long exclusively to the domain of reason. efits, which may very properly come in here, although they have reference rather to the aesthetic than the intellectual nature; that is, the literary excellence of the ancients. The style, although primarily a matter of taste, is largely also dependent upon the reason; and from this point of view we find the study of the ancient authors as serviceable as that of the ancient languages is in the point of view already considered. This is an advantage that can be obtained only from the study of the original, not of translations; for the very essence of a good translation is that it should not preserve the idioms and stylistic peculiarities of the language from which the translation is made, but should transfer the thoughts and statements of the original into the idioms and forms of expression which belong to the language into which the translation is made. no one, A regular construction may be readily ancient writers far surpass the moderns The qualities of style in which the are, symetry, precision and compactness; and these qualities arise chiefly from that same inflectional character which is the source of their syntactical perfection. The genius of the modern languages tempts to a loose, inexact and irregular style, so much so, that if a modern writer makes it his direct aim to reproduce these distinguishing qualities of the classical writers, the result is almost sure to be something at once obscure and ungraceful I can hardly think of any English writer except Lord Bacon, and perhaps Milton and Ralph Waldo Emerson, who have developed a style as elegant and perspicuous, and at the same time as terse, exact and vigorous as the ancients. Now it is of no use for a modern writer to imitate these qualities of the ancients; but it is of the greatest use to study them, to be familiar with them, to have the mind imbued with them; and then, unconsciously when he is simply doing his best to write correct, idiomatic English, some traces perhaps of their fine qualities will find As our subject is the disciplinary power of the ancient languages, the discussion might end here; their disciplinary value consists essentially, in the two features just indicated the rigorous application of laws, and the unfamiliar character of the constructions, which enables them to be studied from a more independent and objective point of view. This does not by any means exhaust the benefits of classical study, but the other benefits come under a somewhat different head. The philosophy and institutions of the ancients, for example, indispensable as they are to any student of philosophy or of political science, may for this purpose - be as well studied through translations and modern commentaries and treatises, as from the original writers. There is, however, one large class of ben- their way to his pen. The course of study, therefore, which temperature is low, is a great source of I favor for those who have the opportu- evil; also the malarial poison generated nity and taste for a thorough disciplinary in such localities, and the emanations training, is to begin in childhood with from adjacent places of convenience, those branches that train the eye and ex- where deodorization and cleanliness are ercise the memory; drawing, coloring, apt to be neglected, and whose drainage natural history, the elements of geom- is more or less impracticable. Internaletry, simple applications of numbers, ly, take into consideration the unscientific stories from history, and the descriptions system of warming; the poison thrown of foreign countries. All of these, in a out by respiration, by perspiration, by greater or less degree, admit of some ex- unclean clothing, or clothing saturated ercise of the reasoning powers; and as with the matter of infectious disease, etc.; these powers become more vigorous and added to which is the almost absolute ab mature, their exercise should occupy a sence of any proper ventilation; and it larger and longer share of time, until at will appear to you as it does to me, that some period, between twelve and four- a school-room must of necessity become, teen, or even later, the pupil may to the even in times of health, a fruitful source best advantage take up the study of the of disease, and in an epidemic season, a ancient languages, with a view to regu- focus from which disease must and does lar and systematic intellectual discipline. radiate, with as much certainty and conIt has been necessary for me, in pre- stancy as effect follows cause. senting my views as to the place of the ancient languages in an educational scheme, to touch somewhat upon the province of others, so far as to assign their respective places to other studies. All parts of an educational scheme hang so closely together, that one cannot be adjusted without reference to the others. No apology therefore is due for thus transgressing. The progress that sanitary science has made of late years has taught us the great fact that almost all diseases enter the system through the impurity of the atmosphere we breathe. When this truth was first propounded, men ridiculed its teaching, and regarded the asserters of it as speculative enthusiasts. Time has now furnished statistics from which we can deduce, with unerring certainty, that Sanitary Regulations of the School Room and such is the fact, and which at the same Number of School Hours. [Extracts from a Paper read before the State Teachers Association, at Madison, Dec. 30. 1873, by Jos PH HOBBINS, M. D] The first, and by far the most important feature of the sanitary regulations of our schools, is that of Ventilation; to this, therefore, I would first call your at tention. When one comes to consider the manifold sources of contamination of the atmosphere of our school-rooms, so much suggests itself, so much there is to say which ought to be said and repeated a thousand times, that one shrinks from the task of laying open the subject of school ventilation. Externally the low situation of some school-houses, being built in the vicinity of marsh land, where, owing to rapid evaporation, the average time prove just as certainly that by the purification of such atmospheres, such diseases can be and are daily prevented. A school-house, especially in a new country, where from a variety of causes malaria is more apt to prevail, should have for its site a more or less elevated situation. This secures comparative freedom from soil-emanations and low temperature. It should not be surrounded too closely by buildings or trees, but be open to the winds-to a plentiful supply of pure air. All external sources of animal and vegetable poisons should be regularly and carefully removed, and all stagnant ponds and sluggish mud-streams and mill-dams avoided; for science has taught us to regard with dread the ema nations of decomposition in such places, out that it should be admitted from or as sources of disease and death.. A school-room should be high in order not only that it may be airy, but well lighted; inasmuch as light has a strong similarity to heat-both being but modifications of the same cause. Therefore as in nature, so in our artificial structures, one should be considered as much as the other, and proper arrangements must be made for ventilation. * * To prove the necessity of all this, I will quote the old experiment: Place a lighted candle on the floor of a room at the open door; and, if there is no other access for air into the apartment, it will be observed that a current of cold, and therefore dense air, on entering, will drive the flame of the candle inwards. By holding the candle midway between the top and bottom of the door-way, the flame will be quite still, because no current exists in that position. If the candle is held so as that its flame shall be near the top of the door, it will be observed to be driven outwards, because thence the hot and lighter air makes it escape. * * * It is evident then that a supply of pure air must be made to enter at the lower part of a room, and an escape for hot air should be arranged for at its top. And yet, if you will walk into some of our city school rooms at your first opportunity, you will find, as I have found, hot air rushing into the room from the floor, and cold air let in from the tops of the open windows. A system-or rather practice-opposed to natural laws, and therefore opposed to science, and one affording but a very questionable ventilation. near the floor, and from the heavier na ture of cool air, it is equally clear that if a pure atmosphere is to rise in the room, it also must be admitted at about the same level. And just so far as Nature is imitated in this respect-and only so farwill ventilation be successful, and doubt. and questioning set at rest. Objections, however, are raised to this mode of admitting cold air. The answer to these objections may be given with some such explanation as this: Just so soon as a stream of cold air is admitted where hot air is being forced into the same room, the cool air in all its purity becomes immediately expanded by the warmth, rises to the top, carrying with it the impurities being generated by the occupants of the room, and then floats away by its own law of expansionthrough the apertures made in or near the ceiling for that purpose, the very warmth derived from the breath and bodies of those present, giving additional impetus, by the union of currents they effect, with the general current in the room. But in order to see that we are not attaching too much importance to the necessity for a proper mode and an adequate amount of ventilation, let us briefly examine the noxious influences brought to bear upon the atmosphere of a school room. First in importance, perhaps, is that arising from respiration. From fif. teen to twenty pints of vitiated air is upon the average expired each minute from the lungs. At each expiration a volume of poison is cast into the air about us. In addition to having robbed the atmosphere of a portion of its vital part, we also set free at the same time its nitrogen, which forms four-fifths of its bulk, and which is a gas that will not support life. Then follow the exhalations from the skin. Here you must permit me, for reasons which will afterwards appear, to make a little digression. Under a microscope of sufficient power 2-Vol. IV, No. 1. it will be observed that the human skin public schools, indifferent to this subject of ventilation. And yet these figures are to be found in almost every book upon the subject. is punctured, as it were, with almost in- That these impurities, or emanations from the skin, should in quantity be commensurate with the mechanism employed for the purpose of casting them off, you would be prepared to expect. Consequently, it is not a matter of surprise to learn that it amounts to about thirty-three ounces in twenty-four hours. With these figures before us, it is incredible that any one should be found in connection with But am I not making the worst of a bad case-am I not exaggerating? Are these products of perspiration so poisonous in their character as is set down? This has been tested in a very startling manner, and admits of very immediate proof. It was wished upon the occasion of some great celebration, to have a liv ing figure to represent the Golden Age, and a poor child was innocently covered all over with gold-leaf and varnished. The child died in about six hours. * I have confined myself, so far, in speaking of poisonous emanations of the skin to those which are given out in health; but to lend force to what I have just said, it may not be out of place to allude to those which arise from disease. To be sure these may be said to be exceptional cases; nevertheless they are, to my knowledge, sufficiently common to warrant, if not to demand, some notice. There is a class of serious diseases which, by medical men, are known as contagious, and by the public, as "catching diseases;" such for instance as typhoid fever, small pox, scarlet fever, meales, etc. Now, the poisonous matter of any one of these diseases given out in a school room by a diseased pupil is sufficient to so affect the school atmosphere as to convey the disease. Hence, in time of epidemics, ventilation becomes more than ever necessary, since it is the only practicable means the only means the teacher possessesthat can be used as a preventive of disease; it being well understood that "where ventilation is complete, in other words, where the gaseous poison is freely diluted with atmospheric air, the sphere of its operation is very limited." There is yet another source of poisonous emanation to which schools are exposed; I mean the clothing of children. Concerning cleanliness in general, the teacher can not lay too great stress; but uncleanliness in the scholar's clothing-| pure air-it is rather to be regarded, I mean uncleanliness as well to the nose as to the eye-is a matter that should not escape notice. There is a very peculiar and most marked odor attached to woolen clothing that has been shut up in some close and neglected dwelling, if only for a night, and be assured such odor is of poisonous character. But sometimes disease and death are carried by woolen clothing, that gives you no notice by its appearance, or unpleasant odor. A London physician of the highest standing in his profession, relates, in one of his lectures, that a piece of flannel used on a child's neck in a family that had suffered from scarlet fever, gave rise a year afterwards to the same disease, in the same house, which had been vacant during the time. The flannel had been shut up in a close drawer, and not been exposed to the air. Another source of impure air is only too noticeable in schools heated by furnaces, particularly when from the comparative mildness of the weather little fire is required, but is liable to occur at other times, as I have personally observed in the Second Ward School House of this city, which is claimed to be one of our best arranged buildings. oft times, as an atmosphere of poison— such as is to be found in ships which are unclean, badly ventilated or over-crowded, or in prisons or hospitals. Consequently it must and does give rise to and become, as I have witnessed in this city, the exciting cause of typhoid fever. You cannot live on poison; and whether you eat it, or drink it, or breathe it, the result is the same. I cannot easily imagine a more prolific source of disease than the one we are now considering, especially, as I have before said, when an epidemic atmosphere prevails; the predisposed being ready to take on disease. But beside the ills which arise to health from air filled with animal emanations, there is another class of ills which occur from the presence of too much carbonic acid gas, so freely and so constantly poured forth by the breath and the skin. I mean nervous diseases. That we may appreciate the action of this poison in our schools, it is only necessary to run over its effects in the order in which they commonly occur. When this gas has accumulated to the extent of one per cent. in the air respired, feelings of faintness and uneasiness across the brow begin. At two per cent. the heart is quickened, the faintness greater; there is some giddiness and nausea. At three per cent. there are vertigo, fluttering of We have seen how the foul air of the neglected school room is constituted. Robbed of its life-preserving oxygen; filled more or less with life-destroying the heart, nausea and sickness, followed carbonic acid gas; loaded with poisonous emanations from the breath, from the skin, from the clothing, and sometimes from external emanations; the room warmed with air at times more or less deprived of its moisture, and at times loaded with the products of combustion; ventilated in a way calculated to do almost as much harm as good;—we have already heard all this, but it is not possible that we shall ever hear the amount of mischief of which it is the cause, because too general and possibly spread over a life time. * * * The atmos phere of a school room is not simply im by an overwhelming sense of muscular prostration. At this moment the contractions of the heart become very feeble, the skin relaxes, and is bedewed with a cool, clammy perspiration. These symp. toms deepen with the increased quantity of carbonic acid in the air respired, until the utmost limit of toleration is reached. From these effects it is certain that confinement in an atmosphere charged with carbonic acid, even to the extent of one per cent. only, quickly deranges the functions of the heart and ultimately deteriorates the tissues themselves of that organ. It is certain that in this func |