defects in a month than all your physicians and nurses will
correct in a year." At the same meeting the physical director of
schools of New York City appealed eloquently for "biological engineers"
at school, who would test the child's strength as building engineers
are employed to test the strength of beams and foundations.[8] As
explanation for the need of the then recently organized National School
Hygiene Association, he elaborated the proposition that school
requirements and school environment damage child health. "Ocular
defects are in direct ratio to the length of time the pupil has
attended school.... A desk that is too high may easily be the indirect
agent for causing scoliosis, producing myopia or astigmatism....
Physically examine school children by all means, but do not fail to
examine school desks."

Fifty schools in different parts of New York City were examined last
year with especial reference to the factors likely to cause or to
aggravate physical defects.[9] The results, tabulated and analyzed,
prove that the woman principal was right; many schools are so built or
so conducted, many school courses are so devised or so executed, that
children are inevitably injured by the environment in which the
compulsory education law forces them to spend their formative years.

[Illustration: ONE OF NEW YORK CITY'S ROOF PLAYGROUNDS]

Recently I noticed that our little office girl, so anaemic and nervous
when she left school that we hesitated to employ her, was becoming rosy
and spirited. The child herself explained the change: "I like it
better. I have more money to spend. I get more outdoor exercise, and
then, oh, the room is so much sunnier and there is more air and the
people are all so nice!" And these were just the necessities which were
lacking in the school from which she came. Moreover, it is a fair
commentary on the school work and the school hygiene in too many of our
towns and cities to-day. "I like it better" means that school work is
not adapted to the dominant interests of the child, that the curriculum
includes subjects remote from the needs and ambitions of the modern
school child, and fails to include certain other subjects which it
recognizes as useful and necessary, and therefore finds interesting.
"I have more money to spend" means that this little girl was able to
have certain things, like a warm, pretty dress, rubbers, or an
occasional trolley ride, which she longed for and needed. "I get