170 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Do<5. 



would probably be about right, on the whole. In the cities this is 

 more readily accomplished; in the country, the school is very apt 

 to be heated by a large stove. This stove should have a jacket, and 

 if it is properly done, it can be so arranged that we can get ventila- 

 tion from the stove. The stove should not be in the middle of the 

 room, but in a corner. Under it there should be a duct to bring in 

 fresh air from the outside; round the stove should be a jacket. This 

 air goes up into this jacket and rises to the ceiling after it has been 

 warmed in the jacket, and is there diffused. 



Every school room should be equipped with a cloak room, where 

 each child should be given a separate locker. Many children come 

 in from homes that are improperly ventilated, while others come from 

 good clean homes, and they should not be required to hang their 

 clothes where they come in contact with the clothing of children from 

 the other kind of homes. Many of the diseases are carried in that 

 way. Therefore each child should be given a separate compartment. 



There are other dangers that come in from the home and from 

 the school. One is in the drinking water. I think there are schools 

 where the water is carried in a bucket, brought in and set in a poorly 

 ventilated school room, and a common drinking cup used by the 

 children. Tuberculosis and other dread diseases can often be traced 

 to the use of the common drinking cup. Because we cannot reach 

 every home, and some of them are not sanitary, the teacher should be 

 careful. At the first symptoms of any sickness, the teacher should 

 send the child home, and not permit it to come back except with a 

 doctor's certificate; and when a child does show any symptoms of 

 any contagious disease, whether measles or something else, the school 

 room shotild at once be disinfected. The cost will be small compared 

 with the cost of checking the disease afterwards. 



Then we come to the question of recess. These children sit in un- 

 comfortable seats for hours at a time, often without any change or 

 relaxation except at the noon hour. Many grown people are in- 

 capable of concentrating their attention on a given subject for more 

 than twenty minutes at a time; we should not exjject it of the chil- 

 dren. Let the children get out into the fresh air for a short time 

 during each session, and you will soon see better results in their 

 work; or give them several little recesses or a few minutes' gymnastic 

 exercises. Any teacher who thinks he or she cannot spare the time, 

 will find that even though it seems impossible to spare the time, it 

 will be well spent, and the better work the children do as the result 

 of it will more than make up for the time that is taken. It does not 

 take more than three or four minutes to open the windows and get 

 better air, and during that time give them a little gymnastic exer- 

 cise. They will all be the better for it mentally and physically. 



Your room should be thoroughly cleaned each day and the dust 

 wiped off afterwards with a dampened cloth, so that it will not 

 fly round the room. The relation between physical health and con- 

 duct is very close. The preservation of health is very closely con- 

 nected with character building, and in order to make good citizens 

 we must look after both the physical and mental health of the children- 



