The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1923-11-14
WE GO A-vIsITIN'

n HE Gazette editor maze Trip over 10 tne
grade school building the other day for the
= purpose of satisfying herself that the Board
of Education and the State Commission of Educa-
tion are justified in saying all the discreditable
things they have said about this building. In
our judgment they certainly are justified and then
some! While we had visited the building upon
many occasions before, and had always come
away depressed by the gloominess of it, we came
away this time impressed by number of fea-
lures which make the building positive menace
in many ways.
In the first place anyone who says-and we
have so heard it said-that there is no danger of
the building ever collapsing is absolutely wrong.
Even the merest amateur in building construc-
ton, like ourself, can see that the old wing is
positively unsafe Cracks extend almost from
top to bottom in several places, window case
ments spread until it seems as though the
bricks in at least two of them must fall at al
most any time, arches over doors are ready to
fall and the temporary braces which have been
placed in two three of these arches are Jokes
in SO far they offer-or fail to offer-any real
protection. In several of the rooms iron braces
have been run from wall to wall-and it is very
evident that they are bracing two weaknesses
against each other in the vain hope that thus
at one spot shows clearly how through settling,
the wall on that side has become unsafe
Inside, even on bright sunshiny morning
like last Thursday, gloom was everywhere. So
much gloom that in two of the little narrow col
ridors which are dignifed by the name of halls
it was necessary, at eleven o'clock in the morl-
ing, to have electric lights burning. Badly plan
ned rooms-too wide for the light afforded by
the window arrangement, caused the children on
the inside of these to be studying under
the severest eye strain could imagine. Hav-
ing In her own family pair Of eyes whose seri-
Gus shortcomings directly traceable to six
years of work in this building, the editor could
sympathize most sincerely with these youngsters
who are going to reap the future 'msbeneiits of
this inadequate lighting system
And the ventialting system-or rather the
lack of it! We wonder if many of the Gazette
readers know that in an attempt to properly ven
tilate the building it has been necessary in sew
eral rooms to cut off the lower part of the door
in order that the foul air may be coaxed to make
its exit through the aperture. In one room this
same foul air would have to turn at least two
sharp corners in order to make it's escape Ma
turally it doesn't do this-it just stays right in
the rooms where it helps nightly in the develop
ment of those tubercular germs which scientists
say we everyone possess Coming in from the
fresh out-of-doors we realized to the utmost the
impurities of the air which pupils and teachers
were breathing-and we wonder that JOHNNY and
Jane are not sixty per cent more stupid than
they are. And the stench-no potter term vii;
do it justice-which came from the toilets was
most obnoxious and at that teacher told us
there was little of it Thursday, adding "You
should be here some day when the wind is from
the south!
We saw well-planned and well-executed
fire drill and then stepped down into the base
ment, saw the furnace room which is in SO many
ways provocative of fire, and realized that this
furnace room is directly under one hall and one
stairway by which the children Of at least four
rooms must make their exit. With this hall and
stairway cut off, as it would be within start
lingly few minutes after the fire broke out what
chance would there be of "emptying the building
under prescribed fire drill rules The pupils