Warren sheaf., 1913-02-06
SCHOOL HOUSE VENTILATION

| SCHOOL HOUSE VENTILATION
BY S. a. Challman, State Inspector
Of Graded Schools.
An old writer has said, "When
men lived in houses of reeds they
had constitutions Of oak; when they
live in houses Of oak they have
constitutions of reeds" Out of
doors with the temperature at 60
degrees Fair. DR.. Billings computes
that each individual comes in con-
tact with $40 cubic feet of air each
minute, when there is no precepti-
Bile wind, and the displacement of
air is made at the rate on one foot
per second. Considering then on
ly the part we need for respiration,
nature has thrown around us an
cxtravagant supply of fresh air. But
because that common, costless,
abundant. thing, air." says Prof. S.
II. Woodbridge, "envelopes man as
i the great ocean does the fish, that
it is almost lost in it's waste of wa
ters, he:is prone to think it of COM
lnonplace and minor value, and its
exact purity of small account" This
air as it enters The, lungs has from
two to four parts in 10000 of carbon
dioxide, but as it escapes from the
lungs it has increased this to 44O
parts in 10000. In other words ex-
PEELED air contains more than 1OC
times as much carbon sdioxide as
the purest air we inhale. When it
therefore comes to rendering indoor
air fit to breathe, the problem OF
ventilation becomes one of vast mo-
ment. To make conditions indoors
what they are outdoors in the mat
ter Of purity of air is practically
impossible. 1t is possible, how
ever, to fix a certain standard of
purity and construct our ventilating
apparatus so that it may have the
proper capacity to meet this stand
ard. Il. T., @ |-s@
On the basis that the air of the
school room may contain twice as
much carbon dioxide as the air out
Of doors, it has been computed that
any ventilating device which has a
Ecapaeity SO that 1t may furnish
thirty cubic feet of air per minute
for each person ought to give fair
ly satisfactory results from san
itary point of view. In 1888 Mas
sachusetts passed a law requiring
the ventilation of public buildings
and school houses. The inspection
department of the Massachusetts
district police was authorized to fix
a standard. This department es-
tablished thirty cubic feet minute
for each individual as minimum.
The Pennsylvania legislature in
1905 enacted law fixing the same
standard in school buildings erect
ed. at a cost Of $4,000 or more: in
1907 the state department Of health
/ Of Michigan fixed 33 1-3 cubic feet
per minute for each person in ordi-
nary day and sleeping rooms in
charitable ,penal, educational and
refOrmatOry institutions of the
state. In 1908 the State Board of
Health of this state made thirty Gu
bic feet of fresh air per minute the
minimum amount to be introduced
Into school room for each pupil
that the room will accommodate.
This amount is quite generally re-
Iquired in the larger cities where
any intelligent attention has been
paid to the matter of ventilation. In
many schools in New York, Boston,
Cincinnati, and st. Louis there are
systems that furnish 40 to so cubic
feet Of fresh air per minute for
each pupil. In the overwhelming
/ majority, however, are the cities
and villages which leave the matter
entirely to the architect and heat
ing contractor and in too many
cases these either on account of ig-
norance or knavery have failed to
provide much more than a hypo-
critical register and a vagrant mi
crOscopic flue. The blunders in
the installation of systems Of ven-
tilation in Minnesota in the past
have been heinous. In gravity