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98
1st. That the class rooms were defectively lighted and
ventilated. In several rooms the light was at one end only, and
excepting on the brightest days, it was necessary to burn gas to
enable the children to see at the other end.
2nd.' In all the rooms ventilators were fitted in the window
boards, about the level of the children's heads.
3rd. The draught from the ventilators, and the evident strain
upon the eyesight of the children, caused by the light striking
obliquely upon their eyes, suggested to me an enquiry as to the
health of the children, and I found in the girls' school on the day
of my visit, five absentees were described as suffering from an
affection of the eyes, one from stiff neck, three from colds, and one
from sore throat.
4th. Immediately under a window in the girls' department
were the closets of the infants' department, fitted with an ordinary
iron trough, the emanations from which passed into the girls'
class rooms.
5th. There are six flights of stone stairs leading to the girls'
department, four of these were so dark that even when the sun was
shining they were lighted with gas.
6th. The Curtain Road entrance for infants is a long passage
rising with twenty-one broad steps to the level of the first floor;
this passage is covered with glass, and the glass is covered with
wirework, the glass therefore cannot, be cleaned and the passage
is dark.
7th. The girls' and infants' playground is covered by the
building; it receives some light from sashes, fitted in the arohes
abutting on Curtain Road, and from the boys' playground at the
rear. The whole area of the playground is something over 2,000
square yards; it is oovered with tar paving, and it is interseoted
with very large brick piers; it is therefore a dark, dismal place.
At the rear of this dark playground were three dark olosets and a
dark urinal.