Maintaining Health (Formerly Health and Efficiency)

by Rasmus Larssen Alsaker

Many teach the children to be ashamed of their bodies. Every part of the body has its use and whatever is useful is good. Those who do not abuse their bodies have nothing of which to be ashamed.

The education of children in the past has been along wrong lines. It has been the aim to cram them full of isolated facts, many of them untrue. We are slowly outgrowing this tendency, but too much remains. Thanks largely to Froebel and Doctor Montessori, our methods are growing more natural. The adult learns by doing and so does the child. Doctor Montessori teaches the children to use all their senses. She gives them fabrics of various textures and objects of different shapes and colors. Thus they learn colors, forms, smoothness, roughness, etc. She teaches them how to dress and undress and how to take their baths. She lets them go about the schoolroom instead of compelling them to sit still at their desks in cramped positions. In this way they get knowledge that they never forget. They learn to read and write and figure in playful ways through the proper direction of their curiosity. Little tots of four, or even younger, are often able to read, and there has been no forcing. All has come about through utilizing the child's curiosity.

If children are delicate, they should not be put into a schoolroom with thirty or forty other children. Keep such children outdoors when the weather permits and allow them to become strong. The education will take care of itself later. There is nothing to be gained by overtaxing a delicate child in the schoolroom, which too often is poorly ventilated, and having a funeral a little later.

Children should be taught the few simple fundamental rules of nutrition until they are second nature. A thorough knowledge of the fact that it is very injurious to eat when there is bodily or mental discomfort is worth ten thousand times as much to a child as the ability to extract cube root or glibly recite, "Arma virumque cano Trojae," etc. The realization that underchewing and overeating will cause mental and physical degeneration is much more valuable than the ability to demonstrate that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. This knowledge can be given so unobtrusively that the child does not realize that it is learning, for there are many opportunities.

When a child gets sick and is old enough to understand, instead of sympathizing with it explain how the illness came about, and please remember that in explaining you can leave the germs out of the question, for diseases of childhood are almost entirely due to improper feeding. The value of education like that is beyond any price, for it is a form of health insurance. Reforming the race, means that we must begin with the children.

In parts of Europe cultured people have a working knowledge of two or three languages. This is certainly convenient. Those who wish their children to know one or two tongues beside English should remember that in infancy two tongues are learned as readily as one, if they are spoken. Those who can use three languages when they are four years old are not infant prodigies. They have had the opportunity to learn, and languages are simply absorbed. The language teaching in the public schools is a joke. After taking several years of French or German the school children can not speak about the common things of life in those tongues, though they may know more about the grammar than the natives. In other words, they know the science of the language, but not the language itself.

A time comes when the child wants to know about the origin of life. If the parents have been companions, they can impart this knowledge better than anyone else. If they are unable to explain, the family doctor should be able to impart the knowledge with delicacy. I do not believe that such knowledge should be imparted to mixed classes in the public schools, as advocated by some. If the parents do their duty, there will be no need of public education in sex hygiene.

The doctor should be an educator, so he merits consideration here. Nearly all families have their medical advisers, and these professional people have it in their power to bring more sunshine into the homes than their fees will pay for. On the other hand, they can, and too often do, give both advice and remedies that are harmful They should sow seeds of truth. If the infant is properly cared for, it is never ill. Inasmuch as there are but few families with sufficient knowledge to keep their babies healthy at all times, there are many calls for the doctor. Parents are generally unduly alarmed about their infants. Nearly always the trouble is primarily in the alimentary tract, due to improper feeding, and the doctor with his wide experience can relieve the parental anxiety, and at the same time tell them where they have made their mistakes and how they have brought suffering upon their little ones.

Of course, there should be no dosing with medicine and no injections of foreign matter into the blood stream. Rest, quiet, cleanliness and warmth are what the children need to restore them to health. The right kind of physician when acting as adviser to intelligent parents who wish to do the best by their children will see to it that there is little or no disease.

If the parents do not know what to do, the most economical procedure is to consult a physician who has understanding of and confidence in nature. Pay no attention to the women of many words who give advice "because they have had many children and have buried them all."