SCHOOLROOMS

Evening Star, Issue 22106, 13 August 1935, Page 2

SCHOOLROOMS

“ UNHYGIENIC, DULL, AND COLD ” “ Investigations go to show that as far as it affects Christchurch the complaint made at a meeting of the North Canterbury branch of the New Zealand Educational Institute that many schoolrooms are ‘ unhygienic, dull, ’and cold,’ is justified,” says the Christchurch ‘ Press.’ “In many of the older schools of the city, owing mainly to a desire for impressive fronts and to the enslavement of early architects to the Gothic tradition, heavy stone walls, have baffled all attempts at modernisation, and narrow, pointed windows admit a minimum of light and collect the maximum of dust. It must be hoped that the Education Department does not propose to wait until these schools begin to decay before it sets about replacing them; for the trouble is that most of them are as durable as they are depressing and inconvenient. At the moment the Government is drawing up plans for a campaign to eliminate bad housing in New Zealand. It could not do better than begin with the schools in which such a large section of the population spends the most important part of its life. The cost of renewing school buildings which are out of date would not be excessive. Indeed, some of the newer schools, particularly those which have been built on open-air principles, are a proof that much of the heavy expenditure which has been incurred for school buildings in the past has been unnecessary.”