The courier., 1902-02-22

StdnulnS Oh "ndl Is IlSHI anu NItt II
not That school stink composed of
carbonic dioxide and other objection
able gases and vapors is the most Of
fensive characteristic of a common
students who loathe the school and
university classroom atmosphere attrib-
ute it to the dirty clothing and bodies
of classmates not in their set and con-
clude that so long as the public school
system makes no discrimination in the
admission of pupils that the bad air
is a necessity. The clean pupils do not
realize that the bad smell is composed
of eXhalatiOns from their own lungs
and bodies as we'll as the contributions
from their less fastidious schOOlmates.
GrOwn-up people have no cOnstitu-
tional nor ethical nor merely Biblical
rights to keep children in rooms which
smell like those in which the Lincoln
school board pens the young genera
ton. This board is doing no better and
no worse than the boards which have
preceded it in this regard, but when
other public buildings have been built
with modern ventilating devices, the
new schools should show adequate at
tempts at ventilation. 1t is said that
the new building now being erected on
the high school grounds is to be made
quately ventilated. The other new
building on these grounds, called mys-
teriOusly the Administration" is a
failure. In bad ventilation, bad
acoustics, bad plumbing the Admin
istration building is an example of
the carelessness of school boards and
patrons whose money is building the
new school insist upon a change it is
likely that the closet system and ven-
tilatiOn will not be much better than
in the Administration building.
Mrs. j. L. Miller has Investigated the
ventilating arrangements in the schools
of Lincoln and made u careful report
of the result of her study to Sorosis
and to the LOtOS club. She eXonerates
the school board from all blame tor the
lack of breathable air in the school
rooms of this city. Nobody in particu-
lar is to blame unless it be the mothers
and fathers who have not visited the
schools and do not know about the
poisoned air their children are breath
ing for five hours each school day. Mrs
Miller says that one child vitiates 1000
of aiy in,
school pupil vitiates $500 feet in an
hour. THE usual dimensions of school
rooms in Lincoln are IS by 81 by II
which amounts to 13,32S cubic feet of
air. If there are sixty pupils, an un-
usually large school, the air will be
unfit for breathing in seven minutes
after they have entered the room. Some
of the school rooms in this city are Oc-
cupied by sixty pupils" Their lungs
require 10000 cubic feet of air every
hour but they have never had it and
at the present rate of progression to-
wards more sanitary conditions the
boys and girls of a thousand years
from now will still have to breathe a
pestilential atmosphere during the
hours when they are learning reading.
writing and arithmetic. Mrs. Miller's
report suggests that the patrons or the
fathers and mothers of the children
who are going to school now, visit the
schools, investigate the conditions and
communicate the result to the board.
Mrs. Miller says that the lungs of the
children who breathe the bad air of
the schools five days in the week are
enfeebled and that when they are at
tackled by some disease their vitality
is already exhausted The suggestion