236 MOTION AND COORDINATION 



reciting often leans on his desk) should be avoided. In 

 sleeping the pillow should be of the right thickness to sup- 

 port the head on a level with the spinal column and should 

 not be too soft. If one sleeps on his back, no pillow is 

 required. It is best not to acquire the habit of sleeping 

 always on the same side. 



Where one is compelled by his work to assume harmful 

 positions, these should be corrected by proper exercises, 

 and by cultivating opposing positions during the leisure 

 hours. Much is to be accomplished through those forms 

 of physical exercise which develop the muscles whose 

 work it is to keep the body in an upright position. 



School Furniture. It has long been observed that school children 

 are more subject to curvature of the spine and other deformities of the 

 skeleton than the children who do not attend school. While this is 

 due largely to faulty positions assumed by the pupils at their work, it 

 has been suggested that the school furniture 

 may be in part to blame for these positions. 

 Investigations of this problem have shown that 

 most of the school desks and seats in use in 

 our public schools are unhygienically con- 

 structed, in that they force pupils into unnatural 

 positions. School seats should support the 

 pupil in a natural position, both in the use of 

 his books and in writing, and there are many 

 arguments in favor of the so-called "adjustable" 

 school furniture. Fig. 106 shows the seat and 

 FIG. 106. Adjust- ( ^ es ' < designed by the Boston, Mass., School- 

 able seat and desk used house Commission after much study and experi- 

 in schools of Boston, meriting and used in the Boston schools. This 

 Mass. furniture, which provides a seat adjustable for 



height, having a back rest also adjustable for 



height, and a desk which is likewise provided with a vertical adjustment, 

 supplies all essential hygienic requirements. It is to be hoped that 

 school furniture of this character may in the near future come into 

 general use. 



