This page has been validated.
DISEASES AND THEIR CAUSES
7

to consider the average school child. It is plain that the great majority of school children must be regarded, from the physical standpoint, as decidedly gallant little persons, who have wrestled through their infancy and have managed to come out of tribulations that have killed a large proportion of all the children of their birth-years. At least one in five of all perished before the end of his fifth year, and in many districts the dead are even more numerous. However, over three-fourths have managed to survive, and are now in school. "They at least must be strong," people would have cried long ago. But the circumstances of their early lives do not encourage us to think so. The strong baby falls a victim to disease quite as fast as the weak one in so far as the most fatal infant epidemics are concerned. And, what is more to the point, the same causes that killed many must have certainly crippled many of the survivors. The victory of the survivor is not complete. Indeed, when looking round the modern class-room, one is tempted to think of the refuges opened for brave soldiers who have been wounded. They—the veterans—are decorated, but they are minus a leg or an arm. The child conquerors are not decorated, and their wounds are so well hidden that even the most watchful parents often fail to perceive them—in time.