Our country maintains an Army and a Navy to fight against human beings
with whom we are occasionally at war. In the fight against two far more
dangerous and insidious foes with whom we are _always_ at war--Disease
and Ignorance--our doctors have the aid and guidance of the United
States Public Health Service and our schools that of the United
States Bureau of Education. These Federal institutions are aided,
respectively, by state and local boards of health and by state and
local boards of education.
The Public Health Service, which is a branch of the Treasury
Department, was formerly called the Marine Hospital Service, and was
originally devoted only to caring for sick and disabled seamen of
the American merchant marine. Today it is safeguarding the health of
everybody in the country. It maintains quarantine stations and offices
for the medical inspection of immigrants at the principal seaports;
establishes domestic quarantines, when necessary, to prevent the spread
of disease from state to state; investigates and suppresses epidemics;
collects and publishes health statistics; makes elaborate studies
of important diseases, such as hookworm disease, malaria, pellagra,
trachoma, typhoid fever, and tuberculosis; investigates public water
supplies and sewage; carries on research in regard to school, mental
and industrial hygiene; and, last but not least, educates the people
in hygiene and sanitation by distributing tons of literature, holding
exhibits, giving lectures, lending lantern-slides, et cetera. During
a recent outbreak of influenza the Public Health Service distributed
6,000,000 leaflets in regard to the disease. A new duty of the Service
is to operate hospitals for the physical restoration and re-education
of discharged soldiers disabled in the World War. The Service has
established a Sanitary Reserve Corps, consisting of medical men and
others who are available for active duty in time of national emergency.
The Bureau of Education, which is under the Department of the
Interior, is the national clearing-house of information on educational
subjects. This information is set forth in a large number of valuable
publications, and the Bureau also maintains a corps of experts who
travel about the country giving advice and conducting investigations
in regard to various lines of education. One of the duties of this
Bureau is to supervise the expenditure of the liberal funds provided
by the Government toward the support of agricultural and mechanical
colleges, commonly known as the “land-grant colleges.” Another is to
operate schools for the education of native children in Alaska and
to look after the Government reindeer industry in that territory. A
comparatively recent undertaking is the promotion of home gardening
under school direction in cities and towns throughout the country,
and the organization of a School Garden Army, which has materially
increased the national food-supply.
Another educational agency of the Government is the Federal Board for
Vocational Education, which was organized in the year 1917. This Board
directs a scheme of cooperation between the Federal Government and
the states for the promotion of vocational education in the fields
of agriculture, home economics and the industrial arts. Congress
has made liberal appropriations for this work, and these are to be
increased annually until they amount to $7,367,000 a year. Each state
is required to spend as much for vocational education as it receives
from the national Government for the same purpose. Before this plan
was inaugurated, the training of young people at public expense for
definite trades and industries had made little progress in the United
States. Since the World War the Board has had charge of the training
and education of discharged and disabled soldiers and sailors. This
work is carried on in the various technical, trade and commercial
schools of the country, or other institutions offering special courses,
and also directly in the trades and industries. It is not limited to
manual training. The Board has announced that “all careers are open to
the disabled men.”
This educational work must not be confused with that carried on for
discharged soldiers in the hospitals conducted by the Public Health
Service, and for soldiers still in service in the Army hospitals.
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 7, No. 11, SERIAL No. 183
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.
[Illustration: A BOYS’ CORN CLUB--COUNTY AGENT GIVING INSTRUCTION]
_THE STORY OF UNCLE SAM_
_The Department of Agriculture_