The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1921-11-25
TRAINS INTERFERE
WITHCLASS WORK
AT The JEFFERSON
Noise browns Out Reel
tations and Coal Dust
Hurts Children.
PLAY IN MUDHOLES
Heralds Table Shows Lack OF
Action by Congress on
Situation.
Continued from Page One.

These tables show that there
are two schools of those recon-
mended for immediate abandonment
thirteen years ago still in USE the
John F. Cook. on o street neal
Fifth, and the Threlkeld on Thirty
sixth and Prospect streets north
west From the standpoint of hre
protection and bad sanitation the
Cook Ccolored) was one of the
worst buildings visited. Built nifty
three years ago and in use ever
tince by large numbers of children
II has reached a stage OF accumu-
lated dirt and decay where IL Is
difficult to maintain even sem
blance of cleanliness, though
teachers and janitors were making
a valiant effort. The boards on the
floors of the class rooms are rotted
and the wide cracks filled with the
dust OF half a century. When a
child walked across the room small
clouds of dust rose from the cracks
in the floor. The building has only
dark basement entrances where the
visitor was met by the odor from
damp. insanitary, foul-smellins
toilet rooms. The kindergarten is
located in the basement just across
the hall from the boys toilet. A
large circle OF children were sitting
on the floor when the principal
and the visitor entered. Kinder
garten children must sit on the
floor and one of the first require
ments of modern school hygiene is
that kindergartens shall have floors
that may be easily and thoroughly
cleaned. Battleship lineoleum Is
now quite generally used for this
purpose But those little kinder
gardeners at the Cook School were
sitting on floor SO old and damp
that in some places the boards had
rotted away leaving the mouldy
earth exposed.
school Not Fireproof.
The basement Of the Cook School
is overcrowded and badly planned
so that wood and coal have to be
piled too near the furnace for safe
ty. The building makes no pre-
tense to ireproof construction. the
stairways, landings and corridors
are not designed according to mod
ern standards of safety and yet for
the protection of the $40 children
packed like sardines on the three
floors of the building there is not
a single fire escape. Most State
laws label such negligence criminal.
Just as many States do not permit
kindergartens in basement rooms.
But in the matter of protection and
conservation of child life the Dis
trict OF Columbia sets a bad ex-
ample for the States.
The Threlkeld School is a four
room building of the same vintage
as the John F. Cook. Fifty-three
years with few repairs and little
new paint has left this a dilapi-
dated and unattractiye place to
house two atypical classes and one
class of incorrigibles. There is
practically no playground space
and few facilities for handling such
special problems as the sub-normal
child and the delinquent. Most ex-
ports in mental hygiene will agree
that to label a boy incorrigible.
then place him in such surround
ings, without room to play ball
without breaking a window, Is a
pretty sure way to make permanent
his incorrigibility. Such boys need
school gardens % work in, large
Fairgrounds. good workshops and
every opportunity for physical ex-
preston The atypical classes
should have the most careful men,
tai testing and grouping but owing
to the fact that the District of
Columbia has no Institution for the
feeble minded the atypicaI classes
in washington contain everything
from the slightly sub-normal child
to idiots, epileptics and other in
stItutional cases The Threkheld
school with its limited playground
has all these types as well as a
class of so-called incorrigibles.
Teachers Act As sentinels.
Two condemned schools of some
what similar type are the Web
ster and the Abbott The Webster
on Tenth and II streets northwest,
has twelve rooms with no real play
ground space and one excuse for
a fire escape. There are 400 chill
dren enrolled in the school besides
rooms reserved for Americanization
work and the Offices of the super
visor of physical training. Arriving
at the building at recess time the
children were found playing in a
brick paved area-way, nine feet
by eighty-five feet and in an en-
closed court between the buildings,
thirty-six feet by Twenty-Five feet
They were simply forced to over
1ow onto the sidewalk and teach
ers were stationed like sentinels to
>>sep them from dashing of the
Sidewalk into the busy traffic OF
the street. The accompanying pic
tura shows the areaway nlav