PERSONAL FACTORS

Function of School Life

A large part of the child’s life is spent in the schoolroom and it must be remembered that it is that part of the child’s life when he is most susceptible to environment and is therefore most easily influenced mentally, morally and physically. The entire child goes to school, therefore the function of the school is to develop the physical and moral as well as the mental.

Youth is the time of unrest and intense activity and the schoolwork should be so arranged that the energies of childhood and youth may be directed so as to develop the pupil into a symmetrical adult. With such intense activity a great amount of energy is used up; thus it is clear that the child needs plenty of sleep and the proper amount of good, nourishing food and if he is deprived of these he can not do his best work mentally.

Age of Beginner

We have not yet fully realized that our present school system, well organized as it is, has certain ill effects on the health of the children. Many of the reasons are peculiar to the circumstance under which the child must attend school and can not be relieved, but there are many that can be corrected and in time will be. Children are often sent to school at too early an age and as a result the growth is retarded and in some cases results in an actual defective physical development. The physical development is often retarded by prolonged fatigue. This fatigue may be the result of improper ventilation, forced attention to subjects that are too difficult, strict discipline, lack of sufficient relaxation and many other factors connected with the ordinary school.

One of the greatest mistakes in our modern system of education is sending the child to school too young. Six years of age is plenty young; seven years old is better. Even at this age some are not sufficiently sturdy to endure the mental and physical strain of the schoolroom and the application to the studies that is usually exacted of them.

Play Periods Necessary

The school affords an environment that is entirely different from that which the child has been accustomed to; therefore the beginner should be allowed much liberty and should not be compelled to remain in his seat more than one-third of the time. This should be divided into short intervals, alternating work and play. It must be remembered that the small child is active; therefore it is imperative that he be given various exercises that will call into play the different muscles of his body. This will have a tendency to relieve the fatigue from sitting at the desk. When children first start to school they usually lose weight and become more or less nervous during the first few days or weeks.

The child should be allowed sufficient free time during each day for play and for the development of initiative. The amount of home work required should be very carefully considered and regulated according to the capacity and ability of the child; yet care must be taken or the especially bright child will be overworked and will not be given enough time for play and the development of a real childhood.

Peculiarities of Child Considered

The peculiarities of the child should be considered and the curriculum arranged accordingly. The methods of study should receive proper consideration as well as the methods of teaching. Special classes should be arranged for the backward students. Many cases of backwardness or mental deficiency are due to the child’s inability to see clearly or hear distinctly, and when these conditions are corrected the child will be normally bright. Many times a child is unjustly disciplined because of some physical defect or handicap which should be corrected.

Statistics show that tests and examinations have a detrimental effect upon the health of the pupils. Experiments have shown that children lose weight during such tests and examinations; that they are restless at night and suffer loss of appetite. All these have a bearing upon the health of the child.

Posture

Attention should be given the habits of the children and especially the posture of the child as he sits in the seat at his desk. A faulty posture may result in an adaptative curvature of the spine which in later years will do much harm. The sitting posture is of more importance than the standing posture since the child sits so much more than he stands.

The pupil should not be allowed to sit in a stooped position over his desk as this cramps the chest and interferes with respiration, makes the heart action labored and produces round shoulders; it also tends to produce a kyphosis in the dorsal region of the spine. If a child persists in sitting in this stooped position and finds it difficult to sit in the proper position, attention should be given the spine, for subluxations will be found which are interfering with the transmission of mental impulses to the muscles of the back, thus making it difficult for the child to sit in the normal posture. Or it may be defective eyes which make it difficult for the child to see his work and he therefore stoops that the work may be brought nearer the eyes. In this case a cervical subluxation will be found and when properly adjusted no more trouble will be experienced. It may be this tendency to stoop is the result of fatigue; to overcome this he should be given periods of rest and relaxation from time to time during school hours; or this fatigue may be due to poor elimination from the kidney place subluxations.

Recess

During the morning and afternoon sessions the pupils should be given a recess for fifteen or twenty minutes, and when the weather will permit all the children should be required to go outdoors and engage in some form of play or exercise, properly supervised by a thoroughly competent individual. This will not only benefit the pupils physically, but will also make the mind more active and aid very materially in their mental development. In addition to this exercise, some time during the day the windows should be opened, except possibly in extremely cold weather, and the teacher and pupils should engage in some form of calisthenics. This will tend to keep the pupils in a fit physical condition and mentally alert for the balance of the day.

The school grounds should be provided with modern equipment for the proper development of the children physically and should be supervised by kind and well trained attendants. Every school should have a well equipped and properly supervised gymnasium.

School Dis-eases

At one time the school was thought to be largely responsible for the spread of dis-eases among children, but this idea is changing in later years. In reality there are no specific school dis-eases. The dis-eases that have been so referred to are merely those abnormal conditions incident to childhood and youth. Rosenau gives a very interesting article on this subject. He says: “Parents naturally come to regard the school as a veritable pesthouse for the spread of communicable dis-eases of childhood—especially measles, whooping cough, mumps, diphtheria, scarlet fever, common colds, etc. Many of these dis-eases prevail in epidemic form during the summer time, when school is closed, and under other circumstances which show the epidemics may be independent of school attendance. It is difficult to determine just what part is played by the commingling of the pupils in school in the spread of such dis-eases and what part is due to other factors. Some dis-eases take a sudden jump in the autumn with the opening of school. Further, these dis-eases are not contracted by the school children alone, but are carried home to the other members of the household, and thereby create secondary foci. This problem of the communicable dis-eases and the school is far from solution; the spread of these dis-eases has not been conquered by medical inspection, and their relation to school attendance is one that needs careful observation and study.”

Thus we see that the cause of school dis-eases has not been answered, and we find in this article that which strengthens the contention of Chiropractic—that the cause of the dis-ease is in the child and not something introduced from the outside.

The environment of the school creates a necessity for certain internal adaptative actions, and if this adaptative action can not take place the result will be an abnormal condition peculiar to the necessity for adaptation. The lack of adaptation may result in incoördinations of the respiratory tract; incoördinations of the eyes, involving not only the sight but the different tissues and secretions of the eyes; incoördinations involving the heart, throat and mouth and many conditions of eruptions of the skin. Especially do we find deformities and incoördinations of the spine and spinal column.

In diagnostic terminology these conditions would be called bronchitis, bronchopneumonia, pleurisy, myopia, catarrhal conjunctivitis, trachoma, cardiac dis-eases, such as endocarditis, etc. The mouth, nose and throat dis-eases would be coryza, adenoid growths, enlarged tonsils, tonsilitis, nose bleed, etc. These conditions could all be prevented or corrected by adjusting the causative subluxations.

Prophylaxis

It is not necessary for us to go into an explanation of the spinal column and how subluxations are produced. It is sufficient at this time to call the student’s attention to the fact that subluxations are often produced, and especially is this true during childhood. The children are subject to falls during their play at school and they are most likely to produce subluxations. This being true, the children should be analyzed periodically to determine the subluxations and then they should be adjusted. When parents realize the good that is to come from such procedure they will take their children to the chiropractor and have their spine palpated and the subluxations adjusted. When this becomes a universal practice there will be a marked decrease in the so-called school dis-eases or children’s dis-eases.