needs and
one broken pitcher for all fluids does not readily understand why she
must keep her milk bottle for milk only. Who is to tell her so that
she will understand?
The men may be shamed into cleaning up the back yards and alleys by
pictures of such conditions in contrast to what might result with a
little effort. [The famous Cash Register yards were started in this
way.] Neglected spots have been cleaned up all over the country by
similar influences. Why does not the health officer take a leaf from
this book of recorded good work and show conditions known to him? Is
he afraid of hard words from the owner? He will have the approval and
support of all good citizens.
Health Board regulations may be left at a house AFTER they have been
explained, and a firm insistence on obedience may then have an
effect.
Why should there not be a constant exhibit of the conditions found
within the boundaries of a district, with the changes for the better
indicated as soon as they occur?
The Health Board office is now in some out-of-the-way place, where few
people ever go and where those who do go are frequently not welcomed.
Has the Board ever asked itself why it is often so misunderstood, so
hampered in its work? What Board will be the first to take an office
on a busy street and put pictures and samples with clearly printed
legends in the windows--examples of the evasion of the plumbing laws
on a T-joint pipe; photographs of a dairy barn; photographs of a
street at daybreak, showing the few open windows, and the one or two,
if any, open at the top--these would serve as texts for the
newspapers' sermons, sure to be preached, and back-alley conversations
thereon.
Why not? Rival water companies are allowed to show filters to prove
their claims.
The basis of all successful sanitary progress is an intelligent and
responsive public.
The problem is to visualize cause and effect to the ordinary
individual, too absorbed in his own affairs to study out the principle
for himself.
The success of the street cleaning brigade, tried for one season in
Boston; the improvement in the condition of parks wherever receptacles
for wastes have been placed; the tidy condition of corner lots where
civic improvement leagues have taken the matter up with the children,
all point to a means neglected by the officials, and hence to wasted
opportunity and delayed obedience to regulations.
For the position of instructive inspector, it goes w
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