Handbook of suggestions on health education for the consideration of teachers and others concerned in the work of public elementary schools / Board of Education.

Date:
1928
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Handbook of suggestions on health education for the consideration of teachers and others concerned in the work of public elementary schools / Board of Education. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    organised and prepared than in former days. Nothing is being so well done that it cannot be done better. 8. In what does hygiene consist? The pathway to personal health is, first, a sound body at birth and its careful nurture throughout life—a matter of nature and heredity guided by nurture and education. The second requirement is the avoidance of the causes of impairment and disease—the daily conflict between man’s body and its total environment, and the avoidance or control of hurtful agencies in such environment. “‘ Perfect correspondence with environment,” said Herbert Spencer, “would be perfect life,” a harmony instead of a disharmony. Thirdly, there is the necessary and prompt relief or amelioration of the “‘ reactions’”’ of the body to such agencies, in other words, the early and effective treatment of deficiencies and diseases in the body as they occur. It is at the beginning of disease, in childhood, that control and cure are most practicable. These three elements constitute the way of hygiene. There can be no dispute as to their validity. For these are the Laws of Life. It is obvious that guidance and direction are needed by the uninitiated child if it is to find and follow this pathway. He cannot find it by chance nor can he follow it by guessing. To provide the guidance and knowledge is the task of the school teacher, though much of it is hidden in the wisdom of the body itself. Hence it is nurture rather than instruction which is required. Yet there is a science as well as an art oi Nurture, and it is the office of the teacher to make himself familiar with both. g. There are three principal ways in which health may be both acquired and taught, in youth, (a) by habit-training, (6) by learning the truths of biology, chemistry and physics, and (c) by understanding the principles and practice of good living itself. They are three aspects of one study, each appropriate to different age periods or degrees of experience. In a young child under Io or II years of age, hygiene should