the absence of statistics and technicalities, we may perhaps demonstrate the necessity of medical surveillance both in the construction and management of schools, and thereby raise the health standard above what it is at present.

CONSTRUCTION OF SCHOOL-HOUSES.

In the construction of school-houses, the same hygienic principles are applicable as in other houses, only they should be doubled, if such a thing is possible. The site for a school building should be selected with as much, or even more, care than that of a dwelling. Proximity to marshes, ponds, and high buildings should be avoided, and if there be only one hill in the town where a school-house is to be built, that hill, or a portion of it, should be secured, if possible, for the site. It is not necessary to call attention to the advantages in the way of fresh air and drainage which either the summit or the slope of the hill affords. School-houses, like hospitals, should be built on the pavilion plan, and the ground covered with asphalt before the buildings are put up. If the buildings are constructed of wood, as they should be, the greater extent of surface required, and the consequent increase of the cost of the land, would be obviated by the saving on strong stairways, and second and third-story floors, and heating and ventilating flues, all of which have to be constructed, in the average three-story school-house, with the best of material, and in the most perfect manner, and with expense in keeping with the work. The floor of the building, which should be at least ten feet above the already drained and asphalted ground, should be made double, with paraffine-coated paper intervening, and all joints accurately joined. It will be readily seen that the building would be entirely free from permeation by ground air, both on account of the asphalt court and the air-tight floors. The walls should be tinted light green and the ceilings white; and to insure a free transpiration of air, paint should not be used, but some preparation of lime. To prevent as much as possible the accumulation of dust and other impurities, and to facilitate the cleaning process, the junction of wall and ceiling and wall and floor should be rounded. In other words, there should be no corners in the building. This is really less expensive than the old-fashioned square corners and fancy borders.

Well-lighted and well-ventilated side rooms should be provided for the reception of outside clothing, umbrellas, overshoes, and particularly for the lunches, which are frequently overlarge; for the stale odor of decayed animal matter, which we all remember when we look back on our school days, has more than once, I will warrant, formed a culture medium for the propagation of various germs that in their dissemination have contributed to the ill health of school children. Therefore, under no consideration, should children be allowed to carry their lunches into the class-rooms.

The halls should be very wide, both to insure free ventilation and to furnish a play or calesthenic room for the children, who, at regular intervals, should be required to leave the class-rooms for a period sufficient to insure a change of air. They are then returned to their respective class-rooms, and the halls flushed with fresh air. This work should be systematically performed by the janitor, under the personal supervision of the teachers. It is reasonably certain that this system.

of ventilation, regular exercise, and change of position is not only an excellent aid to the more elaborate artificial systems of ventilation, but is in some cases as efficient, if not more so, than any other method.

Now, as to the size of the school-room. It is very desirable, if not necessary, that a child of an average age of fifteen years should have about 66 cubic meters of fresh air per hour. Now, there are several ways of providing this, and it is an important point, as it involves a question of expense in any case. The least expensive and most certain. way to insure each pupil 663 cubic meters of fresh air every hour would be to actually allow that much for each desk in the class-room, and by flushing the room every hour, by raising the wall and ceiling windows, to ventilate the room without a special ventilating apparatus. Thirtythree and one third cubic meters to each pupil would require flushing every half hour, and so on, in this ratio, could the air space be decreased, and consequently the inconvenience of flushing the room at short intervals be increased. A model class-room following the above scale should be about 10 meters long, about 7 meters wide, and 4 meters high, to contain forty persons, including the teacher, and each person having about 7 cubic meters of initial air space. Now, by the flushing process, the air would have to be completely changed ten times or thereabouts every hour; therefore, it will be readily seen that other methods of ventilation must be resorted to so as to keep the fresh air ratio at the same standard and at the same time not disorganize the class every six minutes. Now, by having the rooms emptied every half hour and the windows raised, we will obtain 14 cubic meters of fresh air per pupil; that will leave 52 cubic meters per pupil to be acquired by other means during the hour. This can be done, and a great deal to spare, by having in the center of each class-room a quadrilateral brick fireplace, with four grates, each about one cubic foot in size, and with iron fire-backs, which shall form a chamber in the center not less than 4 cubic feet in size. This should be connected to four sheet or galvanized iron cylinders, with their outlets under the rooms. After the air is heated in the chamber it will rise and pour out into the room about 3 feet above the floor, through small square holes, whose aggregate dimensions shall be 4 cubic feet. In Sajous, 1892 (I forget the reference), it has been suggested to plug each hole with cotton gauze saturated with lime water, which in uniting with the CO2 and SO2 will form the carbonates and sulphates of calcium, and thus prevent the entrance into the room of the noxious gases in the hotair chamber. The grate just described, when built in a wooden pavilion school-house, is attended with comparatively little expense, whereas in the old three- or four-story buildings it is necessary to have steam fans. and other expensive heating and ventilating apparatus. A Bury window ventilator should be inserted in the top of each window, which latter, by the way, should extend nearly up to the ceiling.

2

LIGHT IN SCHOOL-ROOMS.

Next to ventilation, light is the most important subject. We will not dwell here on the statistics of diseases of the eye in school children, but it would perhaps be worth while to suggest a plan for the bettering of those same statistics. In the first place, the old idea that studyrooms should face toward the north is as absurd as it is in some case impracticable. In the day time light may be always obtained by ceil

ing windows, and irregularities in the intensity of the light may be readily corrected by sliding curtains. Green sliding curtains should be provided at all of the windows, and the teacher should see that curtain windows, which, by their position might transmit too much light or light in the wrong direction, are closed.

The relation of good light to the position of the pupils should be noted at different times of the day, and advantage taken of this by causing every pupil, at a given signal, to turn his desk and chair, both of which can be mounted on casters, in the direction indicated. Every child should be required to wear a large eye shade while in the classroom, and it would be interesting to note the changes in the eye statistics after four years of observation in the average city grammar school. The curtains of the windows should be so arranged that the light can only enter from the left side of the pupil. When admitted from the right side, the shadow cast by the pen in writing interferes with good vision; if admitted directly in front of the pupil, the glare will injuriously affect the eyes; while if it enters from behind, the book or paper of the pupil will be so much in shadow as to compel him to lean so far to the front in bringing his eyes nearer to book or paper that myopia is very likely to be developed. The teacher should watch each and every pupil, and discourage the practice, so commonly seen in school children, of bending over book or paper. If it is found that there is a reason for this, such as beginning nearsightedness, the parents of the child in question should be advised to consult a physician. Where it is done through carelessness, it should be prohibited, and the offender marked for a breach of deportment. We all know the relation which bending over books bears to myopia, and we also know that nine out of every ten school children have the habit referred to, and we have only to take the trouble to look up the statistics to be assured as to the result. In examinations of over 30,000 pupils of grammar and high schools in Germany, Austria, Russia, and Switzerland, it has been found that the average proportion of myopia is a fraction over 40 per cent, varying, in the different classes, from 22 per cent in the lowest to 58 per cent for the highest classes.

In some particular schools, for example in the high school of Erlangen, the percentage in the higher classes was 88 per cent, in the gymnasium of Coburg 86 per cent, and in the gymnasium of Heidelberg the proportion of myopic students in the highest class was 100 per cent in 1887.

These interesting statistics were prepared by Dr. Rohé, and they show very plainly that myopia increases progressively from the lowest to the highest class.

ARTIFICIAL LIGHT.

There should be no artificial light in a school building, as with a good location, and well-arranged windows, there should be plenty of light during school hours. This will not only spare the children's eyes, but it will save pollution of the air, and also a considerable bill each month, which fact I mention in favor of pavilion schools as money-savers.

WATER-CLOSETS AND PRIVIES.

These necessary resorts should receive particular attention, not only as to their construction, but as to their condition from day to day. They should be regularly inspected every day, and any defect remedied. Thanks to the pavilion school-house, these places of retirement cannot be placed either in the cellar or basement, which latter unfavorable location is so frequently selected in our school-houses. A well-aired, large room, heated and lighted like one of the class-rooms, should be provided, with a half partition dividing the male from the female quarter. Both of these divisions should open into the large calisthenic hall, as in this situation they can be visited by the pupils without attracting attention, the dread of which causes the pupils, especially the girls, to neglect obeying the calls of nature, from which neglect many disorders arise.

SCHOOL FURNITURE.

The desks, which should be made of hard polished wood, should be adjustable to children of different sizes. The seat, which should be attached to the desk, should be made independently adjustable, and the whole mounted on casters. Seats and desks should be graded according to the sizes of the pupils, not their ages or class standing. The desks should be slightly sloping, the edge nearest the pupil being about the level of the elbows. The front edge of the seat should project a little beyond the near edge of the desk, so that a plumb-line dropped from the latter should strike the seat near its front edge. If the seat is not thus brought slightly under the desk, the pupil is compelled to lean forward in writing, which position prevents proper expansion of the chest, and increases the blood-pressure in the eyes, a condition promotive of myopia. Seats should be only high enough so that the feet may rest flat upon the floor.

Unfortunately, statistics are not very full upon the relation of improperly constructed school desks and seats to spinal curvature in school children, but that is no reason why we should not give the matter some attention and if possible prepare statistics which shall show that spinal curvature is a rare trouble among our school children. Guillaume found lateral curvature in 218 out of 731 school children, a proportion of 29.5 per cent. Among 30,000 Danish school children, 13 per cent had spinal deformity. Eulenberg found that among 1,000 persons with lateral curvature of the spine, the disease began in 887 between the ages of 6 and 14; that is to say, during the years of school life. I would like to know what percentage of girls have spinal deformity; I can find, in the short space of time at my disposal at the present, only a general estimate, that given by Rohé, of 93 per cent.

One's attention may be called, in connection with this startling percentage, to the habit so commonly seen in school girls, of sweeping their skirts to the left or right, while in the act of sitting down. The clothing forms a pad, upon which she sits with one buttock, and the greater elevation of the latter on that side throws the spinal column out of the vertical line, which is compensated by a partial twisting of the spinal column. The attention of the teacher should be called to this perni

cious habit, which can be easily corrected, and its consequences averted, by timely interference.

BLACKBOARDS.

Blackboards should not be placed at a greater distance than 9 meters from the farthest pupil, and they should be movable, and mounted on casters. The ground of the board should be dead black, entirely without luster. A very good plan has been adopted by some European schools of having a white board and black crayon. This can be seen at a greater distance, and is unquestionably more advantageous to the eyesight of the school children.

"A little less brain: a little more health," is a legitimate demand that we may make of legislators and school boards. That every school board should have among its members one or more medical men, is a fact which I think is perfectly plain to any one who will give the matter even passing attention. The diseases of children, such as derangements of the digestive organs from improper food, nervous disorders from imperfect ventilation and excessive mental strain, and the ocular and spinal troubles, all have a cause, and a cause which if removed will surely raise the health standard. This can only be handled by proper legislation in the direction of providing a medical school board in every town, and giving this board the power to regulate school hygiene and to give the public the benefit of their experience, not to mention the benefit the school children may derive from this plan.

PHYSIOLOGY AND HYGIENE VS. ATHLETICS IN PUBLIC EDUCATION.

By S. S. HERRICK, M.D., of San Francisco, Cal.

I. PHYSIOLOGY AND HYGIENE.

Some years ago Herbert Spencer, in his essay on Education, declared that knowledge to be of most worth which conduces directly to selfpreservation. It was not a new truth, but had been so generally disregarded that, to most persons, it was a discovery; and his reasoning is so convincing that the conclusions are generally accepted without reserve. Hygiene, in its concern for self-preservation, takes cognizance of the following interests of material life: The nature, quantity, and preparation of our daily food (including beverages), also how and when to be taken; the proper amount and quality of clothing, and its fashion adapted to freedom of movement with adequate protection, according to vicissitudes of temperature, winds, humidity, etc.; our habitations, with due regard to heating, lighting, ventilation, water supply, and wholesome environment; our occupations, with all practicable avoidance of excessive exertion and needless exposure to vitiated air and inclemencies of weather; our recreations and amusements, in due moderation and under suitable conditions; rest and sleep, that they be adequate to our varying wants. Briefly stated, these are subjects of vital importance to every individual, and might, as they deserve, form a prominent part of school instruction.