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188
[This Sanitary Authority drew the attention of the Managers of
this school to many of the defects above enumerated in 1899, and
subsequently, but no radical action was taken to remedy
matters].
It will be seen from the above that four out of the eight schools,
one in the Western Division of the Borough and three in the
Eastern, were found to be unsuitable. Out of the 438 non-provided
elementary schools in London 92 were found to be unsuitable. It
will therefore be clear that whilst in London generally 20'9 per
cent. of the non-provided schools were sanitarily unsuitable, in
Finsbury as much as 50 per cent. were unsuitable.
In a general note, the County Council reports that the staircases
in many school buildings are dangerous in the event of fire or
panic, and are besides very inconvenient for the work of the
schools; ventilation and warming are in many cases very bad or
quite inadequate for the needs of the children; closed stoves which
easily get red-hot are particularly numerous, and should in all
cases be replaced by modern grates with brick flues—the present
flues are often faulty ; in several cases ventilation is secured only
by opening both windows and doors, with resultant draughts and
serious inconvenience to the scholars. The offices and sanitary
arrangements are frequently badly placed, kept in an uncleanly
condition, and defective.
Verminous Children.—The Education Authority has
continued the work of the late School Board in respect of Visiting
Nurses. Those nurses who were first appointed to examine cases
of Ringworm have had their duties extended to all forms of obvious
uncleanness and disease. They also follow up the school work by
home visits.
The method of working which these nurses (12 in number) adopt
is (a) to pay single visits here and there to different schools in their
district, and (6) every third week begin a very thorough examination
of one school and pay several visits at short intervals till it is
deemed sufficiently cleansed. A staff of 12 is of course inadequate
to an efficient system of inspection. But in the year ending March