction of the board. Two hundred and fifteen girls attended and competed for the prizes, the examination being conducted by Mr. McWilliam, who reported the result to the London School Board.

The "Globe" says: "Many of the children appear to have been utterly unable to understand the terms of the questions. 'Mention any occupations which you consider to be injurious to health, giving reasons for your answer.' This question, Mr. McWilliam says, especially appears to have puzzled them. One girl's complete answer to this question is, 'When you have a illness it makes your health bad, as well as having a disease.' Another says, 'Occupations which are injurious to health are carbolic acid gas which is impure blood.' Another complete answer is, 'We ought to go in the country for a few weeks to take plenty of fresh air to make us healthy and strong every year.' Another complete answer is, 'Why the heart, lungs, blood, which is very dangerous.' The word 'function' was also a great puzzle. Very many answered that the skin discharges a function called perspiration. One girl says, 'The function of the heart is between the lungs.' Another says: 'What is the function of the heart? Thorax.' Another girl, in answer to the sixth question says, 'The process of digestion is: We should never eat fat, because the food does not digest.'

"Another class of errors is that of exaggerated statements, one girl answering, 'A stone-mason's work is injurious, because when he is chipping he breathes in all the little chips, and then they are taken into the lungs.' Another says, 'A bootmaker's trade is very injurious, because the bootmakers always press the boots against the thorax, and therefore it presses the thorax in and it touches the heart, and if they do not die they are cripples for life.' Several girls insist that every carpenter or mason should wear a pad over the mouth; and one girl says that, if a sawyer does not wear spectacles, he will be sure to lose his eyesight. Finally, one girl declares that 'all mechanical work is injurious to health.' Another child says that 'in impure air there is not any oxygen, it is all carbonic acid gas.' Another says that if we do not wash ourselves 'in one or two days all the perspiration will turn into sores.'

"One girl states that 'when food is swallowed it passes through the windpipe and stops at the right side, some of it goes to make blood, and what is not wanted passes into the alimentary canal.' Another girl from the same school says, 'Venous blood is of a dark black color, and when it reaches the heart it is made by the heart a bright red color.' Several girls from the same school repeat this last error. Another girl says, 'The chyle flows up the middle of the backbone and reaches the heart, where it meets the oxygen and is purified.' Another says, 'The work of the heart is to repair the different organs in about half a minute.' Another says: 'We have an upper and a lower skin; the lower skin moves at its will, and the upper skin moves when we do.'"