< Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu
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SCHOOLROOM VENTILATION.

395

not found in a single one of the public-school edifices of the great metropolitan city of New York a complete ventilating equipment, and by the 15th of that month there was but one such.[1]

Prof. Gilbert B. Morrison, in his book. The Ventilation and Warming of School Buildings, says that—

The invariable verdict of all investigators of public school ventilation may be epitomized as bad, had, bad! Some are better than others—or rather some are not so bad as others—but the difference is rather in degree than in kind.[2]

In a letter to the writer, so late as last February, the same author says:

I know of no building in America which is properly warmed and ventilated. . . . I fear it will be many years before the principle of proper ventilation will be put into practical application.

That the writer "speaks by the book" in his relation of the incident at L—— would be plain to any one who should care to read the printed report of the school committee of that city. The opponents of adequate ventilation might possibly have carried their point but for the weighty advocacy of the system ultimately adopted by one who is the acknowledged Nestor of the medical faculty of L——. Of Dr. P——'s pregnant address on the occasion of the dedication of the edifice, the space at our disposal permits but a few brief extracts:

The movement of which I have spoken has not been fully understood or appreciated by the public; but the time can not be far distant when all will recognize its merits; when even those who now deride will join in the general approval, and perhaps, as a means of obtaining popular favor, coolly assert that they themselves were chiefly instrumental in securing its triumph. In the fact that provision has been made for physical exercise we may see another proof that a change is taking place in our ideas concerning the proper scope of school training. Formerly such training was that of the mind alone, bodily conditions being to a large extent ignored. Now the doctrine is generally accepted that, for the purposes of education, the individual is to be regarded not as a dual personality—body and mind but as a unit; complex, indeed, but still a unit; and that the aim of the educator should be to produce a complete and healthy development of all parts.

In the system now adopted—

The amount of fresh air which can be supplied, if desired, is three thousand cubic feet, or more, per hour, for each occupant of the building. This, according to the estimate of very careful observers, is sufficient to keep the air of the rooms pure. By this device we become independent of the weather, and can
  1. ↑ Based on a communication to the writer, March 15, 1894, from Dr. A. H. Doty, Chief Inspector of Contagious Diseases, New York Board of Health.
  2. ↑ The Ventilation and Warming of School Buildings. By Gilbert B. Morrison. Edited by the Hon. William T. Harris, A. M., LL. D., United States Commissioner of Education. P. 95.
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