duty of the State to see to
the adequate provision of the means of education, to their due
distribution and to their proper organisation. At the same time we found
that the obligation of the State in this respect did not necessarily
involve that the whole cost of this provision should be borne at the
public expense, and that no part of the burden should be placed on the
shoulders of the individual parents. As regards the provision of
elementary education, we indeed found that the whole burden might be
legitimately laid upon the general taxpayer, upon the grounds either
that the protective benefit of elementary education to the community was
great, or that the hindrance opposed by the imposition of school fees to
the fulfilment of a man's moral obligation to provide for the education
of his children was so general that a case might be made out for freeing
elementary education as a whole. But except from the position that the
provision of education was a communal and not a personal obligation, we
found no grounds for the contention that education throughout its
various stages should be a charge upon the community as a whole.

But the provision of the means of education may involve much more than
the mere provision of adequately equipped school buildings and of fully
trained teachers, and we have now to inquire what other provision is
necessary in order to secure the after social efficiency of the children
of the nation, and what part of this provision rightly may be included
within the scope of the duties of the State.

Is the medical inspection of children attending Public Elementary
Schools one of these duties, and, if so, what action on the part of the
State does this involve?

The importance of the thorough and systematic medical examination of
children attending school as a necessary measure to secure their after
physical and economic efficiency as well as for their intellectual
development and welfare during the school period has been recognised by
many Continental countries. To take but one or two illustrative
examples, we may note that in Brussels every place of public instruction
is visited at least once in every ten weeks by one of the sixteen
doctors appointed for this purpose. The school doctor amongst other
duties has to report on the state of the various classrooms, their
heating, lighting and ventilation, and also upon the condition in which
he has found the playgrounds, lavatories and cloakrooms attache