New-York tribune., 1921-10-06
Girls in High &
School Using
Board Seats
Brooklyn Commercial Insti-
tuition, Condemned Years
Ago, Restored 10 System
With Packed Glass Rooms
Observation-Disclosures
Many Forced to Come Long
Distances After a Scant
Breakfast or None at All

How the health of girls is imperilled
ard their strength wasted by conditions
in the Girls Commercial High School
in Brooklyn was revealed in series
OF interviews yesterday.
This IS the buiding-or rather n
building was condemned years
ago, but has recently been restored to
the system as high school for girls,
with damp easements, dark study hall
and class rooms so crowded that the
girls are obliged to sit on boards
stretched across the aisles between
bencnes.
Many Come Long Distances
High schools for girls arc so few
Snd far between in New York City that
many girls leave nome at G:3o o'clock
In the morning in order to reach school
al 1850 O'Clock This often means g
scant breakfast and fatiguing ride in
street cars filed with laborers on their
way to work
Mrs. Mary Southwick, at 46S Classon
Avenue, Brooklyn, has three daurhters
IN the Girls Commercial High School.
'My daughters were in school in
Boston before we came here. The
conditions were splendid there. and it
Is TO them ! credit the fact that my
girls health has not broken down
here," she said. Last year Harriet
had to sit on the stone steps in the
grade school, part of which is used as
an overflow annex for the High School.
The steps were marble, but | did not
think It was right to make girls
sit on them for three quarters of an
hour. They carried newspapers to sit
on. There is no heat in the hall, and
as the big double doors open right
out into the street, so that more or
less draught was unavoidable, thew
had to keep their coats on all through
the winter
THE gymnasium is always damp in
the winter tine-in fact. it is flooded
after heavy rain The teachers do
their best to keep the children out OF
u, using the yard whenever possible
The physical training classes at best
are too large. sometimes as many as
eighty in class | do not feel that
the children gain much from them, for
q teacher ought 60 understand some
thing of the individuality of the girls
IN order to give them the best training
How can she with eighty in a class
and four or five classes day."
The evil of the long morning trolley
ride was described by one of the
teachers, as follows:
Girls who come The longest dis
tances must leave home rs early as
o'clock to be here by 750, for they
must allow for possible transportation
delays. At that hour the cars arc
packed with working men and factory
folk, and the cirls.arc obliged to crowd
III any way they can.
Many Miss Breakfast
But the worst of it is that they are
likely to sleep until the last minute
Gotten their families do not get up so
early). and we rep atedly find that they
come to school without having eaten
q bite Of breakfast Twice last year
We had girls i'll, who explained that
they had had no breakfast before COM
ing to school. Even those who do not
come from 10 great distance are often
too hurried IN the morning to eat Why
do you realize that we teachers get TO
shis building in the morning while it
IS still dark the street lights are on
and the milkman is just going his
rounds
"Of course, we believe that thc girls
~ho come TO the forenoon sessions are
fresher and in better mental and phys
cal condition for school work than
those who have tired themselves by
morning Of play, or. as happens to
come Of our girls q morning OF heavy