SCHOOL JANITORS 
 MOTHERS AND HEALTH 
 
 PUTNA 
 
(;i;.ss LBsm^S 
 
 Book 
 
 CoD\Tii^litN'_ 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
SCHOOL JANITORS 
 MOTHERS AND HEALTH 
 
 BY 
 HELEN C. PUTNAM, A.B., M.D. 
 
 OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF MEDICINE 
 ON THE TEACHING OF HYGIENE 
 
 Health Habits educate 
 more than Health Maxims 
 
 AMERICAN ACADEMY OF MEDICINE PRESS 
 EASTON, PA. 
 
 t^ 
 
A-' 
 
 l^ fi 
 
 COPYRIGHT. 19!3. BY HELEN C. PUTNAM 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 PUBLISHT FEBRUARY. 1913 
 
 ©CI,A343421 
 
TO THE 
 
 AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR STUDY 
 
 AND PREVENTION OF INFANT 
 
 MORTALITY 
 
 THE SUREST PREVENTION ON THE LARGEST SCALE 
 IS TO DEVELOP THRU PUBLIC SCHOOLS POTENTIAL 
 FATHERS AND MOTHERS WITH WHOLESOME BODIES, 
 MINDS 'AND IDEALS 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE vii 
 
 KEY-WORD ix 
 
 I. PREVENTION OF SCHOOL FATIGUE 
 
 October: The air school children breathe at 
 
 home 11 
 
 November: The air children breathe at school . 21 
 
 December: Dirty children and fresh air . 27 
 January : Internal cleanliness : carious teeth . » 32 
 February: Internal cleanliness: elimination of 
 
 waste 37 
 
 March : What and when school children should 
 
 eat 42 
 
 April: Muscular exercise an internal bath . . % 48 
 
 May: Idleness, evenings, dress, and cigarettes . 53 
 
 June : The Long Vacation 58 
 
 II. MOTHERS' CLUBS AND CLEAN SCHOOL- 
 
 HOUSES 
 
 November: Men as housekeepers ... 61 
 
 December: Cleaning floors 67 
 
 January : Cleaning lavatories — the common cup 
 
 and towel — paper ones 75 
 
 February: Walls and windows .... 85 
 
 March: An interlude — open air schools . . 93 
 
 April: Streets and housecleaning ... 96 
 
 May: School housecleaning and social centers . 104 
 
 III. SCHOOL JANITORS AND HEALTH 
 
 October: A billion dollars and all our children . Ill 
 V 
 
VI 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 November: The great test. The Boston A. C. A 
 
 December: And Janitors' Rules. 
 
 January: And measuring window washing 
 
 February: And "dipping" . 
 
 March: Another study of schoolrooms 
 
 April: Measuring health conditions . 
 
 May: Dust again 
 
 June: How to do it 
 
 IV. PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF BIOLOGIC 
 SCIENCE IN SCHOOL ADMINISTRA- 
 TION: THE PROBLEM OF JANITOR 
 SERVICE .... ... 
 
 V. THE TRAINING OF JANITORS IN SANI- 
 TARY CARE OF SCHOOL PREMISES . 
 
 INDEX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 117 
 124 
 128 
 134 
 142 
 151 
 163 
 167 
 
 179 
 
 189 
 195 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 The main part of this Uttle book appeared 
 during 1909-1912 as serials in Child-Welfare 
 Magazine, the organ of the National Congress of 
 Mothers and Parent-Teacher Associations. They 
 have been revised and several additions made 
 for the purpose of increasing their usefulness; 
 but the original mission is retained — a construc- 
 tive appeal to organizations of mothers, the house- 
 keepers, to fulfill their responsibihty for children's 
 well-being outside the walls of the family residence 
 as well as inside. The serial form of publication 
 makes repetition occasionally desirable. Some of 
 this has been retained with the hope that the 
 emphasis of a repeated idea may help produce 
 results. 
 
 There are also two papers on related topics; 
 one republisht from Proceedings of the National 
 Education Association, the other from Journal of 
 the American Public Health Association. 
 
 I wish to record here my gratitude to Dr. 
 Charles Mclntire, broad minded and generous 
 secretary of the American Academy of Medicine 
 which specializes in medical sociology, for his 
 cooperation in issuing the volume. 
 
 H. C. P. 
 Quiapen 
 January 1, 1913 
 
 vn 
 
KEY-WORD 
 
 School is a part of life, not "preparation" only, 
 and to practice pupils in standardizing details 
 affecting health means improving our vital sta- 
 tistics — the measure of a nation's right living. 
 
 Page 170 
 
 IX 
 
PREVENTION OF SCHOOL 
 FATIGUE 
 
 The child's right to be well cared for equals " the right to 
 be well born" 
 
 October 
 
 We have provided schools and required by 
 law or social custom twenty million children to 
 enter them this month. 
 
 Nine months from now fifteen milUons, more 
 or less, will show various degrees of nervousness 
 and pallor. The condition will be accompanied 
 in many instances with other disorders. 
 
 This result of school hfe is called school fatigue. 
 It is a hindrance in developing the best kind 
 of citizens — either physically, or mentally and 
 morally. It affects children's children, and is a 
 factor in "race suicide" and race deterioration. 
 
 It is produced partly by lack of proper air, 
 food, play and sleep; partly by neglected physical 
 defects; partly, too, by unwise school work and 
 unwise home or other outside occupations. 
 11 
 
12 PREVENTION OF 
 
 Evidently parents, educators, school boards and 
 other city fathers are concerned, as are state and 
 federal authorities. Our best hope lies in intelli- 
 gent mothers with the will and the power to use 
 their intelligence. 
 
 A mother can make no wiser plan for the coming 
 nine months than to concentrate on preventing 
 school fatigue in her own children; after them, 
 in the children of the less fortunate, whose ill 
 health reacts on her own either directly or in 
 direct ways. Children need healthy playmates 
 and school companions in a healthy community. 
 Some of the work required can be successful only 
 by combined effort of many mothers, of mothers 
 and teachers, of both parents and school board; 
 or other branches of the municipal government 
 may need to cooperate. 
 
 The air school children breathe at home 
 We have nearly learned the lesson we must 
 all eventually learn, that open air is essential to 
 steady nerves and good health. We are proving 
 daily that tuberculosis, nervous exhaustion (weari- 
 ness, irritability, sleeplessness), most catarrhal 
 conditions (of which we find so much among 
 children), pneumonia, several contagious diseases 
 and many surgical cases, all improve with "open 
 air" treatment more satisfactorily — open air and 
 a few other items of cleanliness. Even adenoid 
 
SCHOOL FATIGUE 13 
 
 conditions are frequently found to disappear when 
 city children are removed to open country living. 
 
 The air that children have in schoolrooms 
 is often such many medical inspectors, school 
 nurses and teachers have told me that when they 
 begin their duties in autumn they have irritated 
 throats and other bad feehngs until they "get 
 used to it." Children have this air for four, five 
 or six hours daily. The mother must look first 
 to "making up for it" so far as possible by the 
 right conditions out of school; and next, to im- 
 proving the air in schools. 
 
 Odors of cooking, laundering, sleeping rooms 
 and the like should be blown out. Whether or 
 not there is any chemical harm in "smells," 
 they are often accompanied with dust having its 
 pus germs and occasionally, especially in dwellings, 
 disease bacteria. Probably smells offend good 
 taste because race experience has found them very 
 often an index of disease and unhygienic condi- 
 tions, filth-bred insects, mildew and stagnation. 
 Offensive odors may even produce nausea. The 
 mental depression and irritation from them dis- 
 turbs health as well. They always mean that the 
 house is not properly ventilated. 
 
 Dust, too high temperatures and dryness are 
 the commonest faults in indoor air at home. 
 A fourth fault is something we have no good name 
 for — a lack of "tone" or "vitality" or stimulus, 
 some unknown quality or qualities that refresh 
 
14 PREVENTION OF ^ 
 
 and "wake us up" when we throw open windows 
 and draw long breaths of outdoor air. On cold 
 winter days when sometimes the heat "doesn't 
 heat," by opening the house for a minute's swift 
 flushing with outside air we find ourselves warmer 
 and entirely comfortable soon after. 
 
 Some have offered in explanation of this de- 
 lightful quality of open air that it is due to 
 oxygen in larger quantities, or to ozone. Others 
 claim an influence from radium, the interesting 
 discovery for which Madame Curie has received 
 the Nobel Prize. Radium exhibits a remarkable 
 energy affecting objects in its vicinity, and the 
 question is whether this influence from minute 
 particles in the earth may not give to outdoor 
 air some of its wholesome qualities; and whether 
 there are not still other substances or forces, 
 perhaps electric, as yet unknown that may do 
 so. We have often thought a scientific problem 
 solved, and later found there was more to it. 
 
 It is recently proved that a large part of the 
 comfort in open air is due to its constant motion, 
 much of which is cut off by the walls of the house. 
 One of the attempts in ventilation now is to 
 supply sufficient motion of the air for comfort and 
 health, as well as sufficient humidity. Whatever 
 the explanation (we shall come back to it again), 
 there is very quickly a harmful difference between 
 air shut up and air free, even when the room is as 
 well dusted as possible and is not too warm. 
 
SCHOOL FATIGUE 15 
 
 The three objects, then, for mothers to work 
 for at home are house air as free as possible from 
 dust, never above 68° in temperature, and frequently 
 renewed from out of doors. In addition, and this 
 is important, they should have evaporation of 
 water, just short of steam on windows in cold 
 weather, to provide the humidity that in open 
 air helps soothe and heal irritated respiratory 
 passages. Or they may wish to measure the 
 humidity with a wet-dry bulb thermometer as we 
 shall see later is coming to be done in schools. 
 
 All the rooms in use should be kept at as near 
 the same temperature as possible, for when the skin 
 and the deUcate lining of nose and throat are 
 warm and flusht in a room of 68°, the sudden 
 cold of another room, when such a change is 
 frequently made, disturbs the circulation and its 
 control by the nervous system to such a degree 
 that often catarrh, a slight cold, or even slight 
 muscular rheumatism follows. 
 
 Wise mothers are coming more and more to 
 regulate rooms by thermometers, not by feelings. 
 Feehngs are extremely unreliable. We have for 
 a long time allowed nurses and mothers to guess 
 at the temperature of babies' bottles and baths 
 by putting the finger in the milk or elbow in the 
 water. Some measurements with thermometers 
 have recently been made of actual temperatures 
 after nurses have done their best with "feelings," 
 and not once did they agree. The temperature 
 
16 PREVENTION OF 
 
 of babies' food is very important indeed. Even the 
 cooling that goes on between the time the bottle 
 is given the baby and the time he finishes it may 
 make the difference between a well and an ill baby. 
 
 The temperature of the rooms at home is just 
 as important to school children. I went into the 
 library last night where my httle sister had been 
 quietly reading for an hour beside the light wood 
 fire on the hearth to take off the first touch of 
 October frostiness. "It is stifling here." "Why, 
 I was just feeling shivery and wanting my scarf ! " 
 The thermometer read seventy-six. That is a 
 universal experience, and a common — perhaps the 
 commonest source of "colds," paving the way 
 to tuberculosis. Thermometers should be kept 
 steadily between 65° and 68° — lower rather than 
 higher. If there is any discomfort, remove it in 
 other ways than by excessive heat. 
 
 Wise mothers are coming also to have no 
 carpets; to have, instead, rugs not too heavy for 
 a woman to lift and to hang on a clothesline or 
 rope, to be thoroly beaten free from dust and 
 aired. For walls, floors and furnishings they are 
 coming to use dust cloths that hold the dust 
 instead of scattering it; to have windows and 
 outside doors open while wiping it up so that as 
 much as possible may blow out of the room. 
 They are beginning to insist that architects shall 
 not plan the fresh air box of the furnace to open 
 on the dusty side of the house, perhaps the street 
 
SCHOOL FATIGUE 17 
 
 or a corner receiving its dust directly. Some ask 
 " Why not two air boxes, so that we can close the 
 dusty side on windy days?" They are keeping 
 the hot air pipes from the furnace free from 
 dust and the lining of the furnace in perfect re- 
 pair so that gas and dust cannot escape into the 
 rooms, and closing registers when ashes are be- 
 ing disturbed in the furnace below. They have 
 fewer ornaments, heavy window draperies, por- 
 tieres and upholstered furnishings, all being dust 
 promoters. 
 
 Ideal sleeping room 
 
 The most generous provision of good air can 
 be in the sleeping room, where the school child 
 spends nine hours every day. Here is the ideal 
 during the coming nine months, below the latitude 
 of Albany, and even above for hardy children; 
 sleeping room — not dressing room. 
 
 Choose a small corner room with two windows, 
 one toward the south, both over grass and trees, 
 not over the street; literally nothing but the bed 
 in the room, or two or three single beds for others; 
 nothing on the floor and walls, no draperies at 
 the windows, unless a plain holland shade "for 
 looks" in the daytime; one sash in each window 
 always open its full extent day and night, the 
 fly screens in to keep out snow or rain; if a storm 
 makes it necessary the blinds may be closed, 
 2 
 
18 PREVENTION OF 
 
 but not the window. There may be a very few 
 days when on account of blowing dust or intense 
 cold one of the two windows should be closed, 
 but the southern sash should never be; in fact, 
 both southern sashes could be taken out alto- 
 gether, and usually are, the screen being made to 
 fill the whole window. 
 
 Place the bed out of direct drafts, with head 
 against an inner wall; furnish it with a hair 
 mattress, cotton or outing flannel or woolen 
 sheets, according to the weather, being sure that 
 the mattress is warm enough or has an extra 
 warm pad over it so that no possible chill can be 
 felt from underneath; use woolen blankets, or 
 for very cold weather a down puff which gives 
 warmth without so much weight. The weight 
 of many covers may cause the sleeper to awake 
 feeling tired instead of rested. The covers dur- 
 ing daytime should be kept folded over the foot 
 of the bed, leaving it open to air and sunshine. 
 In very cold weather one or two hot soapstones 
 or hot flatirons (better than water bottles) wrapt 
 in woolen (a bag is convenient) should be placed 
 in the middle and bottom of the bed before bed- 
 time. If in woolen they will keep warm all 
 night. 
 
 The child should wear pajamas covering the 
 feet, of outing flannel, or woolen in the coldest 
 weather, with a cotton or flannel cap or hood 
 coming over the forehead in the very coldest 
 
SCHOOL FATIGUE 19 
 
 weather, its cape extending down the back to 
 the shoulders. Sleeping bags are usually not 
 liked, altho travellers in northern lands cannot 
 get along without them, and I will not describe 
 them here. 
 
 This is ideal because it is genuine outdoor air 
 for nine in twenty-four hours. An upper piazza 
 would be quite as good or better, with screens 
 to cut off winds, and ingenuity and good sense in 
 using it. 
 
 Such sleeping will result in appetites for 
 breakfast, much less susceptibility to "colds" 
 thruout the winter, brighter color and steadier 
 nerves next June, and the love of cleanliness 
 that only habits of cleanliness can create. When 
 mothers sympathize understandingly with this 
 ideal (I know several who have realized it) they 
 will find ways to overcome difficulties until something 
 for their children results nearer it than exists at 
 present for those fifteen millions about whom we 
 are thinking. 
 
 Basement 
 
 One more place in a home that may make it 
 unwholesome, no matter how well the foregoing 
 points are attended to, is the cellar. The air 
 of the basement penetrates the whole house, 
 either between partitions not closed at the bot- 
 tom, or thru cracks in floors and around doors, 
 
20 PREVENTION OF 
 
 or thru imperfect furnace flues or cold air cham- 
 bers. It must be kept sweet and sanitary by 
 whitewashings, ventilating thru open windows, 
 and positively refusing to allow odors of any kind 
 in it. 
 
 Mothers' clubs 
 
 With the determination to bring to pass an 
 intelligent ideal great improvements are possible; 
 but finally we come to the hard fact that many 
 houses and streets make wholesome air impossible. 
 This is the point where motherhood itself drives 
 women out of their private homes into combina- 
 tions of efforts for better enforcement of better 
 laws for the sake of the children. The mother 
 who has done wisely for her own must, even still 
 for the sake of her own, help other mothers' chil- 
 dren. In schools so full as ours the unhealthy 
 child influences the healthy in many ways. 
 
 It is not possible here to say all that needs say- 
 ing concerning the importance of outdoor air for 
 children, and the harmfulness of the ordinary 
 over-heated house air. So much — so very much 
 depends on convincing mothers of this, that mothers' 
 clubs in every city would be doing a public 
 service this autumn if they would provide two 
 or three open discussions on the subject. A 
 speaker who has an up-to-date scientific training 
 can make it very impressive and interesting. 
 
SCHOOL FATIGUE 21 
 
 November 
 
 The air children breathe at school 
 
 To keep the air in schooLhouses healthful is 
 a more difficult problem. Like the air at home, 
 it must be between 65° and 68°, comparatively 
 free from dust and frequently renewed from out 
 of doors. 
 
 How to clear away the material thrown into 
 the air from so many bodies in rooms not pro- 
 portionally as large as the rooms at home is 
 one problem to solve. Another is how to keep 
 floors, walls and furnishings free from dirt brought 
 in on shoes and clothing, and created by the use 
 of chalk and in some other ways. 
 
 Until intelligent women are on school com- 
 mittees concerned with school cleanliness the 
 present conditions are likely to show little im- 
 provement. What they are is indicated not only 
 by the statements last month, but by statistics 
 in the Census showing that the average death 
 rate from tuberculosis among teachers is con- 
 siderably higher than the average death rate 
 from tuberculosis in all occupations. The Cen- 
 sus also gives figures showing that tuberculosis 
 among children increases all thru school years. 
 There is one kind of public school where this 
 is not true. The statistics of open air schools 
 show that it not only does not increase, but is 
 actually prevented when feared, and cured in 
 children where it is known to have begun. The , 
 
22 PREVENTION OF 
 
 very first duty for mothers is to help bring 
 the present health record of public schools up 
 to the level of the record of open air schools. 
 It is very largely a matter of good housekeeping 
 which is their field. 
 
 Mothers in unofficial capacities can do some 
 things to bring about better conditions. By 
 visiting schools in one's own city and making 
 written memoranda of special details (I shall tell 
 later just how certain women have done it admira- 
 bly), a collection of facts can be secured that will 
 be useful, supplemented by our vital statistics, 
 in pressing a public demand for improvement in 
 common housekeeping in schools. 
 
 The Republicans or the Democrats, whichever 
 party controls the schools, will of course object 
 at first. They will say that things are all right 
 as they are, and this can be disproved promptly 
 by the vital statistics and local details gathered. 
 Next they will urge that there is no money, and 
 tabs will have to be kept on their spendings. 
 It will almost always be easy to prove plenty of 
 money, but that it is misspent on objects much 
 less important than the health of potential 
 fathers and mothers. 
 
 Dust and odors 
 
 Is the floor clean.? Janitors and school men's 
 standards of cleanliness are not those of the 
 
SCHOOL FATIGUE 23 
 
 careful housewife for her bare floors. I have 
 heard of a club of women who obtained permission 
 to keep one school building clean. It became 
 an object lesson of another complexion and odor; 
 but the women had to continue the work in 
 order to continue the improvement. 
 
 Is the dust removed after the "dustless method" 
 necessary at home? If not, it is imperative to 
 bring it about promptly. This means vigorous 
 and faithful effort until feather dusters are re- 
 placed by cloths used so as not to scatter the 
 dust, with open windows allowing as much as 
 possible to blow out, and certainly not within one 
 hour before the assembling of pupils. I know 
 a university man who led a movement to have 
 little girls come to school early in the morning, 
 poor things, to dust the school room in order to 
 "teach them hygiene"! Another formed street 
 cleaning clubs to pick up the dirty papers and 
 put them in boxes ! ! 
 
 Are cloakrooms ventilated out of doors, not 
 into schoolrooms? Is the basement clean and 
 fresh smelling in all its divisions? If not, it must 
 be kept so equally with the basement of the good 
 housewife. Are the water-closets, both boys' and 
 girls', as clean and fresh as those in healthful 
 homes? Odors of disinfectants must not be ac- 
 cepted as proof of cleanliness. They merely dis- 
 guise other odors, like perfumery. Cleanliness has 
 no odor. I know an expensive normal school 
 
24 PREVENTION OF 
 
 that greets its visitors with the smell of a certain 
 patented cleansing fluid used in wiping the floors, 
 training teachers of the future in this standard 
 for fresh air. Normal schools should not be neg- 
 lected in the visiting. 
 
 Perhaps a school will be found with basement 
 playrooms. I have never seen one that was 
 not extremely dusty, especially the floor — which 
 means the air. They are avowedly intended for 
 rainy days; but are very frequently used for any 
 days or merely misty and damp ones, with or 
 without the knowledge of teachers. There are 
 some schools that have no outdoor recesses. 
 Parents should keep their children away from 
 these schools, secure mothers' and all other clubs 
 possible to appeal to school authorities, write 
 to the papers, hold public meetings, and persist 
 until outdoor recesses are establisht. Roofs 
 are sometimes fitted up for playgrounds, neigh- 
 boring vacant lots rented or loaned. As a last 
 resort, abandon the school entirely, and build 
 one somewhere else in the midst of a five acre lot, 
 where school gardens, playgrounds, green grass 
 and trees, can restore to children some of their 
 rights; then furnish free transportation, by street 
 cars or school omnibus, as private schools and 
 rural communities are doing. We occupy but a 
 very small fraction of our great territory. It is 
 not necessity, it is neglect and indifference that 
 is depriving children of mother nature's whole- 
 
SCHOOL FATIGUE 25 
 
 some, healing, inspiring face — crowding them off 
 the surface of the earth rather too Hterally. See 
 mortahty statistics, Bureau of the Census. 
 
 Chalk and ventilating systems 
 
 Chalk dust can best be prevented by not using 
 chalk. If that cannot be at once brought about, 
 moist wipers must be used and not allowed when 
 dry to scatter dust. Dry chalk erasers are as 
 necessary to do away with as feather dusters. 
 
 Perhaps in the visiting a school will be found 
 with a system of ventilation that does not allow 
 windows to be opened. One should notice how 
 the air compares with outside air; should learn 
 how teachers and others like it after long hours 
 in it; how the "system" is run. If its right 
 working depends on the attention of some person, 
 one may be assured from the experiences of very 
 many people that the fallibility in all personal 
 service extends to this ventilating system, and 
 the children are helpless victims. The Key -word 
 of this little book shows the way out. Almost 
 all heating systems have not only air supply 
 from out of doors, but also can connect with base- 
 ment air when wanted. At night the open air 
 in-take is shut off and basement air is sent to 
 rooms instead, because less fuel is required to 
 heat it. No one knows just how often on "cold" 
 (how cold.'') days, or when fire or fuel is low, 
 
26 PREVENTION OF 
 
 basement air is sent up to the rooms. It belongs 
 to a sanitarian to decide, or to an intelligent care- 
 taker of children. The practice of warming the 
 rooms with basement air out of school hours 
 helps explain why buildings unused so many hours 
 out of the twenty -four and out of the week smell 
 so stale. They need fresh air almost as much as 
 children's lungs. 
 
 We have been drifting into artificiality, into 
 "just-as-good" ideals, and only lately are coming 
 to realize we cannot be a healthy people until we 
 get back to clean air, clean water, clean foods, 
 bodies and lives — the simple life. I am not sure 
 that any "system" is preferable to direct open 
 air in school. We are all sure that open country 
 air is best for children. The conclusion is too 
 obvious to state. Mothers' clubs must help 
 study out ways and means — study out, not guess 
 out. 
 
 And janitors 
 
 Has the janitor passed a civil service examina- 
 tion in school sanitation? Possibly he has taken 
 an examination, but if it is found, on looking 
 over the questions, that they relate to running 
 the heating apparatus chiefly, or do not include 
 questions testing substantial understanding of 
 "cleaning house," there is a place to begin im- 
 provements. Neither superintendent nor jani- 
 
SCHOOL FATIGUE 27 
 
 tor can keep school air fresh with good intentions; 
 they must know and use the proper methods for 
 doing so. 
 
 Mothers' clubs may find it necessary to estab- 
 lish classes for training janitors in housewifery. 
 Their salaries rival or exceed the salaries of teach- 
 ers who are required to have extensive preparation 
 for no more important service in kindergarten, 
 primary and other grades. Clubs will better 
 understand needs and ways of helping if they will 
 compare their facts and ideas with school physi- 
 cian and school nurse in heart-to-heart talks; 
 but even these officials must be kept up to the 
 cherishing ideals of motherhood. Mothers can- 
 not shirk their responsibilities on "paid workers" 
 if the human race is to attain its best. 
 
 It probably occurs to some readers, I hope it 
 does, that in this matter of housecleaning in 
 public schools much better than a man might 
 be a woman as superintendent of such work; not 
 any good woman, but one who is either a graduate 
 in nursing or in home economics, with a scientific 
 conscience and technical training in sanitation. 
 
 December 
 
 Dirty children and fresh air 
 Unclean bodies and clothing contribute as 
 much to school fatigue as an unclean house, both 
 
28 PREVENTION OF 
 
 at home and at school. They produce physical 
 ailments and mental lassitude in two ways: 
 by befouling the air that all in the room must 
 breathe, and by depressing the child's own 
 vitality through lack of a needed nerve tonic — 
 the right sort of bath. 
 
 If some chemical were poured over the human 
 body that would destroy all of it except the 
 nervous system, we would have remaining an 
 almost perfect model of it, a lacelike structure, 
 apparently made of innumerable white threads 
 running into larger and larger cords and finally 
 to the brain. So closely alongside each other do 
 the finest white threads start from the skin on 
 their way to the brain that in many places a pin 
 point can hardly be past between them. These 
 nerves are like telegraph wires carrying news to 
 the brain and messages back. 
 
 The best part of bathing is its effect on nerves 
 and brain. More people need to appreciate that 
 the right kind of bath is an ideal tonic. The 
 warm bath with soap removes dirt and perspira- 
 tion (waste poured out of the body on the skin), 
 and the rubbing over these thousands of nerve 
 endings in the skin sends messages along them, 
 resulting in dilating blood vessels in the skin, 
 making it warmer and withdrawing this blood 
 from other parts. It draws some of it from the 
 brain leaving the brain in a better condition for 
 sleep than work. Brain like muscle must have 
 
SCHOOL FATIGUE 29 
 
 an extra supply of blood when it works. There- 
 fore this is the kind of bath to take before sleep. 
 
 But when energy is wanted, whether of brain 
 or body, cold on these nerve endings is the stimu- 
 lus to apply, cold that is cold enough to make a 
 little gasp for breath as it flashes over face, chest 
 and neck, and down the back. This is the 
 "tonic" to be taken in the morning before the 
 day's work. 
 
 The "cold tonic" is not for cleanliness, but for 
 vigor. It clears the brain and body of the last 
 remnants of sleep, helps cure cold feet and 
 improves the circulation in other ways, steadies 
 nerves, and is, Uke open windows at night, a fine 
 appetizer. It should be taken in a warm room 
 (70° to 75°). If "the bathroom cannot be made 
 warm so early in the morning" by furnace heat, 
 use a gas radiator for ten minutes. It makes the 
 air bad; but the value of the tonic exceeds the 
 harm done in only ten minutes. 
 
 The tonic bath need not exceed one minute. 
 A warm bath in the morning should always be 
 followed by the cold dash on face, chest and 
 especially on the back. When accustomed to it 
 one's body cries out for it as it calls for water when 
 thirsty. The tonic may be taken without the 
 warm bath, of course. When the child is not 
 accustomed to it, begin by a dash of cold water 
 over face and chest while standing in the tub. 
 Dry at once, rubbing warm; next day try a 
 
30 PREVENTION OF 
 
 quart, dasht over face and chest and down the 
 back along the spine. This should be as cold as 
 the faucet will give. If the child does not like 
 it persevere in this without increasing for a while. 
 As soon as a dash of cold water all over can be 
 taken, the "morning tonic" — the best one in the 
 world — is assured. 
 
 If there is not time for this morning dash and 
 rub before school the remedy is to retire earlier 
 at night and get up earlier in the morning. It 
 is not to omit the tonic. The child's vigor is worth 
 it. 
 
 Children's clothing absorbs odors from their 
 bodies and from rooms, especially odors of cook- 
 ing and tobacco. Entirely different clothing 
 should be used for sleeping, especially the under- 
 vest; and all the day clothing should be spread 
 out on a line or on chairs in the open air sleeping 
 room for ventilation. In the morning it should 
 be entirely free from odors, and can be warmed 
 while the bath is going on. A very considerable 
 part of the offensive odors in all schools comes 
 from unclean clothing. 
 
 Mothers having taken these measures for 
 conserving strength and happiness in their 
 dearest must next seek methods for helping those 
 less cared for, whose neglect is befouling school- 
 room air. Clubs can help greatly by learning 
 how school baths and other city baths are provided 
 in some places, and popularizing the idea at home. 
 
SCHOOL FATIGUE 31 
 
 The very best thing for a school is to have a 
 swimming tank, its own or a suitable one else- 
 where. Sometimes a swimming tank has been 
 presented as a memorial to a pupil or instructor. 
 A mothers' club might do this in the name of 
 one whom it wisht to honor. Here cleanliness, 
 a tonic, and the art by which one's own life and the 
 lives of others may be preserved from death by 
 drowning are secured all in one, together with an 
 ideal physical exercise ("gymnastics") for devel- 
 oping heart and lungs. The better heart and 
 lungs in a child, the less school fatigue and the 
 longer life is assured. Many English schools 
 have swimming, as ours ought to have. 
 
 In looking further into this subject mothers will 
 find very useful information in Public Baths in the 
 United States, by G. W. W. Hanger, Bulletin of 
 the Bureau of Labor, No. 54, September, 1904. 
 It is a part of the exhibit of the Bureau at the 
 Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Possibly it is 
 one of the Government publications that is for 
 free distribution. Address the Government Print- 
 ing Office at Washington. There is also an 
 interesting English book. Modern Baths and 
 Bath Houses, by W. Paul Gerhard, C. E., pub- 
 lisht in 1908. Brookline, Massachusetts, has 
 one of the best public baths for children and 
 others. It is described in American Public 
 Health Association Journal, 1897. There are also 
 many other recent reports on batha for schools 
 
32 PREVENTION OF 
 
 which can be found by consulting the librarian 
 at the public library. It would be a great 
 mistake to do anything without reading up on the 
 matter, for there are many "new ideas," as, for 
 example, that bathtubs should not be provided, 
 because they are not kept clean. Instead, spray, or 
 "rain," or "needle" baths are best where the 
 spray comes from the side, not from above — wet- 
 ting the hair. The best of all, however, is a swim- 
 ming pool. 
 
 The justification for clubs in these strenuous 
 days is performance as well as papers. Where 
 one has helpt provide a swimming tank for boys 
 and girls all the seasons thru, there will be more 
 of health, morals, life and joy in that community 
 thereafter. 
 
 January 
 
 Internal cleanliness: carious teeth 
 
 Probably more than ninety out of every hundred 
 children have decaying teeth. This means offen- 
 sive breath, increasing the bad air of school 
 rooms. 
 
 It means much more to the children having 
 them, and is one of the most serious as well as 
 common causes of school fatigue and various 
 
SCHOOL FATIGUE 33 
 
 forms of ill health. The decaying spots are 
 nests of decomposing food and disease producing 
 bacteria. These and bacterial toxins (poisons) 
 swallowed undermine the general health, and 
 cause other troubles about the throat and nose. 
 The poisons spread from teeth to neighboring 
 glands and openings, causing earache, enlarged 
 glands, catarrh, as well as tender gums and 
 "toothache." The poisonous condition of the 
 mouth aggravates the results of scarlet fever or 
 any other illness, and increases the danger of ear 
 complications. 
 
 Swallowing these virulent poisons impairs 
 digestion, and anemia ^s almost always found with 
 carious teeth. Nutrition being poor from indiges- 
 tion, even if good food is given, tuberculosis and 
 other diseases find an easier victim. The pain 
 of chewing food when the mouth is uncomfortable 
 causes children to swallow without chewing as 
 they ought, thus increasing indigestion and form- 
 ing a bad habit for life. 
 
 In these ways physical growth is impaired, the 
 nervous system becomes more irritable, mental 
 development is hindered. Just as good care 
 should be taken of the first teeth as of the per- 
 manent ones, not only for the sake of the general 
 health, but because their condition affects the 
 development of the jaw and of the permanent 
 teeth coming in the same places. 
 
34 PREVENTION OF 
 
 Causes of carious teeth 
 
 When the health of the mother is poor before 
 the child is born, or if syphilis is inherited, or 
 if the health of the child is poor, poor teeth 
 usually result. Poor teeth are also the result of 
 neglect to clean away food particles before they 
 begin to decompose. Certain substances, espe- 
 cially acids, injure the teeth; also ice water and 
 very hot fluids. These same very hot and very 
 cold temperatures injure the stomach as well. 
 
 Lack of exercise is bad for the teeth, the exer- 
 cise of chewing hard food. The hard particles 
 polish the teeth, and the firm pressure in chewing 
 develops the jaws, increasing circulation to the 
 roots of the teeth, by which their nutrition is 
 improved. When teeth do not meet properly 
 indigestion sometimes results from insufficient 
 mastication and the teeth will decay more easily. 
 It is probably because the jaws are not developt 
 as they should be, and such children should be 
 taken to a good dentist who can alter the condi- 
 tion when the child is young, greatly to the 
 advantage of both health and looks. 
 
 Prevention 
 
 Children must form the habit of using their 
 toothbrushes and quill toothpicks in the privacy 
 of their own rooms; the splinters that break from 
 wooden toothpicks make them less desirable. 
 
SCHOOL FATIGUE 35 
 
 If mothers themselves are really in earnest and 
 convinced of the importance of saving the teeth, 
 they can make their children so. Otherwise 
 nothing in a magazine or book can do it. The 
 children must suffer the consequences. Mothers' 
 clubs have a responsibility for creating this 
 intelligence thruout their communities. 
 
 In these days of breakfast foods and other 
 prepared foods too little real chewing is done. 
 Pains should be taken to provide some hard and 
 tough food, and to insist on its being chewed 
 until in a fluid state when it "swallows itself." 
 This is not easy when the habit of "bolting" 
 food and drink is establisht; but it is worth 
 much effort, for a good digestion is one of the 
 best preventives of intemperance and other 
 manifestations of ill health. Perseverance pays 
 in this. I know a mother who never gives her 
 children anything to eat between meals unless 
 they are hungry enough to eat a crust — ^for the 
 teeth's sake. 
 
 School dentists should be in every school 
 quite as much as medical inspectors. The 
 dentist will have even more work to do, since 
 hardly three in a hundred mouths do not need 
 attention. For several years they have been 
 appointed in Germany; also in England and other 
 European countries more recently. We are 
 later in taking it up; but have begun to appoint 
 them, and each year their number is greater. 
 
36 PREVENTION OF 
 
 Many schools where there is none stand waiting 
 for the impulse from mothers' clubs which could 
 render few great services so easily. An open 
 meeting with a talk by an efficient dentist, and 
 physician or school inspector, followed up later 
 by a little tactful pushing can hardly fail to get 
 dental school inspection establisht, with provision 
 for children too poor to have the necessary work 
 done, just as children's eyes are cared for when 
 parents cannot to it. Teachers must be informed 
 and interested, as their cooperation is of the 
 greatest value. No child can do its best with a 
 septic mouth, and it is wholly worth while for 
 society to save itself from poor citizens by pre- 
 venting their development. 
 
 If toothbrushes are not a success at home, in 
 some schools a rack and brush bearing the same 
 number are given the child, and he is required 
 to use the brush in the morning and at noon. 
 Bu,t this is a pity; cannot the visiting nurse 
 bring it about at home? It is most important to 
 clean the teeth thoroly at bedtime. One simple 
 help in keeping the mouth as it should be is the 
 habit of drinking a little water at the end of the 
 meal. The last word given out by nose and throat 
 specialists of which I have heard is that probably 
 very many more of our illnesses come from bad 
 mouths and teeth than we have thus far known. 
 
SCHOOL FATIGUE 37 
 
 February 
 
 Internal cleanliness: elimination of waste 
 
 The waste in the large intestine, after the 
 nourishing parts of food have been absorbed into 
 the body thru the walls of stomach and small 
 intestine, is sometimes compared to the ashes, 
 vapor and gases given off by a steam engine 
 using coal and water for "food" to supply its 
 working power. In the body other waste also 
 results from using up parts of itself in muscular 
 and mental work; a portion of the food eaten 
 goes to restoring these parts. 
 
 Unless the waste is cleared away it "clogs the 
 system," doing harm by pressure of the mass of 
 waste on surrounding parts, or by acting as a slow 
 poison. In these and other ways constipation 
 becomes one of the common causes of school 
 fatigue. The waste is eliminated chiefly thru 
 the intestine, kidneys, lungs and skin. For the 
 lungs and skin cool fresh air, water and exercise 
 have been mentioned as essential to health. 
 They are also essential in keeping kidneys and 
 intestine in order. These are like all parts of the 
 body under control of the nervous system; so 
 that whatever helps maintain a healthy nervous 
 system helps very much both kidneys and intestine 
 in doing their work. 
 
38 PREVENTION OF 
 
 Water, food and habit 
 
 Pure water at the natural temperature, not 
 iced, can hardly be drunk too freely if thirsted for, 
 specially by a child who perspires considerably. 
 It should, however, be taken between meals, not 
 in large quantities with them, and should never 
 be "bolted." 
 
 Properly taken it "flushes out" the system, 
 chiefly thru the kidneys; but also thru the 
 intestine, as well as lungs and skin. One common 
 cause of constipation is too dry feces, requiring 
 straining at stool. A glass of water (in winter 
 it may be hot if preferred) taken, a few swallows 
 at a time, while dressing in the morning or while 
 undressing at night, sometimes prevents constipa- 
 tion. Three or four glasses more are needed 
 during the day. A tablespoonful of wet flaxseed, 
 taken at night, is an old fashioned and perfectly 
 harmless way of "oiling" the intestinal tract, so 
 that dry hard stools may slip along more easily. 
 
 Fruits and nuts, the choice of which depends 
 partly on the child, should be used freely. Prunes 
 and figs, either cookt or eaten as confectionery, 
 are well known helps. Apples are often good. 
 Bananas, if ripe, are good; if not ripe they can be 
 baked in the skin or peeled and baked with a 
 sauce of sugar, lemon juice and butter. Many 
 who cannot, or think they cannot use bananas, 
 find the cookt banana excellent. It often agrees 
 with very "difficult" stomachs. Fruits and 
 
SCHOOL FATIGUE 39 
 
 vegetables help because of their salts and acids 
 especially. A diet should be varied from day to 
 day in preventing constipation that is obstinate. 
 The use of molasses is also recommended. 
 
 General suggestions such as these have a 
 general value; but it must be remembered that 
 each child has his own peculiarities that should 
 be consulted in establishing the habit that is 
 imperative — a daily evacuation of the bowels. 
 One most important aid is a regular hour daily. 
 Habit is one of the most interesting and perhaps 
 unappreciated factors in living — habits of body, 
 habits of acting, habits of thinking. The child 
 trained to empty the bowel after breakfast has 
 regularly at that hour the intestinal sensation 
 impelling him to do so. If, however, he restrains 
 this, the next day it is much less or gone. Usually 
 after breakfast or at bedtime are the most con- 
 venient hours and, therefore, the most regularly 
 observed. In requiring this habit of regularity, 
 as well as other right habits, mothers have 
 nature's cooperation. 
 
 Results of constipation 
 
 It is a mistake to have the medicine habit for 
 constipation. It is very unusual that suitable 
 diet, water and exercise fail to secure the one 
 daily evacuation necessary. No mother is for- 
 givable for failing to establish this habit in her 
 
40 PREVENTION OF 
 
 children, together with an appreciation of the 
 "internal cleanliness" in which it is a factor. 
 The child's habit of constipation cannot always 
 be easily corrected in later life. It causes some- 
 times local trouble, such as hemorrhoids, or 
 fissures (cracks) in the anus that increase con- 
 stipation because so painful, and other results 
 even more serious. It is a cause of anemia, 
 headache, mental dullness, irritabiUty, loss of 
 appetite, with the coated tongue that makes an 
 offensive breath and unclean mouth whose 
 harmfulness we have learned. It is almost 
 always found in girls who have painful menstrua- 
 tion, or undevelopt or misplaced pelvic organs. 
 The results, therefore, are liable to be so serious 
 that when mothers cannot prevent constipation 
 by their own efforts they should consult a physi- 
 cian rather than allow the habit to go on, particu- 
 larly between nine and sixteen years of age. 
 We might more wisely say from infancy to six- 
 teen; but the tendency to it is increast during 
 school life by sitting positions and habits, so that 
 special attention is called to it during these years. 
 One of the sitting positions inviting constipa- 
 tion and other ills is the very common habit of 
 sitting on the lower part of the back instead of on 
 buttocks and upper part of thighs. With the 
 former wrong position, and sometimes even with 
 the latter, children and others are often seen with 
 chest dropt forward, so that between the crowding 
 
SCHOOL FATIGUE 41 
 
 down from above and crowding up from below 
 the abdominal and thoracic circulation is greatly 
 impeded, digestive and other organs being squeezed 
 out of place and shape. Corsets compressing 
 laterally do no more harm, I fancy, than this 
 vertical compression in the corsetless. It is 
 restful, literally so, to sit and stand erect, and 
 children trained to it become less easily fatigued. 
 This does not mean that the backs of seats should 
 not be used, but means that the spine should not 
 be curved forward in using them. School seats 
 with properly shaped backs are necessary. 
 
 This is one of the reasons why mothers* clubs 
 should urge changes in school curricula by which 
 children can have more moving about during 
 school hours; manual training rooms with work- 
 benches, domestic science rooms with worktables, 
 nature study (or botany, zoology, or biology) 
 rooms with specimens to examine grown in the 
 children's own school gardens or collected on 
 country walks; "organized games," dancing and 
 other physical exercise, not forgetting one of the 
 most important, swimming. 
 
 It is not necessary that school customs invite 
 ill health. Books are not the only road to wisdom, 
 possibly not even the best, as we have been assum- 
 ing. 
 
42 PREVENTION OF 
 
 March 
 
 What and when school children should eat 
 
 Important as are external and internal clean- 
 liness in preventing school fatigue, nutrition is 
 no less so. Each detail is so dependent on the 
 others that when one is neglected all suffer. 
 
 Many children are started wrong in the morn- 
 ing. Perhaps because they slept in a room with 
 closed windows, or because of bad teeth or con- 
 stipation that "spoil" the mouth, or because they 
 lack that "morning tonic" — for these or other 
 reasons they have little appetite for breakfast. 
 We have discust these points. 
 
 Too often breakfast is a hurried snatch instead 
 of being appetizingly served like the later meals. 
 Many children go to school improperly bathed 
 and fed because of late rising, probably due to 
 late hours the night before. In some foreign 
 cities and in some of our own schools open at 
 eight o'clock or eight- thirty. Earlier hours 
 both morning and night are better for children 
 and for grown-ups. We live too much by artifi- 
 cial light, and miss the exhilarating morning 
 freshness. The question is when will more 
 parents adopt more wholesome hours for the 
 children's good, and more wholesome food when 
 they set but one table, and furnish more whole- 
 some examples in some other particulars. 
 
 There is, too, the fact that for some a hearty 
 meal as the first event of the day is not indicated. 
 
SCHOOL FATIGUE 43 
 
 For these and other reasons very many go to 
 school (as to other duties) without enough to 
 sustain them until half past twelve or one o'clock. 
 This is the cause of much "school fatigue," as 
 well as of breaking down among office workers and 
 others. 
 
 Some public and many private schools serve 
 a glass of milk or cocoa and a biscuit between 
 half past ten and eleven o'clock. It is a pretty 
 and a wise custom I have seen, to have the 
 children before the lunch is brought in sit for 
 two or three minutes with heads lying on the 
 desks, resting peacefully. Certain children bring 
 in the food on trays, giving to each a paper napkin 
 for the desk and another for the hands. The 
 children learn to serve and to eat daintily, the 
 whole event not requiring more than six or 
 seven minutes. Those who can afford to do so 
 pay a few cents a week; but all have the food, 
 no one knowing who does not pay. There are 
 several ways of doing this. Wherever attempted, 
 the resulting better work and vitality thru the 
 year justify the plan. 
 
 The noon luncheon is another item in prevent- 
 ing school fatigue. Children often bring unsuit- 
 able food from home and spend their pennies on 
 poor stuff. It is said that a noon dinner for 
 those who go home interferes with good work in 
 the afternoon session. The mother sometimes 
 is away at work and there is no suitable dinner at 
 
44 PREVENTION OF 
 
 home. The custom of lunching at school is 
 growing. Caterers who frequently serve the 
 luncheon are not dietitians, and I have never 
 seen any school lunches served by them that were 
 as wholesome or as well served as certain ones 
 served by mothers' clubs. They perhaps employ 
 a business woman or man; but are themselves 
 represented by two or three ladies present every 
 day. The variety on a single day is much less 
 than that of caterers; the fancy and "made 
 dishes" fewer; but the variety from day to day 
 is ample, and children are thoroly satisfied with 
 the excellence and daintiness of the simpler menu. 
 In some English schools and in a few of ours 
 the domestic science classes prepare and serve 
 the luncheons, or a portion of them. This may 
 be done so as to be fine training for the pupils, 
 and results encourage further experimenting. 
 In other ways this problem of morning and noon 
 lunches of better quality than that brought from 
 home is being studied. Whoever undertakes 
 it should have a definite understanding of ele- 
 mentary principles of nutrition. This is not too 
 difficult for mothers' clubs to set about acquiring. 
 A competent instructor (very many are not so) 
 can in a few lessons to a group make the subject 
 clear enough for this purpose, or some may 
 decide to give one whole year to the study of 
 school lunches, while another group gives its 
 attention to schoolhouse cleaning. In almost 
 
SCHOOL FATIGUE 45 
 
 every organization there are members who wish 
 to concentrate on some special studies and Hnes 
 of effort. By encouraging and assisting them to 
 do so valuable members are likely to be had and 
 progressive usefulness secured. The club as a 
 whole may continue its general programs which 
 will be strengthened by occasional contributions 
 from the special workers. All can concentrate 
 on a common purpose when it has been developt. 
 
 The United States Bureau of Education has 
 recently issued Bulletin, 1909, No. 3, The Daily 
 Meals of School Children by Caroline L. Hunt. 
 It can be obtained on request by addressing the 
 Bureau at Washington as above. The secretary 
 of every club should include this in its circulating 
 or reference library. Another help in providing 
 the right foods for children, which can be had on 
 application, is the Bulletins on Human Nutrition 
 issued by the State College of Agriculture at 
 Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Address 
 Dr. L. H. Bailey, Director. Also the department 
 of home economics in every state agricultural 
 college is always glad to assist mothers' clubs 
 in their study of how to feed children, and it is 
 a very good thing to keep in touch with this 
 department. 
 
 There is an article on "The School Luncheon" 
 by Lucy A. Osborne, of the Worcester Trade 
 School for Girls, in The Pedagogical Seminary, 
 June, 1912, that will perhaps be most helpful. 
 
46 PREVENTION OF 
 
 since it surveys the field quite thoroly, and also 
 has a large number of references to the writings 
 of others. This magazine should be in every 
 public library for the use of mothers' clubs, for 
 it contains the valuable studies concerning 
 children made year by year at Clark University, 
 or made outside by its graduates. 
 
 No attempt is worth while here to enter into 
 details of dietetics, for they need pages, time and 
 discussion. In Miss Hunt's Bulletin, besides 
 helpful and practical directions, a few good 
 references will be found to other writings. There 
 is almost no improvement in the curriculum of 
 public schools that women can more becomingly 
 urge than the teaching of domestic science, with 
 the insistence on appointing a really competent 
 instructor. Simple cookery and sewing in the 
 upper grammar grades is needed; but in the 
 high schools a very much larger outlook should 
 be given, to include the family responsibilities 
 and duties of home makers. Our high schools 
 must turn out intelligent home makers before 
 the prevention of school fatigue can be realized. 
 Even then we shall have on hand the question 
 what to do for the millions of young men and 
 women between sixteen and twenty -five years of 
 age, who dropt out of primary and grammar 
 grades, are liable to become parents, and have 
 only this childhood's education and information 
 pickt up from newspapers, streets, companions 
 
SCHOOL FATIGUE 47 
 
 and the like with which to bring up their chil- 
 dren. 
 
 Boys as well as girls become home makers, and 
 their intelligence must be equally assured. I 
 have found in various places boys in the grammar 
 or lower grades learning to sew on buttons and do 
 simple mending and darning, learning simple 
 cookery for "when mother is sick," or for camp- 
 ing. This is what all soldiers and sailors and 
 ranchmen do, what George Junior Republic 
 boys. Boy Scouts and many others do. Mothers 
 should help public schools to supply instruction 
 in this important need of boys, and should train 
 their own to take care of themselves and their 
 rooms and belongings after decent and sanitary 
 fashion. In England I found boys and girls in 
 classes studying about choosing the site, building 
 the house, plumbing, ventilation and other 
 details of home sanitation; pure food laws, 
 detecting adulterations; disposal of waste, orderly 
 premises, clean streets, all of which concern boys 
 as much as girls. It raises the idea of home to 
 have it of enough dignity and worth to study in 
 school. 
 
 The problem of school fatigue is most hope- 
 fully undertaken thru this national instruction 
 in home making, being mindful that all the con- 
 cerns of the community and all the concerns of 
 the home in this age are identical. 
 
48 PREVENTION OF 
 
 April 
 
 Muscular exercise an internal bath 
 
 Physical exercise is a large factor in preventing 
 school fatigue. 
 
 I am writing by the open library window of a 
 university overlooking the valley of the Monon- 
 gahela and purple hills beyond, where the first 
 spring thunder shower is circling. On the campus 
 to the left is an imposing gymnasium with baths 
 and all the other up-to-date features, such as 
 physical examinations, a generous athletic field, 
 and an expert to guide their use wisely. 
 
 The students, only one out of a hundred in the 
 public schools, young men and women, are having 
 this care of their health for the first time, after 
 ten or twelve years of "laying foundations" 
 without it. It is well within the truth to say that 
 they would average three years better in capacity 
 for citizenship if the elementary schools had 
 attended to their personal habits, play and formal 
 exercise and physical defects. It is certainly 
 beginning at the wrong end. But it is in line 
 with the history of our schools which have been 
 developt with the idea that college and university 
 is thei'r objective. What of the ninety-nine in 
 each hundred who do not go to college? We are 
 only recently seeing — with a still limited vision — 
 that public schools would better train in right 
 living than for college. 
 
 A few days ago I was in a rather famous 
 
SCHOOL FATIGUE 49 
 
 elementary school, famous because part of a 
 great institution that turns out teachers. I saw 
 several classes in gymnastics, and this was the 
 way of it: They exercised in a square entrance 
 hall into which dust was trackt from the streets 
 of this "soft coal city" by thousands of feet daily. 
 The windows up the stairway were closed (they 
 had a system of heating and ventilating forbidding 
 opening windows); the thermometer registered 
 70°-74°. After a class had roUickt with open 
 mouths thru some very lively gyrations my own 
 face and throat were parcht with dust and heat 
 and foul air; the pupils' faces were red, bodies 
 perspiring and odorous, and there was coughing 
 on all sides to clear the throats. Laughter and 
 breathlessness and the beautiful elasticity after 
 abuse of which childhood has so much (or what 
 would we come to!) covered the sins of omission 
 and commission in the teachers' eyes, and one 
 said to me, "Can anyone say that this ought not to 
 be in the pubUc schools!" With much restraint 
 I rephed, "Yes. It ought not. It ought to be 
 out in that concreted yard this glorious day." 
 He saw the point partly perhaps, but the inflexible 
 monster, "system," mechanical, shortsighted, is 
 doubtless grinding along to-day in that entrance 
 hall, as it has thru the years, sending out teachers 
 by the thousand with standards accordingly. 
 
 If mothers thru their clubs would throw their 
 energy into the growing demand for as wholesome 
 4 
 
50 PREVENTION OF 
 
 or more wholesome environment for the little 
 children of the nation as for the big ones, we 
 would "arrive" much sooner. 
 
 To fit a few of the children for college schools 
 have exercised all children by chiefly the "tiny 
 eye and tongue and pen wagging muscles," with 
 body in a stooping position that compresses heart, 
 lungs, digestive and pelvic organs. This period 
 of most rapid growth should make sure of the full 
 development of these vital organs, and of the 
 nervous system, which determine length and 
 usefulness of life; and of the reproductive organs 
 also, whose development depends largely on a free 
 circulation. Vigorous circulation requires a 
 strong heart, which comes by exercise of the heart 
 muscle, as other muscles are strengthened by 
 exercise. Heart and lungs are physiologically 
 one; the development of one means both. It is 
 exercise of large muscles, those of the back, legs, 
 arms, that most increases pulse and respiration 
 (heart and lung action), fitting them for the 
 sudden and long continued strains of life. Parents 
 need to remember that good hearts, lungs, 
 digestive, reproductive and nervous systems are 
 the most important aims of exercise; and that 
 reasonably energetic use of the large muscles in 
 cool fresh air is the way to accomplish it. By this 
 we acquire the vigor underlying mental and 
 physical work, lack of which is quite as often the 
 cause of incapacity and failure as is lack of 
 knowledge. 
 
SCHOOL FATIGUE 51 
 
 Exercise drives the blood and lymph more 
 strongly thru every "nook and cranny," using 
 up "fuel" stored so long it needs to be used to 
 make way for fresher, sweeping away waste more 
 thoroly, and bringing to all parts abundance of 
 food and oxygen. This is another kind of "bath," 
 another method of securing "internal cleanliness." 
 These "toxins" and wastes that are removed are 
 not only a cause of feeling tired (poisoned), but 
 are often a cause of "the blues," of feeling dis- 
 couraged, "cross," incapable. 
 
 To prevent school fatigue, or to drive it away by 
 exercise, another thing is necessary — the play 
 spirit. Just as gymnastics in hot foul air are 
 bad, so gymnastics not enjoyed, "a bore," fail 
 to accomplish all they might. Therefore, play- 
 grounds, and rhythmic, artistic or historic games 
 and dances are supplementing gymnasia and 
 replacing formal drill. Remembering the poor 
 gymnastics usually seen in ordinary schools, 
 parents will probably "err on the right side" 
 if they urge instead playgrounds and capable 
 supervision. A combination of both excellent 
 gymnastics and delightful play, including dancing, 
 is best; and I have seen it — but only very rarely. 
 Gymnastics, when weather permits, should be 
 in the playgrounds; mothers who understand the 
 need of open air can help persuade officials of this. 
 Competition in running, jumping, dancing or other 
 exercise that leaves the child exhausted at the 
 
52 PREVENTION OF 
 
 day's end, or the next day, is not a help in pre- 
 venting school fatigue, and is as unwise as not 
 enough exercise. 
 
 Parents should visit schools during exercise 
 time; and if the atmosphere has not the open 
 air freshness, accept no excuse that is not weigh- 
 tier than health itself. Many "best we can 
 do's" are not true. It is rather official lack of 
 intelligence or conscience ("high up" possibly), 
 resourcefulness, willingness, in adapting condi- 
 tions to the laws of health. If the children are 
 not heartily enjoying the work or the fun, try to 
 find out what is wrong (not always easy), and have 
 it set right promptly and wisely. It is too vital 
 to ignore. 
 
 Gymnastics and supervised recreation at school 
 are but one means of preventing school fatigue. 
 Development of heart, lungs, nervous system and 
 body framework, the sweeping away of fatigue 
 poisons and the renewal of tissues can be secured 
 perhaps even better by excursions to fields, 
 forests and hills; by boating, swimming and 
 skating; by running errands, gardening and 
 other out of door usefulnesses — ^if parents have 
 the tact to introduce the play spirit, interest in 
 some purpose, and enjoyment. 
 
SCHOOL FATIGUE 53 
 
 May 
 
 Idleness, evenings, dress and cigarettes 
 There is more than physical benefit to think 
 of in aiming to prevent school fatigue by filling 
 out-of-school hours with occupations calling for 
 bodily, mental and moral activities differing from 
 but supplementing school life. Kipling states 
 it picturesquely. 
 
 The Camel's hump is an ugly hump 
 
 Which well you may see at the Zoo; 
 But uglier still is the hump we get 
 
 From having too little to do. 
 
 Kiddies and grown-ups too-oo-oo, 
 If we haven't enough to do-oo-oo, 
 
 We get the hump — 
 
 Cameelious hump — 
 The hump that is black and blue. 
 
 We climb out of bed with a frowzly head 
 
 And a snarly-yarly voice. 
 We shiver and scowl and we grunt and we growl 
 
 At our bath and our boots and our toys. 
 
 And there ought to be a corner for me 
 (And I know there is one for you) 
 
 When we get the hump — 
 
 Cameelious hump — 
 The hump that is black and blue. 
 
 The cure for this ill is not to sit still. 
 
 Or frowst with a book by the fire; 
 But to take a large hoe and a shovel also. 
 
 And dig till you gently perspire. 
 
 And then you will find that the sun and the wind. 
 And the Djinn of the garden too. 
 
 Have lifted the hump — 
 
 The horrible hump — 
 The hump that is black and blue. 
 
54 PREVENTION OF 
 
 I get it as well as you-oo-oo — 
 If I haven't enough to do-oo-oo — 
 
 We all get the hump — 
 
 Cameelious hump — 
 Kiddies and grown-ups too. 
 
 Particularly at the ages from ten to sixteen, 
 when child is rapidly developing into adult, too 
 little to do is a genuine evil. Mothers should 
 guard against idle hours, day-dreaming and 
 poring over story books. The last is liable to 
 become a dissipation, and all are liable to encour- 
 age wastefulness of thought force and moral 
 force, even inviting vicious habits of mind and 
 body. "School fatigue," i.e., indifference to 
 work, pallor and nervousness, can result from 
 these misspent hours quite as surely as from bad 
 air and sitting habits in school. 
 
 School children's evenings should be spent at 
 home, and the retiring hour should be early. 
 To school children evening parties, theatres, 
 concerts and other entertainments are never 
 worth their cost in hours of sleep. These hours 
 of sleep and the "simple life" are more important 
 than parents usually think; the "educational 
 value" of evening entertainments much less. 
 
 The cigarette habit, quite apt to be begun by 
 elementary schoolboys, is harmful from every 
 viewpoint. So long as many men and a few 
 women consider it suitable for themselves, and 
 so long as others peacefully submit to having the 
 
SCHOOL FATIGUE 55 
 
 air of city streets, homes, hotels, restaurants, 
 places of amusement and "recreation" polluted 
 by tobacco smoke, so long the boy and occasion- 
 ally the girl will " ape their elders." Example and 
 imitation is the most powerful "educational 
 system." The tobacco smoke evil should be 
 made to go with the soft coal smoke evil. 
 
 A teacher once told me of having noticed in her 
 forty years of service "waves" of the cigarette 
 habit come and go with the transit of popular 
 masters who smoked. Another, during a serious 
 talk with her boys was interrupted by the princi- 
 pal passing thru the room, leaving behind the 
 characteristic odor. Thereupon one boy argued, 
 "The boss smokes." Professor William A. 
 McKeever has a valuable article, The Cigarette 
 Smoking Boy, in Child-Welfare Magazine for 
 April, 1910; and another in Education, November, 
 1907. Education also publishes The Boy and the 
 Cigarette Habit by H. S. Gray, January, 1909. 
 The Health-Education League of Boston has a 
 five cent leaflet, The Boy and The Cigarette; 
 address 8 Beacon Street, Boston. All authorities 
 agree that, whether or not smoking injures adults, 
 it certainly seriously injures children both physi- 
 cally and mentally — this means morally also. 
 
 Dress 
 
 Dress is a factor in school fatigue that concerns 
 girls more than boys. So much has been said 
 
56 PREVENTION OF 
 
 during so many years against compressing the 
 bodies of girls that the majority are drest with 
 considerable freedom and good judgment in this 
 respect. Nothing that could be presented in 
 these pages would alter the habits of others. 
 There are two points that need mention, the dress 
 of the head and of the feet. 
 
 For the head I will only briefly plead for simpler 
 hair dressing. The heat and confinement of the 
 scalp when the hair is loaded with ribbons, 
 combs, and frames for distorting the shape of 
 the head are not only injurious to the growth of 
 hair, but wearying. We all know the refreshment 
 of letting loose long hair and giving the scalp air 
 and friction. A friend says, "I am so tired I 
 must rest my hair." This is one of the little 
 things that help make up the day's weariness, like 
 the strain of defective vision and hearing which 
 we shall discuss further on in the volume. Those 
 who wish our American girls to be beautiful, 
 and compare the heads of Greek women that are 
 as lovely today as two thousand years ago with 
 photographs of modern coiffures, plead for simpler 
 hairdressing among girls purely on artistic 
 grounds. 
 
 The dressing of the feet is still more important. 
 The reason why girls should wear low heels 
 (not more than one inch) and thick soles except 
 in the two or three months of hot weather is 
 that high heels and thin soles in cool weather are 
 
SCHOOL FATIGUE 57 
 
 at the root of much of the ill health of menstrua- 
 tion and of later life. The high heels compel 
 certain muscles to pull back in order to maintain 
 the balance. This alters the normal angles at 
 the pelvis to the future injury of the woman, and 
 requires constant tho perhaps unconscious effort 
 of muscles holding the body erect that wearies 
 like all constant effort. High heels produce a 
 most ungraceful walk and weaken the arch of the 
 foot which was designed for a level foot. This 
 lessens the enjoyment of walking, climbing and 
 other open air pleasures that girls need. 
 
 Thin soles that allow the chill of the ground 
 to pass to the foot and so to affect the body are a 
 factor in painful menstruation. This cooling 
 of the soles may not be noticed by the wearer, 
 but delicate nerves are carrying their sensations 
 and impulses thru lower extremities and pelvis 
 to and from the spinal and central nervous sys- 
 tem continually. There are not more than three 
 months when the thickness of the middle forepart 
 of the sole can wisely be less than one-quarter of 
 an inch for either boys or girls. Thick soles can 
 be soft and flexible. There should be some law 
 regulating the degree of monstrosity merchants 
 may offer customers, and requiring hygienic 
 footgear as definitely as law requires unadulter- 
 ated food. 
 
 Another point about shoes that causes fatigue 
 is the thousands of impacts daily of the hard 
 
58 PREVENTION OF 
 
 heel on the hard pavement, jarring the delicate 
 tissues of the cerebro-spinal nervous system. 
 Nature gave us elastic heels for an elastic earth. 
 I have found rubber ones (there is a good quality 
 that outlasts the shoe) excellent in preventing 
 fatigue and restoring exhausted nerves of patients. 
 City children, certainly if not strong, would be 
 better with them. 
 
 June 
 
 The long vacation 
 
 In conclusion, not the least important item in 
 preventing school fatigue is to start the school 
 year in good condition. This means living the 
 long vacation sensibly — if we must have long 
 vacations. "Sensibly" translated into details 
 should stand for early rising and early retiring, 
 the tonic bath and all habits of external cleanliness, 
 care of the mouth and all habits of internal 
 cleanliness continued, with every minute possible 
 spent in the open air; no wasted hours. Certain 
 regular duties and responsibilities add to the 
 enjoyment when wisely assigned. Summer is 
 the time for developing home ideals and interest 
 in home affairs, for families to become acquainted 
 who have been separated by winter's occupations, 
 
SCHOOL FATIGUE 59 
 
 and for mothers and fathers to grow into friend- 
 ships with their children whom teachers have 
 monopoHzed during their best hours. 
 
 Summer is the time for gardening, swimming 
 and boating, hill climbing, forests, fields and 
 sports. Mothers should make summer at home 
 a "vacation school" for their own children— not 
 leave it to "run to waste." Teachers have told 
 me that many return to school in the autumn hav- 
 ing lost ground in many ways; that "vacation 
 school" children are in better form mentally and 
 physically, and by "vacation school" we mean all 
 the entertainments that have been mentioned 
 provided for the children by teachers who are 
 nature lovers, play experts, instructors in hand 
 work and domestic work — all the good things 
 they do not get in school, and some of them cannot 
 get at home. Many mothers' clubs plan to make 
 the long vacation more profitable and happier 
 for children with poor homes by supplying these 
 play schools, summer gardens and nature study 
 excursions. 
 
II 
 
 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND CLEAN 
 SCHOOLHOUSES 
 
 The standard of healthfulness in schoolhouses should be 
 that in the best kept homes 
 
 November 
 
 Men as housekeepers 
 
 In our discussion of school fatigue we men- 
 tioned last November the injurious effects of 
 dusty, dry, overheated air in schoolrooms. 
 Those few paragraphs are much too little for 
 mothers — conscientious mothers — on this ex- 
 tremely important matter of healthful schools. 
 
 Many clubs are taking up the subject; also the 
 Department of Science Instruction of the Na- 
 tional Education Association has appointed a 
 committee on the sanitary care of school premises, 
 with an advisory committee of experts in sanita- 
 tion. If mothers persevere in agitating for clean 
 schoolhouses, and if this committee makes a 
 practical report in accordance with scientific 
 facts, undoubtedly improvements will result. 
 61 
 
62 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND 
 
 Already there are numerous signs of public 
 awakening to the importance of janitors among 
 school officials. 
 
 The government or the public opinion that 
 compels children to attend school is under moral 
 obligation to keep the school as clean and whole- 
 some as at least the best kept homes from which 
 they are taken. If it be possible to improve on 
 the best homes, it is for the interests of society 
 to do so. Otherwise schools become a place where 
 nose and throat and lung diseases are invited, 
 contagions acquired; where the nervous system 
 and the functions of the body, all of which are 
 controlled by the nervous system, are injured. 
 When seedlings are badly placed and starved they 
 do not mature, or they are always inferior to 
 those given plenty of sunlight, water and open 
 air. So these children in dirty schoolhouses help 
 increase the number of ailing grown-ups, and 
 their children are born less vigorous than they 
 might have been with sturdy parents. 
 
 There are few things more illogical — it would 
 be a huge joke if it were not so terribly tragic — 
 than for a government of fathers to collect all 
 sorts and conditions of children away from their 
 mothers, in public buildings cared for by ordinary 
 working men (rarely by women) without training 
 in housekeeping or health methods. 
 
 No good housewives have the dirty, dusty 
 floors and bad smells with which government 
 
CLEAN SCHOOLHOUSES 63 
 
 shuts up children and teachers. Women, even 
 tho "naturally" housekeepers, are more and 
 more often being trained for "their mission;" 
 nurses in their schools, other women in schools 
 and classes for home economics or domestic 
 science, or perhaps in technical, industrial or 
 trade schools. Even in colleges and universities 
 training for home making is coming into its own 
 and is being granted degrees of bachelor of 
 science and doctor of philosophy as is done in 
 courses designed more especially for men. This 
 is because good housekeeping is really the practi- 
 cal application of certain scientific principles in 
 the arts of healthful living, and it is nothing less. 
 
 But those who have "kept house" for several 
 hundred millions of children at school in the 
 United States have been and are, for the most 
 part, untrained and little educated men appointed 
 by other men likewise ignorant of sanitation and 
 housewifery — rather inclined, in fact, to look down 
 on housework as beneath a man — and therefore 
 not capable judges of janitors' efficiency. The 
 plea that all concerned meant well or mean well 
 lessens in no smallest degree the evil effects of 
 unsanitary conditions on children and teachers. 
 
 Bad school housekeeping is partly, also, be- 
 cause schools "are in politics," and our partizan 
 politics based on "majority rule" long ago 
 adopted the slogan, "To the victor belong the 
 spoils." This means that one way of rewarding 
 
64 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND 
 
 a man for his vote is for the successful candidate 
 or party to secure him an appointment to a 
 position — one with a salary usually preferred. 
 School janitors, for example, are often appointed 
 for their party loyalty rather than for qualifi- 
 cations in sanitary care of the environment of 
 children — our "neglected national asset." More 
 than one has argued like the janitor of whom a 
 university professor and ex-principal recently 
 told me, "You can't put me out. Others have 
 
 tried it and failed. Senator got me this 
 
 place." (Incidentally — to encourage other prin- 
 cipals in well doing — ^he was put out this time.) 
 
 There are other calls on the mothers of the 
 nation as great, but none greater than this to keep 
 schoolhouses as wholesome as the best homes. It 
 has much to do with morals and success in life. 
 Clear heads to judge what is right or wrong and 
 what makes for prosperity or for failure depend 
 largely on healthy bodies. 
 
 The death rate from tuberculosis among 
 teachers is considerably higher than among all 
 other workers together. Tuberculosis has been 
 found after death among more than half the 
 children examined who died from diphtheria, 
 scarlet fever and other diseases, the presence of 
 tuberculosis not being suspected. The X-ray 
 and tuberculin test have discovered latent tu- 
 berculosis in nearly half the delicate children 
 examined. These are more likely to succumb to 
 
CLEAN SCHOOLHOUSES 65 
 
 other diseases, having this latent, and it is likely 
 to start up actively as the result of other diseases 
 or of any cause which lessens the general health 
 and resisting power, as school conditions often 
 do. All who have studied the subject agree that 
 schools are often the cause of nervous disorders, 
 pallor and a group of symptoms that we have 
 labelled "school fatigue," altho they may be in 
 part due to inefficient mothers and fathers at 
 home — most of whom are products of the public 
 schools that have not prepared their pupils to be 
 wise fathers and mothers. 
 
 This is a "vicious circle" for mothers to break. 
 Let us admit that schools as now managed are 
 not as wholesome as they should and can be. 
 Since dusty, vitiated, arid and overheated air 
 are known to be common factors in tuberculosis 
 and nervous troubles, mothers' help is needed in 
 bringing about the day of clean, well aired 
 schools, a condition as much like open air as 
 possible. 
 
 The fault does not lie with the janitors. If 
 working men or women without specially qualify- 
 ing can get positions that bring in from $700 to 
 $3,000 a year, which our cities usually pay jani- 
 tors, naturally they take them. The voters and 
 the mothers have not yet insisted on efficient care- 
 takers and clean schoolhouses. All of us like 
 to receive as much for our service as we can get, 
 "other things being equal." 
 5 
 
66 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND 
 
 Neither is the fault with the teachers. Institu- 
 tions training general teachers rarely give them 
 practice in school sanitation, and rarely even set 
 them good examples; also the governing boards 
 usually permit them merely to report faulty 
 conditions; they must not be more active in 
 improving them. Housekeepers know that it 
 requires constant "following up" of unskilled 
 workers to secure the details of cleanliness and 
 temperature on which health depends. As I 
 have said in another place, the teacher must 
 "nag" the principal and "tell on" the janitor, 
 jeopardizing her position that she has no political 
 power to defend. Teachers and children are 
 usually helpless "between the devil and the deep 
 sea" in this matter. 
 
 We are justified in expecting good housekeeping 
 for schools in at least the nine or ten states where 
 women are now citizens with the duties and 
 responsibilities of citizens (this sentence has been 
 revised to 1913). If mothers and housekeepers, 
 whose "points of view governments have suffered 
 so long without," bring into public service for 
 children the trained skill of home makers, than 
 which we have no greater need just now, the value 
 of ballots in their hands is proved. If they 
 continue school standards inferior to those of 
 the best kept homes, the standards of men who 
 are not housekeepers, they throw away a golden 
 opportunity to help unfranchised women, in 
 
CLEAN SCHOOLHOUSES 67 
 
 addition to overlooking the welfare of children. 
 This social service is the most convincing argu- 
 ment. Thoroly healthful schools are entirely 
 possible. I have seen a few. 
 
 December 
 
 Cleaning floors 
 
 Dust is at last recognized as a very common 
 cause of ill health. The dusts from stone, metal 
 and glass works, from coal mines, cotton mills 
 and other dusty labor cause diseases having 
 special names. Tuberculosis has been called 
 "the house disease," which means that dusty 
 housework has its bad eflfects. That the "house 
 disease" is tuberculosis is because bacilli scattered 
 by consumptives at home are not quickly killed 
 by sunlight and fresh air, our houses shut out so 
 much of them. Their shutting out also injures 
 the general health, thus predisposing it to yield 
 to disease germs, tubercle bacilli being the easiest 
 to acquire. 
 
 It is said that one cubic inch of good country 
 air contains 2,000 dust particles, and the same 
 amount of city air contains 3,000,000 particles 
 made up of dried manure and sputum, house and 
 shop sweepings, tobacco, ashes, soot, particles of 
 
68 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND 
 
 iron, glass and stone. Schools usually have also 
 much chalk dust. 
 
 Professor C.-E. A. Winslow found 56,000 dust 
 particles in a cubic meter of quiet city air, and 
 20,000,000 after a dust cloud such as we cannot 
 walk thru the streets without encountering 
 occasionally. In a cubic meter of air in a class 
 room before the class entered 2,000 dust particles 
 were found; 15,000 while they were in the room; 
 35,000 just after they had left. Teachers who 
 have had their children make cultures of dust 
 "before and after," and in corridors, playrooms, 
 basements, have found janitors quite as interested 
 as pupils — with good results. 
 
 There are very few germs of contagious diseases 
 in dust, especially out-door dust. They are 
 usually destroyed by drying and light in a very 
 short time, and widely scattered by winds. There 
 are, however, many pus germs in all kinds of dust. 
 An interesting account of what is known about 
 this is just publisht by Professor C.-E. A. Winslow 
 in the September number of American Journal 
 of Public Health, 1912. The Journal ought to 
 be found in any public library; but if it is not, 
 the superintendent of health has it and it can be 
 read with his permission, at the same time asking 
 him to have the public library subscribe for the 
 official journal of the American Public Health 
 Association and keep it where it can be easily 
 seen and read. 
 
CLEAN SCHOOLHOUSES 69 
 
 Dust causes catarrhal conditions of nose, 
 throat and bronchial tubes by irritating them. 
 These congested (irritated) surfaces are in the best 
 condition for any disease or pus germs falling on 
 them to multiply. In this way dust invites ill 
 health, adenoid conditions, sore eyes, tuberculosis. 
 Measurements of dust in city air should arouse 
 us to better municipal housekeeping, cleaner 
 streets and abatement of smoke nuisances. 
 
 To keep schoolroom floors as free as possible 
 from dust that the air may be fit for children to 
 live in is more important than to keep almost 
 any other floor clean because the vital processes 
 of children are more easily affected and the in- 
 juries are more far reaching; because children in 
 greater numbers are affected during longer periods 
 of time in a schoolroom than in any other kind of 
 room; and because in almost no other room is 
 floor dust so stirred up in the air as it is by the 
 many restless feet, especially during gymnastics. 
 
 There are two points for mothers to keep 
 steadily in mind in securing clean floors. The 
 first is to see that the floors are in a condition to he 
 kept clean. A floor that is rough, or splintered, 
 or with large cracks, such as good housekeepers 
 would not have uncovered at home, is unfair to 
 have for children and teachers. Cracks cannot 
 be kept clean, and splinters or other roughnesses 
 make cleaning so difficult (almost impossible) 
 that it is neglected. 
 
70 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND 
 
 The best thing for mothers to do is to cover 
 such floors with a good hnoleum, taking up a 
 popular subscription if necessary, or a private 
 one, to raise the funds. The agitation of itself 
 will do much good. It will help educate people 
 and politicians to the right of children to be well 
 cared for and to one of the ways of doing it. The 
 numerous bad school floors thruout the country 
 could be put in practically perfect condition at 
 once by a little outlay in each community. 
 
 It will give much more satisfaction to choose 
 a linoleum of one color, not in patterns. The 
 easier the dust is seen, the more of it will be wiped 
 up. The good housekeeper's object is to find 
 the dust and remove all there is of it out of the 
 room as promptly and easily as possible. 
 
 Ferryboats, gunboats, libraries, hospitals and 
 other structures where floors receive hard usage, 
 or where cleanliness is specially wanted use heavy 
 linoleums, some of them noiseless and fireproof. 
 These are rather expensive at first, but I am not 
 sure that in the end they are so — certainly they 
 are not if estimated in terms of life as well as in 
 dollars and cents. The ordinary inlaid linoleum 
 is less expensive, and will last so long that a good 
 quality of it is worth laying. I know a hard used 
 school floor where it is just giving out after fifteen 
 years. 
 
 A good housekeeper or "expert" should closely 
 supervise laying it, seeing that no cracks are left, 
 
CLEAN SCHOOLHOUSES 71 
 
 especially at the sides, which the average workman 
 almost always leaves. For the heavier linoleums 
 there is a liquid crack filler that hardens in place. 
 If laid to curve up against the walls and properly 
 made fast, with concave corners fitted, there is 
 less resting place for dust. The metal corners 
 for sale at hardware stores are very necessary to 
 have for corners of rooms and stairs. There are 
 also concave moldings that can be laid along the 
 sides of rooms where walls and floor meet so that 
 dirt may be removed more thoroly and easily; 
 for the easier, the oftener. In these and all the 
 following details mothers have to take buildings 
 already erected and make the best of them. 
 
 Mothers' clubs convinced of the fundamental 
 importance of cleanliness in schools can find 
 money to do these things in this age of generous 
 giving and generous work. I know two or three 
 teachers who have laid linoleum at their own 
 expense — one more instance of these overtaxt 
 and poorly paid women showing more intelligent 
 appreciation of children's well-being than parents 
 or school boards. 
 
 When this first condition has been secured, 
 floors with smooth surfaces and concave meeting 
 with walls, there come next the problems of proper 
 cleaning. Good housekeepers all over the country 
 unquestionably can have school floors kept as 
 clean as their home floors, for a few janitors are 
 doing it, and while doing it stir up only the very 
 little dust it seems impossible to avoid. 
 
72 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND 
 
 One of the most interesting floors I have seen 
 is in a crowded school in the heart of a smoky 
 city. It was eight years old when I saw it, i 
 Georgia pine, and the yellow grain was almost [ 
 as bright as if the floor had been laid that month. 
 The janitor had never used water on it. He had 
 always used a hair broom in whose wooden cross 
 piece is a little reservoir containing a spoonful 
 of kerosene. This escapes in barely enough 
 quantity to keep the hairs oiled, but much short 
 of dripping. Housewives know that a few drops 
 of kerosene in dishwashing or laundering is an 
 excellent cleanser. It is an excellent germ killer, 
 too. Such a broom, therefore, intelligently used 
 prevents much dust flying as well as cleaning 
 thoroly; and the slight odor, as I specially 
 noticed, was all gone before school opened in the 
 morning after the sweeping of the night before. 
 
 I have askt other janitors why they do not use 
 this broom. They replied either that they 
 "tried it but it got out of order," or that they had 
 not heard of it. No janitor should be appointed 
 without mechanical skill to keep tools in order and 
 to make simple repairs about the building. 
 
 A few janitors pin rough cloth (ingrain carpet 
 remnants bought from factories at a few cents a 
 pound) moistened with a mixture of linseed oil 
 and turpentine, with perhaps a little parafiin 
 added, around hair brooms and get admirable 
 results, a clean floor that hardly soils a white 
 
CLEAN SCHOOLHOUSES 73 
 
 handkerchief rubbed on it, and this with the 
 minimum stirring up of dust in the air when 
 rightly done. Sawdust wet with water is not 
 good, as minute sphnters remain that make an 
 irritating dust when dry. Even in stables and 
 cellars it has this objection. Sawdust that has 
 evenly absorbed a httle oil and turpentine is 
 more suitable for floors; other preparations also 
 are used to moisten it, one being a weak solution 
 of formaldehyde for disinfecting the floor once a 
 week. It is important that the sawdust come in 
 contact with every bit of the surface and every 
 particle of dust on the floor; but often it lies in 
 masses and little attempt is made to have this 
 done. 
 
 There is one positive danger in using any of 
 these methods for lessening dust. It is that some 
 principals and janitors assume that no dust rises, 
 or "not enough to do any harm." Janitors 
 therefore sweep corridors, and even rooms, while 
 schools are in session and children at study after 
 school hours. I have more than once seen this 
 done, the air being irritatingly dusty to anyone 
 not determined that he would not see it — or would 
 not admit it. My impression is that it is not a 
 very uncommon occurrence. In such sweeping 
 of corridors the claim that the doors of class 
 rooms are closed and so it is safe to sweep is not 
 to be tolerated; for sometimes I have seen one not 
 closed, and frequently I have seen a child or 
 
74 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND 
 
 several people passing through corridors at the 
 time of sweeping and entering rooms. All this is 
 even more serious in common sweeping with straw 
 brooms. Children and teachers are shut in and 
 cannot help themselves. Mothers can stop it 
 if they will. 
 
 The health officer of one of our states writes 
 approvingly of a lawsuit against school authori- 
 ties brought by parents whose child was un- 
 doubtedly injured by the unsanitariness of the 
 school. He believes the quickest way of bringing 
 school people into line with health methods is a 
 few more such legal processes. 
 
 Wood floors properly scrubbed with soap and 
 water as I have found them in a few schools are 
 refreshingly clean and smell so; but even hard- 
 wood floors will wear rough and splintery with 
 this treatment. One school with clean white 
 floors, and fresh sweet air has one of its three 
 stories scrubbed every Saturday in rotation, so 
 that once every three weeks each floor is thoroly 
 cleaned. Janitors ordinarily, however, think 
 scrubbing floors women's work, and will not do it 
 themselves. It is so hard and disagreeable that 
 they pronounce it "unnecessary," and their 
 opinion has prevailed. 
 
 Linoleum after sweeping with a hair broom 
 preferably can easily be cleaned with a cloth 
 slightly moistened with oil or water; or the oiled 
 cloth can be used on the broom in sweeping, y 
 
CLEAN SCHOOLHOUSES 75 
 
 One of the best helps in cleaning jBoors is to have 
 either movable furniture, as a few schools have, 
 or desk and seat with a single, perfectly round 
 or oval standard having no crannies for dust to 
 collect in and offering fewer obstacles to tools. 
 
 Floors should be left as dry as possible after 
 using either oil or water. The odor of dirty 
 drying oil or water should not be permitted, and 
 the dried deposit is so much more dirt on the floor. 
 Such a detail as this is not necessary to state to a 
 good housekeeper, and is mentioned here to add 
 point to the fact that with any good method must 
 go competent supervision to ensure its proper 
 use. School floors should be cleaned as often 
 as necessary to keep them as wholesome as in 
 well kept homes. 
 
 January 
 
 Last month suggestions were made for the 
 cleanliness of floors in ordinary schoolhouses, 
 such as mothers find have been erected by 
 ordinary committees in ordinary communities. 
 
 But occasionally we see elaborate buildings, 
 tiled floors and wainscotings, vacuum cleaners, 
 a generous staff of caretakers who wipe away dust 
 and keep surfaces bright thruout the day, as do 
 
76 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND 
 
 the maids in homes of wealth. These exceptions 
 are costly and the all-round results are not always 
 superior to what we find in much less pretentious 
 buildings. Indeed, I fancy that under the stimu- 
 lus of open air schools and school gardens these 
 structures will be out of date before many years, 
 and we shall swing over to less extravagant but 
 more wholesome places where children will live 
 a less artificial life as training for a saner manhood 
 and womanhood. That word should be noted — 
 "places," not buildings merely. 
 
 It seems desirable that wood floors should be 
 abandoned in school buildings as they already 
 have been in most fine public structures. One of 
 the reasons is the greater difficulty of keeping 
 them clean in comparison with smoother flooring 
 materials. Even the latter demand intelligence 
 and conscientiousness in the care of them. "Bat- 
 tleship linoleum" promises to be as nearly an 
 ideal flooring for schools as for hospitals and the 
 navies of various nations. It will last for a 
 quarter century, and can be easily renewed; is 
 elastic, noiseless, waterproof and fire proof, not 
 easy to stain, dirt does not grind into it, and it 
 comes in a pleasant solid brown color; all this 
 for not far from a dollar and a quarter a square 
 yard. It is quarter of an inch thick, made of 
 linseed oil and ground cork on a foundation of 
 burlap under heavy pressure, with a smooth finish 
 that is easily cleaned. It is laid by a special 
 
CLEAN SCHOOLHOUSES 77 
 
 process making it firm and free from cracks. Any 
 large dealer in linoleums can provide the circulars 
 telling about it. I have not seen it in any schools, 
 but have seen it on ferry boats and in large public 
 buildings, as institutes, office buildings, churches, 
 hospitals — the last being the beautiful new chil- 
 dren's hospital at the Johns Hopkins Medical 
 School, at this date the most complete in every 
 sanitary detail of any in any country. Here a 
 kind of composition is used for the baseboards 
 which curve down to the floor, meeting the lin- 
 oleum. All cracks have the hard filling that has 
 been mentioned. It is good to find at this hospi- 
 tal every roof, both of the various wings and of 
 the main part, utilized for outdoor wards and 
 outdoor sleeping and play. 
 
 Whatever the floor may be, a committee of 
 mothers should watch their condition in a co- 
 operative spirit, as some mothers' committees 
 have helpt in the matter of school lunches. 
 
 Lavatories and basements 
 
 The standards of cleanliness for water-closets, 
 washbowls and basements should be, also, as in 
 the best homes. Perfumed " disinfectants " should 
 not be permitted. They do not disinfect. Odor- 
 less air should be insisted on. Whenever I have 
 enquired how some specially clean and fresh 
 smelling public or institutional water-closet was 
 
78 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND 
 
 kept so, the caretaker's reply has been "Plenty 
 of strong soapsuds." 
 
 A few pages back a janitor was spoken of 
 whose interest in a handsome floor and kerosene 
 broom proved what all janitors could do if they 
 would. He was not an all-round good janitor, 
 however, for the odor greeting one on entering his 
 building was of urinals that were easily located 
 by following the scent. It was not entirely his 
 fault, for they were wrongly built at first, and no 
 one had cared enough about it to alter them. 
 Fancy the mother or father of one son in a forty 
 thousand dollar house who would let such a 
 mistake go eight years — or eight months! But 
 here were only — thousands of everyone's sons and 
 daughters under the care of the city fathers. 
 
 The condition is true of many schools, and, 
 indeed, of the science (!) building of a famous 
 New England university. Befoulment of the 
 air is not the most important result of these 
 dirty water-closets. The uncleanness of which 
 the odors warn us may be accompanied by con- 
 tagious disease germs, such as the gonococcus 
 freshly deposited, or typhoid bacilli, and others. 
 Medical inspection is discovering that gonococcus 
 infection is occasionally found among school chil- 
 dren and caretakers, as are typhoid, tuberculosis 
 and other germs. They may all be communi- 
 cated by use of common towel and water-closet, 
 as they are by sleeping with or being cared for by 
 
CLEAN SCHOOLHOUSES 79 
 
 infected parents and nurses. Altogether too few 
 schools make sufficient provision for hand washing 
 after leaving water-closets, one of the most needed 
 habits to cultivate in this country among children 
 at school and at home. Some schools are provid- 
 ing paper hand towels for washbowls; others 
 require each child to have its own towel and to be 
 responsible for its laundering. It should be held 
 criminal to have either a common towel or com- 
 mon cup. The method of supplying tissue toilet 
 paper is also another subject for mothers to attend 
 to. There are odd ways. 
 
 In country places where outhouses are used the 
 same standards of cleanliness must in some way be 
 secured for the good of the children. There is 
 here the additional problem of flies that carry 
 filth from the vault to every object they light on, 
 children's faces, books, luncheons. The house 
 fly is being called the "typhoid fly " as it is known 
 to carry bacilli from typhoid discharges to the 
 well. It is coming to be well known that the 
 Japanese in their war with Russia lost almost no 
 soldiers from typhoid fever partly because they 
 covered all excreta away from flies, filth carriers. 
 They proved better sanitarians than the Ameri- 
 cans in the Cuban war who left their trenches 
 open, as many schoolhouses still do, and lost 
 many more men by typhoid then were killed by 
 the enemy. In "American Schoolhouses," a 
 bulletin of the Bureau of Education that should 
 
80 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND 
 
 be in the public library, mothers can obtain 
 further information concerning this detail of 
 country schools. They should see that vaults 
 are cleaned frequently and kept well sprinkled 
 with lime; but if any residences in the vicinity 
 have modern plumbing, why not the school- 
 house? 
 
 The common cup: emergencies 
 
 Our topic is clean schoolhouses, and it is fair 
 to call the common cup a part of the schoolhouse 
 since it is chained to the wall. 
 
 The sooner mothers insist on its banishment, 
 the safer their children will be from other chil- 
 dren's sore lips, sore mouths, poison of decaying 
 teeth and sore throats. The germs of tuberculosis, 
 diphtheria, scarlet fever, measles, pneumonia, and 
 other disease germs are often in the mouths of the 
 well. These children and people are called 
 "carriers." Dr. C. V. Chapin and others have 
 shown that contact with these "carriers," as by 
 their saliva on a cup, causes many illnesses. 
 Before children are known to be "coming down" 
 with a contagious disease their saliva may be left 
 on the cup for the next user to drink. 
 
 Specialists who have examined school cups 
 find under the microscope thousands of cells 
 from the skin and lining of the mouth, with thou- 
 sands of bacteria clinging to them, some of the 
 
CLEAN SCHOOLHOUSES 81 
 
 bacteria being those causing illnesses. The lips 
 and saliva when a child is drinking always touch 
 the cup. Every "catching" thing one child has 
 who uses it those who come after him are liable 
 to get. It is truly astounding that, well known as 
 this is, there are hundreds of schools, yes, thou- 
 sands, from New England to the Pacific still using 
 the common cup. It is eloquent testimony to 
 the indifference of American fathers and mothers 
 to the welfare of their children. 
 
 There are two books the public library should 
 provide for mothers' clubs to use in this connec- 
 tion. One is Dr. Chapin's Sources and Modes of 
 Infection where can be read the latest facts that 
 are discovered about "carriers," whether they are 
 well or ill people, or insects, or water or milk. The 
 living germs conveyed by these carriers cause 
 illnesses. Time, drying and sunlight kill very 
 many bacteria in a few hours or days after they 
 leave the carrier; a few others may live for a 
 month or longer. So that it is really contact with 
 people more than with things that is dangerous. 
 Touching the fresh saliva or any other discharge 
 from people is practically contact with them. 
 
 The other book is The Human Body and Health 
 by the professor of biology at Lafayette College, 
 Alvin Davison. The illustrations on pages 261, 
 263 and 265 are true reproductions from life of 
 what anyone looking thru a microscope finds that 
 people leave on drinking cups. Whether or not 
 6 
 
82 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND 
 
 the text is read, it does not seem possible that any 
 mother after seeing the pictures can allow her 
 child to use a common cup at school, or on a train, 
 or at a public fountain. 
 
 But must children go thirsty? We have 
 already discust some of the reasons why they 
 should have plenty of water. They need not go 
 without it so long as they can find a piece of paper 
 eight inches square. Even clean newspaper is 
 safer than the common cup; but a piece of fresh 
 writing or wrapping paper would be better. Of 
 course there are "germs" on clean paper, but in 
 all probability not disease germs. 
 
 Fold the square diagonally. Next fold the 
 two distant corners over on opposite sides until 
 the tips touch the opposite edges; crease them 
 down; separate the two layers of the middle 
 corner, crease one over in one direction as far as 
 it will go, and the other over in the other direction. 
 If, now, the two edges left are opened with the 
 fingers, there is a substantial cup for one or two 
 "glasses" of water. 
 
 Get the teacher to have all her children make 
 paper cups. They are likely to find it the most 
 interesting lesson in "physiology" they have ever 
 had, for she will explain the reasons for individual 
 cups while they make them. They can use cups 
 until the city fathers make up their minds to put 
 in bubble fountains or faucets by which children 
 can drink from a little jet of water without touch- 
 ing anything. 
 
CLEAN SCHOOLHOUSES 83 
 
 Kansas, Michigan and Mississippi first adopted 
 regulations against the common cup in schools and 
 railway trains (1909). 
 
 Massachusetts, Wisconsin and California were 
 the first to enact laws forbidding it in schools, on 
 railway trains and in other public places. Two 
 winters ago (1911) it was amusing to watch pas- 
 sengers on trains from Boston turn away from the 
 cupless watertanks; but when the Rhode Island 
 border was reacht the common cup was brought 
 out, and all the way to New York, Philadelphia 
 and Washington every user — ! Mothers even 
 put it to the sweet lips of their babies! This 
 winter, however, it is equally entertaining — and 
 encouraging — to see how, law or no law in the 
 state thru which the train is passing, nearly every 
 passenger has his own cup. 
 
 Professor Elizabeth Gaines of the department 
 of biology at Adelphi Academy, with many school 
 teachers, began using the paper cup we have 
 described during epidemics of diphtheria and 
 scarlet fever in Brooklyn, and led in another 
 movement that mothers' clubs could undertake 
 in their own communities where the feather 
 duster, common cup and dirty, badly ventilated 
 schoolrooms exist. The New York School Hy- 
 giene Association of which Professor Gaines was 
 president sent to the Board of Education a 
 petition signed by parents asking 
 
 1, That the common drinking cup be abolisht 
 in the schools, giving facts and the reasons. 
 
84 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND 
 
 2. That the feather duster be aboUsht, moist 
 sweeping be required; and better methods 
 of cleaning and ventilating be provided in 
 new buildings, giving facts and reasons. 
 
 3. That specific rules for cleaning be made by 
 experts, and janitors be required to observe 
 them, using some of the arguments from 
 the preceding pages. 
 
 4. That better provision for class instruction 
 in hygiene be made. 
 
 Soon after the Brooklyn schools began using 
 the paper cup an enthusiast sent about a thousand 
 New Year's greetings with the cup anonymously 
 to as many health officers and school men. Pretty 
 
 soon it appeared under the name of the "Dr. 
 
 cup," and a little later differences of opinion arose 
 among school men who wanted to patent it ! Of 
 course its real value is that children can always 
 make their own cups wherever they may need 
 them. Apparently the paper cup is a valuable 
 sanitary asset. 
 
 One superintendent writes: "I hope the time 
 will come when we can have the sanitary drinking 
 fountain in all the schools. Until that time, this 
 seems to be an excellent and inexpensive means 
 of meeting the serious situation presented by 
 either the common drinking cup or supplying the 
 individual cups of the ordinary type. I will see 
 what can be done to encourage the making and 
 use of this paper cup . ' ' The objections to children 
 
CLEAN SCHOOLHOUSES 85 
 
 having their private cups are that they do not 
 keep them clean, and lending a cup to a thirsty 
 friend is a courtesy that teachers cannot quite 
 so easily criticize as they can "swapping chewing 
 gum." Unless one knows something better, this 
 extemporized cup is a good makeshift anywhere 
 to avoid public cups. The common drinking cup 
 is dangerous. 
 
 February 
 
 Walls and windows 
 
 The worst schoolroom walls I have ever hap- 
 pened to see were not long ago in a famous state 
 with four syllables in its name, and in a few places 
 just over its borders — not always obscure villages, 
 but in at least one large and often-heard-of school. 
 They were papered walls (ugly paper, too, inciden- 
 tally) and sometimes two or three layers deep, with 
 torn and loosened fragments. 
 
 Good housekeepers have old paper removed and 
 walls cleaned before the new is put on. The 
 pastes and papers absorb odors and dampness, and 
 lodge molds, vermin, micro-organisms and dust, 
 affecting the atmosphere of the room more or 
 less. These papered walls are as bad as what I 
 omitted mentioning having seen in talking about 
 
86 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND 
 
 clean jfloors — carpeted kindergartens. In three 
 schools I have seen ingrain or brussels carpets put 
 down because the floors were splintered, or 
 because in some games the children must sit on 
 the floor and it is cold in winter or "so very dirty." 
 
 The fact should be recalled that the younger 
 children are, the more rapid their vital processes; 
 they are growing faster; therefore the effects of 
 dust inhaled are more far reaching, one of the 
 reasons for the increase of tuberculosis all thru 
 school life, and for the so-called "school fatigue." 
 They should have the best surroundings like the 
 high school, not the dirtiest. The same process 
 of reasoning also applies to the quality of teaching. 
 
 The smooth easily cleaned linoleum that has 
 been advised for splintered floors would be cold, 
 too. There might be experimenting with art 
 squares that can be hung out of doors and beaten 
 every night, and not laid until just before school 
 opens, with properly adjustable floor fastenings. 
 But with the many health difficulties and practical 
 difficulties perhaps normal children can be better 
 grown without "floor games." Or we might 
 learn lessons of the clean floors of Eastern races 
 who do not use chairs, who sometimes use rugs 
 also, and put off their street shoes at the entrances 
 of their houses. 
 
 To return to school walls — they are sometimes 
 defaced by scribbling, handmarks and other 
 spots of several years standing, especially the 
 
CLEAN SCHOOLHOUSES 87 
 
 water-closets. Some walls are so dark in color 
 that light in the room is lessened and children 
 weary from efforts to see; or so pale and white 
 with bright windows that eyes are dazzled and 
 nerves are tired. In both cases permanent injury 
 to the eyes is liable to result, if not to the nervous 
 system. There are broken walls and ceilings, 
 adding to the dustiness; and rough finisht walls, 
 every little projection a settling place for dust 
 that slight air currents start floating again in the 
 air children have to breathe. 
 
 Mothers have no more moral right to allow 
 government authorities, committees or any other 
 power to place their children in surroundings that 
 injure health than they have themselves to keep 
 such surroundings. Mothers are responsible for 
 knowing that the environment is a safe one. So 
 are fathers. If an unheal thful one, the fact that 
 school authorities keep it so does not lessen 
 parents' duties — each parent's — to prevent it. 
 The duties of parenthood cannot be shuffled off 
 on paid or elected officials. Parents must still 
 hold such officials up to the duties they are paid 
 or elected to perform — in this instance to develop 
 potential fathers and mothers with healthy bodies, 
 minds and ideals. 
 
 Mothers' clubs, better than an individual alone 
 with no backing in numbers, can study the clean- 
 liness of a school and "make the best of" bad 
 floors and bad walls by intelligent effort. Except 
 
88 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND 
 
 in the nine equal suffrage states mothers have 
 rather helplessly to take things as they find them 
 and make the best of them, as they have long had 
 to do in poorly constructed and finisht houses — 
 not a bad training of the wits for bettering school 
 conditions. Only one needs to he sure that the 
 proposed change is really an improvement, and does 
 not add more details for overworkt teachers to 
 see to. 
 
 It is not a great expense to remove wall paper 
 (wetting it first to prevent dust flying and to save 
 the workmen from it), clean and paint the walls. 
 Oil paints are always at hand; their application 
 is understood everywhere. Smooth painted walls 
 can be washt; wiped down with dry mop to 
 remove dust; they are non-absorbent and durable. 
 The glossiness of some paints should be avoided, 
 for like the glossy printed page, it is bad for the 
 eyes. There are numerous tinted washes also, 
 some less expensive than paint, as easily applied 
 as paint or more so, their re-application being no 
 more work than washing painted walls. 
 
 Ceilings should be white, thus sending more 
 light down to the desks; but white walls are trying 
 to the eyes in a strong light. In sunny bright 
 rooms walls of pale green, a very pale gray green, 
 not a hard yellow green, are artistic and restful 
 to eyes and nerves. In north or darkish rooms 
 pale buff or ecru reflect a sunny light. It is worth 
 while to consult some one with a fine eye for 
 
CLEAN SCHOOLHOUSES 89 
 
 shades of color (mothers supplying the sanitary 
 ideas), for a profound impression on good taste 
 as well as on health is made by children's school 
 environment, even by the tint of walls. A 
 beautiful shade need cost no more than a crude 
 one. 
 
 Whatever the colors, good school housekeepers 
 will see that walls are kept clean and dusted as 
 necessary, either with dry mops or with soft 
 absorbent cloth fastened around brooms. Some 
 walls need cleaning oftener than others for reasons 
 explained further on. 
 
 Decorations also are a problem in wall sanita- 
 tion. Many walls in rooms of the younger grades 
 are more or less covered with paper festoons, 
 greens, banners, drawings on paper by the pupils, 
 etc. These temporarily in place serve their 
 immediate good purposes; but should be carefully 
 taken down after a week of dust deposits and 
 removed out of doors for cleaning if any are to be 
 preserved. Much of this is not the kind of decora- 
 tion for which we wish the country to acquire 
 a liking, and it soon becomes unsanitary. 
 
 A few good pictures, pictures with a mission, 
 or even one, placed in good light, framed in natural 
 woods with soft finish showing the grain, can be 
 easily dusted, and, if chosen with good judgment, 
 can be used to interest and educate children in 
 health ideas still further. Often one sees pictures 
 that provoke the question, "Why here"; pictures 
 that the pupils and sometimes the teachers know 
 
90 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND 
 
 nothing about, or next to nothing. They have 
 been seen daily, but with "eyes that see not." 
 
 I have often wisht that there could be placed 
 in a few hundred schools a large portrait of 
 Pasteur, with the story of his life (that is as 
 fascinating as a novel) in the school library, and 
 then see what would result if mothers' clubs 
 stimulated questions year after year about the 
 man and his service to us all. It could be made 
 the means of creating as high ideals of patriotism 
 by right living as portraits and stories of Washing- 
 ton and Lincoln. 
 
 History and science are both more alive to 
 children when some one or some thing "stands 
 for" either. A portrait of Walter Scott leads 
 from his "life story" to history and good fiction; 
 of Maria Mitchell, to the greatness of the universe 
 outside the earth and to the affection and possi- 
 bilities in plain living and high thinking. If a 
 picture is worth room on school walls it should be 
 a means of right education, since it inevitably has 
 an influence, and much study can be put in select- 
 ing one. 
 
 Windows should be washt at least three times 
 during the school year, with water in which is a 
 little kerosene, which is cheaper and gives an 
 easier and more lasting clearness than sand soaps 
 or other soaps that after the first rain are often 
 followed by streaks and cloudiness; kerosene is 
 also more comfortable for the hands in cold 
 
GLEAN SCHOOLHOUSES 91 
 
 weather. These washings should come in Sep- 
 tember and late December, just before schools 
 open, and in February. The spring months 
 invite open windows and have more light, so that 
 when more than three washings are impossible, 
 these months are safest for omitting them; also, 
 sunny rooms with bright light can be safely 
 omitted when necessary for the sake of north and 
 poorly lighted rooms, whose windows must be 
 kept constantly clear. 
 
 Eyes are workt by tiny muscles controlled 
 by nerves running to the brain. Just like any 
 other muscles, if these are strained by trying to 
 do their work under bad conditions they get out of 
 order and defects of vision result; and just like 
 other nerves, if the will forces these to work under 
 difficulties — too little light or light of a bad kind, 
 they become exhausted and other defects of vision 
 may result. 
 
 There is a close sympathy between all parts 
 of the nervous system, so that when the feet are 
 tired, for example, or the ears from listening to the 
 racket of machinery all day, we "feel tired all 
 over." In the same way tired eyes make children 
 tired all over, and permanent defects in vision 
 cause them to tire more easily, possibly to have 
 various nervous disorders, headaches or indiges- 
 tion, that wearing suitable glasses will sometimes 
 relieve; but the child is handicapped for life. 
 This also is a part of " school fatigue." 
 
92 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND 
 
 Those who damage children in this way should 
 be punishable as are street car companies or 
 factory owners when life, limb or health is lost 
 because suitable precautions are not taken. 
 Neither means to do the harm, they state; but 
 — I have just come from a new school building 
 one side of which is so shaded by the neighboring 
 structure that the gas was lighted all this slightly 
 cloudy morning. The harm that this is doing can 
 never be undone by explanations of oflBcials — the 
 same that the voters elect year after year and do 
 not call to account for such an outrage as this. 
 With our abundance of land, of light and of good 
 air, there is no right reason for depriving children 
 of all they need for health. 
 
 Windows sufficiently clean to allow ample 
 light to come thru are then a factor in health. 
 Much depends on the adjustment of shades, which 
 must not allow direct sunlight on the desks or 
 reflected from a light or glossy surface into the 
 eyes. The best light is had when shades pull 
 up from the bottom, letting a diffused light pour 
 down from above; but they are little used. One 
 girl said, "They make me feel lonesome." They 
 may produce a shut-in feeling, but this is not a 
 good reason for not having them. 
 
CLEAN SCHOOLHOUSES 93 
 
 March 
 
 An interlude 
 
 While these chapters are going into details of 
 schoolhouse keeping necessary to provide good 
 air for children, another method of securing it is 
 growing fast, and will profoundly modify school 
 methods, I am confident, both in the direction 
 of health and of economy as well. 
 
 In memory of their little daughter of twelve 
 years who died, a Chicago father and mother 
 establisht a fund for the benefit of other children. 
 With the income several wise movements have 
 been aided, but none better or greater than the 
 movement for open air schools, which began in 
 Providence a few years ago. 
 
 Dr. Ellen A. Stone and Dr. Mary S. Packard, 
 after a summer's experience with a play school for 
 delicate and tuberculous children on the shady 
 southern lawn of the former's home, secured the 
 consent and cooperation of the superintendent 
 of health and school committee in taking out 
 the whole southern side of a schoolroom and 
 opening the first "Fresh Air School" in this 
 country. Many such rooms better than this one 
 now exist in different states, and they are multi- 
 plying rapidly; but "c'est le premier pas qui coute." 
 
 A charming little book, illustrated, has just 
 been pubUsht, "Open Air Crusaders: A Report 
 of the Elizabeth McCormick Open Air School," 
 with this dedication: "To the memory of Eliza- 
 
94 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND 
 
 beth. Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus Hall 
 McCormick, a child whose radiant young life was 
 so marked by deeds of kindliness to others that 
 these ministries of love were not allowed to cease 
 when, at the age of twelve, she was called into the 
 presence of the Great Friend of all the children." 
 
 There is no healthier philosophy than this — to 
 multiply one's own work for good so that the 
 ministries of the lost one may not cease. 
 
 The title page states that thru the generosity 
 of the trustees of the fund the United Charities 
 of Chicago is enabled to place this book before 
 the public free of charge. In reply to a letter 
 asking whether the demand would be too great 
 if the secretary of every mothers' or parent- 
 teacher association asked for a copy, the General 
 Superintendent replied: "We are anxious that 
 it should be put to the widest possible use, and 
 I can think of no way in which it would more 
 quickly reach the very persons whom we are 
 wanting to interest in the work than by the sug- 
 gestion that mothers' clubs and parent- teacher 
 associations make it the subject of discussion. 
 We are prepared to meet a reasonably large 
 demand for the book." The first edition was 
 exhausted in a few days, and now many more have 
 been issued. It can be obtained for the asking by 
 addressing the United Charities of Chicago, 51 
 LaSalle Street. 
 
 A program whose speakers are a medical in- 
 
CLEAN SCHOOLHOUSES 95 
 
 spector, school nurse, and the superintendents 
 of health and of schools can bring this very impor- 
 tant advance before the friends of a mothers' 
 club. Where the subject has been already dis- 
 cust, but there is not yet an open air room in 
 every new schoolhouse planned, and in at least 
 one old building in every neighborhood, then it 
 should be presented again with the determination 
 that something more than mere talk shall follow. 
 There are occasional mothers who have for their 
 little children of about kindergarten or primary 
 ages a "home open air school," and near by 
 mothers are delighted when permitted to send their 
 own children to these happy places. 
 
 Mothers have a large measure of responsibility 
 for the bad conditions in so many schools, even 
 when they have not the power to discharge their 
 responsibility effectively. But all are soon to 
 have this power. The signs of the times are un- 
 mistakable, and there is no higher law resting 
 on them than this of responsibility for children 
 wherever children may be in the community — home 
 or school, street or work place, place of entertain- 
 ment or of recreation. 
 
96 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND 
 
 April 
 
 Streets and housecleaning 
 
 A Chicago mother wrote me not long ago: "I 
 have found rooms 74° and 76° and even 82°, 
 and the teachers wearing 'peek-a-boo' waists, 
 while the children wore woolen underwear and 
 dresses suitable for winter in this climate. Some 
 schools use soft coal, and we have to strain the 
 air. I put cheesecloth over the open bedroom 
 windows with thumb tacks. There is a school 
 where the in-take for air is over garbage pails of 
 families living across the alley; the outlet is over 
 the girls' playground!" 
 
 This all reads true, for one can find the like 
 in other places. The good thing here is that at 
 least one mother has cared, and I have no doubt 
 she has made others care, too, since she has been 
 so wise as to look into conditions. Evidently 
 "clean schoolhouses " require attention to other 
 details besides floors, walls, windows and furnish- 
 ings. 
 
 Cleaning school buildings is made unnecessa- 
 rily difficult, even useless sometimes, by certain 
 factors outside the building. Dirty streets are 
 one. Streets are unnecessarily dirty because 
 they are either badly cared for or badly made. 
 Their dust as every housewife knows, can in a 
 few blustering hours entirely undo wearisome 
 and expensive labors. 
 
 Such dust is brought in on children's shoes, or 
 
CLEAN SCHOOLHOUSES 97 
 
 blown in around windows and doors or through 
 the cold air box of the furnace. It is, as has been 
 said aheady, made up not of sand alone, but of 
 dried manure, sputum and other animal waste, of 
 house and shop sweepings, ashes, soot, particles 
 of iron, glass, tobacco and other vegetable mate- 
 rial. It contains but few germs of tuberculosis 
 and other diseases, and abounds in pus germs. 
 
 These irritating and poisonous particles drawn 
 in thru nose and throat irritate and poison the 
 delicate mucous membrane lining of nose, throat 
 and bronchial tubes, causing much catarrhal 
 trouble. Physicians whose specialty is diseases 
 of nose and throat look for many more cases of 
 "cold in the head," "sore throat" and bronchitis 
 after wind storms; chronic catarrh is aggravated 
 in dusty weather. Adenoids and adenoid con- 
 ditions, tonsilitis, tuberculosis and some other 
 germ diseases that aflfect the respiratory passages 
 develop more easily in this catarrhal tissue. 
 Autopsies show that city dwellers' lungs, instead 
 of a healthy pink, are more often a dirty dark 
 color like the lungs of those working in coal mines 
 and in other dusty occupations, with fibrous 
 thickenings and nodules where more or less 
 inflammatory changes have taken place. These 
 inflammations are not enough perhaps always to 
 make people ill in bed, but they lessen vitality 
 and predispose to disease. 
 
 This is one of the reasons why country life, 
 7 
 
98 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND 
 
 "other things being equal," is healthier than city 
 life where fifteen hundred times as many dust 
 particles float in the air we breathe. We have 
 spoken of the high death rate from tuberculosis 
 among teachers, and the very large amount of 
 tuberculosis among children that increases thru 
 school years, except among "open air school" 
 children. This street dust trackt and blown 
 in is an important part of such ill health, altho 
 not the whole cause. 
 
 Streets can injure health in another way, as we 
 found in our study of school fatigue last year. I 
 know a school placed in the sharp angle between 
 two streets paved with cobble stones over which 
 heavy wagons travel. The noise is so great that 
 teachers unconsciously develop unpleasant voices 
 in their efl'orts to be heard. Both teachers and 
 pupils feel the strain of this almost continuous 
 bombardment of their ears. Noisy and dusty 
 streets around schools are common. 
 
 We must aim to have some day soon every 
 school in the midst of grass, trees and gardens — 
 children's gardens which they care for as a part of 
 their education. We have the land, the money 
 and the children — everything but the intelligence 
 to so adjust them as to bring it about. This will 
 come after a few thousand — or must it be millions 
 — more lives have been sacrificed in teaching the 
 lesson. We shall arrive. 
 
 Meanwhile superintendents of streets, public 
 
CLEAN SCHOOLHOUSES 99 
 
 opinion and politics must be won over to the cause 
 of dustless, quiet highways around homes and 
 schools; it is also possible to have them around 
 many business places as a few are showing. 
 Mothers' clubs can do much to help this along. 
 One meeting every year with speakers from among 
 those directly working in the department of 
 streets of the local government, as well as from 
 among those interested in the health and in the 
 housekeeping sides, with a good account of it in 
 the newspapers, and with an active committee 
 that pushes the matter along even when not on 
 the program of a meeting, will accomplish things 
 worth while. Talking merely is not enough. 
 
 One topic might well be, "What is the least 
 dusty and noisy material for street paving?" 
 It is much more interesting than it sounds. I 
 remember a discussion on it among Boston physi- 
 cians a few years ago that was publisht in the 
 Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, August 2 
 and September 6, 1900. If it is not in the medical 
 library of the city, or cannot be borrowed from 
 one of the physicians, it can be bought for twenty 
 cents sent to the office of the Journal in Boston. 
 Mothers' clubs can make the subject so popular 
 that sensible articles may be found more often. 
 
 Another good topic is, "Shall we have oil or 
 water sprinkling?" Another is, "Shall street 
 cleaning be allowed when streets are dry?" There 
 are usually two sides (at least) to public questions. 
 
100 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND 
 
 and the wise club will hear both; but make up its 
 own mind in accordance with the interests of the 
 children and family. 
 
 Meanwhile, too, janitors with the extra work 
 caused by bad management of streets are not 
 only obliged to clean the inside of the buildings, 
 but like other housekeepers need to devise ways 
 for keeping out dust and mud. There is the 
 problem of door mats. What kind wears longest, 
 cleans shoes best, and can be kept cleanest? 
 Several have told me that woven wire mats are 
 best in these ways. Some janitors, on stormy 
 days, have brushes at the entrance for cleaning 
 shoes before children go in. The brush part of 
 old hair brooms removed from the handle and cut 
 in two brushes is economy and quite effective. 
 Here is another condition that provokes us to ask 
 about the Oriental custom of removing street 
 shoes and putting on house slippers at entrances. 
 Street shoes, long street skirts, and dirty streets 
 are a trio of nuisances that must be replaced by 
 clean practices. 
 
 Quite as important as the care of air after it 
 has come thru the cold air box is the kind of air 
 that comes thru it. There are cold air boxes 
 drawing their supply of "fresh" air from the level 
 of sidewalks and streets, and the pipe of the pass- 
 ing smoker is distinctly smelt in the house; if 
 tobacco smoke, then of course, any other smell 
 from passers-by is drawn in as well as dust. To 
 
CLEAN SCHOOLHOUSES 101 
 
 be sure there may not be disease germs in this 
 air, but is it what it should be for children's air 
 supply? It is not thought to be so, and architects 
 and builders writing on the subject positively 
 condemn such locating of the fresh air box. 
 
 Sometimes, as the quotation from the letter 
 testifies, the air is drawn from alleys where garbage 
 or other rubbish is kept. When cloth for sifting 
 air is placed over in-takes it quickly becomes heavy 
 with a blackish deposit. When air is washt by 
 spraying or by showers of water in certain ven- 
 tilating systems the washings make a muddy 
 stream whose "mud" might have gone in chil- 
 dren's lungs instead, as much goes. Builders of 
 schoolhouses say such systems should always be 
 used in soft coal cities, but are not so necessary 
 in anthracite cities; nevertheless several pails 
 of dirt — five I am told — were washt out of the 
 air in one week in a Brooklyn school standing in a 
 good neighborhood. 
 
 This leads us back again to the cleanliness of 
 streets and byways around the school. If any 
 mother does not know that the conditions are as 
 they should be around her own child's school, 
 perhaps those five pails of dirt may interest her 
 to find out. It is tempting Providence to com- 
 fortably assume in the face of such facts that 
 ofllcials care so much more than mothers about 
 mothers' own children. 
 
 Or it may be that the school yard itself is at 
 
102 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND 
 
 fault. Does the outlet for bad air empty in the 
 playground as this letter reports, or in some other 
 place where children get it directly? Is it a muddy 
 yard, or in some other way not fit for children's 
 use, and giving them a low ideal of what the 
 surroundings of the place they live in should be? 
 If so, mothers' clubs can " attain merit " by putting 
 it in good condition, as many clubs have already 
 done, and by encouraging children to do as much 
 of the work themselves as possible, and to keep 
 it as it should be. Some cities, Cleveland for 
 example, have beautiful settings of greenery for 
 all their schoolhouses in which children take great 
 pride and for whose good condition they feel 
 responsible. Most school yards are ugly. It is 
 not always money so much as it is brains that 
 is needed. Working on such an improvement 
 helps arouse interest in the need of larger, much 
 larger plots of land around schools. 
 
 Another not uncommon cause of schoolhouse 
 dirtiness is its standing directly in the path of the 
 prevailing winds bringing smoke from a factory 
 or other chimney. This increases the labor and 
 expense of keeping rooms and windows clean; or, 
 which is more usual, they are not kept clean, and 
 health suffers — a greater expense in the end. 
 Some such chimneys also send out injurious gases 
 and disagreeable odors. There are methods of 
 preventing all these defilements of the air we live 
 in — or die in. In a few places there are laws 
 
CLEAN SCHOOLHOUSES 103 
 
 requiring these methods to be used, but they are 
 rarely well enforced. Just as city fathers aUow 
 saloons, houses of ill-fame and the evils always 
 cropping out in their neighborhoods to educate 
 many children more hours in the year than do our 
 schools, so they allow dirty streets and business 
 methods to injure their physical health in the ways 
 we are considering. 
 
 There are American cities actually boasting of 
 the clouds of smoke overhanging them as a sign 
 of prosperity! It is, instead, testimony to being 
 behind the times. The blacker the smoke, the 
 greater economic waste, and waste of public 
 health as well. It is entirely possible to have 
 city air free from smoke. We must have suitable 
 legislation, health boards with power to enforce 
 these laws, and strong public opinion which 
 mothers should help in creating to keep health 
 boards up to their duties. Some useful facts are 
 to be found in "The Cure for the Smoke Evil," 
 by Herbert M. Wilson, Engineer in Charge, U.S. 
 Bureau of Mines, publisht in The American City, 
 June, 1911. The number also contains an article 
 on baths. 
 
 Clean streets and other surroundings are really 
 problems in city housekeeping, and seriously 
 affect housekeeping in homes and schools. Indif- 
 ference, ignorance or incapacity in city cleaning 
 waste an incalculable amount of labor, time, 
 health, happiness of those who try to keep homes 
 fit for growing citizens. 
 
104 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND 
 
 May 
 
 Schools and social centers 
 
 Besides dirty, bad smelling streets, byways or 
 yards, or lawless factory owners and incompetent 
 officials who allow these things, there is also 
 another item from outside that calls for foresight 
 to avoid its complicating the difficulties of clean 
 schoolhouses. 
 
 It is becoming known under the propaganda 
 for "The school as a social center" or "neighbor- 
 hood center," or "Wider use of the school plant." 
 It has so many good reasons for its development 
 that unless thinking people keep certain essential 
 rights of school children in mind, it will do much 
 harm that can be avoided by reasonable foresight 
 in the beginning. 
 
 We have approximately one billion dollars 
 invested in public school property, costing us 
 annually over $341,000,000 to operate. We use 
 this expensive department of the government not 
 more than six hours daily for 155 days, about 930 
 hours annually, less than a third of the time any 
 ordinary shop is open. 
 
 Many of our large business undertakings, 
 especially those of public utility such as trans- 
 oceanic or trans-continental carriers, employing 
 eight-hour (or other) shifts of men, operate 
 steadily twenty-four hours, 365 days in the year. 
 Others lie idle Sundays only, or Sundays and 
 nights. Others go on for eight, nine, ten hours, 
 
CLEAN SCHOOLHOUSES 105 
 
 six and a half days, for fifty two weeks in the year. 
 The contrast between the management of our 
 immense pubhc investment in schools and that of 
 private investments of even small amounts, or 
 that of some other public departments is great. 
 
 Idle buildings and idle rooms in buildings have 
 contributed to the apparent reluctance in some in- 
 stances with which appropriations for more build- 
 ings or for running expenses have been granted. 
 Thriftiness in these respects has seemed lacking. 
 It is wasteful not only of money, but it is wasteful 
 of opportunity to meet urgent public needs. 
 Except church property, which is likewise idle 
 the greater part of the time in spite of the increas- 
 ing demand for better moral education, there is 
 almost no investment in buildings lying unused 
 so large a proportion of the year. It is worth 
 more than passing notice that in these two costly 
 institutions so many people seem to like getting 
 so little for their money. The more holidays and 
 the shorter hours, the better. 
 
 These economic facts, together with the need 
 of meeting places for the population not in day 
 school, have led to the advocacy of using school 
 buildings for other than day pupils. Evening 
 schools and summer schools are becoming a part 
 of public school work and belong regularly in the 
 problem of school sanitation. 
 
 There are, however, certain irregular meetings 
 that have not so belonged — special political. 
 
106 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND 
 
 scientific, educational, philanthropic and social 
 meetings. Each succeeding year a larger number 
 of these are held in school buildings. 
 
 If such meetings do not detract from the regular 
 educational uses of the buildings, they should be 
 encouraged. But it is important to answer now, 
 in the beginning of this innovation, the question, 
 "Is the use of school buildings for other than day 
 and evening schools in any way detrimental to 
 these schools?" If it is so, in any way, the harm 
 must be stopt. We have already to make right 
 enough mistakes afiFecting children, of long stand- 
 ing in the schools and in the community, without 
 injuring them further by additional ones. Schools 
 have been their special sanctum, the one place 
 where professedly their rights are dominant. 
 
 From my own limited experience the answer 
 to the above question is undoubtedly yes. Such 
 use of school buildings in some instances has been 
 injurious in the matter of cleanliness (healthful- 
 ness), altho it is not inevitable that it should be 
 so. In widely separated localities I have found 
 the following examples of gross violation of chil- 
 dren's right to have clean rooms : 
 
 A political meeting Saturday, with the building 
 dirty and smelling of tobacco smoke Monday. 
 
 A monthly meeting during several years, with 
 rooms regularly saturated with tobacco smoke 
 during the next day. 
 
 A regular monthly banquet (after literary 
 
CLEAN SCHOOLHOUSES 107 
 
 exercises), with fragments, crumbs and the odor 
 of food in evidence at school the next day. 
 
 Occasional lectures or entertainments, with the 
 noise, dust and interruptions of preparation during 
 school hours. Children's own entertainments 
 create enough of this. 
 
 Floors not swept after public meetings and in 
 a condition such as no good housewife has at home. 
 
 Dried expectorated tobacco juice. 
 
 Dried sputum. 
 
 These items lead one to wonder further how 
 clean were the hands that left their memories 
 on the children's furnishings. 
 
 It should be said that there was no auditorium 
 in any of these schools. The public used the 
 classrooms. It would be absurd to claim that 
 these instances are all that have occurred, and 
 I doubt their rarity. Teachers understand that 
 in these matters, as in the regular conduct of 
 sanitary affairs, consistent and effective complain- 
 ing on their part makes them disliked and so 
 endangers their positions. Therefore they suffer 
 the consequences with the children. 
 
 These examples of conditions already resulting 
 from public use of school buildings are a fair 
 warning that we should provide a very much more 
 intelligent and eflScient care of rooms than we have 
 hitherto provided, and should do it before the 
 children are subjected to the conditions, instead of 
 
108 MOTHERS' CLUBS AND 
 
 after. They warn us that we may expect, if 
 we do not do this, that the greater use of the school 
 plant is to thwart our efforts in prevention of 
 tuberculosis, nervous disorders and other forms 
 of ill health that have been invited by public 
 schools in the past. 
 
 It is apparent that in this wider use of the school 
 plant by the public we are liable to infringe on 
 children's rights in the schools as we have in so 
 many other places. We have built cities where 
 they must live without safe spaces for play — the 
 child's normal method of character and health 
 building. We have churches with the children 
 an after-thought in the hands of unstandardized 
 volunteers, and very likely in a dim and unattrac- 
 tive basement. Our theatres, literature, press and 
 streets abound in evil lessons for children. The 
 majority of homes provide food, hours, rooms and 
 amusements for adult tastes, neglecting the things 
 good for children. 
 
 In view of these tendencies any slightest further 
 overstepping of the rights of children in the single 
 institution primarily dedicated to them is a matter 
 for jealous watchfulness. Mothers' clubs should 
 be trustworthy guardians to detect and prevent 
 it. 
 
 It is the greatest pity in the world that our 
 thousands of empty, idle, untaxt church build- 
 ings should not be used for all kinds of decent adult 
 meetings. Our courthouses, the assembly and 
 
CLEAN SCHOOLHOUSES 109 
 
 committee rooms of city hall and statehouse are 
 public property, as are often the lecture rooms in 
 libraries, museums, art galleries and the like. 
 There are many places built for public use by 
 adults that are unused evenings and Sundays. 
 Use them. 
 
Ill 
 
 SCHOOL JANITORS AND HEALTH 
 
 "Every sanitary precaution necessary in private homes 
 should be enforced many times more rigorously in school- 
 houses." — "American Schoolhouses," Bulletin United States 
 Bureau of Education 
 
 October 
 
 A billion dollars and all our children 
 
 The motif in Prevention of School Fatigue is the 
 imperative duty of cooperation between parents 
 and schools in health details for children, espe- 
 cially on the side of mothers. 
 
 In the discussion of Clean Schoolhouses is 
 urged the responsibility of mothers for the welfare 
 of their children wherever they may be in the com- 
 munity, with special reference to the housewifery 
 in our schools. Mothers cannot safely shuffle off 
 this God-given responsibility on teachers and 
 political officials, nor can fathers, as is shown by 
 our mortality and morbidity rates among children. 
 
 Women, by general consent the "home makers" 
 and "housekeepers," are guilty when shutting 
 their eyes to and withholding their labors from 
 111 
 
112 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 any dirty, dusty, bad smelling, overheated school- 
 room provided for our potential citizens and 
 parents during the best waking hours of their 
 most plastic years. 
 
 Ignorance of the sanitary conditions surround- 
 ing children is no excuse. Nature's laws of life 
 and death do not recognize it as one, but continue 
 on their way, blighting here, cutting off there, un- 
 til parents shall learn the lessons whose tuition 
 fees are paid in helpless lives, heartaches of guard- 
 ians not equal to the trust, and society's loss of 
 the service that might have been received in 
 return for intelligent — cleaning of schoolhouses; 
 such sweeping, dusting, scrubbing, heating, ven- 
 tilating, disinfecting, deodorizing, as all good 
 mothers know homes must have for health's sake. 
 
 I first read the sentence heading this article 
 when feeling particularly sceptical about mothers' 
 clubs. I had just been (1912) in a city where I 
 saw in its expensive ornamental normal school 
 building a Chipt Rusted Cup chained to a water 
 faucet, mixing salivas of all sorts of people in their 
 drinking water; this being the instruction in 
 practice to the supplementary mothers, the teach- 
 ers, who are supposed to be trained there to 
 guard safely the lives committed to their care. 
 
 In the principal square of the city was a drink- 
 ing fountain with a Chained Cup where I saw men 
 and boys mixing poisons and diseases. All three 
 school buildings that I visited had The Common 
 
AND HEALTH 113 
 
 Cup also, with the usual other insanitary practices 
 that go with this filthy one. 
 
 And the boast of this municipality is its wealth. 
 
 But the most discouraging part is still to tell. 
 This city has had for several years two large and 
 over twenty small mothers' clubs. Some of them 
 know what Professor Davison's pictures show on 
 The Common Cup, and know that all sanitary 
 authorities as well as their own good sense con- 
 sider it the nastiest habit we force on children 
 (and the public), one of the usual causes of 
 tuberculosis, syphilis, and every other disease 
 whose germs lodge in throat and mouth. 
 
 The clubs' programs are engaged with — well — 
 Child Psychology, and neglect the elementary 
 cleanliness that makes the good blood necessary 
 for the brain to work rightly. They talk about 
 Stories for Children, and Books for Children, and 
 Play for Children, and give children The Common 
 Cup that so often ends the need for stories and 
 books and play. 
 
 If they would spend on The Common Cup the 
 energy and money given to getting out one year's 
 program, they would justify their organizing, as 
 the program alone — words without works — does 
 not. To screw on a little bubble faucet in each 
 school, not forgetting the pretentious normal, 
 would save years of life — "monumentum aere 
 perennius." One member replied to my letter 
 
 of grief: "Mrs. is the wife of a member of 
 
 8 
 
114 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 the board of education, and is our chairman. She 
 would be much offended. We have talked these 
 things over among ourselves, and I think some- 
 thing should be done, and perhaps might be if we 
 tried." I wonder whether all the sins shifted on 
 "politics" really belong. 
 
 I wonder, too, when educators don't, and 
 "politicians" (fathers under another name) don't, 
 and mothers don't — I wonder whether trained 
 janitors would. Trained nurses bring about 
 many good things that doctors and politicians and 
 parents did not accomplish before we had training 
 schools. So do other trained workers in their 
 own fields. 
 
 We have more than a biUion dollars invested in 
 school property, and we are just now spending 
 about $70,000,000 annually in erecting new school- 
 houses. The care of all this we put in the hands 
 of men to whom we pay approximately $30,- 
 000,000 annually, not one of whom (if, by 
 chance there is one, it is the exception proving 
 the rule) is trained in sanitary care of school 
 premises before his first appointment. What 
 they have is pickt up information, the kind of 
 knowledge nurses had before training schools 
 were establisht. What they do is not what good 
 housekeepers allow in their housewifery, and is 
 measured by our vital statistics and educational 
 statistics. The oflBcials superintending them, 
 also, are not trained for their duties. 
 
AND HEALTH 115 
 
 But this is the least of the cost. We, knowing 
 that schoolrooms do not come up to the standards 
 of the best kept homes (and some of our best kept 
 homes in respect to health are among poor people), 
 knowing that dust, light, heat and air and disease 
 germs are under caretakers with no special train- 
 ing, few standards and little supervision, just 
 as it was with our nurses sixty years ago — we 
 place in these school homes the health of practi- 
 cally every citizen at his most critical age — that 
 of rapid physical growth, the age of laying founda- 
 tions of intelligence and morality. 
 
 We are frequently humiliated by learning how 
 poorly our vital statistics compare with those of 
 some European countries as well as our statistics 
 of crime, illiteracy, degeneracy, alcoholism, and 
 recent poverty. Among the lessons we find in 
 those countries bearing on the concerns of physi- 
 cal life is one that several educators and other 
 travellers have commented on, that schoolhouses 
 in Germany and elsewhere are much cleaner and 
 more sanitary than they commonly are with 
 
 us. 
 
 We train and test for efficiency, in other words 
 we standardize to some extent many other kinds 
 of civil service in which not so much money and 
 not nearly so much of national well-being is 
 involved, and we do it in many kinds of private 
 service. We pay janitors in many cities at 
 higher rates than we pay elementary teachers who 
 
116 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 spend so much time, money and effort on prepara- 
 tion and are regularly tested. 
 
 Attention has already been called to the death 
 rate from tuberculosis among teachers being 
 higher than the average of all other occupations. 
 In the administration of teachers' retirement 
 funds it is recently reported that only one-tenth 
 retire because of age. The other nine-tenths give 
 out because of physical and mental inefficiency, 
 nervous troubles and similar forms of ill health. 
 
 Among children there is a group of ailments 
 long recognized as "school diseases" of which we 
 have already spoken. They are chiefly anemia, 
 nervous disorders, heart troubles and defective 
 vision. It is now generally known that tuberculo- 
 sis increases thru school years and after until in 
 the twenties and thirties, the years of marriage 
 and parenthood, it is the commonest cause of 
 death. We have also referred to the fact that 
 it is latent in very many children, and liable to 
 become active on any slight depreciation of the 
 general health. 
 
 That conditions of schoolrooms promote these 
 national and local mortality and morbidity rates 
 has one proof in open air schools. Here, doing 
 the same work under the same teachers, every 
 delicate, anemic, tuberculous, nervous, backward 
 (selected) child, with no exception, has improved 
 in health, also in school work and often in grade, 
 at a more rapid rate than children in regular 
 
AND HEALTH 117 
 
 classrooms. These "occupational diseases" of 
 schools are fostered by too high temperatures, 
 too dry, stagnant, dusty indoor air. 
 
 Novemher 
 
 The great test 
 
 One test of the quality of janitor's work is the 
 health of teachers and children. There is another 
 very sensitive measurement of their work and 
 of the sanitary conditions of schools. 
 
 Schools do not exist simply to turn out children 
 from their grades, or fit them for college, or train 
 them to be good money makers after leaving 
 school. The true object — even if not yet gene- 
 rally reahzed — is to make good mothers and 
 fathers of better children. 
 
 The largest part of our strenuous social efforts 
 to lessen the world's misery is directed against 
 the unfitness of parents. Some of this unfitness 
 is poor health. Some is ignorance of healthful 
 ways of living, or it is wilful disobedience to laws 
 of health partly due to the tyranny of lifelong bad 
 habits. 
 
 The most sensitive measurement of the sanitary 
 conditions of schoolrooms is the rate at which 
 babies under one year of age die — what we call our 
 
118 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 infant mortality rate. This country stands far 
 ahead of other civiHzed countries in national 
 wealth. It stands, also, very high in crimes 
 against life. There is no country with such 
 terrible records of industrial accidents and railway 
 accidents; no country with such a rate of suicide 
 and murder. Nearly half of the suicides that have 
 occurred in the last fifty years have been in the 
 last ten. In some years we are having about 
 11,000 murders, the average is over 6,000 every 
 year, and we convict less than two murderers in 
 one hundred. Germany convicts ninety-five 
 in every hundred, and has few such crimes in 
 comparison with us. 
 
 The lives lost in any celebrated battle of history 
 were few compared with those destroyed annually 
 by violence and by preventable diseases. This 
 year will be the same. We anticipate it quietly. 
 But if a battle at Lawrence, for example, in con- 
 nection with the strike had killed — two — or ten, 
 it, too, would go down in history. Some day we 
 shall turn to the mortality records of our industrial 
 and civic struggles with horror, for they eclipse 
 those of war. 
 
 Of all our crimes against life the worst is our 
 infant mortality rate. By our most recent and 
 most favorable estimate we are about one-third 
 down the list of civilized countries that we lead 
 by such a generous margin in wealth. Another 
 estimates us twenty-second among the thirty-one. 
 
AND HEALTH 119 
 
 and other experts in vital statistics give us other 
 discreditable ranks. Our great wealth has not 
 saved the lives of babies and children. 
 
 Every patriotic man and woman and all who 
 reverence the life in a baby that has survived 
 thru generations vanishing into ages beyond our 
 knowledge — a trust from the infinite — knows 
 that we should be first in the list, and that there 
 should at least be no guessing about our rank. 
 We are the only civilized country that does not 
 keep official records of the birth of its citizens. 
 
 A few states and cities whose birth registration 
 is accepted tentatively by the Bureau of the 
 Census are required to come within only 10 per 
 cent of the truth, while other countries are 
 required to be within 5 per cent. 
 
 One interesting — very interesting fact in con- 
 nection with infant mortality rates as related 
 to schoolhouse keeping, and to women's responsi- 
 bility for children wherever they may be in the 
 community and responsibility for those social 
 evils that injure babies, is this : The eleven coun- 
 tries where children are best cared for are the 
 eleven where women have equal power with men 
 in controlling governmental and social practices, 
 thus being able to discharge their God-given 
 responsibility. According to the international 
 tables of vital statistics publisht by the Registrar- 
 General of births, deaths and marriages in Eng- 
 land and Wales the eleven countries with lowest 
 
120 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 death rates of infants and children under five 
 years of age are New Zealand, Norway, South 
 Australia, Tasmania, Queensland, Sweden, Vic- 
 toria, New South Wales, Denmark, Western 
 Australia and Finland. 
 
 This, interpreted, means that where women are 
 clear thinking enough to do their part, and men 
 fair minded enough to share the world's work on 
 equally advantageous terms, child life is safer 
 and humanity better. In all these eleven coun- 
 tries some of the recognized causes of infant 
 mortality are less. In several the use of alcoholic 
 drinks is under very much better control than 
 with us. Divorce statistics, the social evil and 
 poverty are less in some; industrial conditions 
 and education better regulated. In some health 
 oflScers and other sanitary workers are much more 
 often trained for their positions. 
 
 We have nine states now (1912) with 3,000,000 
 women having full citizenship's responsibility 
 for children: Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, 
 Washington, California, Kansas, Arizona and 
 Oregon. But their birth registration is not yet 
 near enough to accuracy to be accepted even ten- 
 tatively by the Bureau of the Census. 
 
 More than twice as many babies born alive 
 die annually as people at all ages from tuberculo- 
 sis. In the last ten years approximately two 
 million babies born alive have died under one year 
 of age. Four milhon children under five years 
 
AND HEALTH 121 
 
 of age have died in these ten years. Of the two 
 milUon babies, one-third of the deaths occurred 
 in the first month after birth. As many more 
 probably occurred at and just before birth; while 
 as many deaths probably occurred during the 
 four months before birth as in the first nine months 
 of the first year. 
 
 These deaths before birth and within a month 
 after are distinctly due to fathers and mothers who 
 have not given their children enough vitality to 
 survive. One exception to this statement would 
 be those deaths due to murder of the child before 
 it is born, whose number is not known, but is 
 large. Another exception is deaths due to im- 
 proper care of the new born. 
 
 After the first month deaths are more likely to 
 be due to bad care and to wrong environment, 
 or to accidents, or to crime. If the sanitary con- 
 ditions are so poor as to cause death, in so far 
 as health ideas and habits have been wrongly 
 formed at school, schools are responsible — such 
 habits as becoming accustomed to dusty, dirty, 
 badly ventilated, overheated rooms, and so having 
 them at home. It is a cause of death for a baby 
 to live in a too hot room, with perhaps steam and 
 dust, and too much clothing on. 
 
 And in so far as schools have promoted in future 
 parents the "school diseases," anemia, nervous 
 disorders, catarrhal and tuberculous conditions, 
 by overheated, dusty, arid air (which will be bad 
 
122 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 in other ways if bad in these), all which details 
 are in the care of janitors, our infant mortality 
 rate becomes an index of our school sanitation. 
 It is, indeed, an index of civilization itself. If 
 babies were well borti and well cared for their 
 death rate would be almost negligible. This 
 means that the infant mortality rate measures the 
 intelligence, right living and health of fathers and 
 mothers; the standards of sanitation and morals 
 of communities and governments; the efficiency 
 of physicians, health boards, educators — and 
 janitors. Our measurement we have seen is 
 poor. 
 
 The Boston A.C.A. 
 
 The first people in this country to appreciate 
 the importance of cleanliness of schoolhouses 
 enough to really study it, spending money, labor, 
 time and intelligent, even expert effort on the 
 details, were, so far as I can learn, educated 
 "home makers" — the Boston Branch of the Asso- 
 ciation of Collegiate Alumnae. In this, as in so 
 many other vital concerns of homes and schools, 
 Mrs. Ellen H. Richards was an inspiring guide, 
 serving as a sanitary expert from the Massachu- 
 setts Institute of Technology. 
 
 The work was organized very thoughtfully and 
 efficiently. The cooperation was secured of the 
 mayor, the president of the school board, superin- 
 
AND HEALTH 123 
 
 tendent of schools, supervisors and teachers, chief 
 inspector of pubHc buildings in the state, chairman 
 of the board of health, custodian of buildings 
 and, besides Mrs. Richards, two other experts 
 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 
 S. Homer Woodbridge, professor of heating and 
 ventilation, directed the technical investigations 
 of heating and ventilating apparatus, and of 
 plumbing, made by paid inspectors. It was 
 volunteer work for the good of the children — and 
 the nation. 
 
 They systematicly investigated and took notes 
 on several hundred details. This account will 
 review only some of those directly concerned 
 with janitors' work as it affects health. They did 
 not take any one's word for any housewifery that 
 they could learn by their own personal observa- 
 tion. This is a very right policy, for rules are one 
 thing, the methods of carrying them out in school 
 housekeeping, as in one's own housekeeping, are 
 quite another. Official replies to questionnaires 
 are — official. 
 
 Another strong point is that they did not drop 
 the work after making their first report. In two 
 years, after the city had expended the special 
 appropriations amounting to about $400,000, as 
 well as their regular annual appropriations for 
 repairs, they took it up again with equal thoroness 
 and reported on oversights — true housekeepers' 
 system that all municipal sanitation needs. They 
 
124 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 found a considerable portion of the appropriations 
 had been misspent according to amateurs' ideas, 
 instead of according to the advice of sanitary- 
 experts — the real economy and effectiveness. 
 
 The later reviews of the ground showed some 
 improvements following each investigation. But 
 Boston has not yet "arrived" in the matter of 
 clean schoolhouses. There is still more for the 
 "natural housekeepers " who have been scientificly 
 trained in housewifery to do there and in every 
 other city, or our tuberculosis and infant mortality 
 rates would not be so high. Another good 
 result was that their work being so sensibly done 
 inspired other branches of the Collegiate Alumnse 
 to study the schools in their cities in similar 
 fashions, and their reports produced local effects 
 of more or less value. 
 
 December 
 
 And Janitors' Rules 
 
 One of the interesting discoveries made quite 
 generally wherever the college women undertook 
 this study was that the requirements for clean- 
 liness in schoolhouses, which were sometimes, as 
 in Boston, inadequate, were not lived up to. 
 
 In Boston their report stated that while it was 
 
AND HEALTH 125 
 
 provided that stairs and passageways be swept 
 daily, and the rooms twice a week (imagine a home 
 with a few score or hundred children swept that 
 often), in over half the schools the halls were swept 
 only twice a week instead of daily, in two it was 
 done but once a week, and in one only once a 
 month. 
 
 Entries, stairs, rails and furnishings were to be 
 dusted every morning; but it was found that 
 classrooms were dusted less often than once a 
 week by eight janitors, only twice a week by 
 eighty, daily by teachers or pupils or janitors in 
 fifty-two schools, and daily by janitors according 
 to the rules in only forty-three of the 193 schools 
 studied. 
 
 There was a rule that desks, seats and wood- 
 work be cleaned whenever necessary. Twenty- 
 one janitors thought it was never necessary and 
 had never done it; twenty -four had done it once; 
 fifteen had done it rarely; twenty-one did it 
 occasionally; twelve, twice a year; ten, oftener, 
 while in sixty schools all such cleaning was done 
 in the long vacations. 
 
 Janitors' standards of housekeeping set more 
 home standards and habits of cleanliness and 
 healthful living thruout the country than any 
 other one agency. It is chiefly violation of laws 
 of cleanliness and health in schools, at home and 
 in the community that kills children of any age. 
 These housekeepers whose studies we are dis- 
 
126 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 cussing, and who found that even poor rules 
 (such as no good housekeeper would have) were 
 not lived up to, had and have no power to use their 
 housekeeping ability on this important problem 
 for the good of the state that educated them. 
 This is foolish economics. 
 
 There were no rules (1895) requiring floors to 
 be washt. From 9 to 50 years the floors had not 
 been washt in 77 buildings! They were washt 
 seldom in 12 buildings; once a year in 15; twice 
 a year in 18; three times a year in 8; oftener 
 than three times a year in 5. They were all 
 floors so finisht as to permit washing — and invite 
 it. Washing, as we have seen in Clean School- 
 houses, is not the best treatment of floors with 
 certain finishes that need other care. Whatever 
 the finish, the text heading the beginning of this 
 subject stands. 
 
 Ten years later there were still no rules requiring 
 floors washt, and the great majority of the floors 
 were as one would expect. But in 1905 there was 
 some improvement in requirements for sweeping, 
 altho the quality of the sweeping was not held up 
 to good housekeeping standards, and the new 
 rules were not always obeyed. Schoolrooms not 
 used for kindergartens, manual training, evening 
 classes and lectures were still to be swept only 
 twice a week; the others, daily; and all were to 
 have fortnightly sweeping with sawdust wet with 
 a solution of formaldehyde. The door knobs and 
 
AND HEALTH 127 
 
 hand rails were to be washt twice a month with a 
 solution of formaldehyde, and the seats and desks 
 of all having a contagious disease were to be 
 washt with a similar solution; all wood-work was 
 required to be washt once or twice a year. 
 
 These rules are the record of ten years' prog- 
 ress on these points in school administration. 
 They show a limited amount of interest and capa- 
 city. Their requirements from the viewpoint 
 of eflScient housekeepers are not sufficient either 
 in quality or quantity. 
 
 The parents who in those ten years lost probably 
 ten thousand children under ten years of age who 
 died unnecessarily, and the parents whose living 
 children were hindered by altho surviving the 
 causes that helpt destroy the ten thousand 
 should regard anything less than excellence in 
 school housekeeping a crime against childhood, 
 motherhood and the state. The children are 
 helpless, and the unfranchised mothers who are 
 housekeepers and caretakers of children by com- 
 mon consent. The statistics of ill health among 
 teachers make all this quite as much a vital 
 matter to them, all of whom are also politically 
 powerless. 
 
128 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 January 
 
 Measuring dirt on windows 
 
 Another study made by these women was of 
 schoolhouse window cleaning. The requirement 
 was that windows should be washt twice a year. 
 The question they wisht to answer was whether 
 under this rule there were any schools where dirt 
 accumulated on the windows in sufficient quantity 
 to diminish light to the point of injuring vision. 
 
 With a photometer they measured the amount 
 of hght entering before and after washing the 
 windows on one side and on both sides. They 
 arrived at interesting facts and practical conclu- 
 sions. 
 
 When this committee used a photometer to 
 measure the amount of light coming thru windows 
 in their study of housecleaning they were helping 
 an important step forward for children. They 
 were measuring with an instrument of precision, 
 instead of expressing opinions which so often 
 differ, with every one "a right to his own" — a 
 dangerous maxim applied to cleanliness. 
 
 We measure heat by thermometers, and that 
 is the only accurate (when instruments are so) 
 test of school housekeeping thus far adopted. It 
 does not yet amount to as much as it should, for 
 several reasons. 
 
 Very recently a teacher informed me that for 
 four weeks an hourly record of her thermostat had 
 been kept by the children. It never read under 
 
AND HEALTH 129 
 
 72°! It was frequently 76°. It appalls one to 
 think of the "red tape" that maintains a tempera- 
 ture at or above 72° to the second hour after the 
 first has discovered it. Here were almost 140 
 hours — one eighth of the school year — of "laying 
 foundations " in education and in our tuberculosis 
 rate, with the end of the overheating not yet in 
 sight. Her city's "Rules for Janitors" requires 
 70°, which is two higher than in up-to-date rules. 
 Instruments of precision are waste of public 
 funds if not lived up to, and if not kept accurate 
 by occasional standardizing, as we regulate school 
 clocks. 
 
 For studying window cleaning the schools were 
 groupt in three classes. Those of the best class 
 were all situated on high ground where no struc- 
 tures (or trees, I assume) shaded the windows. 
 They were built according to modern ideas of 
 maximum window area (one-fourth of floor area), 
 with ventilating systems supplying "sufficient" 
 pure air (30 cubic feet per minute for each person), 
 and with the proper number of pupils in each 
 room (forty-five). 
 
 The buildings of the worst class were located 
 where there was a great deal of smoke, dust and 
 other impurities in the air. They were surrounded 
 by tall buildings and by alleys not more than 
 twenty feet wide. They were old, with insufficient 
 window area, practically no ventilating systems, 
 and gaslight was frequently used in the daytime. 
 
130 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 Even today city authorities sometimes erect new 
 buildings near walls, or allow walls to be placed 
 so close that gaslight is needed in the day schools. 
 Since fathers (the politicians) will do this, mothers 
 owe it to their children to make matters better. 
 
 The buildings of the intermediate class were 
 surrounded by streets of medium width, and 
 buildings whose height averaged less than the 
 height of the school building, on one side perhaps 
 higher, on the other much lower. Their window 
 area was somewhat less than it should be; the 
 ventilation "fair" (a matter of opinion, I suppose) ; 
 smoke and other impurities in the air of the neigh- 
 borhood were "present in average quantities." 
 
 The tests were made on dull, overcast days when 
 the intensity of light was quite constant. The 
 poor light of such days must be provided against 
 in schoolhouse construction. They measured the 
 light in rooms with different exposures in each 
 building, before the windows were washt, after 
 washing them on the inside, and after washing 
 them on both sides. 
 
 In the best buildings they found that the light 
 was about 4 per cent stronger after washing 
 windows on the inside; and after washing them 
 on both sides it was about 2 per cent better than 
 that. It varied a little of course between different 
 rooms. 
 
 In the worst buildings they found that before 
 washing the windows the light measured one- 
 
AND HEALTH 131 
 
 twelfth to one-nineteenth as much as that in the 
 best buildings. It gained 21 per cent, or there- 
 abouts, after washing on the inside, and gained 
 about 6 per cent more after washing on both 
 sides. One room gained 33.3 per cent after the 
 windows were washt on both sides. 
 
 Try to follow in imagination the logical steps 
 from the compulsory law taking children away 
 from their parents into rooms with one-fifth to 
 one-third of the light cut off by dirt on windows 
 which at their best give only one-tenth to one- 
 seventeenth the amount of light thought by 
 experts to be desirable for the best buildings; 
 follow on in thought to the listlessness, headaches, 
 loss of grades — "backwardness" — that we dis- 
 cust in Prevention of School Fatigue; and then on 
 to perhaps the career of " Weary Willies " or worse, 
 or to useful citizens forever hampered morally and 
 mentally by imperfect vision, unless they happen 
 to discover that they need glasses. No one 
 wants to spend money on glasses or to be bothered 
 with them even when old age is a legitimate 
 reason. There is also the fact that good light 
 is essential for general health, including health of 
 the nervous system. 
 
 The intensity of light before washing windows 
 in the intermediate class of buildings measured 
 about one-half that in the best group, and gained 
 more than twice as much as they gained after 
 washing on the inside, and nearly twice as much 
 
132 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 after washing on both sides. That is, the windows 
 of the intermediate and worst classes were much 
 dirtier both outside and inside, needing washing 
 oftener. 
 
 Their measurements showed also that in the 
 same building some rooms must have their 
 windows washt oftener than others to maintain 
 sufficient illumination for reading without eye- 
 strain. It is with windows as with management 
 of children, "wholesale" rules treating all of a 
 group alike, do not produce the results we are 
 after. 
 
 In the best class dirt does not accumulate 
 on windows enough to make the reduction of 
 light of any importance. Yet, because they are 
 "prominent" buildings, they almost always have 
 more and better janitor service. 
 
 It was found that the inside cleaning makes 
 a much greater improvement than the outside 
 cleaning, particularly in buildings with poor 
 ventilation. The moisture and organic material 
 given off from children, with the dust of the 
 rooms and impurities of city air, make a deposit 
 on walls and windows. This helps to create 
 smells as well as to diminish light. A good 
 ventilating system would have sufficient air cur- 
 rents to sweep some of this out of doors, if windows 
 and flues were used effectively. 
 
 They could not remove all, for even out of doors 
 in smoky districts, as the coke burning regions 
 
AND HEALTH 133 
 
 of Pennsylvania, or as in large manufacturing 
 cities, vegetation is covered with a deposit that 
 frequently rain does not wash ofiF. This, with the 
 sulphuric acid in smoky air, prevents or greatly 
 hinders school gardens, home gardens, and the 
 beauties of field and forest. In London they are 
 studying how to save the stones of which West- 
 minster Cathedral is built from this destructive 
 action whose effects are already serious. Just 
 where people and children come in is another 
 story. 
 
 In schoolrooms where the deposit can be washt 
 from windows and scraped from walls, the condi- 
 tions blight children and teachers — eventually the 
 nation that compels or permits them. Undoubt- 
 edly such schoolroom air helps cause the dis- 
 colored noduled lungs found at autopsies which 
 are spoken of in another connection. Since in 
 the open air this unwholesomeness exists, evidently 
 to establish good school ventilation is not the 
 whole problem. Another step is to enact and 
 enforce legislation compelling captains of indus- 
 tries to cease contaminating the atmosphere with 
 smoke and other impurities that damage public 
 health quite as definitely as allowing sewage to 
 escape into the common water supply. 
 
 Two weeks after all the windows had been 
 washt on both sides the light was measured 
 again. It was found that windows in the inter- 
 mediate class had grown three times dirtier than 
 
134 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 those in the best; while windows in the worst 
 class had grown six times dirtier. Should this 
 suggest a rule that janitors wash windows in the 
 dirtiest, darkest rooms six times oftener than in 
 the brightest and best ventilated, and three 
 times oftener in the average rooms? 
 
 February 
 
 And "dipping" 
 
 In Boston at that time it cost over $11,000 to 
 wash all the windows twice a year, this investigat- 
 ing committee reported. It must cost more now. 
 This expense for light reminds me of Mark Twain's 
 "Truth is the most precious thing in the world, 
 and therefore we must be very economical in the 
 use of it." We have been economizing in both 
 kinds of "precious" light — physical light as well 
 as mental light. 
 
 Should windows acquiring a certain amount 
 of dirt, say six times more quickly than others, 
 be washt six times oftener? This means six 
 times the cost to the city, or some other propor- 
 tion that would annually amount to several 
 thousand dollars in the larger cities. 
 
 To answer yes would be in accordance with the 
 philosophy of political administration in numerous 
 
AND HEALTH 135 
 
 directions. For example, we derive an income 
 ("license fees") from the sale of intoxicants which 
 we spend many times over in "curing, " "prevent- 
 ing," "punishing" the logical results. We allow 
 "red light" neighborhoods and unsanitary housing 
 conditions yielding good percentage on the invest- 
 ment (or they would not flourish so generally), 
 and we spend the resulting income, taxes, fines, 
 hush monies, for reformatories, police, courts, 
 lawyers and judges. I speak only of the financial 
 waste in these illustrations of many similar fool- 
 ishnesses, leaving human waste to recollection and 
 to study of the volumes of the Census. 
 
 There is a story going of a test for feeble-minded- 
 ness used in a hospital : After turning on the water 
 in a bathtub, the patient is given a dipper and 
 told to empty it. Those who are sufficiently 
 intelligent begin by shutting off the water, the 
 others only dip. 
 
 We desperately need intelligence equal to find- 
 ing out and shutting off the cause of the wrongs, 
 immorality and ill health we are trying to get 
 rid of by merely dipping. Spending money on 
 extra window washings would be merely dipping, 
 for these women studying conditions had found 
 out that bad ventilation, befouled city atmos- 
 phere, over-crowding and bad building were the 
 cause of the bad illumination, as well as of other 
 serious menaces to health. 
 
 That politicians neglect the sanitation of schools 
 
136 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 is no excuse for mothers doing so. Society 
 insists that they are the caretakers of children. 
 The Creator holds them so with his laws of birth, 
 life and death. Housekeeping belongs to woman 
 — and she shirks. 
 
 Here is the result of the shirking by women in 
 Michigan. The State Board of Health has 
 recently publisht some facts from a study of 
 tuberculosis among teachers. Michigan ought 
 to be one of our healthiest states, with no great 
 cities and their abnormal crowding to depreciate 
 vital statistics. 
 
 Of the deaths between twenty-five and thirty- 
 four years of age among all people in Michigan 
 during certain years, one quarter (25.8 per cent) 
 was due to tuberculosis; but among teachers it 
 was over one-half (52.4 per cent). Among all 
 ages only one-eleventh (9.4 per cent) of the 
 general death rate was due to tuberculosis, but 
 among teachers the rate was three times greater 
 (27.6 per cent). 
 
 It is probably as bad if not worse in each state 
 where there is a mothers' club and teachers' 
 association, for the Michigan figures reflect the 
 statistics of the Bureau of the Census for the 
 whole country concerning teachers and tuberculo- 
 sis. The same conditions that invite it in teachers 
 invite it in their pupils. Teachers (mostly 
 women) and mothers are as helpless to control 
 this sort of housekeeping as are the children. 
 
AND HEALTH 137 
 
 They are all clast together politically, as idiots, 
 minors, women, criminals, etc., and yet the state 
 has put millions of dollars into the education of 
 these teachers and mothers whom it refuses 
 authority in their own special business, care of 
 children and housewifery. 
 
 Janitors wholly untrained in sanitary house- 
 keeping, supervisors and politicians also untrained, 
 make these conditions inviting disease and death 
 for those who are at their mercy poUtically and 
 legally. Why? Because so many women are 
 willing to let it be so. That is the chief reason. 
 
 The standards of mothers have not kept pace 
 with the needs of the century. The good mothers 
 of one hundred or two hundred years ago under- 
 stood their duties more in accordance with the 
 needs of children, especially with that need for 
 mothers' protection as well as fathers' in all the 
 interests of youth. 
 
 The old house with fertile acres around it — 
 "home" — furnisht food, shelter, work, recreation, 
 education, under the supervision of the mother 
 quite as much as of the father. There were weak 
 points, but not those requiring juvenile and divorce 
 courts, organized charities and regiments of social 
 workers. These new institutions betray the 
 weaknesses in mothers and fathers — children's 
 needs are the same. I am reminded of a protest- 
 ing mother: "Oh, Doctor, castor oil is such 
 an old-fashioned thing for the baby!" "And, 
 
138 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 Madam, babies are very old-fashioned things, 
 too." 
 
 Youth needs, and has a right to it to-day 
 exactly as of old, mothers' as well as fathers' con- 
 trol of their work-places, whether factory, shop, 
 oflSce; of their place of education and places of 
 entertainment, whether theatre, show or rink; and 
 of their comings and goings between these inter- 
 ests, the city streets — formerly all a part of home. 
 
 The house for eating, sleeping and waiting for 
 school hours, work hours, outside fun, does not 
 correspond to the original conception of home, 
 which was "village" or "estate" (on which 
 villages would be). Webster gives this meaning 
 as obsolete, and gives the first modern synonym 
 of home, "tenement." With tenements for homes 
 ("the mothers' place") have come juvenile courts 
 and all the other methods of "dipping." 
 
 We must restore the true conception of home, 
 the house and its sustaining environment all under 
 mothers' as well as fathers' control for the good of the 
 children. The twentieth century city is the 
 twentieth century home. Its details affect chil- 
 dren after the same old-fashioned laws. Mothers 
 are as essential as fathers in managing homes. 
 
 Since motherhood implies nourishing and pro- 
 tecting after birth, mothers even more than 
 fathers are responsible for allowing caretakers 
 to maintain school conditions injurious to chil- 
 dren's and teachers' health to the extent that 
 
AND HEALTH 139 
 
 statistics show existing and also show preventable. 
 That men are not doing well this ages long wo- 
 man's work of housekeeping, home making, care 
 of children, willing tho they are to shoulder it 
 all, is because they cannot today any more than 
 in the days when mothers willingly attended to it. 
 Between the woman's shirking and the man's 
 inability pupils and teachers are helpless in their 
 roles inviting tuberculosis, infant mortality, and 
 other vital rates disgracing us among the peoples 
 of the world. 
 
 In addition to this study of lighting and of 
 removal of dirt and dust made by the Boston 
 women, they had studies also made of school 
 dust bacteria. Only occasional contagious disease 
 germs are found in dust, as we have already 
 learned, drying and light killing most of these 
 bacteria very soon. Pus forming germs however 
 are in great abundance. Their studies of dust 
 were chiefly valuable as suggesting the amount 
 of dirt. They found that after sweeping with 
 damp sawdust, the numbers of micro-organisms 
 were very little reduced, except as the quantity 
 of dust removed carried them with it; but when 
 the sawdust was moistened with a solution of 
 formaldehyde nearly all bacteria were destroyed 
 in cultures made from the floor dust immediately 
 after. 
 
 They investigated oil dust layers, the kerosene 
 dustless broom of which we have spoken, and 
 
140 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 vacuum cleaning; door mats and shoe brushes. 
 They measured air currents in ventilating shafts 
 with an anemometer, another pioneer use of an 
 instrument of precision in school sanitation. In 
 sixteen buildings they found the ventilating shaft 
 ended in the attic, which in some cases was kept 
 closed, or it connected with the outer air only 
 thru ventilators in the roof. In some cases the 
 ventilating shafts from water-closets and from 
 classrooms ended out of doors at the same point, 
 so that when there was a back draft into the room, 
 perhaps caused by the wind, it carried with it the 
 foul air from sanitaries. They re-discovered 126 
 schools whose sanitaries had been repeatedly con- 
 demned by the city board of health, with recom- 
 mendations that they be abolisht. 
 
 They investigated playgrounds, also, and among 
 various items found 136 with 346 cesspools, 9 
 cesspools having no sewer connection, 29 being 
 for sewage, the others for surface water; all were 
 cleaned very irregularly, only 7 as often as twice 
 a year, and 10 schools reported they were never 
 cleaned. 
 
 They investigated fire escapes and found 
 equally reckless indifference to the safety of 
 children. But these are "other stories," not 
 janitors' work. They are significant of what 
 awaits mothers who look out for their children's 
 welfare, for conditions corresponding to these are 
 found wherever any sanitary study has been 
 undertaken. 
 
AND HEALTH 141 
 
 They had an exhibit showing local conditions, 
 data collected from other cities, standards of 
 sanitation, apparatus and methods, with many 
 more items. It was an extremely interesting 
 occasion, instructive and stimulating as well; the 
 first and thus far the only school housecleaning 
 exhibit in the country. Mothers' clubs with the 
 assistance of capable workers can render a very 
 great service that is waiting for some one to per- 
 form in their community, if they make honest 
 studies of school cleanliness and bring them to 
 pubhc attention. 
 
 The State Commissioner of Health of Pennsyl- 
 vania inspected 3,572 country schools during this 
 last school year (1911-1912), and reports only 536 
 in a sanitary condition. There are 3,036 — more 
 than five-sixths of the inspected schools — pro- 
 nounced unsanitary. Mothers are all around each 
 of these schools sending their children to them — 
 and doing nothing about these things. If they 
 were doing what they should, and doing it earn- 
 estly, the unsanitary conditions certainly would not 
 have waited to be discovered by an official investi- 
 gator from outside the community. Other equally 
 serious reports of the sanitary conditions of other 
 groups of schools are to be found in the annual 
 reports of the Commissioner for 1907, 1908, 1909, 
 and in 1910 when publisht. The schools in 
 Pennsylvania are no worse than in other states. 
 Pennsylvania has the advantage of a Department 
 
142 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 of Health that understands this is one of the most 
 fundamental matters in public health work. 
 
 March 
 
 Another study of schoolrooms 
 
 This persistent and intelligent study by college 
 women in Boston, and their frank admission that 
 Boston's methods were especially poor as com- 
 pared with the methods officially reported in 
 several hundred schools in a score of large cities 
 stimulated, as already said, similar studies within 
 those ten years. With no exception thruout 
 the country the ignorance and indifference of 
 officials and parents concerning children's sanitary 
 surroundings at school were confirmed. 
 
 "Officially reported" — reports on cleanliness 
 and sanitation, like reports on classwork and 
 finances, unless details are standardized by 
 accurate measurements and records, are of little 
 value. We have seen that official rules are not 
 lived up to, a fact that official reports do not make 
 known, except official reports of medical inspec- 
 tors and nurses, of health officials and our Bureau 
 of the Census, all of which tell us sad facts of 
 preventable ill health and death among school 
 children. 
 
AND HEALTH 143 
 
 Regular observations, measurements and rec- 
 ords are the only reliable basis for school sani- 
 tation, standardizing physical conditions as we 
 are beginning to standardize mental acquire- 
 ments, and have long standardized details involv- 
 ing money interests. It is in this direction, 
 measuring sanitary details by instruments of 
 precision and keeping records, that we are now 
 growing. 
 
 A study was recently made of a large school in 
 the neighborhood of a great university from which 
 this kind of wisdom is at last beginning to over- 
 flow. It was made by one of the students in its 
 college of education. There are universities with- 
 out enough such wisdom to overflow, if one may 
 judge from the conditions of schoolhouses in their 
 shadow. There is always at hand abundance of 
 "clinical material" in school sanitation for every 
 institution training teachers. Mothers' clubs 
 must ask them, and must keep on asking them 
 until the results wanted are secured, for it does 
 them good, as well as the unsanitary schools, when 
 they come out of their laboratories and round 
 tables and do real things, adapting scientific 
 and theoretic studies to the needs of the commu- 
 nity that sustains them. 
 
 This study began with grounds and buildings, 
 and among other things found that trees shaded 
 the windows cutting off necessary illumination, 
 and that the school was directly in the path of 
 
144 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 the prevailing wind bringing disagreeable odors 
 from a gas plant. No shrewd citizen would build 
 even a little $5,000 home for himself and children 
 in such a location, nor permit the erection of a 
 gas plant to become a nuisance. But for many 
 years those citizens had thought it good enough 
 for children and teachers — ^helpless to escape and 
 disciplined for complaining. 
 
 Many details of heating and ventilating were 
 bad. One discovery was literally amazing. There 
 was found an unknown "aspirating chimney". 
 Years before, in renewing the heating apparatus, 
 flues for the outlet of foul air had been opened 
 from each room into a central chimney, and a 
 small stove placed in the basement at the bottom 
 of the chimney. 
 
 The heat from the stove sweeping up thru such 
 a chimney to escape at the top sucks air from the 
 rooms, carrying off some bad air, drawing heat 
 into the rooms from registers, and creating air 
 currents that make rooms much more comfortable. 
 The principal and janitor, and the unsalaried 
 school officials knew nothing of this good help 
 to ventilation which taxpayers' money had 
 provided, there had never been a fire in the stove, 
 and what the teachers and children endured will 
 be learned when the measurements are told. 
 
 There was absolutely no reasonable excuse for 
 this neglect. It was biologicly criminal; but 
 civil laws do not make it so, as they do not make 
 
AND HEALTH 145 
 
 many other slow injuries of children with bad air. 
 They are just beginning to take up the slow 
 poisonings of workers by phosphorus and lead in 
 certain occupations. After a while the children's 
 turn will come, perhaps not today's children in 
 which some of us are interested; they will go the 
 way of the others, taking chances with tuberculo- 
 sis, anemia and all the rest. The as yet unborn 
 children that survive to school days will have 
 good housekeeping at school, if mothers say so, and 
 stick to it. 
 
 A member of a mothers' club that is working on 
 school housecleaning matters tells me that they 
 also have found the same kind of unused ventilat- 
 ing chimney in one of their schools. We may 
 justly blame principals, janitors and other city 
 officials ; but in the end, however, it is the indiffer- 
 ence, and negUgence of fathers and mothers, es- 
 pecially mothers, and most especially organized 
 mothers in these two cities, for one is in the 
 state of New York where women have tax- 
 paying and school suffrage; while the other is 
 in Massachusetts where women have school 
 suffrage. That the New York condition was 
 discovered and promptly remedied was due to a 
 university student — not to the interested mother 
 of any pupil in the school; the Massachusetts flue 
 is waiting for something to turn up. 
 
 An anemometer is a Uttle wheel so constructed 
 as to whirl in currents of air. There is a scale 
 10 
 
146 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 to measure the rate of whirling, that is, the 
 strength of the current of air. This student 
 found that the anemometer did not turn in any 
 of the foul air flues — there was no air going out. 
 Any ventilating flue can be tested by an anemome- 
 ter. It does not cost much, and any club can 
 provide one for the use of its schools. 
 
 School officials are quite apt to point out their 
 flues for ventilation, and quite as apt not to 
 know whether there are any air currents or suffi- 
 cient air currents passing thru them. The 
 currents may be by accident inward instead of 
 outward. This was sometimes the case in a 
 certain very expensive "system of ventilation" 
 that was installed in many schools a few years ago. 
 The system ventilated the water-closets and rooms 
 thru the same or connecting flues, and when things 
 were not just right down below or up above the 
 current blew into the rooms instead of out! 
 
 That system is gone by, and we are spending 
 more hundreds of thousands on others that require 
 windows to be "hermetically sealed." But we are 
 getting around that by all teachers in a building 
 agreeing to open their windows at exactly the 
 same moment every hour for five minutes, all 
 flushing out their rooms together (thus not up- 
 setting the direction of air currents in the "sys- 
 tem" to the disadvantage of certain rooms) — 
 flushing with the kind of air we were given to 
 breathe all the time. 
 
AND HEALTH 147 
 
 This is one step in advance. Open air rooms is 
 another. The "just as good" air reminds one 
 of the patent medicines that people pay many 
 times more for than they would pay for the same 
 drugs put up by the pharmacist, and that are 
 claimed to be "just as good" as the real thing 
 which they often are not. 
 
 A very expensive instrument, requiring delicate 
 handling, was used to measure the carbon dioxid 
 in the air of these rooms, the Pettersson-Palm- 
 qvist apparatus. When school opened there was 
 the proper amount of carbon dioxid in the air, 4 
 parts of the gas in 10,000 parts of air, as out of 
 doors. Several measurements at different hours 
 showed that it increast very rapidly, in a few 
 minutes being 10 parts, instead of 4, and growing 
 until it was 20 or 24 or even 29 parts. Different 
 rooms measured differently. These high tests 
 mean that pupils breathed nearly all day what is 
 called "very bad air" technically by engineers. 
 It is not the carbon dioxid that does the harm; 
 but it is the conditions that so much carbon 
 dioxid means. 
 
 One thing it shows is that there are no air 
 currents blowing out stale air and blowing in 
 fresh. All the air breathed, or at least very much 
 of it, hes stagnant to be breathed again. That 
 accounts for the bad smells in all such rooms, odors 
 from the breath, mouth, clothing and bodies. 
 We do not yet know all about the effects of this 
 rebreathed air on children during school years. 
 
148 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 Professor C.-E. A. Winslow, in Proceedings of 
 the National Education Association, 1911, which the 
 public library or some teacher has in every com- 
 munity, tells of experiments proving the untruth 
 of the old idea that carbon dioxid is poisonous in 
 our rooms; proving that it never can accumulate 
 in an ordinary room in sufficient quantity to do 
 harm. Experiments were tried where the gas was 
 sixty times more than in outside air, but so long as 
 the chamber was cool there was no discomfort, and 
 the people experimented on continued with their 
 work. 
 
 When the temperature got up in the seventies 
 and eighties, where it very often is in our schools, 
 then the discomfort was great, being shown by 
 flusht and perspiring faces and great restlessness. 
 When the electric fan was started, blowing over 
 and cooling them, they were at once comfortable 
 again altho the air was just as hot and contained 
 just as much carbon dioxid and other products of 
 breathing. They continued their work for several 
 days under these conditions, but it is not proved 
 that children could grow into healthy adults with 
 that kind of atmosphere. It is proved by these 
 and other experiments that the high temperatures 
 and stagnant air in our schools have much to do 
 with ill health and discomfort; that it is not the 
 carbon dioxid, but the conditions that it indicates 
 that are harmful. 
 
 Disease germs that have gained entrance to the 
 
AND HEALTH 149 
 
 body are destroyed by protective cells in the blood, 
 phagocytes, and in other ways. The healthier 
 the child, the more of the phagocytes. One of 
 the chief functions of the skin and of the mucous 
 membrane lining nose, throat and bronchial tubes, 
 is to prevent germs getting in. When these 
 defenders are relaxt (flusht and perspiring) in 
 temperatures of 70° to 85°, as in schoolrooms, two 
 dangers result; the vital processes inside the 
 body controlling phagocytes are lessened because 
 so much of the blood is in the skin, and the tonic 
 contraction of the skin for protective purposes is 
 diminisht. 
 
 The skin toned up by the morning dash of cold 
 water, by cool rooms and by exercise helps much 
 to prevent ill health and disease. Flabby, easily 
 chilled because of "coddling" in warmth, it is a 
 part of the "softness" dreaded by every thorobred 
 English boy. "Am I soft. Mother.?" fell from the 
 roof of the garden house. Keener dismay never 
 rang in any voice of nine. Mother, after due 
 reflection on the serious question, sent up a 
 reassuring "No, Jack" — and the tension was 
 relieved. 
 
 There are always more germs of contagious 
 diseases in a roomful of people. The warmer 
 the room, the less their resistance for the reasons 
 we have given. It is most important, therefore, 
 that schoolrooms be kept scrupulously clean and 
 at the safer temperature of the 60's, for these 
 
150 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 reasons as well as because the brain works easier 
 and better with its due supply of blood not 
 diverted to the skin. Some teachers have their 
 rooms disconnected from the heating apparatus, 
 so that they can use their windows as they please, 
 getting all the heat they need from corridors. The 
 pupils become restless and indifferent when by 
 accident registers are left open. Their red cheeks 
 and bright eager faces during school hours is a 
 lesson to housekeepers. 
 
 A few days ago I was on the Twentieth Century 
 Limited from Boston to Albany, the kind of train 
 where one pays extra fare for elegance or comfort, 
 I have never been sure which. On this occasion 
 the heat was stijfling, I consulted a thermometer 
 — as we usually do not find one, probably that 
 is one of the reasons for extra fare — and found it 
 74°. Summoning my courage and the fact, I 
 protested to the Pullman porter. He started an 
 electric fan in my direction, and I was comforta- 
 ble, altho with scruples against being so for the 
 temperature of the air was no lower and it was no 
 "fresher." But I was entirely comfortable until 
 he stopt the fan about quarter of an hour before 
 my station when the air seemed worse than before. 
 
AND HEALTH 151 
 
 April 
 
 Measuring health conditions 
 
 We are surrounded by what some one has called 
 an "aerial blanket" — the layer of air next the 
 skin warmed and moistened by heat and evapora- 
 tion from it. The longer the blanket Ues there 
 the warmer and moister it becomes, nearing the 
 temperature of the body (98.8°) which is "hot 
 weather." The warmer the body and its aerial 
 blanket become, the more the body perspires, as 
 that is one way its temperature is kept down, the 
 evaporation of perspiration cooling the body. 
 But if the air is already moist so that perspiration 
 does not dry off quickly the aerial blanket becomes 
 almost as moist as the skin. The blanket being 
 as warm and moist as the skin, the heat contin- 
 ually being produced in the body accumulates, the 
 blood vessels of the skin dilate that more coohng 
 may go on thru the skin, leaving the heart and 
 brain with much less blood, therefore their work is 
 much harder, and all the processes of hfe become 
 more difficult; sometimes a person faints for this 
 reason. But fainting is extreme. The usual 
 result of hot rooms is to make work more exhaust- 
 ing, the action of heart and brain being more 
 difficult because the blood is in the skin to keep the 
 temperature from fever conditions. 
 
 On a hot damp breezeless day in August we are 
 uncomifortable for the same reason. The blanket 
 may become warmer and moister than the skin, 
 
152 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 with no wind to blow it off and to bring a fresher 
 blanket. We use fans instead, and avoid heavy 
 mental work. 
 
 The skin is the great temperature regulator of 
 the body, ehminating waste with its perspiration, 
 and keeping its sense of touch in working order, 
 which means keeping a large part — a very large 
 part of the nervous system "fit," as is realized 
 when one recalls the "lacelike model" in Preven- 
 tion of School Fatigue. The nervous system con- 
 trols our general health, so that the skin and its 
 functions are very important for an efficient life. 
 
 As the nerve endings in the eyes need light 
 waves in order that eyes may see, and in the ears 
 need sound waves in order to hear, so, we are 
 finding out, the nerve endings in the skin need 
 motion waves — air motion, and many other kinds 
 — in order to keep in health. Without motion of 
 many kinds to stimulate its nerve endings, it 
 loses its vitality and so affects the health, as, 
 without light, eyes lose power of vision, and as 
 ears must have sounds to keep in normal condi- 
 tion. 
 
 A child rolhng on the brown bed of needles un- 
 der Adirondack pines watcht thru summer days 
 the rippling waves of heat rising from the lawn 
 sloping toward the sun, and made a Httle "theory 
 of what life is" — that it is motion, of many kinds 
 but always motion; the motion of wind, water, 
 heat, light, sound, electricity and finally, motion 
 
AND HEALTH 153 
 
 in protoplasm and all living things, for in the 
 country school the children had these every day 
 events because they are so much more fascinating 
 than story telling. Finally protoplasm, the 
 theory had it, in a universe of motion, living by its 
 own chemical motions resulting in energies, muscu- 
 lar, mental and others. 
 
 The little theory that the same phenomenon 
 has started in other young minds was elaborated 
 into the child's teens, when it disappeared in 
 subconsciousness, which means it was forgotten. 
 The child was not so far out of the way it seems, 
 now that we find motion in schoolroom air is 
 as important as cool temperature and sufficient 
 humidity. The object of ventilation being to 
 make house air like outdoor air, we must supply 
 in it this bombardment of tiny waves of all sorts 
 of energies coming from infinite space, to keep the 
 sensory and other functions in health. All this 
 motion of open air is so diminisht by walls that 
 feelings stagnate, vitality is lessened, and there- 
 fore it must be supplied or restored ; hence electric 
 fans and other devices to keep air in motion, as 
 well as devices for right temperatures and humid- 
 ity. 
 
 The question may yet arise whether fan waves 
 are " just as good " as outdoor waves ; and 
 whether there are still other qualities in open air 
 needed for indoor air and health. Dr. Leonard 
 Hill has an interesting article on "Stuffy Rooms" 
 
154 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 in Popular Science Monthly, October, 1912, 
 explaining the reasons for cool rooms with suffi- 
 cient humidity and motion in the air. We are not 
 sure of any "system" in the long run. We are 
 entirely sure of open air. We should not pay for 
 systems with children's lives, when "the real 
 thing" can be had — and so much else besides — by 
 opening windows or going out of doors. 
 
 In the school building which the university 
 student examined he measured the humidity with 
 a "whirling wet-dry bulb thermometer," some- 
 thing mothers can supply for their children's 
 school as a Christmas present, or valentine; some- 
 thing we shall possibly use in our homes as com- 
 monly as the ordinary dry bulb thermometer. 
 Another name for it is hygrometer, because it 
 measures the moisture in the air. There are 
 several kinds of hygrometers, this being the one 
 used and recommended by the United States 
 Weather Bureau. 
 
 It consists of two thermometers fastened to a 
 handle, one bulb wrapt with a wet cloth. After 
 whirling them by the handle for a few minutes 
 they are read. The dry bulb thermometer reads 
 as before, the temperature of the room; the 
 evaporation from the cloth has cooled the other, 
 so that it reads lower, according to the amount of 
 evaporation that has taken place, which depends 
 on the amount of humidity already in the air. 
 The difference between the two readings on a 
 
AND HEALTH 155 
 
 basis of the dry bulb reading is compared with 
 tables issued by the Weather Bureau (Bulletin No. 
 235), and gives the "relative humidity" that we 
 are wishing to regulate in living rooms for health's 
 sake. 
 
 The student found the relative humidity in the 
 schoolrooms tested (on rainy days when it would 
 be supposed to be high) was from 20 to 30 per cent. 
 This means that the air breathed by the children 
 held only one-fifth (20 per cent) of what it could 
 hold at that same temperature. This is said to be 
 worse than any desert where vegetation never 
 grows. Our schools all over the country with few 
 exceptions are as arid as this in the cold months 
 when artificial heat is used and direct open air 
 is shut out. The normal relative humidity of 
 open air at a temperature between 50° and 70° is 
 about 60 per cent. 
 
 The parcht air irritates respiratory passages 
 in its excessive demand for moisture. This helps 
 produce catarrh of nose, throat and bronchial 
 tubes, thus putting their mucous membrane 
 linings in the right condition, helpt on by school 
 dust, for growth of various sorts of micro-organ- 
 isms, such as pus cells and tubercle bacilH. It 
 probably injures in other ways not well under- 
 stood. 
 
 If any of these children should undertake that 
 most delightful and profitable occupation, school 
 gardening, and should go for their seeds to the 
 
156 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 shop I visited this morning, they would be quite 
 probably served by the same clerk. He appears 
 in an advanced stage of tuberculosis, dispensing 
 its seeds gratis to the crowd of customers. He 
 would cough in the children's faces as he coughed 
 in mine a score of times. The tubercle bacilli 
 on the fine invisible droplets that always fly from 
 the mouth in sneezing, coughing and energetic 
 speaking would be breathed and swallowed by the 
 children already prepared to "take" them by 
 badly ventilated schoolrooms. This is part of 
 our unsystematic and shortsighted campaign 
 against tuberculosis that is not reducing its death 
 rate any faster, sometimes not as fast as the 
 general death rate is diminishing. It is "penny 
 wise" to care for a few already tuberculous, and 
 "pound foolish" to continue practices lessening 
 the resistance of children, particularly in the 
 schools — the most profoundly influential of any 
 government's institutions. 
 
 This mouth spray or shower of droplets is 
 carried by air currents in every direction around 
 a person for distances of even ten or fifteen feet. 
 Some people scatter it more than others. It 
 usually settles to the floor in ten or twenty 
 minutes. The shower is so thin, and for other 
 reasons, investigators sometimes find very few, or 
 none of the special germs for which they search. 
 But they have found near consumptive coughers 
 enough to prove this a matter of importance. 
 
AND HEALTH 157 
 
 The danger from swallowing disease germs in 
 fresh saliva on cups is probably greater than from 
 this scattering in the air. There is, however, 
 when near a person great danger of inhaling them 
 or swallowing them from the saliva droplets 
 either while in the air or after they have settled 
 on food or other object near the cough or sneeze. 
 It is imperative that children (and everyone else) 
 cover their mouths with a handkerchief (or hand 
 at least, which then needs washing) to catch this 
 spray when sneezing and coughing. 
 
 Professor Winslow states that experimenters 
 who are studying mouth droplets advise at least 
 forty inches of space between the heads of workers 
 in factories and offices. The heads of children in 
 assembly and class rooms are often nearer than 
 this. I am never in a roomful of school children 
 without seeing many even "nice" ones coughing 
 "all over" their neighbors. 
 
 One wonders what teachers and parents do with 
 their opportunities for correcting the nasty habit. 
 In a recitation on physiology and hygiene that 
 I saw last winter in a famous school from which 
 many preachments go out about hygiene, the boys 
 and girls with colds (and without), with hardly 
 three feet between their heads, coughed freely in 
 every direction while they talked about germs on 
 long skirts ! 
 
 It would aid mightily to improve our vital 
 statistics if mothers — the home makers — would 
 
158 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 keep suitable school homes, and teach children to 
 cover their mouths and turn from others when they 
 cough, as this salesman's mother and teachers had 
 failed to do. 
 
 The student investigator studied the lighting 
 of the rooms, but not with a photometer as was 
 done at Boston. He found the building well 
 arranged for illumination. His report criticized 
 teachers for not adjusting shades properly; 
 criticized the dirt on windows that cut off light 
 (see Boston measurements of how much); the 
 plants in the windows that did the same, and the 
 seating of children in the darkest row of seats when 
 there were vacant seats near the windows. He 
 tested the vision of the children and found as we 
 always find, a large percentage defective. When 
 children enter school probably eighty out of 
 every hundred have perfect eyes. Four years 
 later only about sixty-five in a hundred have 
 them, and four years later still fewer. It is 
 mothers and fathers who allow dirty windows to 
 blight their children for life. No one so surely as 
 they can put an end to these wrongs. 
 
 He found water-closets built in the middle of 
 the house, with rooms around them; dimly 
 lighted and with no sunshine; no heat to create 
 currents of air for ventilating thru the top win- 
 dows; deodorizers used instead of properly clean- 
 ing the closets — the odor being evident thruout 
 
AND HEALTH 159 
 
 the building. This is "a first class school" in the 
 community. 
 
 He found the common cup and towel (1910). 
 The mouth contents on such cups have been 
 already quoted from Professor Davison in dis- 
 cussing "Clean Schoolhouses." Bacteriologists 
 who have studied the common towel used in 
 schools, factories, railway stations, etc. have 
 found it as bad or worse; contaminated with 
 fecal matter and bacteria from urine and bowel, 
 with germs of trachoma and the gonococcus, both 
 causing bUndness. Actual cases of blindness in 
 school children and teachers have been traced to 
 the school towel; and epidemics of "pink eye" 
 have been due to its use. Nine states have taken 
 action against the use of the common towel, it is 
 stated in Public Health Bulletin No. 57, pubhsht 
 August, 1912, by the direction of the Surgeon 
 General; Connecticut, Massachusetts and Wis- 
 consin by law; Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, 
 Missouri, South CaroUna, and Washington by 
 regulation of the State Board of Health. The 
 Journal of The American Medical Association has 
 recently (December 14, 1912) pubhsht a note 
 that interstate quarantine regulations by the 
 Treasury Department have just ordered the 
 aboUtion of the common towel from railroad cars, 
 steamers and other interstate vehicles and 
 stations. It still remains for mothers to care as 
 
160 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 much for their children in the very great majority 
 of schools. 
 
 The student found floors with wide cracks and 
 very dirty. He found a janitor that swept 
 corridors during school hours, filhng the whole 
 building with fine dust, as do very many janitors. 
 It ought to be made a legal offense on the part of 
 the janitor, quite as much as is polluting public 
 water supplies with sewage, or spitting on side- 
 walks, and on the part of every principal who per- 
 mits it. 
 
 These conditions, some or all of them, reported 
 by the student are found in every city and county 
 in the country, probably with no exception, where 
 there are schools. So negligent are we of chil- 
 dren's health that many worse ones are to be foimd. 
 That it is largely due to parental and public 
 indifference is shown by the fact that many of the 
 recommendations for greater cleanliness made as a 
 result of the study were promptly carried out by 
 the school authorities. 
 
 Some of these that mothers also could probably 
 secure when necessary are given (with my paren- 
 theses), and the whole report is to be found in The 
 Pedagogical Seminary, December, 1910. 
 
 1. Trim the trees in and about the school 
 yard. 
 
 2. Put the stove at the bottom of the aspirat- 
 ing chimney into condition for use, and 
 
AND HEALTH 161 
 
 instruct the janitor to maintain a fire 
 therein whenever artificial heating is in 
 use. (Why not a fire whenever the rooms 
 are in use?) 
 
 3. Instruct the janitor and teachers to 
 keep the outlet flues always open. 
 
 4. Have the windows thoroly cleaned, and 
 instruct the janitor to clean them as often 
 as necessary. (The last three words are 
 the weak point, as the Boston study 
 proves.) 
 
 5 and 6. Have intelligent management of 
 shades, and allow no plants to reduce 
 illumination harmfully. 
 
 7. Seat children so as to secure the best 
 light, and those with defective vision next 
 windows, with myopic children in the front 
 seats. 
 
 9. Insist on proper cleaning of water-closets 
 and urinals. 
 
 10. Have artificial lights put in toilet rooms 
 when natural light is not enough to ensure 
 cleanhness. 
 
 12. Install a bubble fountain and abolish 
 the common drinking cup. (Have chil- 
 dren make paper cups meanwhile.) 
 
 13. Inexpensive individual drying cloths, 
 such as are used in Pullman cars, instead of 
 common towel. (There are also individual 
 towels of paper, to bum after using, which 
 
 11 
 
162 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 are in some places cheaper than laundering 
 towels.) 
 
 14. Renovate floors by cleaning, scraping and 
 crack-filling; then oil. (If possible use 
 hnoleum as suggested in Clean School- 
 houses.) 
 
 15. Stop all sweeping while school is in 
 session. Have entire building swept daily 
 after the afternoon session, and dusted 
 daily before the morning session. (Open 
 windows during dusting, and finish it at 
 least half an hour before school opens; an 
 hour would be better.) Wash entire 
 building every Saturday. (!!) 
 
 So far, excellent. The trouble with rules and 
 other good iutentions is that they so often fall 
 to the ground and are said to make paving stones 
 for another existence — usually in this world. 
 Mothers should learn well the lesson taught both 
 here and in Boston, as everywhere else, that 
 official rules for housekeeping are not lived up to 
 except under intelligent oversight. This city had 
 previously a set of Janitor's Rules that required 
 at least cleanliness, but did not secure it. It was 
 an accidental university man that found it out — 
 not the responsible mother, or father, of a pupil 
 in the school. 
 
AND HEALTH 163 
 
 May 
 
 Dust again 
 
 A janitor whose salary is larger than his princi- 
 pal's, whose floors we let his own words describe 
 further on, whose thermometers registered 74° 
 and 82° when I read them and, according to the 
 teachers, on many other occasions, argued at a 
 meeting for discussion not long ago that it is right 
 to clean floors while school is in session — "Why, 
 every time a child walks across the floor the dust 
 flies up. You can see it." 
 
 The idea of this official caretaker of children is 
 that you have to have dust anyway, and a little 
 more or less is of no consequence — he choosing 
 "more." We have agreed that this is the mis- 
 fortune, not the fault of janitors. It is the fault 
 of parents and others who provide no training 
 schools, nor qualified supervisors, nor standards up 
 to which they must work. 
 
 What amount of dust is permissible cannot be 
 determined by the number of sweepings — the 
 politician's idea and the average man's. The 
 housewife knows it depends on how thoroly the 
 work is done. There are schools swept twice daily 
 that even immediately after sweeping are not as 
 dust free as others swept only twice a week. 
 
 We have here the same problem as in study of 
 other conditions of air fit for children and teachers 
 to live in, such as temperature, humidity and air 
 currents. We must have a standard of dustiness 
 
164 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 and instruments of precision to measure it, to 
 which janitors must conform, instead of conform- 
 ing to guesses and opinions. The mayor of a 
 small town whose schools had been pronounced 
 dirty by a committee of gentlemen claimed: 
 "That is a matter of opinion. A supersensitive 
 person may think conditions untidy, unclean and 
 therefore unsanitary, which an ordinarily sensi- 
 tive person may consider as relatively tidy, clean 
 and sanitary." He is quite right. Such a reply 
 will always defend unstandardized conditions and 
 always carry the "political machine" with the 
 maker. 
 
 One school committee proposes to solve the 
 dust and dirt difficulty thru a committee of 
 gentlemen who at unannounced times once a year 
 with pencils and printed blanks shall inspect and 
 record floors, walls, ceilings, windows, stoves, 
 pipes, transoms, casings, desks, inkwells, black- 
 boards, trimmings, wainscoting, supply lockers, 
 cloakrooms, stairways, water-closets, lavatories, 
 basements, general conditions, yard. Their find- 
 ings are compared, the janitor markt, and dis- 
 mist, promoted, warned or otherwise treated 
 accordingly. He is given a copy of the report. 
 Equally as important are other details of the 
 school atmosphere under janitors' control; and 
 the every day dust in between annual visitations 
 that children have endured before the janitor 
 is "called up." Callings up rarely reform — or 
 
AND HEALTH 165 
 
 how easy to make the world over! The business 
 manager also visits periodically; but he, too, is 
 not trained in sanitation, nor housekeeping, nor 
 child hygiene. 
 
 The price of good housekeeping is daily and 
 even hourly supervision, particularly where chil- 
 dren are concerned. The best way to assure this 
 frequent supervision and to keep certain vital 
 details up to standards is to enUst the cooperation 
 of children. Their help will also accompHsh 
 some other needed results. 
 
 Four years ago there were very few places, 
 perhaps not five, but today there are more, where 
 pupils are regularly enlisted to assist in school 
 sanitation. Certain ones in the room are ap- 
 pointed to read the thermometer at each hour, or 
 at certain hours; to keep a formal record of the 
 readings, possibly to make a chart from hour to 
 hour or from day to day, either on paper for 
 permanent records, or on the blackboard for the 
 whole room to have in sight, or both. When 
 arrangements permit, the reader turns on or off 
 the heat, opens or shuts ventilators or windows. 
 The appointments are changed from time to 
 time, so that each child can have the educational 
 experience of the work and of the responsibiUty. 
 The method has various modifications; and it is 
 invaluable as a means of interesting and instruct- 
 ing our future home makers, of forming habits 
 both of thought and of living that will persist. 
 
166 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 Children as young as the fifth grade can learn 
 "thermometer work" with a httle oversight, per- 
 haps younger. But the standardizing of school- 
 room humidity probably belongs in no grade under 
 the sixth, unless as "helpers." It is entirely 
 possible for eighth grade children to manipulate 
 and read this hygrometer, if taught by one who 
 knows, to compare it with the Weather Bureau's 
 tables, and to record and chart the results. They 
 can also learn to alter accordingly windows, or 
 ventilators, or pails and tanks for evaporation. 
 I have never seen this done, but am confident we 
 shall never "arrive" in this detail of school hygiene 
 and home hygiene until the children take hold. 
 
 They can easily use anemometers for air cur- 
 rents, and joss sticks or candles for currents too 
 slight to be detected by the instrument. These 
 would be less frequent duties, but ideal devices 
 for efiFectively teaching sanitary standards. As 
 schools at present are arranged, the "teacher of 
 science" would usually be the leader of the work. 
 Mothers must insist that normal classes prepare 
 them to do it. As for the children, they are ready. 
 They love to have a share in school responsibilities. 
 
 In the last important detail, dustiness, an 
 instrument or a method of precision and a standard 
 are not so easy; or, rather, they that are have not 
 yet been devised. The only methods of measur- 
 ing dustiness that I have seen are more for the 
 laboratory than for children in the schoolroom. 
 
AND HEALTH 167 
 
 In schools where physics, or chemistry, or any 
 biologic science has a laboratory, certain of these 
 methods can easily become a part of pupils' work 
 for the school. In the American Journal of Public 
 Health, June, 1910, is publisht The Report of the 
 Committee on Standard Methods for the Examina- 
 tion of Air, signed by C.-E. A. Winslow, Ellen H. 
 Richards, G. A. Soper, J. Bosley Thomas, John 
 Weinzirl, and followed by numerous references to 
 other studies. It gives the latest best methods, 
 some of which may be of use to teachers. 
 
 In elementary schools for the present I know 
 of nothing better for measuring dustiness, and it is 
 excellent, than that of a good housekeeper — a 
 white or black cloth rubbed over surfaces to find 
 what can be rubbed off. If dust can be, the good 
 housewife considers the work poorly done, and it 
 must be done over. In Clean Schoolhouses floors 
 were mentioned that after certain methods of 
 sweeping did not soil the white handkerchief 
 past over them. 
 
 June 
 
 How to do it 
 
 There is a very much better resource than 
 questionnaires for supplying the background of 
 information concerning what others are doing and 
 
168 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 thinking which is needed to develop study of local 
 conditions effectively. 
 
 It is the Information Desk of the Public Library. 
 It suggests an animated cyclopedia or, better, an 
 animated switchboard, for the attendants in a few 
 minutes connect one with the best that is written 
 and all is thoroly up to date; health, school and 
 other government reports; investigations by 
 individuals and organizations; articles explaining 
 and discussing almost any subject, scattered thru 
 hundreds of periodicals that would take so much 
 of one's own time to search out the task would be 
 abandoned. It is an intellectual instead of an 
 electric telephone service. The model Informa- 
 tion Desk is in the Providence Public Library, 
 under Miss Lyman, the successor of Miss Mabel 
 Emerson — a pace-maker. 
 
 When a Hbrary has no such department, the 
 librarian and his assistants sometimes will help 
 to material. Possibly the card catalogue or 
 some supplementary catalogues group topics and 
 references in such a way as to be useful. Where 
 this fails in a community — thanks to Mr. Carnegie, 
 50,000 fewer fail today than twenty-five years 
 ago — and when a neighboring city library cannot 
 be consulted, the publications by bureaus and 
 departments of the Government at Washington 
 can be had from the Government Printing Office — 
 can be had for the asking on anything concerning 
 the welfare of farm stock and crops and other such 
 
AND HEALTH 169 
 
 interesting and valuable national assets; but to 
 obtain information on health matters, one must 
 buy the pamphlets. 
 
 Every library should have the annual Reports 
 of the United States Commissioner of Education 
 which will be of use, and the various Indexes of 
 Periodicals and of other publications where 
 subjects and authors are arranged for convenient 
 following up. Most of the references in this book 
 also contain many others, putting the reader on 
 the right track, especially the next reference 
 given. 
 
 No schedule of points and questions fits all 
 places. The most helpful compilation of good 
 questions and of good authorities to consult is 
 probably by Dr. Guy Montrose Whipple of 
 Cornell University, called Questions in School 
 Hygiene, publisht by C. W. Bardeen, Syracuse, 
 New York. Local and new questions can be ar- 
 ranged satisfactorily by consulting this book in 
 the public hbrary. 
 
 It is better to have a short schedule directly 
 to the point, than one of so many details as to 
 appall volunteer helpers. Those having special 
 acquaintance with local school housekeeping, 
 perhaps a school nurse or teacher (even if an "ex"), 
 can help decide the really essential questions. 
 
 Possibly the shortest schedule would be : Name 
 of school ; name of room ; date ; temperatures 
 (as many as can be obtained) ; humidity (if it can 
 
170 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 be had) ; cleanliness (windows, floors, corridors, 
 basement) and dustiness; smells (rooms, corridors, 
 water-closets, urinals); cup; towel; washbowls. 
 
 One could hardly do less than this. One should 
 do at least as much as this, and as much more as 
 can be well done. On other pages other sugges- 
 tions are to be found. 
 
 One of the earliest steps forward to take, and 
 as it usually appeals to teachers it is a compara- 
 tively easy one, is to suggest the children's keep- 
 ing systematic records of temperature as described 
 on page 165. Altho the practice has grown among 
 many schools during the last two or three years, 
 there are hundreds of thousands of rooms that 
 have not adopted it. 
 
 Education by memorizing and reciting has had 
 its day. The new times call for education by 
 doing, if the human race is to retain its capacity 
 for doing — which is life. Parasites — those who 
 are done for — are quickly done for, whether men 
 or women. School is a part of life, not " prepara- 
 tion" only, and to practice pupils in standardiz- 
 ing details affecting health means improving our 
 vital statistics — the measure of a nation's right 
 living. 
 
 The charting of temperatures has many 
 advantages. One is that more and more books, 
 articles, reports and exhibits chart facts because 
 it presents a more telling picture of the subject 
 than mere words. Children will profit much 
 
AND HEALTH 171 
 
 more from this new method who have grown to 
 understand it easily by charting temperatures. 
 The chart, especially if a standing feature of the 
 blackboard, tells the hour's, day's, week's story to 
 all in the room, janitor, principal, inspectors and, 
 let us hope, to parents. It fights the battle for 
 suitable temperature. 
 
 Thermometers should be placed, for experiment, 
 in different parts of the room to find whether they 
 read the same, for often different heights and 
 different walls vary several degrees. This inter- 
 esting study leads to the pupils deciding on a 
 "fair" place for all, which may be below a gas 
 fixture or other point of suspension in the middle 
 of the room. Let them work it out. 
 
 A thermometer should be standardized, and the 
 pupils should do it, perhaps every month. This 
 is done by taking it to a place where there is an 
 accurate thermometer, possibly a physical or 
 chemical laboratory, or a good shop where instru- 
 ments are sold or made, or to the local Weather 
 Bureau. When the school thermometer does 
 not read like the standard one, the pupil can learn 
 the difference, perhaps one or two degrees, re- 
 port it back to the school where the children will 
 allow for it in the recording and charting. The 
 accurate thermometer can be brought to the school 
 and instruments in all the rooms standardized by 
 it. Let the pupils do it. 
 
 Paper fined into little squares can be bought for 
 
172 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 making charts. Even better, the children can 
 line plain paper vertically and horizontally, 
 acquiring resourcefulness and accuracy by doing 
 it. Pupils will make the blackboard charts them- 
 selves — until someone patents blackboards for 
 charting, like the children's paper cup, and school 
 men buy them. A State Board (men) of an 
 Industrial (reform) School for Girls illustrated the 
 beautiful care they were taking of the girls by 
 telling how they were planning to have all the 
 bread making done in a regular bakery in the 
 men's prison near by. "But — how will the girls 
 learn to make it.?" protested the "lady visitors." 
 We are having a strenuous hunt for wholesome 
 outlets for energy, pitted against the forces con- 
 straining it into factories — or idleness and mis- 
 chief. 
 
 After the chart is lined, write across the top 
 above each square the hour when the reading is 
 taken, perhaps 9 a.m., 10 a.m., 11 a.m. (there may 
 be no need of reading it at noon if school is dis- 
 mist), 1.30 p.m., etc. Down the sides opposite 
 each square write the degrees from 90° perhaps to 
 60°. I have never happened to find a school 
 thermometer down to 60° in this country. In 
 England the central Board of Education has 
 establisht 60° as the temperature to be required 
 in all schools. The Americans pleading for 68° 
 hope, backt by the demonstrations of open air 
 schools, for something lower still eventually. 
 
AND HEALTH 173 
 
 I have frequently found school thermometers in 
 the eighties. This will never be so when the 
 custom we are urging is adopted; nor will it be so 
 in private homes after school children have the 
 right idea and the right habit. All this the women 
 of the United States can bring to pass by 1915 — if 
 they wish. Their responsibihty is as infinite as 
 the immense waste of child hfe is infinite loss 
 due to their negligence. Women might wisely 
 wage a campaign on library temperatures, also, 
 public, college, university — always above 70°, 
 usually at 76°, often in the 80's. The moral is — 
 don't put teachers in public schools with university 
 and college methods. 
 
 The charting of humidity also is necessary (see 
 page 154) and can be done by children of the 
 eighth and seventh grades, altho more oversight 
 by the teacher may be called for. A mothers' 
 club can loan or give to some or all rooms the 
 necessary thermometers and this wet-dry bulb 
 thermometer. The former are not expensive. 
 The latter costs more (less than five dollars), 
 and one will do for all the rooms in a building, 
 being used by a handle, and not fixt to the wall. 
 They are sometimes made to hang on the wall like 
 a dry bulb thermometer, but for several reasons 
 they have not proved reliable. They should 
 hang in a strong draft if used. 
 
 The use of anemometers by children, supplied 
 by mothers, one for a building, is also desirable; 
 
174 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 and the simple dust test can be used, but because 
 rather commonplace is not hkely to be so appealing 
 in a reform campaign. In this extremely impor- 
 tant matter of dust unfranchised mothers can do 
 Uttle compared with those in the free states. 
 
 In the other details, the battle is almost won 
 when the pupils keep the records. Therefore 
 persuade the schools to this, tactfully, persistently, 
 with every resource at command; and, when 
 successful, follow up the innovation interestedly — 
 just as with children at home — seeing that instru- 
 ments are correct and replaced promptly when 
 broken, and that records are preserved. 
 
 DonHs 
 
 Don't send questionnaires. 
 
 The first great reason is because one learns very 
 much more about school housecleaning by being 
 on the spot. Questions and answers cannot cover 
 all details, even when answers are accurate 
 instead of "official, " or instead of being warped by 
 passing thru another person's apperception. No 
 one believes, for example, that the Alumnse would 
 have received the facts they learned by personal 
 observation if they had sent written questions of 
 the kind they would have askt had they not 
 seen for themselves. Many significant side 
 details and side lights are obtained by first hand 
 work that are important. 
 
AND HEALTH 175 
 
 A second good reason for not sending question- 
 naires is that people are pestered with them, and 
 two-thirds, representing so much of the senders' 
 money and time, are thrown in waste baskets. 
 It would take more than one person's entire time, 
 in some instances, to reply to all that are received, 
 beside the labor of turning one's whole stock of 
 information upside down and inside out searching 
 for the answers. 
 
 Questionnaires cannot in this particular case 
 be accurate, any more than when the maid 
 replies that she has cleaned the bathroom and 
 one discovers on inspection that ideas of cleanli- 
 ness differ. "Arm chair" school housecleaning, 
 whether at the oflficial end or at the questionnaire 
 end, such as most of it in this country has been, is 
 vanishing with the old idea that women's organi- 
 zations exist for their own pastime in communi- 
 ties suffering for lack of their intelligent services. 
 
 Don't announce what is going to be done. 
 One's own expectations as well as the public's are 
 liable to be chilled by disappointments. Work 
 like this can be accomplisht very much more 
 satisfactorily when things are found as they 
 ordinarily are and not as when "expecting com- 
 pany." 
 
 Don't betray that "a chiel's amang you takin' 
 notes." Keep pencil and blank out of sight. 
 See as much as possible without asking questions, 
 as when one goes to kitchen or nursery to learn 
 
176 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 how the work or the children are progressing. 
 Schools are pubhc nurseries for mothers' children, 
 and a host of people are paid to keep them as safe 
 as in the best kept homes — safer if possible. 
 
 Don't wander off to related details — seating, 
 window area, cubic feet of air and number of 
 pupils, fields where so many are already consum- 
 ing energy. Keep to the single great neglected 
 department in schools — housekeeping — making 
 things as they are as wholesome as they can be 
 made for the children, as mothers are obliged to 
 do in their homes. " SpeciaKze " in housekeeping. 
 Model buildings as well as any other kind can be 
 and they are discredited by bad care. 
 
 Don't spend time on Don'ts. Suggest, urge 
 if best, definite, correct, practicable ideas for 
 making details better. Be sure they are practica- 
 ble and correct. Officials, like children, need 
 constructive management. 
 
 And one more Don't : Don't exhaust energy on 
 details that are "matters of opinion," as the mayor 
 said, nor on details of any less consequence than 
 the right air (temperature, dust, humidity, light, 
 motion, open-air-ness) for children to live in, and 
 'protection from fresh contagious material on cups, 
 towels and other furnishings. Other housekeep- 
 ing improvements can follow. 
 
 First, gather some of the facts of temperature, 
 humidity, air currents (by pupils' records if 
 
AND HEALTH 177 
 
 possible), dirty floors and windows as compared 
 with those in the home hbrary or kitchen, and any 
 other facts belonging here that are facts — not 
 guesses, nor hearsay. 
 
 Second, have constructive suggestions for 
 righting wrongs, some of which are to be found in 
 these pages and their references. 
 
 Third, after planning systematicly and doing 
 what the mothers' club can by itself, appeal to 
 ^related groups and officials to cooperate, as did the 
 Collegiate Alumnae. Appeal persistently and 
 vigorously when necessary, thru personal inter- 
 views, newspapers, organizations. Meet official 
 delays, indifiFerence, false promises, incapacity, 
 "playing politics," with steady strong pressure — 
 stern if necessary. This is wholly a matter for 
 righteous indignation when so treated by any 
 agent of government. Have an official investigat- 
 ing committee appointed if desired; but continue 
 the original investigating even more vigorously — 
 to keep them moving, and moving to hygienic 
 conclusions rather than Democratic or Repubhcan 
 or personal conclusions. 
 
 Refuse all compromises that must be paid for 
 by a child's life or injury. When mothers will 
 not stand for the children, whom can we expect to 
 do so? 
 
 DO IT NOW — as the November placards say 
 of Christmas shopping — for this year more than 
 forty thousand children of elementary school 
 12 
 
178 SCHOOL JANITORS 
 
 ages (5 to 14) are dying, and millions more are 
 being handicapt by ill health and physical 
 defects. Very much more than half of all this 
 can be prevented by our available knowledge, if 
 mothers and fathers worthy to be trusted with a 
 child's well-being really wish 
 
 IF 
 
 MOTHERS 
 
 SAY SO 
 
IV 
 
 PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF BIOLOGIC 
 SCIENCE IN SCHOOL ADMINIS- 
 TRATION: THE PROBLEM OF 
 JANITOR SERVICE* 
 
 (Author's Abstract) 
 
 The factor in environment most completely 
 under control of school authorities that most 
 affects efficiency both in school and in later life 
 is the schoolhouse air. 
 
 The official who has direct and continuous 
 charge of the air is the janitor. Its details with 
 which janitors have to deal are dust, effluvia from 
 bodies, temperature, and humidity. 
 
 Dust is now recognized as a so universal cause 
 of disease that the Bureau of the Census is intro- 
 ducing a new classification, "occupational dis- 
 eases," one used by England for a century and 
 by other foreign countries over fifty years. Dust 
 injures more by its irritating qualities than by 
 the pathogenic organisms it contains. Inorganic 
 dust, such as particles of metal, or stone, by irritat- 
 
 *Read in the Department of Science Instruction and reprinted 
 from Addresses and Pboceedings, National Education Associa- 
 tion, Boston, Mass., July, 1910 
 
 179 
 
180 PROBLEM OF 
 
 ing the lining of nose, throat, bronchial tubes, 
 and lungs, prepares these tissues for the pathologic 
 action of micro-organisms; but micro-organisms 
 of most communicable diseases are a form of 
 delicate plant life easily destroyed by sunlight 
 and drying. 
 
 The death-rate from tuberculosis is highest 
 among workers in metal, stone, pottery, and glass. 
 It is lowest in the country, where one cubic inch 
 of air is said to contain normally 2,000 dust 
 particles, while in the city it contains 3,000,000 
 made up of dried manure, sputum, house and shop 
 sweepings, tobacco, ashes, smoke, iron, glass and 
 stone particles, etc. 
 
 Dust is the commonest cause of colds in the 
 head, sore throat, bronchitis. Wind storms in 
 cities are directly followed by increase of such 
 practice among physicians; and the prevalence 
 of catarrh, to some extent of sore eyes and adenoid 
 conditions, is directly traceable to dust in streets, 
 public conveyances and buildings. Pus microbes 
 are practically always present in such dust. 
 
 A nomenclature of dust diseases is growing. 
 Pneumokoniosis is a disease of the lungs due to 
 dust in general. Autopsies show that compara- 
 tively few city dwellers are free from it. The lung 
 tissue is dark in color, with fibrous thickening, and 
 nodules where more or less active inflammatory 
 changes took place. In life this was manifest 
 by susceptibility to "colds," by debihty and 
 
JANITOR SERVICE 181 
 
 lessened resistance to tuberculosis and pneumonia. 
 Siderosis is due to minute particles of iron; 
 anthracosis to coal dust; silicosis to sand. House 
 dust has more pathogenic organisms because 
 closer to invalids, and less open to fresh air and 
 sunshine. 
 
 There is a disease specially prevalent among 
 those connected with public schools. But we are 
 reluctant to admit that education has an occupa- 
 tional disease. 
 
 Dr. Oldright, professor of hygiene at the 
 University of Toronto (see References), quotes 
 statistics indicating that tuberculosis is the cause 
 of death more often among teachers than among 
 workers in all other fields together, i.e., the death- 
 rate of teachers from tuberculosis is considerably 
 above the average death-rate from tuberculosis; 
 it is higher than in any other profession. This is 
 in spite of the fact that women continue in teach- 
 ing on an average only six years; men only nine; 
 also that many resign before markt evidences 
 of ill-health appear, and at the time of death may 
 not be enumerated as teachers. 
 
 Reports in medical literature of the last fifteen 
 years show that between one-third and one-half 
 of school children have tuberculosis, either active 
 or liable to become so on sufficient irritation of the 
 air passages or depression of general health from 
 any cause. Frequency of tuberculosis gradually 
 surpasses that of other diseases thru school and 
 
182 PROBLEM OF 
 
 following years until in the prime of life it is the 
 commonest cause of death. 
 
 These data are based on many thousand 
 autopsies where children died from diphtheria and 
 other causes than tuberculosis (whose existence 
 was not suspected), on X-ray and other delicate 
 methods of examination, and on reaction to 
 tuberculin tests. The fact that so many frail 
 children improve in open air schools is suggestive. 
 
 School fatigue and dullness are recognized 
 accompaniments of the educational process; also 
 nervous disorders. 
 
 The best cure of all these ills is life in the open. 
 The chief factor in school hfe that invites them is 
 school sanitation. This we leave to ignorant and 
 incompetent caretakers and supervisors; who 
 make no pretense of fitting for sanitary inspection 
 or sanitary duties ; who do the best they know with 
 knowledge pickt up. 
 
 It is certain that if in vocational or technical or 
 continuation or trade schools were courses for 
 janitors and their superintendents, inteUigent 
 interest and efficiency would be secured and pubUc 
 health improved. Every large city has several 
 hundred janitors of schools, apartment houses, 
 office buildings, theaters; as well as Pullman 
 porters, train and street-car conductors, hotel 
 managers. We need to introduce educational 
 and health standards in this important occupa- 
 tion. No good home maker has the dirty floors 
 
JANITOR SERVICE 183 
 
 and atmosphere with which we shut up children 
 and instructors. 
 
 The Massachusetts Civil Service Commission 
 examines applicants for janitors' places in personal 
 record and elementary education, with a few 
 questions on cleaning, heating, ventilating, and 
 lighting. Engineers' hcenses are required for 
 high-pressure engines except where "policemen's 
 safety valves" are used. The test is much less 
 rigorous than that for other offices, the reason 
 given being that few eligible men apply. 
 
 It is the custom to rely mainly on past service 
 for promotion. Therefore the quaHty of a jani- 
 tor's work depends much on the principal, as 
 quaUty in domestic service has long depended on 
 the mistress. The twentieth century is learning, 
 and finds it hard to do so, that principalships, 
 parenthood, and janitorships do not carry with 
 them innate capacity for the duties; that men's 
 and women's instincts as parents, principals, or 
 janitors need twentieth-century scientific infor- 
 mation for efficient care of children. 
 
 They need understanding of biologic laws and 
 their underlying principles in physics and chemis- 
 try — subjects in which the great majority of 
 parents, principals, and janitors are httle inter- 
 ested, because in their schooHng teachers of these 
 sciences made them academic rather than vital, 
 or they had no such teachers. This Department 
 of Science Instruction holds the key to school 
 
184 PROBLEM OF 
 
 sanitation as to other problems of public health 
 and morals. 
 
 A teacher of biology in the ninth grade, whose 
 every detail is directed to stamping pupils' minds 
 with biologic laws common to daily life, whether 
 studied in sea-weed or bird, and who has done it so 
 wisely for eight years that now results are coming 
 in from former pupils justifying departure from 
 collegiate methods, said to me, "All I adapted to 
 everyday problems I had to do myself. We do 
 not get in our biology courses anything about 
 human and social biology to fit these children for 
 living." 
 
 Fortunately this instructor had enough initia- 
 tive to adjust "orthodox" training to these 
 important demands; but this resourcefulness is 
 not found as often as needed. If principals and 
 others high up show little appreciation of biologic 
 law in school management, and allow little time 
 and equipment for biologic teaching and the 
 necessary physics and chemistry, probably their 
 experiences are like one of mine that is rather 
 typical. After fifteen minutes in a classroom 
 of thirty normal pupils vaguely discussing trap- 
 door spiders and other "book animals," the 
 principal justified the decision to cut down 
 zoology one-third and give the time to English by 
 saying, "It doesn't seem to amount to anything." 
 The room had scores of flies; the neighborhood 
 mosquitoes, tuberculosis, malaria, and infant 
 
JANITOR SERVICE 185 
 
 mortality; but these fascinatingly related topics 
 in civic zoology are commonly neglected. 
 
 Some instructors in science create great interest 
 by studying the immediate environment; and 
 janitors who find "cultures" being made of halls, 
 rooms, and basements (see References), tempera- 
 tures charted day after day, and class discussions 
 of conditions, possibilities, and methods, have 
 become interested. Some such janitors are 
 devising methods of floor-cleaning, dusting, and 
 ventilating that are unique and of value. One 
 instructor is contemplating a class for janitors 
 this winter. 
 
 We need school data concerning dust, air 
 currents, temperature, humidity, and other details. 
 Science instructors are ideally situated to secure 
 them, and better work for educating pupils in 
 sanitation could hardly be wisht. We need to 
 establish permissible hmits which shall not be 
 exceeded; to have practical methods for testing 
 them; to have as definite standards of sanitation 
 as of bookwork; to train caretakers as we train 
 engineers, nurses, librarians. 
 
 We have still lessons to learn from open air 
 schools; and much between them and the elabor- 
 ate, expensive systems at the other extreme, where 
 air is sifted (the screens soon foul with dirt), or 
 washt (the washings a muddy stream), heated, 
 humidified, and sent at certain speed to rooms 
 whose windows must not be opened, and where 
 
186 PROBLEM OF 
 
 out of thirty-two automatic heat regulators I 
 found twenty-seven that "didn't work." In 
 about 600 schoolrooms in various cities I found 
 210 thermometers, one-third of them out of order, 
 and barely twenty registering within one of 70 
 degrees, the others ranging from 72 degrees to 85 
 degrees in winter months. Delicate children 
 improve in all respects in outdoor schools where 
 the temperature is that of even winter. Tubercu- 
 losis is cured more rapidly in cold weather than in 
 summer. England requires the schoolroom to be 
 60 degrees. If this is too cold, it seems safer than 
 ours in the seventies, with mortality statistics 
 as they are. 
 
 Health maxims cannot offset habits that edu- 
 cate popular liking for overheating, and indiffer- 
 ence to bad air and dust. 
 
 In a Cornell student's recent report on a 
 prominent school the hygrometer determined 
 relative humidity 24 per cent, normal being 60; 
 the anemometer found no currents in ventilating 
 flues; the Pettersson-Palmqvist apparatus showed 
 carbon dioxid steadily increasing from 4 parts in 
 10,000 (normal) to 24 parts, i.e., the pupils 
 breathed technically bad or very bad air thru the 
 day.* The school, like all in that city, had printed 
 rules for the janitor; but absence of technical 
 training (janitor), technical standards (school 
 
 * Determination of carbon dioxid is chiefly of use to indicate stag- 
 nation of air. The dioxid ia never in suflScient quantities to poison. 
 
JANITOR SERVICE 187 
 
 board), technical supervision (instructors) made 
 rules valueless. 
 
 Methods of precision are as practicable and as 
 necessary for caretakers of a school as for nurses 
 in a hospital; their routine practice is entirely 
 possible with reasonable instruction, less instruc- 
 tion than is given in schools for nurses and for 
 domestic science. 
 
 References : 
 
 The Schoolroom as a Factor in Tuberculosis, 
 Dr. William Oldright, Transactions of Second 
 International Congress on School Hygiene, vol. 
 II 
 
 The School Child and Tuberculosis, Dr. H. F. 
 Stoll, Transactions of the National Association 
 for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, 
 1910 
 
 Annual Report of the Civil Service Commis- 
 sion of Massachusetts, 1907-1908 
 
 Educational Prevention, Emmeline Moore, 
 Transactions of American Association for 
 Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality, 1910 
 
 Our Short Course for Janitors, W. D. Frost, 
 Addresses and Proceedings, National Educa- 
 tion Association, 1910 
 
THE TRAINING OF JANITORS IN 
 
 SANITARY CARE OF SCHOOL 
 
 PREMISES* 
 
 The Department of Science Instruction of the 
 National Education Association during the recent 
 meeting at Boston appointed a committee of 
 three to report on suitable methods of securing 
 sanitary care of school premises thru the training 
 of janitors. An advisory committee of experts 
 in sanitation is associated. 
 
 Vital statistics of tuberculosis among teachers, 
 and data from autopsies. X-ray and tuberculin 
 tests concerning tuberculous lesions among chil- 
 dren are ample reasons in themselves, if there were 
 no others as unfortunately there are, for training 
 competent caretakers of schools, where law com- 
 pels children to congregate, and where the coun- 
 try's health habits and health ideals are formed. 
 
 Standards of school cleanUness should equal 
 
 * Read before the Section of Municipal Health Ofl5cers, Milwaukee, 
 September, 1910, and reprinted from Journal of the American Public 
 Health Association, February, 1911. 
 
 189 
 
190 TRAINING 
 
 those of the best hospitals and private homes. 
 The factor in school environment most completely 
 under control of school authorities that most 
 affects efficiency both at school and in future life 
 is schoolhouse air. The official having direct 
 and continuous charge of the air is the janitor 
 who has to deal with details of dust, humidity, 
 temperature and effluvia. This responsibihty is 
 given to those who make no pretense of fitting 
 for sanitary duties or inspection; who do the best 
 they know how to do with pickt up knowledge. 
 
 Teachers are usually expected to report neg- 
 lected details to the principal who is nominally 
 responsible for sanitary conditions. All good 
 housekeepers know that such matters require 
 persistent following up of the worker. Thus the 
 teacher must "nag" the principal and "tell on" 
 the janitor, both usually men with no train- 
 ing beyond what unstandardized experience has 
 given them. Teachers can hardly be blamed for 
 neglecting this thankless task that creates hostihty 
 and jeopardizes their positions while probably 
 not securing the results desired. 
 
 When janitors have the management of high 
 pressure engines, engineer's licenses are required. 
 A few cities have civil service examination for 
 janitors, chiefly relating to their common educa- 
 tion and previous experience. Massachusetts has 
 civil service examinations that in sanitation are 
 practically nominal, as few men eligible in other 
 
OF JANITORS 191 
 
 respects apply, and there are no provisions for 
 instruction in sanitary care of schools. In conse- 
 quence the appointing of janitors from civil 
 service lists is fallen in discredit among many 
 school officials who find experienced janitors more 
 satisfactory. 
 
 The training and testing of caretakers of school 
 premises is, however, as logical and imperative 
 a need as is that of teachers, nurses, librarians, 
 drug clerks; or of housekeepers, cooks, and other 
 domestic workers, rapidly coming to pass. It is 
 a vital factor in problems of school hygiene, 
 and is likely to be the most effective means of 
 educating other school officers in sanitation. 
 Salaries paid janitors in large cities, ranging from 
 $700 to $2,500 and $3,000, average higher than 
 salaries of teachers, post-office employes, or assist- 
 ant librarians, the formalities of whose appoint- 
 ments are well known. 
 
 Courses for janitors can be introduced in trade 
 or technical schools, vocational or continuation 
 schools. During the coming winter one or more 
 biologists, possibly other science instructors also, 
 and possibly one or more boards of health are 
 planning experiments in talks, demonstrations, 
 and other methods with classes of janitors. 
 
 Studies of schoolhouse air show relative humid- 
 ity often nearer 20% than the normal 40-70% ; 
 temperatures are more often in the 70's and 80's 
 than in the healthful 60's; carbon dioxid, indicat- 
 
192 TRAINING 
 
 ing stagnant air, more often measures 20 parts in 
 10,000, i. e., technically bad air, than the normal 
 4 in 10,000; anemometers prove many ventilating 
 flues out of order thru neglect. Dust, foul floprs 
 and air, which are the rule, are what no good 
 home maker or hospital official would tolerate. 
 
 Meanwhile a very few schoolhouses, even in 
 "soft coal cities," by no means the most expensive 
 structures, have floors as clean as the home or 
 hospital; a few others are practically free from 
 dust; a few others have good air; a few school- 
 rooms have temperature at 68 degrees or below, 
 with red cheekt pupils and teachers, who become 
 deprest and dull in warmer air when it accident- 
 ally exists. 
 
 Such schools and schoolrooms prove the possi- 
 bility of achieving each of these results even in 
 buildings that are not equipt with elaborate and 
 expensive heating and ventilating apparatus that 
 forbids opening windows and is frequently out of 
 order. Open air schools are likewise demonstrat- 
 ing the wholesome reaction of children to cool air 
 of sufficient humidity and comparatively free 
 from dust and smells. In them delicate children 
 invariably make more rapid progress mentally as 
 well as in health. 
 
 Among the teachers of janitors it is desirable 
 to include instructors from schools for nurses and 
 domestic science, as the service required is 
 technical and practical, to be held to definite 
 
OF JANITORS 193 
 
 standards which thus far have been demonstrated 
 in these two lines of education. In addition, 
 health oflBcers, biologists, and instructors in 
 physics and chemistry can be of service in creating 
 standards and testing results. It is also import- 
 ant to secure the cooperation of these men and 
 women in estabhshing classes for janitors on a 
 permanent basis in the right educational institu- 
 tions. 
 
 Every large city has several hundred janitors, 
 not of schools alone, but of apartment houses, 
 office buildings, theaters, churches and entertain- 
 ment halls; also Pullman porters, train and street 
 car conductors, hotel managers. With different 
 grades of examination as in the United States 
 postal service, this course can be adapted to each 
 form of custodial care. 
 
 We are seriously afflicted by insanitary pubUc 
 buildings (including schools) and conveyances. 
 The public good demands that educational and 
 health standards be introduced in these important 
 occupations that have been mentioned. 
 
 It is a hopeful sign that the National Education 
 Association has taken a so evidently practical first 
 step in school hygiene. The cooperation of health 
 officials will encourage further undertakings. 
 
 In July, 1911, at San Francisco, a session is 
 
 given to two topics: I. Assuming that schools 
 
 should be not less wholesome than the best kept 
 
 homes from which pupils are taken: What are 
 
 13 
 
194 TRAINING 
 
 permissible limits of variation in sanitary details 
 that may be under teachers' advisement or con- 
 trol (dust, temperature, odors, cleanUness, light, 
 humidity, for example) ? How are such standards 
 determined? How are such details to be con- 
 veniently measured as heat is measured by a 
 thermometer? II. By whom and how should 
 janitors be trained and tested in sanitary care of 
 school premises ? 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adenoid conditions, 12, 97, 
 
 180 
 Air, at home, 12-20, 121 
 "blanket," 151-2 
 city and country, 12, 67- 
 
 8, 98, 180, 129, 132 
 currents, 132, 144, 147. 
 
 See Anemometer 
 motion, 14, 152-4 
 open. See Open air 
 parcht (very dry), 13, 
 
 155 
 school, 13, 21-7, 28, 32, 
 61, 96, 117, 121, 176, 
 179, 191-2 
 sifted and washt, 101, 
 
 185 
 See Dust, Humidity, 
 School, Temperature, 
 Ventilation 
 American Association for 
 Study and Prevention of 
 Infant Mortality, 68, 187 
 American Medical Associa- 
 tion, Journal of, 159 
 American Public Health As- 
 sociation, Journal of, 68, 
 167, 189 
 Anemometer, 140, 145-6, 166, 
 
 173 
 Aspirating chimney. See 
 
 Ventilation 
 Association of Collegiate Al- 
 umna;, 122-141, 158, 162, 
 174, 177 
 Autopsies. See Dust 
 
 Babies, 15. 83. See Infant 
 mortality 
 
 Bailey, Prof. L. H., 45 
 
 Basements, 19, 23-26, 68, 77, 
 108 
 
 Baths (internal cleanliness), 
 51 
 kinds of, 28-32, 103 
 tonic, 28-30, 42, 149 
 
 Biologic science, 41, 59, 179- 
 187 
 
 Boston. See Association Col- 
 legiate Alumnse 
 
 Boston Health - Education 
 League, 55 
 
 Breakfast, 42-3 
 
 Brookline Public Baths, 31 
 
 Carbon dioxid, 147-8, 186 
 Carriers, 79, 80, 81 
 Catarrh, 12. See Colds, Dust, 
 
 Tuberculosis 
 Ceilings. See Walls 
 Chapin, Dr. C. V., 80, 81 
 Charting, 128, 165-6, 170-3, 
 
 185 
 Chicago, mother's letter, 96, 
 101 
 United Charities, 94 
 Churches, 105, 108 
 Cigarettes, 54-5 
 Civil service, 26, 115, 183, 190 
 Clothing, dirty, 21, 27-30. 
 
 See Dress 
 
 195 
 
196 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Colds, 15, 16, 19, 180. See 
 Dust, Temperature, Tu- 
 berculosis 
 Colleges and universities, 48, 
 
 50, 63, 143, 173, 184 
 Competition in play, 51 
 Compromises, 177 
 Compulsory school attend- 
 ance, 11, 62, 87, 131, 144, 
 189 
 Conductors, street car, rail- 
 way, 182, 193 
 Constipation, 37-42 
 Contagions. See Dust, School, 
 
 Tuberculosis 
 Cornell student's survey, 
 
 143-162, 186-7 
 Cost of cleanliness, 22, 70, 
 96, 102, 134 
 of janitors' work, 114 
 of school plant, 98, 104- 
 5 
 Coughing, 49, 156-7 
 Cup, the common, 79-85, 
 112-3, 157, 159, 176 
 paper, 82-5, 161, 172 
 
 Dancing, 41, 51 
 
 Davison, Prof. Alvin, 81, 113, 
 
 159 
 Dentists, 34-6 
 Disease germs. See Cup, 
 
 Dust, Towel 
 Disinfectants, 23, 73, 77, 126- 
 
 7, 139 
 Domestic science. See Home 
 
 economics 
 Don'ts, 174-6 
 Dress, 53, 55-8 
 Dust, bronchitis and catarrh, 
 composition and prev- 
 alence, 67-8, 97, 
 180 
 committee on, 164 
 
 Dust, contagions and 
 "germs," 13, 68, 80- 
 2, 139, 148-9, 159, 
 176, 180 
 data needed, 185 
 diseases, 179-81 
 feather dusters, 23, 25, 
 
 84 
 lungs (autopsies), 97, 
 
 133, 180 
 measuring and stand- 
 ardizing, 163, 166-7 
 pupils' co-operation, 
 
 165, 170, 174 
 removal of, 21, 23, 70, 
 
 71-4, 89, 160, 162 
 street, 96-101, 103 
 See also Floors, Walls, 
 Windows 
 
 Ears. See Fatigue, Streets, 
 Teeth 
 
 Engineer's license, 183, 190 
 
 England, 31, 35, 44, 47, 119, 
 133, 179, 186 
 
 Excursioning, 52, 59 
 
 Exercise. See Excursioning, 
 Gymnastics, Play, Vaca- 
 tion 
 
 Exhibits, 141 
 
 Eyes, 50, 88, 91-2, 131, 152, 
 158-9, 161. See Nervous 
 system. Photometer 
 
 Fathers, 59, 62-3, 78, 81, 87, 
 111, 130, 138, 158, 178. 
 See also Parents, Politi- 
 cians 
 
 Feet. See Dust, Shoes, Ner- 
 vous system 
 
 Floors, 16, 21, 22-4, 62, 67- 
 77, 86, 125, 126-7, 139-40, 
 160. 162-3 
 
INDEX 
 
 197 
 
 Food, 11. See Breakfast, 
 Constipation, Lunches, 
 Teeth 
 
 Formaldehyde. See Disin- 
 fectants 
 
 Frost. Prof. W. D., 187 
 
 Furnace, fresh air supply, 
 16-7, 20, 25-6, 96, 100-1 
 
 Furnishings, 16-7, 21, 96, 
 107, 127 
 
 Gaines, Prof. Elizabeth, 83 
 Games, 41, 51, 86 
 Gardening, 24, 41, 52, 53, 59, 
 
 76, 98, 133, 155-6 
 Gas, from chimneys, 102, 129, 
 
 144 
 
 light, 92, 129-30. 
 See Carbon dioxid 
 Gerhard, W. Paul, 31 
 Gray, H. S., 55 
 Gymnastics, 31, 48-52, 69 
 
 Habits. See Cigarettes, Con- 
 stipation, Open air. Teeth, 
 Sanitation 
 
 Hands, cleanliness, 79, 107 
 
 Hanger, G. W. W., 31 
 
 Hill, Dr. Leonard, "Stuffy 
 Rooms," 153 
 
 Home economics, 27, 41, 44, 
 46-7, 63, 192-3 
 
 Home, the 20th century, 137- 
 9 
 
 Housekeeping. 22, 27, 61, 85, 
 96, 103, 114, 123-4, 139, 
 145, 165. 176, 190 
 
 Humidity, 13, 15, 151, 154-5, 
 166, 173, 186, 190 
 
 Hunt, Caroline L., 45, 46 
 
 Hygrometer. See Humidity 
 
 Idleness, 53-4, 58 
 Infant mortality, 117-122, 
 124, 139, 185 
 
 Janitors and air, 122, 144 
 
 and biologic science, 
 
 179-187 
 and examinations, 
 
 26, 183, 193. 194 
 and health, 111-178 
 and methods, 72-5, 
 
 100, 160. 185 
 and politics. See 
 
 Fathers, Pohti- 
 
 cians 
 and promotion, 183 
 and rules, 124-7, 142 
 
 162, 186 
 
 and salaries, 27, 65, 
 114, 115-6, 191 
 
 and supervision, 27, 
 66, 75, 162, 165, 
 182, 187 
 
 and training schools, 
 
 27, 114-5, 182-3, 
 185-7, 189, 191-3 
 
 untrained, 62-3, 114, 
 
 163, 182, 190 
 Johns Hopkins Medical 
 
 School Children's Hospital, 
 77 
 
 Kerosene, 72, 78, 90, 139 
 Key-word, ix, 25, 170 
 Kmdergartens, 27, 86, 126 
 Kipling, Rudyard, 53 
 
 Lavatories (Urinals, Water- 
 closets), 23, 77-80, 87, 149, 
 158 
 
 Laws, 20, 57, 83, 102-3, 112, 
 125, 131, 133, 138, 183-4, 
 189 
 
198 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Legal responsibility, 74, 79, 
 92, 127, 144-5, 160 
 
 Libraries, 32, 45, 46, 68, 80, 
 81, 109, 148, 168, 173 
 
 Light. See Eyes, Photom- 
 eter, Walls, Windows 
 
 Linoleum, 70-7, 86, 162 
 
 Lunches, 35, 43-7, 77 
 
 Lungs, 50. See Dust, Con- 
 stipation, Gymnastics, 
 Swimming 
 
 McKeever, Prof. Wm. A., 55 
 Michigan, Board of Health, 
 
 136 
 Mothers, 12, 19, 22, 30, 39, 
 59, 62, 101, 111, 137-9, 
 145, 159-60 
 Mothers' clubs and anemom- 
 eters, 146, 166 
 clubs and baths and 
 swimming pools, 
 30-2 
 clubs and boards of 
 education, 24, 83, 
 114 
 clubs and clean 
 schoolhouses, 61- 
 109, 113, 141 
 clubs and curricu- 
 lum, 41 
 clubs and dentists, 
 
 35-6 
 clubs and floors, 69 
 
 -77 
 clubs and home 
 economics, 44, 47 
 clubs and janitor's 
 
 classes, 27 
 clubs and lunches, 
 
 42-7, 77 
 clubs and neglect, 
 24, 81, 111-4, 
 136, 141, 158, 160 
 
 Mothers' clubs and open air 
 and overheating, 
 20,22,26,50, 95, 
 148 
 
 clubs and programs, 
 20, 36, 45, 94, 99, 
 113, 141, 143, 
 167-74, 176-8 
 
 clubs and Pedagogi- 
 cal Seminary, 46 
 
 clubs and responsi- 
 biUty, 66, 92, 95, 
 119-20, 145 
 
 clubs and school 
 yards, 102 
 
 clubs and social 
 centers, 108 
 
 clubs and streets, 
 99-100 
 
 clubs and tubercu- 
 losis, 136-7. See 
 Tuberculosis 
 
 clubs and vacation 
 
 schools and play, 
 
 58-9. See Play 
 
 Muscular system, 57, 91. 
 
 See Gymnastics 
 
 National Education Associa- 
 tion, 61, 148, 179, 183, 189, 
 193 
 
 Nervous system, 12, 15, 19, 
 28, 33, 37, 50, 57-8, 62, 88, 
 91, 121, 131, 152, 182 
 
 New York School Hygiene 
 Association, 83 
 
 Normal schools, 23-4, 66, 112, 
 166, 184 
 
 Nurses, 15, 27, 36, 63, 114, 192 
 
 Odors, 13, 20, 22-4, 30, 49, 
 62, 72, 75, 78, 106- 
 7, 147, 158 
 
INDEX 
 
 199 
 
 Odors. See Baths, Clothing, 
 Gas, Teeth, VentU- 
 ation 
 Official cooperation, 122 
 
 committee, 141, 164, 
 
 177 
 ignorance, 63, 114, 
 135, 137, 142, 144, 
 165 
 management, 51, 92, 
 101, 104, 124, 132, 
 146, 176, 184 
 Oldright, Dr. William, 181, 
 
 187 
 Open air, 12, 14, 26, 51, 59, 
 65, 153 
 pollution, 133 
 schools, 21, 76, 93- 
 5, 116, 147, 172, 
 182, 185, 192 
 sleeping, 17-9 
 Osborne, Lucy A., 45 
 
 Packard, Dr. Mary S., 93 
 Parents, 11, 50-3, 54, 71, 121, 
 
 127, 142, 162, 171, 183. 
 
 See Fathers, Mothers, 
 
 Mothers' clubs 
 Pasteur, 90 
 
 Pedagogical Seminary, 45, 160 
 Pennsylvania Board of 
 
 Health, 141 
 Phagocytes, 149 
 Photometer, 128-34, 158 
 Play, 11. 41, 59, 108; 24, 51, 
 
 68, 102, 140, 143 
 Poisons and toxins, 33, 37, 51, 
 
 80, 97, 112-45 
 Politics, 11-12, 22, 63-4, 78, 
 
 82, 92, 99, 103, 105-7, 114, 
 
 134-6, 163-4, 177 
 Principals, 55. 145, 160, 171, 
 
 183, 190 
 
 Providence, 93, 168 
 Pullmans, 150, 182 
 
 Questionnaires, 167, 174-5 
 
 "Race suicide," 11, 62, 118- 
 
 22, 127 
 Reproductive system, 40, 50 
 Richards, Mrs. Ellen H., 122, 
 
 123, 167 
 
 Sanitation, specialists in, 27, 
 61, 84, 189 
 pupils' coopera- 
 tion in, 165-7, 
 170-4 
 standards, 143, 
 182, 186-7, 190, 
 192-3, 194 
 schedules and sur- 
 veys in, 22, 
 122-41, 142-62, 
 169-70, 176-7. 
 191-2 
 School boards, 12, 21, 24, 51- 
 2, 63, 66, 71, 82, 83, 
 122, 160, 186 
 diseases, 11, 62, 108, 
 
 116, 121, 181 
 expenses, 22, 70, 102, 
 104-5, 114, 123-4, 
 134 146 
 fatigue, 11-59, 61, 65, 
 86, 91, 111, 131, 
 152, 182 
 gardens and yards, 24, 
 
 41, 76, 98, 101-2 
 house-cleaning, 27.61- 
 
 109, 124-7. 192 
 in suburbs, 24, 76, 98, 
 102 
 
200 
 
 INDEX 
 
 School janitors, 26-7, 111- 
 178, 179-87, 189- 
 94 
 nurses and physicians, 
 13, 27 34-6, 94, 142 
 recesses, 24 
 visiting, 22. 24, 25, 53 
 continuation, voca- 
 tional, etc., 63, 105, 
 182, 191 
 See Dentists, Social 
 centers. Teachers, 
 Ventilation 
 Science teachers, 166, 179, 
 
 185, 189, 193 
 Shoes, 21, 56-8, 86, 96, 100 
 Skin, 149, 151. See Baths 
 Sleep, 11, 12, 28, 29, 54. 
 
 See Open air 
 Smoke, 55, 96, 101-3, 129, 
 130, 132-3. See Cigarettes 
 Social centers, 104-9 
 Standardizing, 115, 125, 129, 
 142, 163, 170, 171, 182, 
 185, 193-4 
 Stone, Dr. Ellen A., 93 
 Street dust and noise, 23, 49, 
 
 96-100. See Dust 
 Superintendents, 26, 84, 98 
 Sturgeon-General, 159 
 Swimming, 31, 32, 41, 52, 59 
 Systems, 25, 26, 49, 55, 101, 
 129, 144, 146, 154 
 
 Teachers, 13, 24, 27, 36, 49, 
 59, 66, 71, 74, 82, 88, 107, 
 112, 115-6, 127, 190. See 
 Science teachers, Tubercu- 
 losis 
 
 Teeth, 32-6. See also Odors, 
 Ventilation 
 
 Temperatiu-e, at home, 13, 
 121, 173 
 
 Temperature, at school, 96, 
 117, 128-9. 
 148-50, 173. 
 186 
 by feelings or 
 t h e r m o m- 
 eters,15,128, 
 171-2 
 pupils' cooper- 
 ation, 165- 
 6, 170, 173, 
 185 
 Thermometers, wet-dry bulb, 
 See Humidity. 
 See Mothers' clubs. Tem- 
 perature 
 Thermostats, 128, 186 
 Towels, 78, 79, 159, 161, 176 
 Tuberculosis, children, 21, 33, 
 64-5, 78, 98, 
 181, 189 
 school disease, 
 78, 86, 108, 
 116, 121, 129, 
 155-6, 181-2 
 teachers, 21, 64, 
 
 98, 136, 189 
 See Colds, 
 Dust, Open 
 air 
 Typhoid, 78, 79, See Towels 
 
 U. S. Bureau of Census, 21, 22, 
 25,114,115, 
 119, 120, 
 135, 136, 
 139. 142, 
 179 
 Education, 45, 
 79,111,169 
 Labor, 31 
 Mines. 103 
 Government Printing 
 Office, 31, 168 
 
INDEX 
 
 201 
 
 U. S. Weather Bureau, 154- 
 5, 171 
 
 Vacuum cleaning, 75, 140 
 Ventilation, 14, 21, 23 
 
 aspirating chim- 
 neys, 144, 145, 
 160 
 
 systems, 25, 101, 
 132, 140. 146 
 
 See Anemome- 
 ters, Tempera- 
 ture, Windows 
 
 Walls, 16-7, 21, 85-90, 132 
 Whipple, Dr. Guy M., 169 
 Wilson, H. M.. 103 
 
 Windows, 16, 17, 25, 90-2, 
 102, 128-34, 146, 154, 158, 
 161, 185 
 Winslow, Prof. C.-E. A.. 68, 
 
 148, 157, 167 
 Women cleaning school 
 houses, 23 
 enfranchised, 66. 88, 
 
 119-20, 145, 174 
 guilty, 87, 111 
 training for house- 
 keeping, 63 
 on school boards, 21 
 responsibility, 95, 
 
 136, 173, 175 
 school inspectors and 
 
 supervisors, 27 
 See Mothers' clubs 
 Woodbridge, Prof. S. Homer, 
 123 
 
MAR IS 1913 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 029 463 844 1