View report page

8
In the Board Schools, however, 9 square feet of area are provided for
each child. This is not a very large space; but if children are not kept in
the school for a longer period at one time than three hours, and care taken
to open the windows and doors so soon as the children are dispersed, and to
keep them open until the children re-assemble, this space may be deemed to
be sufficient.
I may here observe that the subject of overcrowded school-rooms has
frequently engaged my attention; and on referring to several of my early
Reports I find that the space allotted to each child in some of the schools I
inspected varied from 24 cubic feet to 72 cubic feet. One school, however,
was found to allow 85 cubic feet for each child. On referring to my Report
for the Quarter ending 28th September, 1861, the following remarks on this
subject will be seen : *The ventilation of the overcrowded school-rooms was
very defective. In an atmosphere rendered impure by the exhalations from
the lungs and skin of many persons congregated in a confined space, the
nervous system becomes so depressed, that, from the inability of fixing the
attention, scholars cannot learn, and teachers cannot teach; and if the
breathing of such an atmosphere be long continued the health of both
scholars and teachers will be impaired. In the Minutes of the Council of
Education (1851-2) relating to the organization of schools, it is recommended
that, in planning a school-room, if it be not more than 18 feet in width,
then about 8 or 9 square feet will be sufficient for each child in actual
attendance; if the width be greater, there must be a proportionate increase
of area allotted to each child. If the school-room be lighted from above,
which, the Committee say, is the best possible mode, care should be taken,
to prevent the skylights from leaking! "It is very important," say this
Committee, "that the dimensions of a school-room should be graduated to suit
the sizes of the elder and younger children." The recommendation of regulating
the area of a school to the size of a child is at variance with the laws of
physiology, which demand the same space for a child as for an adult, in consequence
of the greater rapidity of respiration in the former than in the
latter; and, moreover, a child is more susceptible to the bad effects of
impure air than is an adult; and more air is required for the proper nourishment
of its body during its growth than is required for it in after life.
On the subject of small-pox, now so prevalent in London, the RegistrarGeneral,
in his last Quarterly Return of Marriages, Births, and Deaths,
makes the following remarks, which are of such interest as to induce me to
quote them for the information of the members of your Board :
"In London, the deaths referred to small-pox, which had been but 6
and 7 in the last three months of 1875 and the first three of 1876, rose to
26 in the Quarter ending June, and further increased to 110 during July,