Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-01-01
SANITATION AND EDUCATION.

The United States Commissioner of Edu.
cation in his report for 1880. just out, says:
School hygiene and the construction of
sanitary school buildings have attracted
deserved attention during the year. The
erection of city school. houses furnishes
problem complicated by the high value of
land, the density of population, the artifi-
cial gradings of the surface, the presence
of gas-pipes, sewers, and imperfect water
pipes, and the vicinity of noisy or noxious
factories. Prizes for plans were offered by
the Plumber and Sanitary Engineer. The
Committee of Award, after assigning the
prizes, remarked as follows +" But
the committee feel that if they
were to stop with this they would not
be doing their whole duty; and they are
compelled to declare that none of the plans
submitted fulflfthe requirements of a SAM.
tary school building. The conditions i'm
posed on the competitors were of such a
character that it is probably impossible to
produce a plan which should be recon-
mended as one to be constructed"
The committee presented the qualifica-
tions believed necessary for public school
building in large and densely populated
city -
l. At least two adjoining sides of the
building should be freely exposed to light
and air, for which purpose they should not
be less than 60 feet distant from any oppo
site building.
2. Not more than three of the floors
should be occupied for class rooms.
3. In each class room not less than Is
square feet of floor area should be allotted
to each pupil.
4. In each class room the window space
should not be less than one.fourth Of the
floor space, and the distance OF the desk
most remote from the window should not
be more than one and one-half times the
hight of the window from the floor.
5. The hight of class room should never
exceed fourteen feet.
6. The provisions for ventilation should
be such as to provide for each person IN a
class room not less than thirty cubic feet of
fresh air per minute, which amount must be
introduced and thoroughly distributed with
outcreating unpleasant draughts or causing
any two parts of the room to differ in tenn
perature more than . f., or the maximum
temperature to exceed 70' f. This means
that, for a class room to contain fifty. six pu.
pills, twenty. eight cubic feet of air per
second should be continuously furnished.
distributed, and removed during school
sessions. The velocity of the incoming
air should not exceed two feet per second
at any point where it is liable to strike on
the person.
7. The heating of the fresh air should be
effected either by hot water or by low
pressure steam.
s. The fresh air should be introduced
near the windows; the foul air should be
removed by fues in the opposite wall
o. Water closet accommodations for the
pupils should be provided on each floor
TO- The building should not occupy
more than half the lot.
School hygiene received attention at the
International Congress on Education, Brus-
sells, and the International Congress on Fly.
giene, Turin, Italy. Among the things ap-
proved by them were, by the former body,
the lighting of school-reoms from the left
alone, the use of single desks and seats,
and giving school-rooms for so pupils
floor area of 80 by "a feet by
the gathering at Turin, the print
ing of school books with large letters on
yelIowish paper, instruction in hygiene in
normal schools, the discontinuance of
school studies and examinations during
hot weather, and the establishment of
nurse training schools