When all the evidence is piled up, we are irresistibly driven to the
conclusion that no attempt to educate hungry, ill-fed children can be
successful or ought to be attempted. Danton’s fine phrase rings
eternally true, “_After bread_, education is the first need of a
people.” That education is a social necessity is no longer seriously
questioned. But the other idea of Danton’s saying, that education must
come after bread,—that it is alike foolish and cruel to attempt to
educate a hungry child,—is often lost sight of. In the early days of the
public agitation for free and compulsory education, it was not
infrequently urged that before the state should undertake to compel a
child to attend its schools and receive its instruction, it ought to
provide for the adequate feeding of the child. That argument, happily,
did not prevent the establishment and development of public education,
but now that the latter system has been firmly rooted in the soil of our
social system, there is an increasing belief in the inherent wisdom and
justice of the claim that the state has no right to attempt to educate
an unfed or underfed child.[172]
There is something attractive about such elemental simplicity as that of
the Czar who drew a straight line across the map from St. Petersburg to
Moscow, when his counsellors asked him what course he wished a railroad
between the two cities to follow, and said, “Let it be straight, like
that.” I suppose that every worker for social improvement has felt
oppressed at times by the complexity of our social problems, and wished
that they could be solved in some such simple and direct manner. But
social progress is not made along straight lines in general. What seems
to the agitator axiomatic, simple, and easy, appears to the constructive
statesman doubtful, complex, and difficult. There is at least one
European municipality, however, which has solved this problem of the
feeding of school children in a delightfully direct and simple way. The
city of Vercelli, Italy, has made feeding as compulsory as education![I]
Every child, rich or poor, is compelled to attend the school dinners
provided by the municipality, just as it is compelled to attend the
school lessons. Not only food, but medical care and attention, are
provided for every child, as a right, on the principle that it is absurd
and wrong to attempt to develop the mind of a child while neglecting its
body. It is a mocking judgment of our civilization that such a natural,
intelligent solution of a pressing problem should be impossible for our
greatest and richest cities, though attained by a little Italian city
like Vercelli.
I do not suppose that it will be found possible to apply such a
principle generally until many years have passed and our social system
has been modified considerably. In the meantime, some less thorough and
comprehensive system, like that of the French _Cantines Scolaires_, for
instance, will probably be adopted. It is not, however, my intention
here to advocate any particular scheme. I can only reiterate that the
feeding of school children is an imperative, urgent, and vital
necessity, and emphasize certain principles. Elsewhere I have given a
résumé of the methods adopted in several other countries,[J] and I need
not, therefore, go over that ground. Whatever is done should be free
from the taint of charity. There must be no resorting to the pernicious
principle, sometimes advocated by our so-called “practical reformers,”
of subsidizing charitable societies to undertake the work. There must be
no discrimination against the child whose parents have failed to do
their duty. The child of the inebriate, the idler, or the criminal must
not be made to suffer for his parent’s sin. The state has no right to
join with the sins of the fathers in a conspiracy to damn the children’s
lives, and only a perverted sense of the relation of the child to the
state could have made it possible for such a proposal to be made. Upon
the principle that every child born into the world has a right to a full
and free supply of the necessities of life during the whole period of
its helplessness and training for the work of the world, so far as the
resources of the world make that possible, the state should proceed
until in all schools where children attend compulsorily, free,
wholesome, and nutritious meals are provided for all children as a
common right.
Of course, the cry will be raised that such a system would result in
wholesale pauperization. I am not afraid of that cry—it has become too
familiar. When I first went to school in the West of England, I used to
carry my school fees—six cents a week—each Monday morning. Under that
system it was necessary for the school authorities to employ officers to
see that the fees were paid, and frequently defaulting parents were
summoned. The children of poor parents were exempted from paying the
school fees, but they had to present big cards to be marked by the
teacher, and were thus made conspicuous. I remember very well that when
it was proposed to make the schools free to all, the same bogey of
pauperization was raised.[173] The school fees were abolished, however,
and the objection was heard no more. In the early days of the Free
Libraries movement, a similar outcry was heard, but one never hears it
nowadays, nor does anybody consider that he is pauperized when he takes
home a book from the city library to read. And so one might go on,
through a long list of things which were opposed upon the same grounds
by many earnest people, but are now commonly enjoyed. If, moreover, the
alternative to pauperization is slow starvation and suffering, I
unhesitatingly prefer pauperization.
X
Next to the feeding of school children in importance is the need of a
much more efficient and thorough system of medical inspections in all
our schools. In most of our cities something is already done in this
direction, but it is very little. As a rule, the medical inspections now
made are most perfunctory and superficial. With a few honorable
exceptions, the practice is to look only for cases of contagious and
infectious disease or verminous heads. The excessive prevalence of
“granular lids,” or trachoma, which is an acquired disease,[174] has led
to a good deal of attention being given of late to the whole subject of
defective vision. But practically no effort at all has been made to
combine remedial treatment with inspection. Children suffering from
infectious diseases are simply excluded from the schools, and those
found to be suffering from defective vision are given notes asking their
parents to provide them with suitable glasses. In a very large
proportion of cases, probably a majority, the requests are ignored. I
have had children pointed out to me who were suffering from such serious
defects of vision as materially to handicap them in their school work,
whose parents had taken no notice whatever of repeated notices and
warnings from the school doctors. Many parents are too poor to buy
glasses, many more are too ignorant to understand the importance of
complying with the request. I know many parents of this type. On the
other hand, I know many cases in which it would be just as reasonable to
ask the parents to make glasses for their children as to buy them. For
instance, I know of one public school in which the teachers have
repeatedly reported upon the number of children with defective vision,
but without appreciable effect. I spoke to the priest to whose church a
majority of the children’s parents belong about it, and he replied:
“What can they do? They cannot afford to buy glasses. Of the 300
families belonging to my church, I am in a position to say that there
are not more than 10 in which the father earns more than $9 a week. Many
of them earn only six or seven. They have all they can do to get food;
glasses are impossible.” Now, while it is true that in many of these
families there will be supplementary wages from the children or the
mothers, it is perfectly obvious that there must be many unable to
procure glasses for their children.
[Illustration:
INTERIOR OF THE COMMUNAL SCHOOL KITCHEN, CHRISTIANIA, NORWAY
]
Little or no attention has been given as yet to the ears, teeth, nervous
and respiratory systems, and the general health of our school children.
The inspections conducted by Dr. Cronin and his assistants in New York
City are by far the most important yet made in the United States, and
show the importance of this largely neglected subject. When I have stood
in some of our American public schools and observed the way in which the
medical inspections were made,—as many as 2000 children being
“inspected” in ten or twelve minutes,—I have with shame contrasted the
farcical proceeding with the thorough, systematic work done in several
European countries. In this, as in so many other matters, the United
States and England are far behind countries like Belgium, France,
Germany, Italy, Norway, and Switzerland.[175]
In Brussels every child in the public elementary schools is medically
examined once every ten days. “Its eyes, teeth, ears, and general
physical condition are overhauled. If it looks weak and puny, they give
it cod-liver oil or some suitable tonic. At midday it gets a square meal
... and the greatest care is taken to see that no child goes ill shod,
ill clad, or ill fed.”[176] In Norway there is a very similar system.
Sickly children are put upon a special dietary and given special
individual medical care. There are sanatoria and convalescent homes in
connection with the schools.[177] In Switzerland again poor children are
fed and frequently clothed or shod at the public expense. Day homes are
provided for the very young children. Every child is medically examined
before being admitted to the schools, and periodically thereafter. Sick
children are sent to the school sanatoria and convalescent homes for
treatment. “Holiday Colonies” are provided, to which hundreds of
children are sent each year for a period of twenty-five days each. The
cost of this is partly borne by the city, out of the “Alcoholzehntel”;
partly by private contributions to the “school fund,” and partly by the
payments received from parents. The “Alcoholzehntel” is perhaps worthy
of explanation. It originates in this manner,—the manufacture of spirits
is a federal monopoly, and yields a handsome profit. This is divided
among the various cantons, which are bound to spend one-tenth of the sum
so received to combat the effects of alcohol.[178]
Very similar to the Swiss Holiday Colonies are the _Colonies Scolaires_
of France. These “School Colonies” take two forms. In one case the
arrondissement hires or borrows a boarding-school in the country for the
summer months, to which it sends several hundred children. In the other
case, it acquires a former château in the country, to which it
despatches relays of children during the year. The ordinary stay for
each child is three weeks, and the effect upon the physique of the
children is remarkable.[179] Berlin and, I believe, several other German
cities, not only provide for the regular, thorough medical examination
of every child, but weak, sickly children, especially those who are
predisposed to tuberculosis, are sent to school homes in the country,
not far from the city, where, amid the most healthful surroundings, they
are given special medical and tutorial care until they are entirely well
and strong.[180]
In view of such facts as these, which might be multiplied almost
indefinitely, it will be seen that there is nothing impracticable or
Utopian in the proposal that there should be a regular medical
examination of every child, both before its admission to the school, and
at stated, frequent periods during the whole of its school life. In
fact, there should be two inspections, one medical, the other
dental.[181] Every school should have a well-equipped dispensary
connected with it, and a dental laboratory, so that the children could
get prompt treatment. Provision should also be made to remove physically
weak and sick children from the crowded city schools to more favorable
surroundings with a view to preventing their degeneration, and restoring
them to health and vigor. While the responsibility for these things
should rest upon and be accepted by the municipality, with, possibly,
some subvention from the state, there seems to be no good reason why
some of our puzzled millionaires, who find the wise bestowal of their
wealth an increasingly difficult problem, should not contribute to the
city treasuries for that special purpose.