UNHEALTHY SCHOOLROOMS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1106, 20 April 1911, Page 5

UNHEALTHY SCHOOLROOMS.

■ "CONDITION'S ABSOLUTELY CRIMINAL." The.internal physical conditions of the public schools came in for some criticism at last night's meeting of the Teachers' Institute. One speaker waxed eloquent on the subject, and expressed the opinion that the institute should approach the Education Board in reference to the conditions under which children were compelled to work in the schools. The physical exercises set down to be done in the schools included breathing exercises. These, said the complainant, _ were to be done in a room where the air was warm and impure and laden with organic matter. The children were-made to inhale this filthy atmosphere. He was strongly of opinion that all breathing exercises should be done outside. For five hours a day children were shut up in schools which were ■positively unhealthy. The wooden schools ■m*l6 bettei than the brick' structures, but every school in the town was bad, the brick ones. especially so. The ventilation and physical conditions under which the children were brought up were absolutely criminal. If a manufacturer had i.is work-people in such rooms as the children studied in, he would hear more about it. Tho reason was probably that the Education Board had not' , sufficient money to build better schools with, but this did not alter the result. The ifteeting decided that equally important with the question of physical training in the schools was that of the internal accommodation, - especially in regard to ventilation and desks.