titute education for
compulsion with parents who obstinately refuse to take proper remedial
measures for their children when reported defective.

This present plan requires the entire working time of inspectors and
nurses for school work. Thus New York has for the present definitely
abandoned the plan of having the district inspection for contagious
diseases done by school physicians. The purpose of the change is not to
reduce danger of infection, which was negligible, but to increase the
probability of scientific attention to school children.

Before a final settlement is made for New York City there should be
tests showing what the school authorities would do if physicians and
nurses were subordinate to them. It is conceivable that one physician
working from nine to five would accomplish more than six physicians
working the alleged three hours a day. So imperative are the demands of
school hygiene that it seems probable that in New York and in other
large cities school physicians, whether paid by the board of health or
the board of education, must be expected to be at the service of school
children, subject to the call of school officers, during as many hours
of the day as teachers themselves must give. It is even conceivable
that effective use of the knowledge gained by physical examinations of
school children, and by those responsible for school hygiene, will
require evening office hours or evening visits to homes, and regular
Saturday office hours and Saturday visits by school physicians and
nurses. Finally, it must be expected that the programme for school
hygiene will need the special attention of physicians and nurses during
the summer months, and other vacation periods when children and parents
alike have time to receive and to carry out their instructions.

One danger in New York City is that the board of education, like the
board of health, when compelled to choose between so-called standard,
necessary, traditional duty and school hygiene, will sacrifice the
latter. The school authorities, without any more funds and without
physicians and nurses, could already have made, had they desired, eye
tests and breathing tests sufficiently accurate to detect the majority
of children needing attention. The outcome of the discussion as to the
jurisdiction of the two boards will undoubtedly be to interest both in
their joint responsibility for children's welfare, and to increase the
attention given by both to the physi