only to themselves, but to the
American school-teacher, either to repeal the laws that enjoin
instruction in hygiene or else so to adjust the curriculum that
teachers can comply with those laws. The present situation that
discredits both law and hygiene is most demoralizing to teacher, pupil,
and community. Many of us might admire the man teacher who frankly says
he never explains the evils of cigarettes because he himself is an
inveterate smoker of cigarettes. But what must we think of the school
system that shifts to such a man the right and the responsibility of
deciding whether or not to explain to underfed and overstimulated
children of the slums the truth regarding cigarettes? If practice and
precept must be consistent, shall the man be removed, shall he change
his habits, shall the law regarding instruction in hygiene be changed,
or shall other provision be made for bringing child and essential facts
together in a way that will not dull the child's receptivity?

3. _Teachers are made to feel that while arithmetic and reading are
essential, hygiene is not essential._ Whatever may be the facts
regarding the relative value of arithmetic and hygiene, whether or not
our state legislators have made a mistake in declaring hygiene to be
essential, are questions altogether too important for child and state
to be left to the discretion of the individual teacher or
superintendent. It is fair to the teachers who say they cannot afford
to turn aside from the three R's to teach hygiene, to admit that they
have not hitherto identified the teaching of hygiene with the promotion
of the physical welfare of children. Teachers awake to the opportunity
will sacrifice not only hygiene but any other subject for the sake of
promoting children's health. They do not really believe that arithmetic
is more important than health. What they mean to say is that hygiene,
as taught by them, has not heretofore had an appreciable effect upon
their pupils' health; that other agencies exist, outside of the school,
to teach the child how to avoid certain diseases and how to observe the
fundamental laws of health, whereas no other agencies exist to give the
child the essentials of arithmetic, reading, and geography. "We teach
(or try to teach) what our classes are examined in. If you want a
subject taught, you must test a class in it and hold a teacher
responsible for results, and examinations are mercilessly unhygienic,
you know."

4. _Teachers bel