For such unsanitary conditions crowded sections of great cities have no apologies to make to rural districts. A wealthy suburb recently learned that there was overcrowding in every class room, and that one school building was so unsanitary as to be a menace to the community. Unadjustable desks, dry sweeping, feather dusters, shiny blackboards, harassing discipline that wrecks nerves, excessive home study and subjects that bore, are not peculiar to great cities. In a little western town a competition between two self-governing brigades for merit points was determined by the amount of home study; looking back fifteen years, I can see that I was encouraging anæmic and overambitious children to rob themselves of play, sleep, and vitality. Many a rural school violates with impunity more laws of health than city factories are now permitted to transgress.
After child labor is stopped, national and state child labor committees will learn that their real interest all the time has been child welfare, not child age, and will be able to use much of the old literature, simply substituting for "factory" the word "school" when condemning "hazardous occupations likely to sap [children's] nervous energy, stunt their physical growth, blight their minds, destroy their moral fiber, and fit them for the moral scrap heap."
Many of the evils of school environment the teacher can avert, others the school trustee should be expected to correct. So far as unsanitary conditions are permitted, the school accentuates home evils, whereas it should counteract them by instilling proper health habits that will be taken home and practiced. Questions such as were asked in Miss North's study will prove serviceable to any one desiring to know the probable effect of a particular school environment upon children subject to it. Especially should principals, superintendents, directors, and volunteer committeemen apply such tests to the public, parochial, or private school, orphanage or reformatory for which they may be responsible.
3. How far away is the nearest public park?
a. Is it large enough? b. Has it a playground or beauty spot? c. Has it swings and games? d. Is play supervised? e. Have children of different ages equal opportunities, or do the large children monopolize the ground? f. Are children encouraged by teachers and parents to use this park?