Part 13

“Which is exactly why I have insisted on our sticking to the regular schools,” put in Mr. Clyde, with the air of quiet decisiveness. “I want our children to be brought up like other children!” The mother shook her head dubiously. “I wish I were sure it is the right place for them.”

“You ought to be sure. I might even say—if you will forgive the implied criticism—that you ought to be surer than you are.”

Alarmed at his tone, the mother leaned forward. “Is there anything the matter at Number Three?”

“Several things. Nothing that you need worry about immediately, however. I’ve been talking with some of the teachers, and found out a few points. Charley’s teacher, for instance, tells me that she has a much harder time keeping the children up to their work in the winter term than at other times.”

“I remember Charley’s tantrums over his arithmetic, last winter,” said Grandma Sharpless.

“My head felt funny. Kinder thick,” defended Charley.

“That is bad,” said Dr. Strong, “very bad. I’ve reported the teacher in that grade to Dr. Merritt, the Health Officer.”

“Reported teacher?” said Charley, his eyes assuming a prominence quite startling. “What for?”

“Starving her grade.”

Mrs. Clyde fairly bounced in her chair. “Our children are not supposed to eat at school, Dr. Strong.”

“Starving her grade,” continued the doctor, “in the most important need of the human organism, air.”

“How do you reach that conclusion?”

“Evidence and experience. I remember in my college days that the winter term was considered to be the most difficult in every year. The curriculum didn’t seem to show it, but every professor and every undergraduate knew it. Bad air, that’s all. The recitation rooms were kept tightly closed. The human brain can’t burn carbon and get a bright flame of intelligence without a good draft, and the breathing is the draft. Now, on the evidence of Charley’s teacher, when winter comes percentages go down, although the lessons are the same. So I asked her about the ventilation and found that she had a superstitious dread of cold.”

“I remember Miss Benn’s room,” said Julia thoughtfully. “It used to get awful hot there. I never liked that grade anyway, and Bobs got such bad deportment marks.”

“Both of the twins had colds all the winter they were in that room,” contributed Grandma Sharpless.

Up went Dr. Strong’s hands, the long fingers doubled in, in a curious gesture which only stress of feeling ever drove him to use.

“‘When will the substitute mothers and fathers who run our schools learn about air!” he cried. “Air! It’s the first cry of the newly born baby. Air! It’s the last plea of the man with the death-rattle in his throat. It’s the one free boon, and we shut it out. If I’m here next winter, I think I’ll load up with stones and break some windows!”

“Lemme go with you!” cried Charley, with the eagerness of destruction proper to seven years. “On the whole, Charley,” replied the other, chuckling a little, “perhaps it’s better to smash traditions. Not easier, but better.”

“But you wouldn’t have them study with all the windows open on a zero day!” protested Mrs. Clyde.

“Wouldn’t I! Far rather than choke them in a close room! Why, in Chicago, the sickly children have special classes on the roof, or in the yards, all through the cold weather. They study in overcoats and mittens. And they learn. Not only that, but they thrive on it.”

Mr. Clyde was rubbing his chin hard. “Perhaps our school system isn’t all I bragged,” he observed.

“Not in all respects. You still stick to that relic of barbarism, the common drinking-cup, after filtering your water. That’s a joke!”

“I don’t see the point,” confessed Mr. Clyde. “Whom is the joke on?”

“All of you who pay for the useless filters and then settle doctors’ bills for the disease spread by the drinking-cups. Don’t you understand that in the common contagious diseases, the mouth is the danger point? Now, you may filter water till it’s dry, but if in drinking it you put your lips to a cup soiled by the touch of diseased lips, you’re in danger. We think too much of the water and too little of what contains it. I’ve seen a school in Auburn, New York, and I’ve seen a golf course at the Country Club in Seattle, where there isn’t a glass or cup to be found; and they have two of the best water supplies I know. A tiny fountain spouts up to meet your lips, and your mouth touches nothing but the running water. The water itself being pure, you can’t possibly get any infection from it.”

“Can you get me a report on that for the Board of Education?” asked Mr. Clyde.

“It’s already here,” said Dr. Strong quietly. “That is part of my Chinese job of watch-dog. One other matter. A teacher in another grade, at Number Three, with whom I talked, stood with a pencil, which she had taken from one of her scholars, pressed to her lips. While we talked she gave it back to the child.”

“Well, land sakes!” said Grandma Sharpless, “where’s the harm? I suppose the poor girl was clean, wasn’t she?”

“How do I know? How does anybody know? There is a case on record where a teacher carried the virulent bacilli of diphtheria in her throat for three months. Suppose she had been careless about putting her lips to the various belongings of the children. How many of them do you suppose she would have killed with the deadly poison?”