Catastrophe and Social Change / Based Upon a Sociological Study of the Halifax Disaster

by Samuel Henry Prince

But the old problem would have still remained unsolved, had not the city authorities caught something of the reconstruction spirit and felt the sharp urge of increasing difficulties. Action has been at last precipitated. However, lacking in comprehensiveness the first attempts, the city has bestirred itself and has come to realize adequate housing to be a supreme need of the community and vitally associated with the city's health and welfare. A Housing Committee of five members has been formed, having as chairman a man of widely recognized building experience and as director of housing, a capable citizen. It is intended to make full use of the federal housing scheme, in a practical way, the City Council having reversed its former decisions and accepted by by-law the obligation which the government act requires. It is hoped in this way to promote the erection of modern dwellings and to “contribute to the general health and well-being of the community.”

Thus the principle of promotive legislation and government aid, which when finally accepted in 1890, began the remarkable housing reform in England, has entered the City of Halifax, and will eventually write a record of increased health, comfort and contentment. How soon that record is written will largely depend upon the citizens themselves and their response to a leadership that is forceful as well as wise.

The matter of health organization in Halifax affords perhaps the most significant contrast with the pre-disaster days. Prior to the catastrophe public health organization was not a matter for civic pride. The dispensary, which is often regarded as the index of a city's care for health, had received scant support and could only perform indifferent service. Adequate sanitary inspection could not be carried out for want of inspectors. The death rate[170] had averaged about twenty percent for a period of ten years, and the infant and tuberculosis mortality had been tremendously high—the former reaching the figure of one hundred and eighty-two.[171] There was no spur to progressive administration. The city was too ill-equipped to cope with such conditions.

Today Halifax has the finest public health program and most complete public health organization in the Dominion. The fact that this is so is in very close relation to the catastrophe inasmuch as an unexpended balance of relief moneys[172] has been redirected by request for health purposes in Halifax. A five-year policy has been inaugurated. Fifty thousand dollars per year of the relief money, fifteen thousand dollars per year of the Canadian government money and five thousand dollars per year each, of the city and provincial money are to be expended in the five-year campaign. The sum totals seventy-five thousand dollars per year, or practically one dollar per capita.

A completely equipped health centre has been established including all the essential remedial and educational agencies, namely, pre-natal, pre-school-age, school-age, tuberculosis, venereal disease, eye, ear, nose and throat clinics. There will also be provision for the growth of health ideas through mother's classes, first-aid, and sanitary leagues. A public health course for nurses is included in the educational campaign.[173] A most successful baby-saving exhibit has been held, and the plan calls for a full-time tuberculosis specialist.

Upon the part of the civic authorities there has been a greater realization of responsibility. Progressive steps have been already taken including the appointment of a Doctor of Public Health, and the provision of district sanitary inspectors. Restaurants and all places where food is exposed for sale are being systematically inspected with a view of effecting improvements. A single instance of commendable activity along sanitary lines is the prohibition of movable lunch cars, which have been seen on the streets of Halifax for years. The removal of a lot of dwellings unfit for occupation is receiving the attention of the officials. In fact it is the intention of the present Council to improve conditions throughout the city generally as quickly as is feasible to do so. Another illustration of the direction of attention to modern social methods is the present discussion of plans for a psychiatric clinic for mental hygiene and the discovery of defectives, especially those attending the schools. Still another indication of interest in child welfare is the fact that a clinic for babies was established in a central locality and a nurse for babies regularly employed. The hitherto meager hospital facilities are being amplified by the building of a maternity hospital and the enlargement of the children's hospital,—a centralization plan of hospital service being a unique and distinctive feature. In the way of industrial hygiene a full-time nurse is employed in the ship-building plant and here also safety policies have been introduced and have reduced accidents to a minimum. The movement for the control of preventable disease is gaining impetus and a modern tuberculosis hospital is being established. The Victoria General Hospital is being enlarged and extended, the additions having an estimated cost of half a million dollars.

But it is not alone the activities of the Health Commission but also the earlier vigorous policy of disaster medical relief, which is seen reflected in the growing sense of community-responsibility for health conditions. Halifax has come to see the principle fundamental to all health reform, that public health is a purchasable commodity and that improvement in vital statistics is in close correlation with the progress of health organization. It remains to be seen whether so favored a community will also lead the way in the registration and periodic health examination of every individual citizen which is the final goal of all policies of health reform.

The standards of education have always been high in Halifax. She has been the educational center of the Maritime Provinces. Her academic attainments have brought to her much distinction and not a little glory. Her public schools boast many a fine record to furnish inspiration to each successive generation. To secure appointment to the Halifax teaching staff the applicant must possess the highest qualifications. But however much educational leaders may desire them, modern methods and up-to-date equipment await in large measure the public will. Only where there is a will is there a way. That the public will in Halifax is becoming awakened to the vital rôle her educators play is being proven by the response to the campaign for the expansion of Dalhousie University. That response has been most generous and general, while local contributions have been amplified by large benefactions from the Carnegie Corporation and the Rockefeller Foundation. Of the latter benefactions together amounting to one million dollars—four hundred thousand will be expended upon buildings and equipment. The modernizing process is shown again in the decision of the university to establish at once a Faculty of Commerce and to encourage the teaching of Spanish and Portuguese in the educational institutions of the city.

In the old teaching methods all are given the same course of instruction regardless of the individual mental differences. Today the effort is to provide an education to fit the mind rather than to force the mind to fit the education. In the public schools of Halifax there are not lacking indications which herald the coming of the newer pedagogy. Among these may be mentioned the opening of sub-normal classes for retarded children, experimentation with the social-recitation system, the display of Safety-First League posters and the development of those departments already established, viz. vocational and domestic training, manual and physical education, medical inspection, supervised playgrounds, school nurses, dental clinics, and the wider use of school plants in evening technical classes.

Halifax will sooner or later decide to employ to the fullest degree all the opportunities which child-training affords. The school system is an institution of society to mediate between a child and his environment. Children must learn to do and to be as well as to know. Their plastic minds must receive practice in resistance to domination by feeling and in the use of the intellect as the servant and guide of life. To the children of Halifax is due eventually a thorough training in citizenship. This is the last call of the new future in education. It rests upon the twin pillars of educational psychology and educational sociology.