Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/458

454 done in an appropriate and practical manner for other classes of society, the mechanic, the miner, the laborer, according to their special needs?

It should further be the duty of the Department of Public Betterment to systematize and consolidate, in the interest of efficiency and economy, all efforts now being made to convey to the people a knowledge of how to live better. Many states, for example, spend large sums annually to support a State Board of Health which does much work that is merely a repetition of that done elsewhere, and most of which could be done better and more economically by the Department of Public Betterment.

There is ample excuse for the existence of such a department in this government. There are many odds and ends left over from the work of other departments which could more properly and more satisfactorily be centralized in the department suggested. Much of the work of the existing departments does not properly belong to them, and is, therefore, imperfectly done or periodically neglected. All this should be turned over to the Department of Public Betterment, which should, when properly developed, attain a position of first importance in the federal service, for the extent of the field to which the activities of such a department might be legitimately applied is almost limitless.

It may be urged that we already have local boards of health and health officers, seaboard and other quarantine regulations, general and insane hospitals, laws governing the questions of factory and school sanitation, child labor, the liquor habit, and the like. Praiseworthy and helpful as are the present efforts to preserve the public health, they are entirely inadequate to meet the demands of an ever-progressing civilization.

The officers who have in charge these agencies for the prevention of disease, and upon whose vigilance we are each dependent for our personal safety, even though selected for their good moral character and fitness, are not given the necessary authority and funds to enforce adequate preventive measures, are underpaid and are constantly hampered and humiliated by the intrigue of political meddlers. This is not a suitable system of preventive medicine for a self-respecting and highly civilized republic.

Expensive as may be the execution of the plan herein outlined, its possibilities as an economy in the administration of the state, in its prevention of crime, insanity, costly physical suffering, and the maintenance of the public institutions which these things entail, far outweigh the consideration of the cost of its installation.

It must be remembered that the accomplishment of all these things would not only result in great saving in individual, city, state and national expense, but would further create a more intelligent