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INTRODUCTORY
xi

is concerned with the healthy organism. His goal is education—not the mere checking of disease or infection.

The teacher's power and influence are not threatened by this new advent. They are safeguarded. The new light brought in by the school doctor must deliver the teacher from much ignorant tyranny and misrepresentation. It will free him from the torture of striving to do impossible things. Hitherto there have been inspectors and examiners of method, but there was no one to say at the right moment, "Do not insist—It is torture" or "Do not persist—It is folly." Barriers invisible to the mere "classical master" existed, and the teacher often had to fling himself against these in vain. But there is a kind of knowledge which the school doctor is always winning, and which makes clear to him what the teacher's task is.[1]

  1. This does not dethrone the teacher. The "rôle" of either is different from that of the other, and the kind of knowledge each has acquired is different, and also complementary. A curious example of the naïveté of great physicians was offered the other day to a very humble teacher. "When I think of the people's children," he said to her, "I always think of my own little girl. I would like every girl child to play just as I see her play. Now, I notice how she teaches herself hygiene. She plays with her doll. She undresses it, washes it all over every night and morning. She brushes its hair, washes its teeth, looks at its nails (it has none, but that is no matter). Well, this play is capital. I should have all the little girls in school taught to