The basis of all successful sanitary progress is an intelligent and responsive public.
The problem is to visualize cause and effect to the ordinary individual, too absorbed in his own affairs to study out the principle for himself.
The success of the street cleaning brigade, tried for one season in Boston; the improvement in the condition of parks wherever receptacles for wastes have been placed; the tidy condition of corner lots where civic improvement leagues have taken the matter up with the children, all point to a means neglected by the officials, and hence to wasted opportunity and delayed obedience to regulations.
For the position of instructive inspector, it goes without saying that a trained woman will be worth more than a man, since most of the regulations affect or would be controlled by women.
A gain in the speed of adoption of sanitary reforms would be comparatively rapid under a thoroughly qualified woman as instructive inspector, and that there will not be any great gain until such a measure is adopted is the firm belief of the writer.
Mrs. von Wagner’s work in Yonkers, begun in 1897 under the Civic League, is well known. After three years’ trial the Board of Health established her in the position of Sanitary Inspector. Her work in the tenement districts has been most successful. Several other cities have followed the example of Yonkers, but the practice is by no means general. Yet there is no doubt that it would add efficiency to any Board of Health.
The most recent experiment was the employment, the past summer, of an inspector provided by the Women’s Municipal League of Boston, to inspect and devise means for bettering conditions in a district of small shops where food is sold. The district had been found by the Market Committee of this organization to be in need of such help. A graduate of the School for Social Workers was chosen, who carried on her campaign with the spirit of helpfulness fostered by her training. She was given a badge by the Board of Health, who have been most sympathetic and cordial in their support. The experiment has been justified by the results and especially by the reception accorded the inspector by the people of the district. It has proved that there is a responsive desire to fulfill the law wherever its provisions are understood.
Inspection cannot fulfill its purpose until it is instructive. Man and the law will be in accord when the benefits of the law to man are appreciated.
It is incumbent upon the sanitary authorities to see to it that their efforts are not wasted on an inert, partially hostile clientele.