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55
It would be more satisfactory if a rule were adopted making head teachers
responsible as soon as possible after the educational year has begun and promotions
have been made, for parading the children in each class, dressing them according to
size, and seeing that by exchange of desks between the classrooms all children are
seated in desks which suit them. The single rule that needs to be remembered is
that the height of the desk seat above the floor should correspond as nearly as
may be with two-sevenths of the child's stature.
More significant than the question of modification of school desks is the revolt
against desks altogether, which is gradually gathering head, and has taken especially
the form of the substitution of tables and chairs, an experiment which is being
watched by the medical staff with much interest and sympathy.
This reform is generally to be welcomed as it is a move towards greater freedom.
The desk with fixed seat is rigid, and the occupant is completely without control over
this important part of his environment. The provision of separate and movable
chairs at once introduces the factor of control, and gives an increase of freedom
which is an almost incalculable boon.
Already the babies' classes in the infants' departments have been equipped
with tables and chairs instead of desks. The provision of practical workrooms with
the necessity for flat, instead of sloping, surfaces has caused the provision of tables
and chairs to be used for the older children, and now it has been decided experimentally
to equip a number of schools throughout with similar furniture.
An opinion was sought in regard to the number of standard sizes of tables and
chairs required and the dimensions these should take. Based on the observation
that, while dual desks are rigid and non-adaptable, any moderate inconvenience
arising out of difference in height of table and chair is immediately corrected by the
alteration of the distance of chair from the table, the advice was given that it was
unnecessary to have so many as seven standard sizes. Moreover, if for instance four
sizes of tables and four sizes of chairs were adopted, no less than sixteen combinations
would be possible (though not all of them would be practically useful).
In the first instance, in order to gain experience therefrom, it has been advised
that foui sizes each of tables and chairs should be supplied for general use throughout
boys' and girls' departments experimentally equipped and that the dimensions
should be as given in the following table:—
Tables and
chairs instead
of desks.

The Results of Medical Inspection.
The number of children inspected in the three statutory age groups in the
elementary schools during 1927 was 193,876, being 10,180 more than in the year
1926. They include 77,989 entrants, 56,017 at age eight, and 59,870 at age twelve.
The increase in numbers was due to the fact that none of the age groups this year
included children born in the years 1916, 1917 and 1918, when, owing to the absence