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166
Annual Report of the London County Council, 1911.
proper relation of seat and desk dimensions to the size of the child. Seats adjustable to the individual
child would be most advisable, but for their cost and the difficulty of securing proper adjustment.
If, however, a knowledge of the sizes of the children in different classes is obtained, then the rooms
can be fitted with stock sizes, always remembering that any error in size is preferable in the direction
of largeness of the furniture rather than smallness. The smallest sizes should go on the left-hand file
nearest to the windows, as the smallest children are not necessarily those most defective in hearing
or vision. This avoids a big hard-of-hearing boy having to sit in a tiny seat in the front row.
The space between the children should be so great that no attitudes with twisted spine are
necessary to prevent copying. In the dual desk, as Dr. Dufestel, of Paris, suggests, the left-hand
child always suffers. The pupil on the right presses back his comrade with his left shoulder, and the
left child, having the right arm stiffened to write, seeks a new position with his left arm outside the
desk.
A back rest is necessary to prevent fatigue. For the writing position, which has been described
before as the most important, the support should be low to fix the pelvis, so that the child sits vertically.
For the resting or reading position the rest would be higher under the shoulder blades and sloped perhaps
ten or twelve degrees backward; but then the child as it relaxes tends to slide forward on the seat.
This position is generally assumed on the seat of a dual desk when it is pushed up against the desk behind
which the child then uses as a back rest. Experience favours the low back rest, but a combined one
would probably be worth experiment.
The ideal arrangement is a single seat and desk for each child, but single desks have been
refused recognition as necessary for elementary schools. The advantages of the single seat are,
however, too great to be sacrificed, and so there has been recommended single seats with continuous
desks, sometimes for convenience termed the Sheffield desks. These were described in the Annual
Report for 1904, from which Fig. 14 is reproduced. If the forty children are arranged at desks with
five seats to each, the class can be set out in four rows of two desks, with gangways at each wall and
up the centre.
Figure 14. To illustrate the Sheffield system of continuous desks with single seats.
The dual desks used in most schools are of excellent pattern and dimensions, and probably as
good as such a pattern of seat and desk can be, but they allow of crowding, not merely by undue
approximation of desks, but by actually placing three children on one dual desk for some lessons.
This appears a custom which only stringent regulation can prevent. Further, these dual desks necessitate
two children of approximately equal size sitting closely in contact, and one of these at least in bad
attitudes. They are noisy, and there are many accidents to fingers from the hinged tops. Cleansing
of the rooms is always imperfect. Although provided in all sorts and sizes, they are not always
intelligently used. Some rooms have only one size; one room measured had twenty-five dual desks
of nineteen differing varieties according to dimensions. Frequently they are too small for the
children, who, if told to sit upright, find their knees touching the book shelf beneath. This serves
as a test of the suitability of the desk in largeness for the child.
Experiments have been made for some time with Sheffield desks. The opinions of those using
them are still in suspense, although generally favourable. The great advantage here is the spacing of
the children and the impossibility of overcrowding. Difficulties in school organisation are thereby
raised, and some alterations in school methods necessitated. “Taking places," for instance, as a
reward for industry is ruled out as an educational method, if seats of graduated sizes are to be used.
These seats and desks have not, however, had the advantage of being fitted to rooms built to suit
them. Other things being equal, rooms built for dual desks cannot be fitted with Sheffield desks with
equal advantage if the 10 square feet basis is to be maintained. Exch desk should have stencilled
on it the maximum and minimum heights of children for whom it is to be used. As already noted, the
lateral desk width in use, 18 inches for each child, is too small for most. For older children the spacing
between the seats becomes too restricted. The low back rest for writing attitudes, is sometimes
complained of in these seats. The silence of the class, the accessibility of the seats, the absence of
footrests, the cleanliness and simplicity of the seats and desks are their great advantage. They are
issued at present in eight sizes; the two smallest, 10 and 11 inch seats respectively, are for infant
schools; the others with seat heights increasing by an inch from 13 inches are for the ordinary schools.