The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1915-01-16


Drinking water should be available
for every pupil at any time of day
which does not interfere with the
school program.
Every rural school should have a
sanitary drinking fountain located
just inside or outside the schoolhouse
entrance.
Drinking water should come from
a safe source. Its purity should be
certified by an examination by the
State Board of Health or by some
other equally reliable authority.
A common drinking cup is always
dangerous and should never be toler-
ated.
Individual drinking cups are theo-
retically, and in some conditions all
right, but practical experience has
proven that in schools, individual
cups. to be used more than once, are
unsatisfactory and unhygienic.
Therefore, they are not to be advo-
Gated nor approved for any school.
Sufficient pressure for running wat
er for drinking fountain or other uses
in the rural school may be provided
from any ource without excessive ex-
pense by a storage tank or by press
ure tank with force pumn
Water For Washing
Children in all schools should have
facilities for washing hands available
az least:
(a) Always after the use of the
toilet.
(b) Always before eating.
(c) Frequently after playing out
doors, writing on blackboard or do
ing other forms of handwork connec-
ted within the school.
Individual clean towels should al
ways be used.
Paper towels are the cheapest and
most practicable.
The common towel is as dangerous
to health as the common drinking cup.
Furniture
School seats and desks should be
hygienic in type and adjusted to the
size and needs of growing children.
Seats and desks should be Individual,
separate, adjustable, clean
Books and other material of instruc-
ton should not only be sanitary but
attractive enough to stimulate a
wholesome response from the pupils.
Toilet and Privies
Toilets and privies should be sani-
tary in location, construction and in
maintenance.
(a) If water carnage system for
sewage is available separate toilets
for boys and girls should be located
in the schoolhouse with separate en-
frances on different sides or corners
of the school building.
fh1 Tho nriUv should ho roinnrooi
well ventilated and one of the follow
ing types:
1. Dry earth closet.
2. Septic tank container.
3. With a water-tight vault or box.
All containers of excreta should be
water-tight, thoroughly screened
against insects and easily emptied and
cleaned at frequent intervals.
No cesspool should be used unless
it is water-tipht and easily emptied
and cleaned.
All excreta should be either burned,
buried, treated by subsoil drainage,
reduced by septic tank treatment or
properly distributed on titled land as
fertilizer.
All schoolhouses and privies should
be thoroughly and effectively screened
against flies and mosquitoes.
Schoolhouses and outhouses should
be absolutely free from all defacing
and obscene marks.
Building should be kept in good re-
pair and with whole windows.
Standards
Provision and equipment of ade-
quate plant depends on intelligence,
interest, pride and financial ability of
community.
Maintenance of a clean and sani-
tary school plant depends on efficient
housekeeping and interest and willing
cooperation of pupils.
No community should be satisfied
by the minimum requirements indi-
Gated in the foregoing, but every
country school should be so attractive
and we'll equipped as to minister with
some abundance of satisfaction to the
physical, mental, aesthetic, social and
moral we'll being of those who pro-
vide it, who own it, who use it and
who enjoy it.
Present Conditions
Among the reasons which explain
the present d~eplorable conditions of
some rural sc~hoolhouses, the follow
ing are prominent:
(a) Low architectural and sanitary
standards in rural regions general
throughout the country.
eb) Ignorance regarding the phys
ical, mental, social and moral effects
of unattractive and unsanitary school
buildings on the children and on the
community as a whole.
(c) False economy expressed by To-
cal school boards in failure to vote
enough money to build and maintain
suitable school buildings.
Maintenance
DIR. Wood includes among his sug-
gestions the following as means of
improving the standards of public
schools:
L. By a popular campaign of edu-
cation regarding the conditions desir-
able and possible in the country
school. Such a campaign would prof
itably include many or most of the
following:
(a) State Departments of Educa-