Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-06-25
SAFETY IN SCHOOLS.
An Interesting Chapter for School Trus
tees Teachers and Parents,


The children spend five or six hours
every day in school, and this lasts for ten
| months in the year. Nearly all begin to &c
enter still younger and most children
continue to go until they are twelve OF
| fourteen. Some few do not leave school
until they are twenty or older. That is, for
twenty or thirty hours of each week the
children are brought together in great
masses at the time when they are most af-
fected by external influences. In the coun-
try these masses may not exceed twenty or
twenty-five in number; there are few
schools smaller but in the villages and
the cities the schools sometimes equal or
exceed two hundred. The conditions of
safety where so many children gather need
careful consideration.
Some years ago, when the attention of
an intelligent school officer was called to
certain defects in some of the school build
ings under his care, he replied: Our
school-house is no worse than those in
other cities" The remark was undoubt-
edly true But does poison become any
less poison when five thousand ale exposed
to its effects than when the danger is con-
fined to fifty? Every one knows that q
Jail, prison or a large insane asylum has
peculiar odor, sometimes increasing even
to stencil. Occasionally visitor to a
large school house perceives the same
o Tor. 1t is natures red flag to proclaim
danger ahead.
81 W mIny shool-rooms are properly
ventilated? Pure air is the first requisite
to health. Oxygen is as free as the heaven.
Unless all that is required is furnished to
the body through the lungs the fire within
is checked as surely as closing the draft
puts out fire in the stove If there is even
partial lack in the school-room, the child
becomes dull and weary. How much of the
stupidity of which many teachers complain
has its cause in lack of good, pure breath
ing oxygen? The dull boy is keen enough
when at play in the open air; then his
blood bounds through his veins, tingling
with life and power.
In most localities great care is now exer-
cised to prevent any child from attending
school from families where certain dis
eases, fully recognized as contagious, are
prevalent Much good has been accom-
plished. Too great caution cannot be eXer-
cised with scarlet fever and diphtheria.
The attendance of pupils from these homes
must be prevented. But the exclusions are
not complete. Further steps should be
taken in the interests of the little ones.
Very often child has only slight sore
throat. The parents can see no occasion
for keeping him al home. But this sore
throat is actually a case of mild diphtheria,
or possibly of incipient scarlet fever. The
result shows that the carelessness has
sowed the seeds of the disease broadcast.
These are some of the special dangers to
which the children are exposed IN schools.
Too much care cannot be taken to make
them all safe. Every precautlon should be
used, and all possible avenues through
which they can spread disease closed. The
children mean the country of tomorrow.
They are everything. All other considera-
tons should give place to their preservation
in sound health.-Le Roy L. Griffin IN Chi
cdqo Current.