| 6.4 | 30.1 | 15.7 | 26.9 | 2.4 | 18.6 | "
Children dead |11.7 | 36.2 | 13.1 | 20.8 | 6.1 | 12.1 | "
Infants dying from | | | | | | |
intestinal diseases | 8.9 | 37.6 | 18.3 | 18.8 | 4. | 12.4 | "
Children working | 4.2 | 19.5 | 13.2 | 30.3 | 11.5 | 21.3 | "
========================+=============================================

The index should be read in all grades from kindergarten to high school
and college.

Last winter the chairman of the Committee on the Physical Welfare of
School Children was invited to speak of physical examination before an
association of high-school principals. He began by saying, "This
question does not concern you as directly as it does the grammar-school
principals, but you can help secure funds to help their pupils." One
after another the high-school principals present told--one of his own
daughter, another of his honor girls, a third of his honor boys--the
same story of neglected headaches due to eye strain, breakdowns due to
undiscovered underfeeding, underexercise, or overwork. Are we coming to
the time when the state will step in to prevent any boy or girl in high
school, college, or professional school from earning academic honors at
the expense of health? Harmful conditions within schoolrooms and on
school grounds will not be neglected where pupils, teachers, school and
family physicians, and parents set about to find and to remove the
causes of physical defects.

Disease centers outside of school buildings quickly register themselves
in the schoolroom and in the person of a child who is paying the
penalty for living in contact with a disease center. If a child sleeps
in a dark, ill-ventilated, crowded room, the result will show in his
eyes and complexion; if he has too little to eat or the wrong thing to
eat, he will be underweight and undersized; if his nutrition is
inadequate and his food improper, he is apt to have eye trouble,
adenoids, and enlarged tonsils. He may have defective lung capacity,
due to improper breathing, too little exercise in the fresh air, too
little food. Existence of physical defects throws little light on
income at home, but conclusively shows lack of attention or of
understanding. Several days' absence of a child from school leads, in
every well-regulated school, to a visit to the child's home or to a
letter or card asking that the absence be explained. Even newly arrived
immigrants h