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89
THE BOARD SCHOOL, CURTAIN ROAD.
In this School the difficulties experienced by the children
and teachers in their daily work had become, owing to the
structural defects of the building, so harassing that the Sanitary
Officer was requested to visit the premises and report to your
Vestry what alterations were needed to make the building more
suitable for the purpose to which it is devoted.
My attention was particularly called to the class rooms, in
which the children were being taught at the time of my visit,
and it was alleged that the light was so deficient that it was
often difficult, or impossible for the children to see letters
or to thread a needle.
The cause was evident; there was little or no direct transmission
of light from side to side of the rooms, or back to front.
One of the rooms was much worse than the others; the transmission
of light was intercepted by a partition or wall, so that
objects before the eyes were rendered indistinct, owing to being
partly covered by light and partly by shadow. Under these
conditions the daily work of teachers and scholars had become
exceedingly harassing, and I had no hesitation in advising your
Vestry that such conditions were injurious to health; for protracted
effort to see, with such inadequate light tended to
dangerously interfere with brain function, and might culminate
in vertigo, severe neuralgia, or more dangerous disturbances.
It might from much evidence be said, that under the most
favorable arrangements of a school-room, it is very injurious to
daily strain the eyes of children, especially very young children,
over letters; for the tendency of such a practice must be to
render the eyes, and more especially young eyes, less adaptable,
less ready and quiekin accommodating their functional arrangements
to the purposes of life. A school-room should therefore
be abundantly lighted from every side.
My attention was further called to the fact that the children
could not obtain water for drinking purposes, fresh from the