Kemp. — On the Medical Aspects of Educatioii. xh 



perly placed. I understand that, iu building schools, the Education Board 

 has no system or general plan of lighting, the position of the windows being 

 left to the fancy of the architect, who, probably ignorant of the subject, puts 

 them in where he thinks they will look best, and of such shape as will add 

 most to the architectural effect of the building. In some of the class-rooms 

 I have visited, the children who sit in the corners of the room are in such a 

 dim hght that there must of necessity be a continual strain upon their eyes, 

 which cannot fail in time to produce defective sight. The most common 

 plan of lighting the class-rooms seems to be, to have a window at one end 

 of the room and two or more along one side ; the seats are then placed so 

 that the children either have their backs to the side where the windows are, 

 or their faces ; in both cases the effect is bad, because, as I have before said, 

 Ught from behind throws a shade upon the desks, and light from in front is 

 exceedingly bad by causing great fatigue to the eyes, owing to the constant 

 glare they are exposed to. In one school where the children face the 

 windows, I was told by the teacher that when the black-board is used on 

 bright days the children complain they cannot see what is written upon it 

 owing to the brightness of the light ; and so the windows are darkened with 

 thick green blinds, which make the end of the room opposite the windows 

 too dark to aUow of one clearly distinguishing anything. I need hardly 

 say that children in this school are subjected to constant straining of the 

 eyes — in one case from too much, in the other from too little light, the 

 effect of both conditions being to overtax the sight and develope any latent 

 tendency to short-sight that may exist, or lay the seeds of it in those other- 

 wise healthy. In other schools, the upper part of the windows, which is 

 by far the most important part, is darkened, because it would not be in 

 keeping with the rest of the building to have them square and with large 

 panes. Here the admission of sufl&cient light is clearly sacrificed to archi- 

 tectural taste. 



I now pass on to make a few remarks upon the form of seats and desks. 

 The chief faults under this head appear to me to be — 



1. "Want of backs to the seats. 



2. Too great distance between the seat and desk. 



3. Want of difference of height of the seat and desk for different 



sized children. 



4. Want of means for altering the slope of the desk for reading and 



writing. 



If there is no back to the seat, and the child is sitting for an hour or 



two at a time, it stands to reason that the muscles which keep the spine 



straight must become tired, and so fail to keep the body upright ; it then 



stoops, and the child feeling a sense of weariness puts itself into some un- 



