EFFECT OF EDUCATIONAL REGULATIONS ON PHYSIQUE. 793 
A primary matter for attention is obviously tbe selection of the 
most sanitary site available. Sandy soil is tbe most objectiouable, as 
over it radiation is slow and the atmosphere during the day is hot. 
Glaring ground reflects both light and heat. Clay is much better. 
Vegetable mould is the best non-absorbent of heat. The neighbour- 
hood of trees should be chosen for erection of the school-house. In 
barren localities every effort should be made to encourage their growth. 
The beautiful evergreen shady mango flourishes in North Queensland* 
requiring no care, but only protection in its tender months from the 
straying goat and cow. .Apart from improving the landscape, trees 
modify and regulate the heat ; they cool the air by evaporation in 
daytime, and interfere with the absorption of heat by the ground. 
The buildings should be high enough to prevent the entrance of 
ground air, and they should be faced so as to receive the modifying 
influence of the prevalent monsoon. 
The plans issued from Brisbane are of a uniformly stereotyped 
character, and do duty from cold Cambooya to Thursday Island in 
Torres Straits. As the English code has it—' “ School planning is the 
science of thoroughly adapting every part of a building, even the 
minutest detail, to the work of school teaching.” Convenience, suit- 
able lighting, proper subdivision into classes, thorough ventilation, 
are its leading essentials. Great care should be taken to render the 
roofs impervious to cold aud heat. Each classroom should be easily 
cleared without disturbance to any other room. Every part and 
corner of a school should be fully lighted. Light, as far as possible, 
and especially in classrooms, ought to be admitted from the left side 
of the pupils. 
Windows fixed in front of teachers or pupils are condemned in 
England: so placed they provide the most injurious light; it brings 
pain to the eyeball and wearies the retina, to avoid which the child 
holds the book so as to encourage short sight, or twists his body aud 
so induces distortion. 
Although the Germans have an undesirable pre-eminence in the 
number of youths and adults w 7 ho wear spectacles, it is an established 
fact that in England and America myopia (near-sightedness) is 
increasing. 
Let Mr. Brudenel Carter show the signification of this. “ It will 
be manifest,” he says, “on reflection, that the matters which are lost 
by the short-sighted, as by the partially deaf, make up a very large 
proportion of the pleasures of existence. I am accustomed on this 
ground strongly to urge_ upon parents the necessity of correcting 
myopia in children ; and I am sure that a visual horizon limited to 
ten or even twenty inches, with no distinct perception of objects at a 
greater distance, has a marked tendency to produce habits of intro- 
spection and reverie, and of inattention to outward things, which may 
lay the foundations of grave defects of character.” 
Desks and seats should be suitable to the height of those using 
them, and arranged to receive the best available light. To prevent 
the possibility of an intelligent teacher modifying the effect of faulty 
construction by changing the desks and seats to the best positions, 
these in our schools are firmly, rigidly fastened. Unsuitable desks and 
uncomfortable seats help short-sightedness, and are distinctly respon- 
sible for the deformity of spinal curvature. 
