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38
HYGIENIC CONDITIONS OF SCHOOL BUILDINGS.
The main facts relating to school buildings are given in detail
in the tables. For the better understanding of the general character
of the buildings I have classified them under six types, to one
or other of which the respective schools generally conform.
The sketch plans (single line, to scale) which the sanitary
inspectors have kindly made for me from the data ascertained
in the course of systematic inspection, will better illustrate my
meaning than a lengthier description. I have selected from these
sketch plans those of schools which may be taken as most typical
of their class.
Type I.
The simplest form of school building consists of a single
room, usually of oblong shape.
Such a barn-like building in its purest form has the advantage
of having its four walls exposed to the air, thus permitting of
the most ample provision for lighting and through ventilation.
On both educational and hygienic grounds it is found necessary,
however, to subdivide the room for the purpose of separating the
different classes in the school.
This subdivision into rooms introduces difficulties of intercommunication,
and so of supervision, while it fails in the case
of glass or low partitions to remove the very grave defects which
the single room imposes in respect of the direction of the source
of light in relation to the position of the scholar. Practically all
the schools classified as Type I. present examples of desks so
arranged that the children sit with the light directly in front of
them or coming directly from behind or from the right side, each of
these faulty sources of direction being injurious to eyesight and
the occasion of unnecessary fatigue.
It is very important that these faulty positions of the desks
should be rectified, and in many of the schools this could be done
without any structural alterations whatever.