PLAYING FIELDS AND TUBERCULOUS SCHOOL CHILDREN
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—All who care for the well-being of the nation's children will feel grateful for the warm response, from many quarters, to the Duke of York's national appeal for playing fields. But may I point out that there are in our elementary schools to-day tens of thousands of children suffering from latent tuberculosis and anaemia, whose needs are not met even by the most adequate supply of the playing fields necessary for games, in which healthy children can take part ? Sir George Newman's last report gives the number as over 57,000 for 1925, an increase of 14,000 over the number of such children recorded for 1924. Then, too, we have an alarming number of rheumatic children, who in many cases require special treatment for the heart trouble which prevents the little sufferers from taking part in the ordinary games suitable and necessary for healthy childhood.
Twenty years ago a beginning was made in a movement for open-air recovery schools for tuberculous and otherwise delicate children, when the Woolwich Co-operative Society, at my suggestion, lent the recreation ground on their Bostall Estate to the L.C.C. for an experiment with some 120 children. Although the experiment was deemed a success, and the lead thus given was followed by Bradford and other towns, much yet remains to be done, as Sir George Newman's figures and the reports of local school medical officers show.
May I suggest that in the appeal now being made the claims of such children may well find a place ? Generous donors are giving land for playing fields. Land unsuited for playing fields may be admirably adapted for a site for an open-air recovery school. For example, a sunny slope, wooded, if with pine trees so much the better, might with the necessary clearances for open-air " class rooms," etc., be highly suitable for a school where tuberculous and otherwise delicate children might receive the necessary treatment, inVolving properly regulated rest, exercise, and diet, combined with such tuition as the medical officer approved.
Gifts of such sites might be the means of encouraging local Education Authorities to extend their activities in this direction to the great benefit of the children concerned. Needless to say, open-air recovery schools should be away from slum areas, and road transport utilized for the conveyance of the children.
We are told by medical authorities that given the conditions in which the bacilli of tuberculosis cannot live, the disease could be wiped out. Tuberculosis is also notifiable as infec- tious—a fact to be borne in mind by parents of healthy school children. We are also told that, if cases are taken in the early stages, the tissue injured by the bacilli can be healed when, especially in the young, new tissue is formed.
At the Mansion House Dinner held in July of last year, on behalf of the funds for the Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, of which the Prince of Wales is President, it was stated that 50,000 die annually from the disease in Britain, while over a million are annually permanently incapaci- tated—becoming a burden to themselves and the community.
At this time we hear much of the need for migration within the Empire, and Mr. Baldwin tells us of the willing hands here in Britain, which must be brought to the empty spaces in Canada. But the willing hands and the spirit of adven- ture must be accompanied by healthy bodies, free from the tuberculous taint. For stringent regulations of the authorities in Canada—and other Dominions also—tell us that their young and growing countries are not to be used as dumping grounds for tuberculous derelicts and semi-derelicts, to the number of which, by neglecting our tuberculous school children, we seem bent upon adding.
Surely a wise and therefore generous expenditure in the direction indicated will prove a highly profitable national investment ?—I am, Sir, &c.,
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