What and when to build can be better determined after we have learned the what and the where of present equipment.
In passing it is worth while to note that in large cities teachers are frequently forced to choose between bad ventilation and street noises. From Boston comes the suggestion that we avoid noises and evils of congestion by building schoolhouses for city children on the outskirts in the midst of fields, transporting, and, if necessary, feeding children at public expense. While it is true that the public funds now spent in attempting to cure physical and moral ills would purchase ample country reservations, the practical next step seems to be to provide ample play space and breathing space within the city for every school building already erected, and without fail for all buildings to be erected hereafter.
9. _Hygiene should be so taught that children will cultivate habits of health and see clearly the relation of health and vitality to present happiness and future efficiency._ Social rather than personal, public rather than private, health needs emphasis. Children can be shown how their health affects their neighbor; why money spent for health boards is a better investment than money given to corrupt politicians; that the cost of accepting Thanksgiving turkey or a park picnic from a political leader who encourages inefficient government is sickness, misery, deficient schooling, lifelong handicap; that children and adults have health rights in school and factory, on street and playground, which the law will protect if only they know when these rights are infringed.
10. _Central supervision of school hygiene._ In private and public, boarding and day, country and city, reformatory and military, commercial and high schools, the index--physical welfare of school children--should be read and interpreted. Headquarters should learn whether or not physical examinations are made and whether harmful conditions are corrected. So far as public schools are concerned, "headquarters" means for cities the fact center that informs city superintendent or school board; for rural schools, it means the county superintendent's office. Whether city or county headquarters have the facts and act accordingly should be known by state superintendents. Whether state superintendents are demanding the facts and educating the county and city headquarters of their states should be known to the national commissioner of education and by him published for all the world. Some people think the state health board should be responsible, others the state educational authority. The important thing is to make some one officer responsible. Methods can be easily worked out if the need is conceded. Legislatures will gladly confer the powers necessary to reading the index of all public schools.