15 (b). State (school) tar.-A uniform tax levied on all the property or polls of a State, the proceeds whereof is apportioned to the counties, towns, or school districts generally, according to school population or average attendance. Eng. Rates. Ger. Staats-Schulsteuern. 15 (c). Local (school) taxes.-County, town, and school district taxes for school purposes. Eng. Rates. 15 (1). Revenus from permanent funds -The interest on invested funds, including rent of school lands, if any. 16 (a). Expenditure (school).-Money expended for school purposes. 16 (b). Amount paid to teachers (for salaries), including salaries of superintendents. Sp. Obligaciones del personal. Gastado en el personal enseñante. 16 (c). Other current expenditure in addition to amount paid to teachers; i. e, incidental or miscellaneous expenditure for the maintenance of the schools and care of school buildings, including, among other things, fuel, lighting, janitors, incidental repairs, free text-books if any, and stationery, cost of administration, rent of hired buildings, etc. Foreign countries do not conform to this classification, but the analogous foreign terms are as follows: Sp. Eventuales. Gastos en materiales, útiles, etc., de consumo anual. 16 (d) Permanent expenditure.-Expenditure for school buildings (including permanent repairs), grounds, furniture, libraries, and lasting apparatus. Eng. Capital charges. Ger. Baukosten. Fr. Dépenses de construction; frais de location de maisons d'école; entretien des loca së scolaires; entretien et renouvellement du mobilier scolaire et du matériel d'enseignement. Sussidi per construzione e riparazione di edifici scolastici. It. Sp. Gastos que aumentan el capital escolar. 17. Permanent funds.-Value of funds and other property yielding an annual revenue for school purposes. 22. Average number belonging to a school, or system of schools, includes temporary absentees. Pupils absent for sickness or other cause, but with intention of returning to school, are considered as "belonging." This number differs from the number "enrolled" (see 2), inasmuch as the latter includes all different pupils who have attended at any time during the year, some of whom may have been dropped from the roll of those "belonging," on account of death, removal from the district, protracted sickness, entrance on business, etc. 25. Normal school.-A school designed for the professional training of persons intending to become teachers, usually maintained by a State or city. 27. Certificate: license (to teach).-A formal testimony of ability to teach, or permission to teach, awarded as the result of satisfactory examination before an examining board, or after having successfully completed a certain prescribed course of study, or given other evidence of capacity to teach. Eng. Certificate. Ger. Fr. It. Sp. Zeugniss; Reifezeugniss; Licenz. Titre (or brevet) de capacité; certificat d'aptitude pédagogique. Certificado de aptitud; diploma ó título de maestro. 23 (a). University -An institution for higher education, having as its nucleus a college in which the so-called liberal arts are taught in a course of three or four years for the degree of A. B., and in addition one or more departments for the learned professions, medicine, law, or divinity-or it may be for advanced or post-graduate work, along any lines of learning or inves tigation. In England the university unites several colleges. Eng. University. Ger. Fr. It. Sp. Faculté. Université is the term very generally employed for the Paris "facultés." Universidad. 28 (b). College. -Strictly speaking, an institution of higher education, usually with a four years' course completing preparation for the degree of A. B. The word college is also used in connection with a descriptive word to designate other species of higher education, as, “agricultural college," "medical college." 23 (4). Academy; institute; seminary.-Names given indifferently to private secondary schools "Institute" is occasionally applied to schools of higher grade. Eng Grammar school; high school; institute; public school, etc. Fr. Établissement libre d'enseignement secondaire; établissement laïque; établissement ecclésiastique; petit seminaire. Sp. Establecimiento privado de enseñanza secundaria; seminario; instituto; liceo. 30. Session.-A sitting of a school, or assembly of the pupils for recitations, exercises, and studies, continuing from the time the school is called to order until the pupils are dismissed beyond the teachers' jurisdiction. There are generally either one or two sessions each day. Eng. Meeting of the school. Ger. Schulstunde. Sp. Horas de clase. 31. Recess; intermission.-Brief suspensions of school exercises, recurring periodically ench day, for recreation, meals, or some other purpose. In public elementary schools holding sessions from 9 to 12 a. m.. and from 1 to 4 p. m., two recesses of fifteen minutes each take place, the first at or near the hour of 10.30 a. m., and the second at or near the hour of 2.30 p. m. The noon hour for dinner is not called a "recess," but usually an "intermission." 32. Corporal punishment.-Punishment inflicted upon a pupil's person, generally with a rod, cane, or ruler, but including a variety of other punishments in which bodily pain is caused. Other punishments, to be discriminated from corporal, are such as are based on the sense of honor, such as deprivation from privileges of the school, confinement after school hours, requirement to sit or stand in some unusual place, enrollment on a list of disgraced pupils, etc. 33 (a). Promotion.—Advancement from any grade to the next higher. Eng. Advance to higher standard. Ger. l'ersetzung. Fr. Avancement; montée d'une classe. Sp. Promociones; pases. 33 (5). Grade; class -The body or group of pupils having the same degree of advancement pursuing the same studies, etc. CHAPTER XXX. MEDICAL INSPECTION OF SCHOOLS. A system of daily inspection of schools by physicians has been introduced in several cities, among others Boston, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia. In the following pages is given a compendium of information bearing upon this subject, in a series of extracts from school and other official reports, from the writings and addresses of eminent professional men, and from other sources. A short description of the system in Paris is also given. MEDICAL INSPECTION OF SCHOOLS IN BOSTON. [Massachusetts State Board of Health Report, 1894, p. 819.] The need of medical inspection of schools, for the purpose of detecting contagious and other diseases among the school children, was brought to the attention of the mayor and city council in 1892, and for this purpose an appropriation was then secured. A delay of several months was occasioned in securing the approval of the school committee, so that the plan did not finally go into operation until November, 1894, when the board of health selected 50 physicians for this purpose, divided the city into 50 school districts, and began school inspection. These physicians are appointed medical inspectors of schools and agents of the board of health, and are authorized to visit each school daily during the early part of the morning session and to examine all pupils who complain or appear to the teachers to be ill. If an inspector finds a pupil showing symptoms of any contagious disease, or is otherwise too ill to remain in school, he will advise the teacher to send the pupil home for the temporary observation of its parents or family physician. He will also give such professional advice as may be required by the teachers to aid them in carrying out all laws and regulations pertaining to contagious diseases, vaccination, and general school hygiene, whose enforcement belongs to the school committee or board of health. In the examination of throats the medical inspectors will use only the wooden tongue depressors which are furnished by the board of health, each of which is to be burned after a single use. The medical inspectors of schools are also authorized agents of the board of health, and will, on notification of said board, visit all cases of scarlet fever and diphtheria at the homes of the patients, for the sole purpose of examining the places and plans of their isolation, and as such agents they will report to the board of health their approval or disapproval of such places and plans of isolation. Such medical agent will not prescribe, advise, or criticise anything beyond that which pertains strictly to the isolation of the patient, and will carefully avoid any word or act which may be construed as an infringement upon the rights: of the family or attending physician. He will visit the patient as often as may be necessary to inform himself as to the continued isolation of the case. No case of scarlet fever or diphtheria will be discharged from isolation until its complete recovery is certified to the board of health by one of its medical agents, and such certificates of recovery will be based on the complete disappearance of desquamation in cases of scarlet fever, and on the absence of the Klebs Loeffler bacillus in cases of diphtheria, the latter to be shown by bacteriological examination made satisfactory to the board of health. The reports of the medical inspectors of schools for the months of November and December show that 4,962 pupils were presented to them for examination. Five hundred and sixty-four were found to be too ill to remain in school for the time being, 212 were suffering from contagious diseases, 43 were suffering from diphtheria, and 131 were too ill from troubles in the eyes and ears to be in school. 1489 ED 98 -94 Diseases of the throat were most prevalent, and were found in 1,749 pupils. Diseases of the eye, ear, and spine are found sufficiently often among the school children to warrant a more careful examination to find those who may be suffering from mild forms or early stages of these diseases. It often happens that school children suffer serious and unrecognized disadvantages by reason of defective eyesight, deficient hearing, or a commencing deformity of the spine. The mild forms and early stages of these ills would not generally be seen and appreciated by the teachers, and it would be unreasonable to expect them to detect illness which requires special skill on the part of the physician to recognize. The board of health reported that" diphtheria became epidemic during the year (1894), causing 817 deaths, and its increase was noticeable in every month of the year over those of 1893. It assumed an epidemic form in the last week of September, reached its climax about the first week in December, and gradually fell off at the end of the year. * * "The prevalence of the disease in epidemic form made it possible for the board of health to introduce three new forces for the suppression of the disease. One is the new remedy, "antitoxin;' * another agent has been found in the use The third and probably most potent * * of the bacteriological laboratory, * agency in controlling the spread of this disease and that of scarlet fever is the new force of 50 physicians for the daily inspection of the schools, in which there are more than 70,000 of the most susceptible subjects to these two diseases. This has set in practice the most active, constant, and skillful watchfulness for the earliest symptoms of these and other diseases among school children." [Massachusetts State Board of Health Report, 1895, p. 756.] The inspection of schools, which was commenced in November, 1894, and described fully in our last annual report, has been followed through the year with excellent results. The schools have been visited daily, and all children who have complained of illness or appeared to the teachers to be ill have been examined by the visiting physician, who, in all cases, advises the teachers what to do with the pupil. This work has now been in progress for fourteen months, and it has demonstrated the fact that there are not only many cases of contagious diseases to be found in the schools, and which require early recognition and removal, but that there are large numbers of school children whose illness and whose disposition by the teacher require the decision of a competent physician. For the fourteen months ending December 31, 1895, 16,790 pupils were examined, 10,737 of whom were found to be ill, 6,053 were found not to be ill, and 2,041 of these were too ill to remain in school for the day. Seventy-seven cases of diphtheria, 28 cases of scarlet fever, 116 of measles, 28 of chicken pox, 69 of pediculosis, 47 of scabies, 47 of mumps. 33 of whooping cough, and 8 of congenital syphilis were found in children sitting in their seats, spreading these diseases to other children. The remaining 10,372 sick children were suffering from a large variety of other diseases. Commendable efforts were made by the board in the direction of a general improvement of the sanitary condition of the schoolhouses of Boston. In view of the fact that contagious diseases may easily be spread in the schools through the medium of infected books, pencils, sponges, slates, desks, and other surfaces of the schoolroom handled or used by the children, the following recommendation was made to the school committee in 1894: To the Honorable School Committee, City of Boston. GENTLEMEN: The board of health begs respectfully to recommend that the desks, chairs, window sills, wainscotings, doors, doorknobs, and such other surfaces as are likely to be handled by the children within the school buildings be carefully rubbed with cloths or sponges, wet with a solution of corrosive sublimate (one part of corrosive sublimate to 1,000 parts of water), as often as every Saturday during the school year; that the floors of the schoolhouses be well covered with sawdust, thoroughly wet with the same disinfecting solution, at least once a week, and the sawdust swept up and burned; that the use of all slates, slate pencils, and sponges for slate use be discontinued, and that paper and lead pencils be substituted. The disinfection of books is scarcely practicable except by fire, and the board would recommend, whenever it is known that a book has been handled by a pupil who was at the time affected with a contagious disease, or the book is otherwise much soiled, it be immediately burned. Very respectfully, THE BOARD OF HEALTH, By S. H. DURGIN, Chairman. |