Page:The present and general condition of sanitary science.djvu/16

10 would have been left with the helpless insane. The late distinguished inspector of schools in Ireland, Sir John Lentaigne, declared that the system, if duly applied, would beneficially change the character of a nation. Lord Shaftesbury has put it on record that the mothers of the factory children in Lancashire had declared to him that the half-time system of school and work had made their children as of another race to them. And this, too, is practicable at a reduced charge from often using the same school buildings for double sets the same day to accommodate industry, as they are finding out they may do in the colonies. And this may be done for one pound ten per head, with a superior physical training, as against two pounds five per head, the charge of the long-time board schooling. School teachers have declared that if they were left to their own devices as to classification, they would save three years of school life to every child, and that with a superior physical training which can be got at no time afterwards. This will effect the abolition of the "snail's pace," and will make the school the happy assemblage of the millions of children during the first days of their life.

What may be further attained, by a combination of more effective work of the sanitary architect, with better sanitary inspection of schools and places of work, by the Local Health Officer, with the aid of the Sanitary Inspector, would, it appears to me, be ascertained by what I have called a close clinical examination carried out by a competent specialist, as was done with great advantage for Brighton.

The selection of emigrants is now a subject of much consideration, but it may be submitted that one great object would be to ascertain the sanitary fitness of the locality to which it is proposed to send the emigrant—as, for example, that it is not one where the chances of death from phthisis are doubled, or one where, of the children born, more than half will be in their graves before their fifth year—common conditions in some places to which emigrants and their families are now sent.

The orphan children in the district half-time schools are in a large proportion the children of hereditary vagrants, mendicants, and delinquents. Our experiences now display a considerable reduction from them of juvenile delinquency,