In our readings this week, we explored the concepts of “healthy” children and “healthy” schools in the early 20th century, and how the concepts differed between race, class, and cognitive ability. As students and educators in modern-day Canada, it is easy to take the systems that have been developed in order to maintain hygiene in schools for granted. Today, hygiene is maintained in schools through the enforcement of immunization for diseases such as “polio, measles, mumps, and rubella,” [1] which, as of 2011, was mandatory for children enrolling in school in Ontario and New Brunswick. [2] Furthermore, schools today are, generally, equipped with appropriate toilet facilities, and provide education for children regarding proper hygiene, such as hand-washing.

However, the concepts we have of “healthy” children and “healthy” schools in the 21st century, differ greatly from the same concepts of the early 20th century, when eugenics and segregation as a means for assimilation were prevalent. According to Mona Gleason, in her article, “Race, Class, and Health: School Medical Inspection and “Healthy” Children in British Columbia, 1890 to 1930,” “Protecting the ‘public’ health revolved around a paradox: it meant excluding and demonizing a particular portion of that public,” [3] specifically “Natives and Asians.” [4] Out of fear for the white population of Canada, these minority groups were segregated and expected to adopt standards of hygiene determined by “laws of European science.” [5]

Segregation as a means to create “healthy” schools was also demonstrated with regards to students who were labelled as “feeble-minded.” As Gerald Thomson documents in his article, “‘Through no fault of their own’: Josephine Dauphinee and the “Subnormal” Pupils of the Vancouver School System, 1911-1941,” “Children with mental disabilities were seen as a social threat that had to be isolated like a contagious disease.” [6] Although separate educational pathways continue to be offered to students who are mentally disabled, especially at the intermediate and secondary levels when students are no longer able to track with their peers who are not mentally handicapped, the separate schooling offered to the “feeble-minded” “did not educate for personal independence or social integration but trained their pupils in order to exert social control.” [7]

As demonstrated in these articles, the emphasis on protecting the white, middle-class, and able-minded students took precedence over providing an inclusive educational environment for students of all races, classes, and cognitive ability. In an attempt to create “healthy” communities, the rise of eugenics, including drastic measures such as sterilization, dramatically altered the lives of individuals that did not fall within the standard of “normal.” In addition, the rise of the residential school system also acted as a means to enforce European ideas of health and hygiene on First Nations people.

[1] “Mandatory Vaccinations: The Canadian Picture,” Canadian Medical Association Journal 183, no. 16 (2011): E1165, accessed October 28, 2017, DOI:10.1503/cmaj.109-3992.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Mona Gleason, “Race, Class, and Health: School Medical Inspection and “Healthy” Children in British Columbia, 1890 to 1930,” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 19, no. 1 (2002): 97.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid., 98.

[6] Gerald Thomson, “’Through no fault of their own’: Josephine Dauphinee and the “Subnormal” Pupils of the Vancouver School System, 1911-1941,” Historical Studies in Education 18, no. 1 (2006): 52.

[7] Ibid., 64.