Henry Baird Favill, AB, MD, LL.D., 1860-1916, a ... - University Library

MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH 387
mass conditions and in a measure protect an individual
against the mass and the mass against the individual, nevertheless
these activities are of a coarse and generalized type
and unrelated for the most part to individual life and habit.
The determining facts in individual welfare are related
to understanding and discipline.
Great progress in physical
welfare of the race will not be made until the individual
components of society are thoroughly imbued with ideals
as tp health standards and obligations, and moreover until
they react keenly to such ideals.
It follows, therefore, that evolution of the child mind
is as fundamental in its relation to its health problems
as to its mental or moral problems, and we as physicians
are not justified in
standing aloof from this child creature
to say, "Lo, we will deal with this child's body; let somebody
else mold its soul."
Clear though it may be that the sound body is fundamental
to racial advancement, it is equally incontrovertible
that sound bodies in general will not prevail
except under most careful mental and spiritual culture.
It is not enough that in our supervision of child life
we undertake to provide physical conditions and avoid
pernicious customs in early life. It is true that unless
we succeed in clearing away the upgrowth of years,
which at present tends to hamper and often destroy
child-life, we shall not be able to accomplish anything.
It is also true that clearing that field should be but
preparatory to the real culture to which the child is entitled.
It is evident that the child should not be worked before
the proper age.
It is just as true that he should be properly
worked at the proper age. We know that he should be
protected during given periods from knowledge and contact
with some matters and subjects. Do we realize that
he should be deliberately and definitely led into contact
with those subjects at the proper time?