No More Wash Tub Baths for Kids, Showers at School

Hurley, Indiana, 1919--

NO WASH TUB BATHS FOR HURLEY KIDS

SHOWERS IN SCHOOL BASEMENT BECOME SO POPULAR CHILDREN PREFER THEM

Instead of being bathed before they come to school, the children attending the Hurley schools are bathed before they go home.

Last February a bathing plant was installed in the school. Last week it was re-opened for the winter months of the current season. The plant in the basement of the Lincoln school includes four showers for boys and five for girls.

Is Compulsory.

Roughly the course in bathing is compulsory, but some of the children whose parents object, may elect not to participate. Each woman teacher is responsible for the bathing of the girls. She takes them to the bathing plant in their turn and supervises the operation and preserves order during the process. She also sends the boys to the plant, but William Ostrander, manual training director, has charge. When the plan was first embarked upon, many persons doubted the wisdom of the policy. Suggesting parents might object if the school assumed the responsibility of bathing their children. In fact such was the case for a short time, until the children themselves took command. They told their parents quite flatly that they preferred standing under a warm shower to squatting in the family tub. Now the school bathing plant is so popular that very few children prefer the home bath to it.

Solves Problem

A bathing plant was the solution of a problem confronting teachers in every part of the country. The question is one of having all children physically clean and consequently healthy and active. In order to correct the condition the plant was opened with a wide enough program to kill the idea that it was exclusively for those who needed ministration from outside the home.

The school furnishes soap and towels. The towels, as may be expected, are carefully laundered and individual, soap is liquid. On their bath day, the children take with them, to school, a change of underwear and stockings to be put on when the bath is over.

--Ironwood Daily Globe, Ironwood, Michigan, November 20, 1919, page 7.


SAYS HUBBY WAS TIGHT

Chicago. -- According to Mrs. Mary Sebastian, 2030 Churchill street, her husband, Jacob, 4929 North Western avenue, cigar maker, is a penurious man. She explained in detail to Judge Sheridan E. Fry of the Court of Domestic Relations the manner in which she was forced to account to her husband for every cent she spent. Judge Fry ordered Sebastian to pay $9 a week for his child's support. Sebastian, although able to speak, is deaf, but could understand his wife's testimony through lip reading.

"My husband was holding three positions at one time," said Mrs. Sebastian, "and would give me only $20 each week to run our home. Each day he would ask for a detailed account of the money I used, and if I were unable to explain where 1 or 2 cents had been used, he would 'call me' for being extravagant."

--Ironwood Daily Globe, Ironwood, Michigan, November 20, 1919, page 7.