OPEN AIR SCHOOLS.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18138, 30 July 1924, Page 10

OPEN AIR SCHOOLS.

DR. TBUBY KING'S VIEWS. j Speaking at tho annual meeting of t?he Christchurch Branch of the Plunket Society last night, Dr. Truby King, who visited the Fendalton open-air schoolroom yesterday, commended the idea of open-air schools, to the members ol a soSTty, like the Plunket Society, concerned with the health of women and children* After referring to the wonderful reSU U« -achieved in the treatment of tuberculosis by the open air and sunXe methods I>r. Truby King sanl that through the zeal of certain people and through the great interest shown by Dr. R. B. Phillipps, a start had be*n made with an open-air L-lnss room at Fendalton. He had had the pleasure of seeing that institution vesterday morning, and be could say that what he had seen was only confirmatory of what he had seen m other tvirts of the world m the past ten wars Everywhere that the idea o open-air schools bad been gjven a trial it had been successful It had been done in 'Chicago and in the very middle of winter, when the streets wero blocked with ire. it hrd been alloved pleasure to see how healthy and happy the children werj; wh- attend" I t(i e open-air schools. Tlie time would come, he had" no doubt, in a comparatively short number of years, when thadoption of the open-air would be general throughout New Zealand: he saw no reason why the idea should I not be universally adopted. Hb could not see that there was any real objection to it—the objections usually advanced were really reasons in favour of it. Children in. hot,, muggy, warm rooms felt the cold more, than tlio children in the open-air school. Teachers in the school of that class m Timaru had told him that previous to teaching in an open-air school they suffered from throat complaints, but now suffered from them no longer—thev had shared the benefit that had come to the children. This matter of open-air schools was one which a society for the health' of women ana children must feel interested in, for what applied to the child- applied to the mother, to the father, and to the whole family. In proportion to the extent to which they could keep human beings in the open air, they would have a strong and healthy community.