n examining a party of children for a summer outing. The
great preventive measure to be taken for catching diseases, colds,
diseased glands,--in fact all germ diseases,--is the repeated cleansing
of those portions of the human body in which germs may find
lodgment,--the mouth, the nose, the eyes, and the ears.

In caring for young infants great pains is taken to cleanse all the
orifices daily, but as soon as the child washes himself this practice
is usually abandoned. Washing these gateways is far more important than
washing the surface of the body through which germs could not possibly
gain entrance into the system except through wounds. Oftentimes the
douching of the nostrils with salt water will stop a cold at once. The
mouth is the most important place of all, and the teacher should take
care of her pupils' mouths first and foremost. As bad teeth, enlarged
tonsils, and adenoids harbor germs and putrescent matter that vitiate
every incoming and outgoing breath, these defects should be immediately
corrected. Are we coming to a time when a thorough house-cleaning in
the mouth of every child will take place before he enters the
schoolroom, preferably in the presence of the teacher?

Two other "catching" diseases cause city schools a great deal of
trouble,--trachoma and pediculosis (head lice). There are probably no
two diseases more quickly transmitted from one person to another.
Almost before their presence is known, all children of a school or all
persons of a group have contracted them. When at college twenty men of
my fraternity discovered almost at the same time that they had an
infectious eye trouble; yet we thought we were using different towels
and otherwise taking sanitary precautions. Last summer a Vassar
graduate took a party of tenement children for a country picnic. She
returned with head lice that required constant attention for weeks.
What then may we expect of children who live in homes where there is
neither water, time, nor privacy for bathing, where one towel must
serve a family of six, where mothers work for wages away from home and
see their children only before seven and after six?

Unfortunately for thousands of children, many parents still believe
these troubles will be outgrown. Last summer a fresh-air agency in New
York City arranged for several hundred school girls to go to a certain
camp for ten days each. The only condition was that the heads should be
free from lice and nits (eggs). From