Child’s Health Primer For Primary Classes

Child’s Health Primer for Primary Classes is an educational book by Jane Andrews, the nineteenth century American teacher and children’s author. Andrews lived from 1833 to 1887 and produced a series of educational books for primary school children combining geographical, cultural, scientific, and health subjects in the simple narrative forms that suited the youngest readers. The Child’s Health Primer belongs to her health and science education writing, alongside her more famous geographical books like The Seven Little Sisters.

The book introduces young children to the basic principles of personal health and hygiene in the form of short simple lessons suitable for primary school use. The subjects covered are the standard topics of late nineteenth century health education for children. There are lessons on the importance of cleanliness, on the need for fresh air and exercise, on the proper kinds of food and the times for eating them, on adequate sleep and proper bedtime habits, on the need to avoid various harmful substances and behaviours, and on the simple principles of caring for the body in ways that prevent illness and support healthy growth.

The approach reflects the temperance and health reform movements that were prominent in late nineteenth century American education. The book was written during the period when the Scientific Temperance Instruction movement was pushing for mandatory teaching of the effects of alcohol and other substances in American schools, and the book includes the kind of strong cautionary lessons about alcohol that were characteristic of educational materials of the period. The treatment of these subjects would seem moralistic to modern readers, but it was consistent with the broader public health and reform agenda that progressive educators of the period were promoting.

The book is short, perhaps a hundred pages in the typical printing, and is organised in a series of brief lessons with questions for review. The format reflects the standard primary school textbook structure of the late nineteenth century. For readers interested in nineteenth century American health education and in the role of the public schools in promoting particular visions of personal conduct and bodily care, the book is a useful primary document. It pairs naturally with the broader temperance education literature of the period and with Andrews’s other educational books for primary school children.