USA > Rhode Island > Annual report of the Board of Education : together with the Annual report of the Commissioner of Public Schools of Rhode Island, 1875 > Part 20
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PAWTUCKET .- School Property .- The town of Pawtucket possesses property devoted for school purposes, which is enumerated and valued as follows :
One High School building and lot on Summit Street. $10.000 00
One Grammar School building and lot on Grove Street. 10 000 00
One
Front
18,000 00
One Primary and Intermediate School buildlin : and lot on East St., , 1,000 00
One Primary and Intermediate School building and lot on Prospect Street .. 2,000 00
One Primary and Intermediate School building and lot at Kent's Mills.
500 00
Total $41,500 00
In general, our school property is in good condition .- PHANUEL E. BISHOP, M. D., Supt.
PORTSMOUTHI .- The school-houses in the several districts are in good condition with the exception of the house in District No. 2 .- School Committee.
PROVIDENCE .- It has been necessary to put a part of the High School in the ward-room building on Benefit Street, and to assemble the school in another and still more remote building for musical instruction, as the present Iligh School structure is too small to seat the pupils of the
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school, and contains no hall for their attendance. A continuance of this state of affairs is consistent with neither the economical management nor the educational success of this school. The Intermediate and Primary schools of the city are conducted by those in charge of them under many disadvantages. Two-thirds of all the scholars in the public schools are taught in these lower schools, and the rooms for their accommodation are, for the most part, low, dark, inconvenient, badly contrived, uncom- fortably furnished, and not at all ventilated. The elementary instruction given to the younger pupils in our schools is the most important part of our whole system of education, and is the part which the committee re- gards at present with the least satisfaction, and in which it finds most to criticise. If these lower grade schools are to perform properly their appointed work, they must, at no remote period, be provided with other and better quarters. The buildings in which some of them are held can be so altered as to be tolerable for a time, but in certain parts of the city, the school-rooms are already insufficient in size, as well as un- healthy in arrangement. It will be hardly possible to continue, as at present some of the Primary and Intermediate schools in the eighth and ninth wards. They must be moved, or before long, be discontinued.
The increase in area of the city, will soon oblige the city government to build many additional school-houses, and it is therefore with great reluctance that the School Committee finds itself obliged to report that the continued usefulness of the school system of the city depends largely on a radical reconstruction of the Primary and Intermediate school build- ings. Only those which have been recently built are at all fitted for their purpose. Most of the others must be reconstructed or rejected. Pleasant, clean, airy, and fresh rooms greatly invigorate the moral and mental energy of teachers and pupils, and it is doubly important to sub- ject our younger scholars to these influences at schools, as too many of the little ones are by the necessities of their life quite removed from them at home .- School Committee.
The subject of heating and ventilating our school-houses should con- tinue to receive the earnest attention of this Committee. It is most vitally connected with the vigorous health of our children, and ought not to be regarded as of secondary importance. The mind and body should be trained together under the very best sanitary conditions. Nothing should be considered as of but little moment that seriously and permanently affects the health of a child.
I would, therefore. recommend that a committee be appointed to ex- amine carefully the results of the experiment in ventilation made in the East Street school-house, and to report the same to this Committee.
I would also suggest the propriety of making application to the City Council to request the Superintendent of Health to take such measures as he may deem best to test chemically the impurity of the air in our school-rooms, that we may have certified facts on which to base our opinions.
As the health of nearly ten thousand children is involved in this measure, I trust it will receive the consideration which its importance demands .- DANIEL LEACH, Supt.
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SCHOOL COMMISSIONER'S REPORT.
School House Ventilation .- At the meeting of the School Committee, Friday evening, February 6th, 1874, on motion of Mr. Stone, it is voted to refer so much of the Superintendent's report as relates to the ven- tilation of the East Street school, to a special committee of three, to report at the next meeting, and the Chairman appoints Messrs. A. Greene, Stone and Potter.
At the meeting of the School Committee, Friday evening, April 24th, 1874, the report of the Special Committee on Ventilation is taken up, and after considerable discussion the following resolution of his Honor the Mayor is adopted :
Resolved, That the Executive Committee be requested to apply to the City Council for an appropriation of $1,500 for the purpose of improving the ventilation of such of the school-rooms of the city as they may deem expedient.
Report on Ventilation .- An almost reckless disregard of the laws of health is one of the characteristics of our times. The free use of an ele- ment vital to its preservation-pure air-is everywhere neglected. The common methods of heating and ventilating private dwellings and public buildings need further improvement to insure freedom from mephitic gases. The necessity for a full supply of pure air, and for its free circu- lation, as conditions of health will be made clear when its physiological functions are understood.
"Air accomplishes two things,-it is the vehicle by means of which a large portion of the waste, dead, poisonous matter which is constantly generated in the system and thrown off by the lungs and skin, is carried away from it, and it brings to the system oxygen, a substance without which no life can exist for a moment.
In regard to the first point, it is only necessary to state that the ability of the air to carry away from the body its poisonous emanations is in exact proportion to the purity of the air. In order that the air be pure, it must be continually changed, otherwise a person is enveloped in a constantly thickening cloud of 'his dead self,' and breathes himself over and over again ; under which circumstances it may truly be said that ' a man's worst enemy is his own breath.'"*
This statement has a direct bearing upon the subject placed in the hands of your committee for their careful examination, viz : the experi- ment now making in two rooms of the East Street Primary and Inter- mediate School building, to improve the quality of the air breathed daily by the pupils. This duty has been performed, and the results of the examination there, as well as a knowledge of the condition of other school-houses in the city, authorize calling attention to prevalent defects in ventilation. With few exceptions, the ventilating arrangements pro- vided for our school-houses are inadequate. This is especially the case, not only with the High School, but with nearly all the old Primary and Intermediate school-houses. The deficiency here stated is casily ac- counted for. When those buildings were erected, the subject of ventila- tion had not attracted much attention, and any provision other than that then made, was deemed unnecessary.
* "M. D." in Christian Union, Feb. 7, 1874.
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EXTRACTS FROM SCHOOL REPORTS.
What the laws of health demand will be readily comprehended when it is remembered that the quantity of pure air necessary to each pupil for healthy respiration, is, according to Drs. Arnold, Tredgold and other standard authorities, four cubic feet per minute, or 240 cubic feet per hour. A school of fifty pupils would therefore require 200 cubic feet per minute, or 10,000 cubic feet per hour. The decisions of Arnold and Tredgold are, probably, for persons in perfect health, and whose habits are cleanly. For children or adults untidy in their persons, and whose clothing is saturated with foul odors, not less than from ten to eighteen cubic feet to each, per minute, may be needed.
+
As this quantity of air must be introduced into the room from with- out, the same quantity of vitiated air must be expelled. As the school buildings under consideration are constructed, the air can obtain ingress and egress only through open windows, creating a cold current upon the heads and necks of pupils, a process dangerous to health, and therefore to be avoided. On this point, Dr. 'Angus Smith has correctly said, "though foul air is a slow poison, we must not forget that a a blast of cold air may slay like a sword."
To obviate these acknowledged evils, the Superintendent of Public Schools in this city, suggested a plan devised by himself several years ago, capable of being applied to any of our school buildings where needed, at small cost. As an experiment it was applied to two rooms, already referred to, in the East Street school-house. The plan embraces four openings of suitable length and width, two on each side of the room and opposite each other ; the upper openings being about one foot be- low the ceiling, and the lower ones near the floor. Into each of these openings is inserted a frame of slats, placed at a very acute angle,-the upper ones forcing the inflowing current directly against the ceiling, causing its rapid diffusion through the upper atmosphere of the room, without detriment to the comfort of the pupils. This fact has been satis- factorily determined by very accurate chemical tests .*
These slats should be about three-eighths of an inch think, and not more than half an inch apart.
These openings are covered with slides moved at will, and held in place by weights suspended over pulleys. The slides enable the teacher to regulate the inflow of pure air, so as to preserve uniformity in quan- tity, whatever may be the force of the wind. The lower openings are used only for expelling the noxious air which at times forms a stratum near the floor. But one of the openings is used at a time, and that op- posite the direction of the wind.
This description is enough to give a general idea of the plan of venti- lation which has been on trial since last June. The important question is, how does it work? According to the testimony of the teachers, it has been entirely successful. The principal of the Intermediate rooms says the use of open windows for ventilation has been entirely super- seded, and that she has enjoyed more comfort and better health since this experiment has been going on, than she has known in all the pre- vious years of her teaching in that building, and that the effect upon her
* These tests were made under the observation of a distinguished professor of chemistry.
9
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SCHOOL COMMISSIONER'S REPORT.
pupils has been to improve their health, and to quicken them in their studies. The rooms have been as comfortable in temperature as in any previous winter, with no additional expense for fuel, except on one or two of the coldest days, when an extra half hod full of coal was re- quired.
In addition to the official visit made by the committee for the purpose of examining this plan of ventilation, the writer of this report made seven subsequent visits in as many different conditions of the atmosphere and found the results uniform. In each instance the air was free from perceptible taint. The sixth visit was made when the school had been in session two hours. On entering the rooms no impurity in the air » could be detected, and though the day was cold and windy, thermome- ters hanging in different localities indicated 68°, 70° and 72°. At a subsequent visit, the following results were obtained. In Miss Arming- ton's room four thermometers were used. The temperature ranged from 69° to 72°, the former being the temperature at the floor, as taken in four different places.
In Miss Dodge's room, on the ground floor, the highest point indicated by the mercury was 73º and the lowest 67 1-2º this latter test being made by placing the thermometer on the floor at the side of the closed opening on the north side of the house, the wind then being from the north. At this time the ont door temperature was 45°.
The contrast between these rooms and the adjacent ones, after the windows (the only effective means of ventilation) liad been closed twenty minutes, was extreme.
Gentlemen interested in the subject of ventilation who have visited the East Street school, liave borne testimony to the purity of the air in the rooms occupied by Miss Armington and Miss Dodge, and to the wide awake appearance of the children ; and they have been equally em- phatic in stating the foul condition of the air in the other rooms, and its unmistakable effects upon the children, even though the windows were lowered more than it was safe to have them. One of the Sewing School teachers, whose duties give her a wide range of observation, pronounced these two rooms to be the best ventilated of any school-rooms she had visited in the city.
There is no subject of greater importance in its relations to the rising generation or connected with education, than this now under consider- ation, and there is no place where searching reform and practical appli- cation of the subject are more needed than in school-houses. Whatever system of ventilation may be adopted in school buildings yet to be erected, it is very clear that the plan in operation in East Street is a practical and practicable one for the houses now needing reform, and commends itself to approval on the score of economy. The only ob- jection that has been heard to this mode is that it will enhance the ex- pense of warming the rooms. But this may be said of any system of ventilation possessing value, and on that ground of objection we should ignore improvement, and go on in the future as in the past. In this instance, however, the objection is not valid. A careful examination shows that the method which this plan proposes of warming the cold air as it passes into the room by mingling it with the heated air near the
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ceiling, is the most economical that can be adopted. But admit it to be true that perfect ventilation costs more than no ventilation at all. What then? Is the health and comfort of pupils to be put in compe- tition with the price of a small additional allowance of coal? Surely not. It is too late in the nineteenth century to advocate keeping school- houses close and unventilated on the ground of economy. Indeed, it may be said, in the words of another : "No State or town can afford to allow its school children to be slowly poisoned by breathing foul air. If we are wise, we shall be less lavish of expenditure on showy exteriors and lofty halls, and more ready to spend on thorough ventilation. Nay, we shall insist on the latter at whatever price."*
The best method of ventilation has long engaged the attention of scientific men. For dwelling houses, offices, and school rooms of mod- erate dimensions, the old fashioned fire place is doubtless preferable ; } ut that, for the most part, has passed away. The increasing scarcity and high cost of wood, especially in New England, and the greater economy of coal for fuel, together with the almost universal use of grates, stoves and furnaces, forbid the hope that the fire place will, to any extent, be restored. But in banishing this relic of earlier days, so far as dwelling houses, counting rooms or offices are concerned, no satisfactory equiva- lent has been provided. Indeed, in a majority of houses, as well as in counting rooms and offices, no provision whatever has been made for ventilation ; and hence, by the escape of coal gas during the day, and of unconsumed illuminating gas in the evening, the air of the room becomes charged with an element injurious to health, and not unfrequently fatal in its effects. Much of vertigo, and of lung disease may be attributed to this cause alone .;
*Report Mass. Board of Health, 1874.
t "The air which we breathe, if pure, when taken into the mouth and nostrils, is com- posed in every one hundred parts, of 21 oxygen, 78 nitrogen, and 1 of carbonic acid. After traversing the innumerable cells into which the lungs are divided and subdivided, and there coming into close contact with the blood, these proportions are essentially changed, and when breathed out, the same quantity of air contains 8 per cent. less of oxygen. and 8 per cent. more of carbonic acid. If in this condition (without being re- newed,) it is breathed again, it is deprived of another quantity of oxygen, and loaded with the same amount of carbonic acid. Each successive act of breathing reduces in this way, and in this proportion, the vital principle of the air, and increases in the same proportion that which destroys life. But in the mean time what has been going on in the lungs with regard to the blood? This fluid, after traversing the whole frame, from the heart to the extremities, parting all along with its heat, and ministering its nour- . ishing particles to the growth and preservation of the body, returns to the heart changed in color, deprived somewhat of its vitality, and loaded with impurities. In this con- dition, for the purpose of renewing its color, its vitality and its purity, it makes the circuit of the lungs, where by means of innumerable little vessels. iuclosing like a deli- cate net work each individual air cell, every one of its finest particles comes into close contact with the air which has been breathed. If this air has its due proportion of oxy- gen, the color of the blood changes front a dark purple to a bright scarlet; its vital warmth is restored, and its impurities, by the union of the oxygen of the air with the carbon of the blood, of which these impurities are made up, are thrown off in the form of carbonic acid. Thus vitalized and purified, it enters the heart to be sent out again through the system on its errand of life and beneficence, to build up and repair the solid frame work of the body, give tone and vigor to its muscles and re-string all its nerves to vibrate in unison with the glorious sights and thrilling sounds of nature, and the still sad music of humanity.
But in case the air with which the hlood comes in contact, through the thin mem- branes that constitute the cells of the lungs, does not contain its due proportion of oxy. . gen, viz. 20 or 21 per cent as when it has once been breathed, then the blood returns to the heart unendued with newness of life, and loaded with carbon and other impurities . which unfit it for the purposes of nourishment, the repair and maintenance of the vig- orous actions of all the parts, and especially of the brain, and spinal column, the great fountains of nervous power. If this process is long continued, even though the air be
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SCHOOL COMMISSIONER'S REPORT.
The success of any method of ventilation must depend largely upon the location and surroundings of the building. The best system will often require modification. An arrangement that succeeds admirably when applied to a building having free sweep for the wind on every side, may prove a failure when applied to a building closely hemmed in. A plan that will work with entire satisfaction in a school room occupied by twenty-five or thirty pupils, will be totally inadequate to the needs of a room of the same size, containing fifty or sixty. So that in the appli- cation of a principle upon which a system of ventilation is based, a com- mon sense regard must be had to these and other considerations. And then, to ensure the results sought in the school room, the charge of the ventilating apparatus must be under the coustant surveillance of a re- sponsible person, who will regulate the opening and closing of registers, valves or slides, from hour to hour, and perhaps more frequently, ac- cording to the changes of the atmosphere and the force of the wind. Without such supervision, the desired end will not be attained.
It is not proposed in this place to discuss the comparative merits of the many different methods of ventilation .* It is sufficient to say that whatever theories on that subject may be entertained, two facts in regard to the system applied to the two rooms in the East Street school house are indisputable ; first, that an atmosphere has been obtained in those rooms free from perceptible taint ; and second, that this has been accom- plished without detriment to the comfort or health of teachers or pupils. While the admission of air from without by the old method of lowering the upper sashes of windows is now condemned by the best authorities, as exposing pupils to sickness from sudden colds, the process already described shuns this danger. It is not affirmed that no better system has been, nor can be invented, but if any method, producing more per- fect results exists, an acquaintance with it remains to be made.
The Committee do not think that the method of ventilation in oper- ation in the Thayer Street Grammar School house could be applied to the East Street school house without incurring any unwarrantable ex- pense. Other approved methods are open to similar objection. The plan described in this report, already employed as an experiment, is doubtless the best which can be used in the last named building, taking into account its economy, and to meet a pressing want, at an early day, the committee recommend the adoption of t .: e following resolution :
Resolved, That the Executive Committee be directed to apply the mode of ventilation now in use in two rooms of the Fast Street school house, to the other four rooms of the same building. with such changes
"but slightly deteriorated, the effects will be evident in the languid and feeble action of the muscles, the sunken eye, the squalid hue of the skin, the unnatural irritability ofthe .nervous system, a disinclination to all mental and bodily exertion, and a tendency to stupor, headache and fainting. If the air is very impure. i. e. has but little or no oxygen and much carbonic acid, then the imperfect and poisoned blood will act with a peculiar and malignant energy on the whole system, and especially on the brain, and con- vulsions, apoplexy, and death must ensue .- Barnard.
*The writer of this report spent some days in making himself familiar with the various methods of ventilation employed in the principal school buildings of other cities. The most perfectly ventilated school house he visited was a private establishment in Boston. The method adopted there, combined substantially, the essential features of Mr. Leach's plan as employed in the Thayer street and East street school houses in this city.
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in the heating and other arrangements as may be deemed necessary .- EDWIN M. STONE, for the Committee, .
REFERENCES-Leach's Report on Ventilation in 17th Annual Report Mass. Board of Education, 1853. "Leeds on Ventilation." "Mass. Pub. Doc. Nov. 5, 1865 -House." Report Mass. State Board of Health, 1874; paper on ventilation of school rooms, and paper on air and its impurities. "Trans. Mich. State Med. Soe. 1873, papers by Dr. Hitchcock and Prof Kedzie." "Anthracite and Health." George Derby, M. D., 1868. Boston Daily Advertiser, June 20th, 1869, same subject. Pub. Mass. Med. Society Vol. 3d No. III., 1871. Report Mieh. State Board of Health, 1873. Report. Mass. State Board of Health 1871 and 1874 Christian Union Feb. 7, 1874. Cyclopedia of Arts and Sciences; Art. " Warming and Ventilation." Encyclopedia Britannica: Art Ventilation. Cham- bers' Eneyclopedia. Barnard's R. I. Institute Journal, April 15, 1846.
Appendix .- The subject presented in the preceding pages, in its bear- ing upon health, both in the school, the home, and the manufactory, is at present engaging the earnest attention of scientists in every part of our country ; and from a thorough examination into the construction and furnishing of school honses, and a careful analysis of the air breath- ed by pupils educated in them, important contributions to a knowledge of defects no less than hints to improvements, may confidently be antici- pated. A good work in this direction has been begun by the Michigan State Board of Health. A similar work has been pursued by the Massa- chusetts State Board of Health. The following copious extracts from the Report of that body for 1871 and 1874, will well repay careful per- usal :
SCHOOL HOUSE VENTILATION.
(From the Second Annual Report of The Massachusetts State Board of Health, 1871.)
The importance of thoroughly ventilating school houses is acknow- ledged by everybody, while the number of persons who have considered the amount of ventilation required to keep a room in a wholesome con- dition, and the best way to produce the necessary change of air is com- paratively small.
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