CHAPTER XXIX[ToC]
OFFICIAL MACHINERY FOR ENFORCING HEALTH RIGHTS
The argument for getting things done presumes adequate active machinery, official and private, for doing things that schools are being urged to do. The chapter on Departments of School Hygiene suggests local, county, state, and national machinery necessary (1) to protect the child from injuries due to school environment, school methods, and school curriculum; (2) to getting those things done for the child at home and on the street, need for which is disclosed by physical and vitality tests at school. It is unreasonable to confine the school to the activities above outlined unless health machinery, adequate to the demands placed upon it by school and other community needs, is devised and kept in order.
Generally speaking, adequate health machinery is already provided for by city charters and by the state laws under which villages, townships, and counties are organized. Quite as generally, however, machinery and methods of adequate administration are undeveloped. How much machinery has already been set to work by New York City is shown by the accompanying chart. A useful exercise for individuals or school classes wishing to study health administration would be to chart in this way the machinery actually at work in their locality, county, and state. Even for New York it should be remembered that this chart does not include national quarantine, the state protection of the port, the state dairy and health commissions, or the state and national food inspection. To get an idea of the vast amount of attention given to health in New York City there should be added to this chart the work of many departments other than the department of health. The building bureau, tenement-house department, board of water supply, sewage commission, street cleaning, public baths and comfort stations, the department of water, gas, and electricity, and finally the department of hygiene and physical training in the public schools.
CHART SHOWING HOW NEW YORK CITY'S DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH EXERCISES IT'S AUTHORITY
Courtesy of Bureau of Municipal Research
Five elements of adequate machinery are generally lost sight of:
1. The voter.
2. The nonvoter, subject to health laws and often apt to violate them.