What effect has imperfect ventilation on health of pupils? More than a dozen years since, in the annual report of the School Committee of the town of Scituate, I said, "Confine a dozen human beings in a small air-tight apartment, say ten by twelve feet square and seven in height, and they would soon die, poisoned by the exhalations from their own bodies. No facts are susceptible of clearer demonstration. Defective ventilation commences the same series of morbid changes in the human organism, and if persisted in will as inevitably, sooner or later, end in death. Bad ventilation is, in fact, a system of slow poisoning. Why it is so will be apparent when we consider that each individual of a dozen years inhales about thirty cubic inches of air at each inspiration, and at this age, when all the processes of life are in their most active condition the respirations number about twenty-five per minute. Multiply 30 by 25 and this product by the minutes in an hour, and this by 20, 30, 40, or whatever number of pupils any given school-room contains, and we ascertain the unpleasant fact that the air of every unventilated schoolroom is breathed over and over again, a great many times each hour, to say nothing of successive hours, and thus becoming every hour more impure and poisonous. At each inspiration about one-sixteenth of whatever volume of air is inhaled, is rendered unfit to support human

Now it must be evident that notwithstanding a considerable amount of noxious air may escape through loose windows and opening doors while a considerable amount of pure air may find ingress in the same way, there is still much the larger part of the air in our school-rooms so vitiated by use, its life-giving principle so nearly exhausted and its place occupied by a life-destroying gas, as to act upon the human system as a direct cause of disease of no ordinary magnitude.

We recognize the absolute necessity of allowing children a full amount of food for sustaining a vigorous life; but we too often forget, or at least practically disregard the equally absolute necessity of a full amount of pure air to perfect and finish the process of digestion and assimilation of food, and without which no amount of food can ever be fitted to replace the worn out material in the tissues and structures of the body, or add vigor to the frame."

In estimating the impurity of the air in an unventilated schoolroom, we cannot, however, be limited to the consideration of the consumption of the oxygen of the air, and the elimination of carbonicacid gas to take its place. That is truth, but not the whole truth. We must also take into account the streams of putrescent matter which are constantly poured out through the pores of the skin, as well as from the lungs, that matter, which is the effete production of the decomposition of the body continually going on within us; and which, having exit fron the body in a soluble and vapory state, is readily diffused into the surrounding atmosphere, and thus intermixed, these foul and putrid exhalations, in unventilated rooms, find passage through the mouth or nostrils to the lungs, at every inspiration, meeting there that warmth and moisture so promotive of further putrefaction.

Leblanc states, "that the odor of the air at the top of the ventilator of a crowded room, is of so obnoxious a character that it is dangerous to be exposed to it, even for a short time." It has been long known that when air from a crowded room is passed through pure water, the water soon exhibits all the phenomena of putrefactive fermentation.

Again, the warmth and humidity of unventilated rooms, where a considerable number regularly congregate,—and especially if those conditions are produced by the radiation of heat from the bodies of those present, and the aqueous and feculent vapors exhaled from the

SCHOOL-ROOM HYGIENE.

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lungs and skin,-furnish the most favorable circumstances for the evolution and development of those myriad organic products, whose spores or germs float every where unseen in the asmosphere, and find lodgment in every infinitesimal nook and cranny.

These vegetable and animal organisms are believed by eminent physiologists to be the fruitful source of many of the endemic and epidemic diseases, from the mildest to the most virulent, which afflict humanity.

There is another very common effect of imperfect ventilation, to which I should not fail to allude. It is that chachectic state of the body which is called struma, or scrofula. It is a well settled opinion that this vitiated condition of the body, is the result, in a large majority of cases, of imperfect nutrition, not alone from an insufficient amount of healthy food, but from the failure of the various functions-to whom the work of preparing and converting the food into blood and flesh is assigned,-to do their whole duty. The result is incomplete nourishment. Tubercles, that work so much mischief in the lungs and elsewhere, are only food imperfectly prepared, and therefore entirely unfit for its designed purpose. The agency of pure air is absolutely essential in the complete elaboration of food for its destined use.

Bandologne, an eminent French pathologist, says, "Invariably it will be found on examination, that a truly scrofulous disease is caused by a vitiated air, and it is not always necessary that there should have been a prolonged stay in such an atmosphere. Often a few hours each day is sufficient." He also says, in addition, in unequivocal language, "that repeated respiration of the same atmosphere is not only a primary and efficient cause of scrofula, but if there be entirely pure air, there may be bad food, bad clothing, and want even of personal cleanliness, and yet scrofulous disease cannot exist."

In 1832, at Norwood School, in England, where there were six hundred pupils, scrofula broke out extensively among the children and carried off great numbers. This was ascribed to bad and inefficient food. Dr. Arnott was employed to investigate the matter, and found the food had been most abundant and good, and that the true cause, was defective ventilation and consequent atmospheric impurity.

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE EARLY DAYS OF THE RHODE ISLAND STATE NORMAL SCHOOL

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It was about fifteen years ago that the State took the Normal School under its charge, which had previously for a few months been under the fostering care of Brown University. I think the city of Providence rather controlled its financial affairs. At the beginning of 1855, I believe, or a year earlier or later-I am not writing history and do not pretend to accuracy of dates-a goodly number of excellent young ladies flocked from the High School, enrolling themselves on the newly projected enterprise. Later in the year, in the fall session, the writer of this sketch first found his place among the pupils of the school, then established in what is at present the rooms of the Union for Christian Work," on Broad Street, in the city of Providence. There was truly a goodly number of excellent young ladies who formed the majority of the pioneers of this noble foundation. They were in the majority of numbers, yet some men were present, quite early, as pupils. Two only besides the writer are remembered in the beginning of that period. These two bravely supplemented the work of the major element. To them I shall refer hereafter. As to the ladies, where shall be found an equal number enrolled together in a cause as worthy,—so youthful, and therefore buoyant, so thoroughly learned in technicalities of schooling, so honest and so persevering, so true and so good? They were all carefully trained and of the worthiest parentage, mostly daughters of reputable men, resident in the city and its suburbs. They were so faithful, that I believe not a year has passed since their beginning of the work then commenced, wherein has not been felt an influence for liberal training under some one of them. I am quite of the opinion that the State and the city of Providence especially has felt the good power of every one of that number extending-so far as each is concerned-far longer than the average of a year for each pupil, all through the years passed away. Some of them have passed into rest from toilsome labor. What a result has been found-what a full return for the money and the time invested; now one can look back and think of the young, hearty lives passed in awakening other minds of pupils in our own schools.