ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS (INSTRUCTION IN HYGIENE). (Hansard, 11 April 1911)

§ Dr. ADDISON

This Bill, which I ask leave to introduce, is identical with that which I brought in last year. It is in no sense a party measure. More than 200 Members of the House on all sides have signified their approval of it. The Bill provides that simple instruction shall be given in all public elementary schools in hygiene, and to girls as to the feeding of infants. Since the introduction of this Bill last year two very important official publications have appeared upon this subject. One is from the principal medical officer of the Local Government Board on child mortality, and shows that the provision of this instruction in a proper manner would greatly prevent the waste of strength which results in burdens for the Poor Law in this country, which we are endeavouring vainly to mitigate by 250 various schemes of insurance brought before the House. The report of the chief medical officer of the Board of Education shows us, I think, some glimpses of the first fruits of this national tragedy. Of late years there has been a very considerable quickening of the public conscience in this matter, and, owing to the efforts of various associations and the voluntary work of school teachers and public authorities there has been a diminution in infant mortality in this country. Nevertheless two years ago we find one death in every three in this country was a child under the age of five years, and one out of every five a child of less than twelve months. In this country 150,000 children under the age of five did every year. There are many causes which are closely interwoven. There is over-crowded rooms, bad sanitation, mercantile employment, and many others, but I do not hesitate to say at least 50,000 children did in this country yearly as a direct or indirect consequence of parental ignorance. I will give the House one illustration. In the fifteen large Lancashire towns, with a population of 3,000,000, we find in the record of the Registrar-General that for the summer quarter of last year the death rate was nearly 30 per cent. higher than in London, mainly due to excessive infant mortality. The death rate was nearly three times higher than in London; due to causes attributable to parental ignorance. In Burnley, which has an unenviable reputation, the infant death rate was 201 deaths per thousand. According to the medical officer's report, this is chiefly attributable to the fact that the mothers working in factories left their children in charge of ignorant persons. There are numerous quotations which I could make from the report presented by the Local Government Board which state in explicit terms that we shall make no real progress in this matter until we begin our education in these things at an early period of life. It is not the fault of the persons and young people in whose charge children and infants are left, that they know no better than to give them improper food as a substitute for milk; they inherit the ignorance and prejudice of those older than themselves, and until we make an organised endeavour to remove this ignorance at that period of life when it can be removed this state of affairs will continue. It is not simply a question of the elimination of the unfit. You find an increased mortality prevails up to the age of about 251 twenty in the same districts that present a high infant death rate.

In the report presented to the Board of Education giving the results of the examination of school children we find a record that I think ist justly appalling and such as should make us ashamed of ourselves as a nation were it not that it reveals this fact that with the greatest precaution all this suffering and waste of human life is preventable. It is recorded that in this country among the 6,000,000 school children nearly 2,000,000 of them are at the present time suffering from injurious decay of the teeth, greatly due to lack of cleanliness and imperfect feeding. There are 2,000,000 children in our schools with unclean heads. It is a national disgrace. There are 500,000 children suffering from disease of the throat, mainly preventable, which, if we had instructed their parents in early life, could be largely avoided. We turn our children out of school completely ignorant on all these matters, unable to make themselves sufficiently serviceable and useful in their homes, and the mothers are just as ignorant as the children. That hygienic instruction can be given with abundant success is now beyond the range of controversy. If we can obtain the incorporation of it into the code of education so much the better, and there would then be no need for this Bill. I have no desire to overcrowd the curriculum, but I think many things, consisting chiefly of mere recital of facts, far too long, may very well give place to something far more serviceable. The need for this instruction and training is urgent. By adopting it we should do very much, not only to improve the health of the children, but to bring them up in clean and wholesome habits and ideals, to stimulate and encourage their attention and alertness and make them more useful in their day and generation. We should also give a better start in life to those who come after them, and we thereby diminish a great deal that is preventable of human suffering and misery that contributes so much to burden the Poor Law and the account of which forms so great and so discreditable a part of our national life.