II. That legislation, similar in purpose and scope to the provi- III. That the United States Bureau of Education should be empow- In December, 1918, five national organizations, assembled in regular annual meeting, adopted resolutions which read in part as follows: First: That this Society shall make every reasonable effort to influence the Congress of the United States and the legislatures of our various states to enact laws providing for the effective physical education of all children of all ages in our elementary and secondary schools, public, institutional and private, a physical education that will bring these children instruction in hygiene, regular periodic health examinations and a training in the practice of health habits with a full educational emphasis upon play, games, recreation, athletics and physical exercise, and shall further make every possible reasonable effort to influence communities and municipalities to enact laws and pass ordinances providing for community and industrial physical training and recreative activities for all classes and ages of society. Second: That this Association shall make persistent effort to influence state boards of education, or their equivalent bodies, in all the states of the United States, to make it their effective rule that on or after June, 1922, or some other reasonable date, no applicant may receive a license to teach any subject in any school who does not first present convincing evidence of having covered in creditable manner a satisfactory course in physical education in a reputable training school for teachers. By five na tional organizations By the mental Social Hygiene Third: And that this Association hereby directs and authorizes its president to appoint a committee of three to take such steps as may be necessary to put the above resolutions into active and effective operation, and to coöperate in every practical and substantial way with the National Committee on Physical Education, the division of physical education of the Playground and Recreation Association of America, and any other useful agency that may be in the field for the purpose of securing the proper and sufficient physical education of the boys and girls of to-day, so that they may to-morrow constitute a nation of men and women of normal physical growth, normal physical development and normal functional resource, practicing wise habits of health conservation and possessed of greater consequent vitality, larger endurance, longer lives and more complete happiness - the most precious assets of a nation. In January, 1919, the United States Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board suggested the following organization of a department of hygiene for the purpose of establishing such a department in at least one normal school, college, or university training school for teachers in each state of the Union. SUGGESTED ORGANIZATION OF A DEPARTMENT OF HYGIENE I. Division of Informational Hygiene. (Stressing in each of its several divisions with due proportion and with appropriate emphasis, the venereal diseases, their causes, carriers, injuries, and prevention): (a) The principles of hygiene. Required of all students at least twice a week for at least four terms. (1) General hygiene. (The agents that injure health, the carriers of disease, the contributory causes of poor health, the defenses of health, and the sources of health.) (2) Individual hygiene. (Informational hygiene, the care of the body and its organs, correction, and repair, preventive hygiene, constructive hy. giene.) (3) Group hygiene. (Hygiene of the home and the family, school hygiene, occupational hygiene, community hygiene.) (4) Intergroup hygiene. (Interfamily, intercommun. ity, interstate, and international hygiene.) (b) Principles of physical training. (Gymnastics, exercise, athletics, recreation, and play.) Required of all students. To be given at least twice a week for two terms in the Junior or Senior Years. (c) Health examinations (1) Medical examination required each half year of every student. (Making reasonable provisions for a private, personal, confidential relationship between the examiner and the student.) (2) Sanitary surveys and hygienic inspections applied regularly to all divisions of the institution, their curriculums, buildings, dormitories, equipment, personal service, and surroundings. II. Division of Applied Hygiene. (a) Health conference and consultations. (1) Every student advised under "c" above (health examinations) must report to his health examiner within a reasonable time, as directed, with evidence that he has followed the advice given, or with a satisfactory explanation for not having done so. (2) Must provide student with opportunities for safe, confidential consultations with competent medical advisors concerning the intimate problems of sex life as well as those of hygiene in general. (b) Physical training. (1) Gymnastic exercises, recreation, games, athletics, III. Division of Research. (a) Investigations, tests, evaluating measurements, records, and reports required each term covering progress made under each division and subdivision of the department, for the purpose of discovering and developing more effective educational methods in hygiene. (b) Provide facilities for the sifting, selection, and investigation of problems in hygiene that may be submitted to or proposed by the department of hygiene. (c) Arrange for frequent lectures on public hygiene and public health from competent members of municipal, state, and national departments of health, and from other appropriate sources. IV. Personnel requisite for such a department.— Men and women should be chosen for service in the several divisions of the Department, who have a sane, well-balanced, and experienced appreciation of the importance of the whole field of hygiene as well as of the place and relations of the venereal diseases. (1) One director or head of department. Must have satisfactory scientific training and special experience, fitting him for supervision, leadership, teaching, research, and administrative responsibility. (2) One medical examiner for men and one medical examiner for women. There should be one examiner for each 500 students. Must be selected with special care because of the presence of extraordinary opportunities to exercise a powerful intimate influence upon the mental, moral, and physical health of the students with whom such examiners come in contact. (3) One special teacher of physical training (a “Physical Director") for each group of 500 students. There must be a man for the men and a woman for the women students. The physical training instructors employed in this department should be in charge of and should cover satisfactorily all the directing, training, and coaching carried on in the department and in the institution in its relation to athletics and competitive sports. The men and women who are placed in charge of individual students and groups of students engaged in the various activities of physical training (gymnastics, athletics, recreation and play) should be selected with special reference to their wholesome influence on young men and young women. (4) One coördinator (this function may be covered by one of the personnel covered by "1," "2" or "3" above). Will serve to influence every teacher in every department on the entire staff of the institution to meet his obligations, in relation to the individual hygiene of the students in his classes and to the sanitation of the class rooms in which he meets his students. The coordinator should bring information to all teachers and assist them to meet more satisfactorily their oppor tunities to help students in their individual problems in social hygiene. (5) Special lectures on the principles and progress of public hygiene and public health. A close coördination should be secured between this department and com- (6) Sufficient clerical, stenographic and filing service to In February, 1919, the field service of the National Committee on Physical Education issued a tentative outline for a state law for physical education, suggested for use in planning future legislation. The purposes of physical education as stated in the preamble of this law read as follows: 1. In order that the children of the State of......shall receive a quality and an amount of physical education that will bring to them the health, growth and a normal organic development that is essential to their fullest present and future education, happiness and usefulness; and in order that the future citizenship of the State of......may receive regularly from the growing and developing youth of the Commonwealth a rapidly increasing number of more vigorous, better educated, healthier, happier, more prosperous and longer lived men and women, we, the people of the State of......represented in the Senate and Assembly do enact as fol lows: By Legislamittee of tive Com National In February, 1919, the legislative committee of the National Committee on Physical Education prepared a bill for federal legislation for the purpose of assisting the states in establishing physical education in their schools. This on Physical proposed federal law stated the purpose and aim of physical education as follows: The purpose and aim of physical education in the meaning of this act shall be: more fully and thoroughly to prepare the boys and girls of the nation for the duties and responsibilities of citizenship through the development of bodily vigor and endurance, muscular strength and skill, bodily and mental poise, and such desirable moral and social qualities as courage, self-control, self-subordination and obedience to authority, coöperation under leadership, and disciplined initiative. The processes and agencies for securing these ends shall be understood to include: comprehensive courses of physical training activities, periodical physical examination; correction of postural and other remediable defects; health supervision of schools and school children; practical instruction in the care of the body and in the principles of health; hygienic school life, sanitary Education |